Information and data protection
Find out more about how we protect and manage your data, your right to request information, and who you can contact about data protection.
Publication scheme
We believe in the importance of being open, honest, and transparent with you as our customers in respect of how we operate and how we're performing.
Our publication scheme helps you to find information all in one place about who we are, how we're performing and the standards of service we should be offering you.
Information we publish includes:
- Who we are and what we do
- What we spend and how we spend it
- What our priorities are
- How we are doing
- How we make decisions
- Policies and procedures
- The services we offer
- Service standards
Read information in our publication scheme.
Privacy notice
Your privacy is important to us. We only collect the information we need from you and your household to provide you with our services. Our Privacy Notice describes the categories of personal data we process and why.
Under the data protection legislation, including the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018 and United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we have to tell you why we collect information about you, how we plan to use it, if we’ll share it with anyone else and how long we’ll keep it for.
Requesting your information
The Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) says how we have to collect, store, use and protect your personal information.
As part of providing a good service, we need to collect and handle personal information from and about you. We hold and process this information to manage your housing arrangements and to provide you with quality services that meet your needs.
Your personal information needs to be kept confidential and we take great care to ensure it is collected, stored and handled responsibly and in line with the legal requirements.
Read our privacy notice to find out about your privacy rights and how we collect, use, share and secure your personal information.
Further information about data protection and your rights can be found on the Information Commissioner’s Office website.
We’ve included some frequently asked questions about data protection below.
For details on this please see our privacy notice.
You can request your personal information by doing the following:
1. Write to our Data Protection Officer (DPO) requesting a copy of your personal information. Please include exactly what information you’d like, over what time period (e.g. from 2017 – present), and let us know if you'd like to receive your information by email or post.
You can email your request to us at data.protection@mhs.org.uk or send it in the post to:
The DPO
mhs homes
Broadside
Leviathan Way
Chatham
Kent
ME4 4LL
2. You'll also need to provide two forms of identification (ID) along with your request so that we can be confident we’re releasing your personal information to you only. See what ID you'll need below, we'll accept photocopies, scans or photos of ID:
• Your current passport
• Current UK or EEA photocard driving licence
• Benefits book
• Letter from benefits agency
• Council tax bill
• Any gas, electric bill from the last three months
We have 30 calendar days to provide you with the information you’ve requested. You'll receive your information as you requested it, which will be by email or post.
Yes, however you’ll need to complete and return a third party consent form so that we can be confirm you’ve authorised them to contact us.
You can email us your completed form at data.protection@mhs.org.uk or send it in the post to:
The DPO
mhs homes
Broadside
Leviathan Way
Chatham
Kent
ME4 4LL
You'll both need to send us two forms of identification (ID) along with your request so that we can be confident we’re releasing your personal information to you only. See what ID you'll both need below, we'll accept photocopies, scans or photos of ID:
• Current passport
• Current UK or EEA photocard driving licence
• Benefits book
• Letter from benefits agency
• Council tax bill
• Any gas, electric bill from the last three months
We’ll treat this request as we would any other request for personal information. We can only release CCTV information of you.
To make a request for CCTV footage please see ‘How do I request my personal information from you?’ above.
For data protection reasons, we can’t provide any information that relates to a third party or of footage that doesn’t include you.
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 allows the public to access information about services provided by public authorities, such as a local authority.
mhs homes is not a public authority and isn’t covered by the Freedom of Information Act.
However if you’d like to request your personal information please see ‘How do I request my personal information from you?’ above.
If you have any further questions for us about data protection. You can contact our Data Protection Officer by emailing: data.protection@mhs.org.uk.