Privacy and cookies policy

Our privacy and cookies policy is here to reassure you about the personal data we collect from you and the ways we use it.

We collect personal information about our customers to enable us to provide homes and services. We take the security of any personal information you give us very seriously. This privacy policy has been created to help you understand:

• What information we collect about you
• Why we collect that information
• How we use that information 

Please take the time to read through it carefully.

Privacy Notice

Summary 

This Privacy Notice is a public document available to anyone and applies to customers of Torus to explain how the organisation collects and processes personal information to conduct normal business activities as a Registered Social Landlord (RSL) regulated by the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH). Normal activities can be summarised as: 

1. Providing social and other types of housing. 
2. Property and grounds maintenance and repair. 
3. Managing your housing, tenancy/lease and account as your landlord. 

We also provide additional optional services including: 

4. Organising and assisting community events. 
5. Offering opportunities to be involved (co-regulation). 
6. Providing welfare, benefits advice. 
7. Adaptations made to the properties we manage. 
8. Selling properties.

Who we are 

Torus 62 Limited (Helena Partnerships, Liverpool Mutual Homes and Golden Gates Housing Trust, form the Torus group) is the Data Controller whose Registered Office is located at Helena Central, 4 Corporation Street, St Helens, Merseyside, WA9 1LD (Telephone 0800 678 1894).  Throughout this policy the data controller is referred to as ‘we’ or ‘us’.

The Data Protection lead can be contacted at dpo@torus.co.uk.  

We own and manage over 40,000 properties across the Liverpool region, St Helens, Warrington and West Lancashire and employ around 1,500 staff.

The Torus Group structure includes Housing Maintenance Solutions, Torus Foundation, Torus Developments and Torus Living working together to deliver support and services to our customers.

Legal Basis

Torus only processes your personal data where we have a lawful basis to do so.  We rely on 3 main lawful bases for our processing activities including:  

• The performance of our tenancy (or contract) with you.  We use this basis for all processing concerning the managing of your tenancy, your account with us and your property. 
•  The processing is necessary for us to pursue our legitimate interest in ensuring tenancy conditions are complied with.  We use this basis for all processing involved in dealing with anti-social behaviour, detecting and prosecuting fraud or otherwise ensuring that tenancy conditions are complied with.
• The processing is necessary in order for us to comply with our legal obligations.  We use this basis for all our processing involved in complying with regulations or laws that apply to us.  

In certain instances, where our processing relates to something not covered above, we may rely on your consent as the lawful basis for that processing.  Where you have given consent you may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting dpo@torus.co.uk.

Additional services 

Torus conducts several additional voluntary services including organising community events, providing welfare advice, adapting the property you live in, selling properties and gathering information to improve our services. For the additional voluntary services, much of the information contained in our Privacy Notice is still relevant, such as details about Torus as the Data Controller, contact information for the Data Protection Lead and the rights you have under the legislation, including the right to withdraw your consent and the right to complain.

Children's information

Torus does not normally process children’s information as part of a tenancy, as all tenants are adults. However, we record children’s basic information if they are resident in one of our properties, including their name and date of birth. This is required for checking the property is not overcrowded and to assess other tenancy management issues where all householders and ages are required to be known.
We may receive children’s information if we are involved in the housing and tenancy aspects of a welfare case as part of a multi-agency working solution.

What we will not do 

• We will not send you unsolicited marketing material. 
• We will not sell your personal data on to third parties. 
• We will not pass on your personal data to unrelated third parties unless we are allowed or required to do so by law or we have your explicit permission to do that. 
• We will not transfer or store your personal data outside of Europe (the European Economic Area) outside of the control of the UK / European regulations. 

Your rights, the right to complain and the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) 

You have the right to request a copy of the data we hold about you.

Please contact dpo@torus.co.uk if you wish to request access to any of your personal data and we will always endeavour to answer your questions as part of our friendly, helpful service. 

We will respond within one month of receiving your request. It will always help if you can be as specific about what personal data you want to see, what it relates to and within what timeframe, as that will assist our search. 

You have the right to correct information that we hold. Please advise us of any changes or corrections by contacting our Customer Services team on 0800 647 1894 or via e-mail to info@torus.co.uk 
 
You may withdraw your consent to use any information that was previously provided with your consent. Please advise us if you wish to withdraw any consent previously given to dpo@torus.co.uk.

Where your data is no longer required for the purpose for which it was originally collected, you have the right to request that we delete your data. This is sometimes known as ‘the right to be forgotten.’ If you believe this applies to your data and you would like us to delete it, please contact dpo@torus.co.uk.
 
Where you contest the accuracy of the data that we hold about you, where you have objected to the processing that we carry out in pursuit of our legitimate interest, or where we no longer require your data but you do need it for a legal claim, you have the right to block or suppress our processing of your data. This means that we will cease our normal processing of your data and process only the minimum to ensure that the restriction is respected going forwards. We will continue to store your data. 

You have the right to object, on grounds relating to your particular situation, to processing that we do in pursuit of our legitimate interest to ensure that tenancy obligations are complied with. We will re-evaluate our processing, and unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds to continue, we will stop processing your data for those purposes. If you would like to object to this processing please contact dpo@torus.co.uk with your reasons and one of team will be in touch. 

We do not make any solely automated decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects for you using your personal data. If this changes, we will let you know. 

You can find more information about your rights, and data protection in general, on the website of the Information Commissioner’s Office.

You have the right to complain about any matter relating to our service, including how we use your personal data: 

• In the first instance please contact our Customer Services team on 0800 678 1894 or e-mail info@torus.co.uk   
• If you are still not happy with our service you may complain to the Housing Ombudsman Service
• If you wish to complain about our use of your personal data you may complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office.