Data Protection for the Social Housing Sectore

Data protection means safeguarding personal information. The more personal information that you store increases the need for better data protection. Better data protection means having the right policies, processes, and safeguards in place.

The Social Housing Sector

By the very nature of the sector and the services that are provided, housing associations will hold many types of personal data concerning tenants, staff and 3rd parties. In today’s environment every organisation has an obligation to ensure that staff understand the obligations that they have for data protection and data privacy. For this reason, housing associations need to ensure privacy programmes and staff training are implemented as part of their overall data protection management programme.

Ongoing Success

For ongoing success in data protection management housing associations need to look at growing a privacy culture and embedding it firmly within the organisation.

  • Privacy must proactive and not reactive – you must be able to prevent privacy risks from happening.
  • Privacy should be the default for all operations and systems involving personal data.
  • Privacy needs to be embedded into the design and architecture for all IT systems and procedures
  •  Protecting the data lifecycle, form the data is collected to the time it is deleted
  • Transparency needs to be ensured – what data you collect, how you use it, where is it stored, how long will you retain it. You must be accountable for the data you have and compliant in how you handle and process it.
  • Keep the needs and interests of the individuals at the centre of what you do. Ensure that privacy is the default, be user centric, clear and transparent. Think about consent, accuracy of data, access-DSARs and compliance.

To do this you must focus on implementing fit for purpose policies & procedures and be willing to change current working practices.

 These policies and procedures become extremely important when having to deal with a data breach or managing a DSAR. Everyone whom you hold data on has the right to know the personal data that you

At PrivacyTrust we can help to ensure that your data protection management is as it needs to be. We can advise on the best approach for your organisation and industry best practice, help you to identify, mitigate and manage risk in a way that ensures compliance and avoids reputational damage.

Our services include:

  • DPOasaService
  • Data Breach Management
  • Reviewing and implementing policies and processes
  • Staff training