The Data Protection Law is changing.

With effect from 25 May 2018 the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will come into force in the UK.

What is GDPR?

The Data Protection Act 2018 (known as GDPR) is the UK law that offers more rights and freedoms to individuals about how personal data is used by organisations. Organisations have to be transparent, tell you if they are using your data and be fair and lawful. They must limit the use of personal data for specific purposes and tell you who data is shared with and how it is secured until it is deleted.

What does this mean?

GDPR applies to personal data.

This is any information that can identify you as an individual person (either on its own or  when combined with other data). It can be in any format, including photographs and online accounts. 

GDPR places much stronger controls on the processing of more sensitive personal data and the impact of not keeping this private.


Organisations must be clear and transparent about how personal data is processed, by whom and
why.

Data processing principles

GDPR has six principles and personal data must be processed according to these. The principles
state that data must be:

1: processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner
2: collected for specific purposes
3: adequate, relevant, and limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes for which it is processed
4: accurate and up to date
5: stored no longer than is necessary
6: secured to keep it confidential

What are my rights?

Individuals’ rights are enhanced and extended in a number of important areas.

Under GDPR you have:

1: The right to be informed
2: The right of access
3: The right to rectification
4: The right to erasure
5: The right to restrict processing
6: The right to data portability
7: The right to object
8: Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling

How do I find out more? 

Leazes Homes commissions Your Homes Newcastle (YHN) to manage the homes that they own. It is necessary for YHN to process personal data to allocate and support tenants of Leazes Homes.

To be transparent, we have created a “Privacy Notice” that explains what types of personal data are processed, how data is used, who it is shared with and how long we hold it for. You can read that here .

How do I get more information?

If you are a tenant or a leaseholder, you can read more about our approach to data protection here. If you want further information about the change to the law, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as the UK data protection regulator for organisations: www.ico.org.uk
Tel: 0303 1231113