Our Accessibility Statement

Data Protection Act

Under the Data Protection Act 1998 we hold information relating to your tenancy. This will be your name, address and any disabilities you have told us about or any other information relating tothe services we provide you with. 

This data is held securely and is only used to communicate with you and provide services.  If you wish to have a copy of the information we hold about you, you will be asked to pay a £10 administration fee and will need to complete a Data Subject Access Request Form. Once we receive your payment we will respond to you within 40 Calendar days.

To request a Data Subject Access Request Form please contact PVC’s parent company CGA  on 0800 953 0213. 

Privacy Policy

Introduction

PVC is responsible for the collection, processing, storing and safe keeping of any information, personal or otherwise, gathered during the course of carrying out our day to day activities. We manage the information you provide in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and are registered as a Data Controller () with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

PVC is thoroughly committed to abiding by the principles of the Data Protection Act 1998.

This statement demonstrates how seriously PVC takes the security of your information and sets out our approach to safeguarding it.

Scope

This statement applies to all personal information collected by PVC,  and contractors acting on our behalf.

What information might we collect about you?

PVC does not collect or use personal information for any purpose other than that indicated in our notification with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

The information we may collect about you and others could include, but is not limited to:

• Name
• Date of birth
• National Insurance Number (where applicable)
• Address
• Contact details (phone/mobile/email)
• Photograph or CCTV footage
• Gender
• Racial or ethnic origin
• Physical or mental health or condition
• Transaction history

How will we use the information we collect?

PVC collects and processes personal and sensitive information about you for the provision of products and services, appropriate to your needs, and to support your relationship with us. The information collected also allows PVC to:

• Ensure the information we hold about you is relevant and up to date.
• Be committed to providing services fairly and equitably.
• Improve the services we provide to you through research and analysis.
• Keep you up to date with the latest news, products and services (marketing).
• Support the health and safety and safeguarding of our tenants and employees.
• Ensure we are meeting our legal obligations e.g. Equalities Act and Health and Safety Act.

PVC may also seek to apply markers to your information, e.g. in relation to your vulnerability or health status, to allow us to tailor the services we deliver to you.

Please keep PVC informed of any changes to your circumstances, as this will help us to provide you with the best possible service in the future.

PVC will regularly seek to review your personal information and make any changes deemed necessary to our service or information handling procedures as dictated by law or the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Who may we share your information with?

Sharing Information within PVC

Information will be shared within PVC to ensure you are receiving all the services available to you. Only staff who need to see your personal data will have access to it.

Our legal obligations

We will not normally share your information without your consent unless required to do so by law or in line with our obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998. Examples of occasions when PVC will be legally obliged to share relevant information with third parties include:

• The prevention or detection of crime and fraud.
• The apprehension or prosecution of offenders.
• The assessment or collection of tax or duty owed to customs and excise.
• In connection with legal proceedings.
• In relation to the physical and mental health of an individual, where disclosure is required to protect them or others from serious harm.
• For research or statistical purposes.

Sharing information with our partners

PVC may enter into partnerships with other organisations, such as local authorities and the police. For example, we may join a partnership to help prevent and control anti-social behaviour. We will ensure a data sharing agreement is in place before any sharing of data takes place with a partner organisation.

Applying to work at PVC

If you submit an application to work for PVC we will use your personal information to process your application and to produce and monitor recruitment statistics. We will not take up references without your prior permission. We will not share or disclose your information unless you have given us your consent or we are required to do so by law. Where we are required to carry out a Disclosure and Barring Service check we will comply with the law and your rights when carrying out these checks.

We retain personal information relating to unsuccessful applicants for no longer than 12 months, for use in the event of an appeal.

We produce statistical information to assist with recruitment analysis.

Visiting our website

When you visit our website will we collect standard internet log information for statistical purposes.

We:

• Use cookies to keep our website relevant and make it easier to use.
• Use cookies to collect information in an anonymous way, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited.
• Do not make any attempt to identify visitors to our websites. We do not associate information gathered from our sites with personally identifying information from any source.
• When we collect personal information, for example via an online form, we will explain what we intend to do with it.

Our websites contain links to third party websites. We are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of any external website that are linked from our sites.

VerseOne (our website provider) is committed to protecting your personal information. This page answers some important questions about how we use cookies and how this protects your personal details.

How does VerseOne (our website provider) use cookies?

Cookies are small text files placed on a website visitor’s computer, which identify it to our server. Cookies don’t identify individual users and are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide analytical information to the owners of the site which is used to improve user experience.

You may delete and block all cookies from this site. Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit www.allaboutcookies.org.

Please be aware that restricting cookies may impact on the functionality of the VerseOne website.

List of the cookies used on the VerseOne websites

VerseOne uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. Google Analytics sets a cookie in order to evaluate your use of our websites which are used in aggregate form to improve the performance and user experience on our site. Google Analytics uses only first party cookies and collects no personally identifiable information.

Google stores the information collected by the cookie on servers in the United States. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google’s behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. By using the VerseOne website, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above.

How to reject or delete this cookie

http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacypolicy.html

Table explaining cookies

Cookies used to show how visitors use our site
Cookie name	Expires	Linked Information	Functions
_utma	2 years	Anonymous	Gather information about site visitors, in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited.
_utmc	On closing browser
_utmb	30 minutes
_utmz	6 months

Cookies used by VerseOne CMS

VerseOne CMS does not use any cookies by default. However, three 'session' cookies are created when a visitor to the VerseOne website does the following:

• logs in to the website;
• clicks one of the contrast buttons.

The three cookies are used to cross-reference each other for improved security.

Session cookie profile
Cookie	Type	Expiry	Linked information	Functions
CFID CFTOKEN	Persist	2 hours	Anonymous	Remembers that the user has chosen a high contrast or low contrast stylesheet. Caches data against the session in order to maximise performance.
JSESSIONID	Session	Browser close	Username	When a user logs in, maintains authentication state, access rights, etc.

These cookies do not store any personal information about you, your computer, your visit, or your browsing history. After the time indicated above, the cookies’ validity is destroyed and the browser instructed to remove the cookie from your computer.

For more information

Contact us via info@verseone.com or call 01483 263099.  

Keeping your information secure

PVC store information both electronically and in paper form.

We implement security policies, processes and technical security solutions to protect the personal information we hold from:

• Unauthorised access.
• Improper use or disclosure.
• Unauthorised modification.
• Unlawful destruction or accidental loss.

When contacting PVC we may ask you to provide us with some information so that we can confirm your identity. If other people (e.g. family members, support workers, solicitors) act on your behalf, we will take steps to ensure that you have agreed for them to do so. This may include asking them to provide us with supporting information to indicate your consent. We do this to protect you and to make sure other people cannot find things out about you that they are not entitled to know.

Employees and third parties who have access to, or are associated with the processing of, your personal information are obliged to make reasonable efforts to safeguard it.

How we use your telephone number

 

We may use the telephone number that you have provided us to keep in contact with you by text. When we send SMS/text messages, there may be someone in your household who may read the message before you are able to. You may like to inform the people who live with you that you may receive text messages from time to time.

•  

 

Sharing your telephone number with third parties

. We may share your telephone numbers if we are required to by law. In doing so, we will comply with the Data Protection Act 1998.

We may supply the details to our approved marketing or third-party contractors who are delivering or performing services on our behalf, and these companies must not use your information for any other purpose. We will never share or sell your telephone numbers to telesales/marketing companies.

Your rights

Please contact us first if you have a concern about anything relating to how we process your personal data.  We will do everything we can to help you.  You have the right to:

• Ask for a copy of your personal information.
• Know how your personal information will be shared and under what circumstances.
• Know how to opt-out of promotional and/or direct marketing and automated decisions.
• Challenge incorrect personal information and request for it to be amended.
• Have inaccurate information rectified, blocked, erased or destroyed.
• Complain to the Information Commissioner.
• Apply to the Court for compensation for distress and/or damages due to non compliance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

Finding out about the personal information we hold about you

You can ask us whether we are keeping personal information about you by writing to PVC’s  Data Protection Officer, via Community Gateway Association, Harbour House, Port Way, Preston, PR2 2DW.

The Data Protection Act 1998 gives you a number of rights in relation to your personal information. You can find out about your rights, and get further guidance, on the ICO website.

Accessing Your Personal Information

As part of our service to you, we are happy to provide you with copies of documents, you can access these formally by making a ‘subject access request’.

If you make a subject access request we will provide you with a readable copy of the personal information we hold about you. To make a subject access request you must:

• Make your request in writing
• Provide proof of your identity
• Pay a £10.00 fee

Please send your request to:

Data Protection Officer

Community Gateway Association

Harbour House

Port Way

Preston

PR2 2DW

Review

We keep our privacy statement under regular review.