Your Right to Information

What is the Data Protection Act?

The purpose of this act is to protect personal data held on paper and computer files.

Personal data must:

• Be obtained and processed fairly and lawfully
• Be held for a specified purpose
• Not be used for any reason out of keeping with its original purpose
• Be relevant and adequate
• Be accurate and up to date
• Not be kept longer than necessary
• Be made available to the individual concerned and corrected where necessary
• Be kept secure

If you want to see information held on your file, contact your Housing Officer.  You will have to fill in a form saying what information you want to see, and will have to pay a small fee.  We will acknowledge your request in writing and set a date for you to see the information.

If you disagree with something on your file, contact your Housing Officer.  You will have to fill in a form saying what information you want to see, and will have to pay a small fee.  We will acknowledge your request in writing and set a date for you to see the information.

If you disagree with something on your file, we can put a note from you on the file to say so.  If you want to change information held on your file,  you should request the change in writing and we will let you know what we have done about it.

We may take out of your file any information given to us in confidence or by a third party, for example a doctor's letter; if we do this, we will tell you about it.  Our policy is not to give confidential information about you to anyone else, except where you have given consent.  However, in some cases we have a duty to give relevant information to public bodies such as the police.

In exceptional circumstances we have the right to contact other agencies or your next of kin without your permission.

We will do this:

• In and emergency, or
• If we believe that your safety and well-being, or that of another person, is at risk

We always co-operate with the police and other statutory bodies such as social services, and have the right to give information to these services if required.