Privacy Policy

ChaCo is committed to protecting your data and your privacy. We aim to ensure that any information you give us is held securely and safely.

Please read this policy carefully to understand how we collect, use and store your personal information.

Chapeltown Cohousing Ltd – aka ChaCo – is a not-for-profit housing cooperative registered with the Industrial and Provident Society, number 29376R

ChaCo holds and processes personal details in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulations.

If you have any questions about this policy or how your data is handled, please write to:

Data Protection
Chapeltown Cohousing Ltd
115 Spencer Place
Leeds
LS7 4DU

Email: dataprotection@chapeltowncohousing.org.uk

Data protection

ChaCo takes data protection very seriously.

As you use our website, get in touch with us, or take part in our activities, we collect information. This deepens our understanding of what you are interested in and helps us to improve the quality and relevance of all of our communications with supporters and members.

ChaCo will never share your information with another organisation for their own marketing purposes and we will never sell your information for any reason whatsoever.

We do however need to collect and use your personal information for carefully considered and legitimate business purposes, which will help to ensure that we can run ChaCo effectively.

This policy will set out what data we collect, how we will use it, what the legal basis for this is, and outline what your rights are in respect of your personal data.

How do we process your personal data?

ChaCo attempts to comply with its obligations under the GDPR by keeping personal data up to date; by storing and destroying it securely; by not collecting or retaining excessive amounts of data; by protecting personal data from loss, misuse, unauthorised access and disclosure and by ensuring that appropriate technical measures are in place to protect personal data.

Depending on the nature of your relationship with ChaCo (eg: Friend, investor, volunteer, Prospective Member, Full Member), our use of your personal data might include the following purposes:

  • To enable us to contact you
  • To enable us to keep you informed
  • To keep track of how you wish to engage with ChaCo and to enable you to do so
  • To enable us to administer any loanstock investment
  • To aid communication within ChaCo
  • To know whether you help us meet our allocations criteria
  • To enable us to keep track of our overall allocations targets
  • To enable us to monitor your progress towards Full Membership
  • To help you fulfill your obligations as a Prospective Member or Full Member
  • To maintain accurate accounts

Lawful processing

ChaCo, like all organisations in the UK, needs a lawful basis to collect and use your personal data. The law allows for six legitimate purposes which organisations can rely on to legally process people’s personal data. Of these, only three are relevant to ChaCo:

  • Information is processed on the basis of an individual’s consent.
  • Information is processed in line with a contractual relationship.
  • Information is processed on it being a legitimate interest for ChaCo to do so.

Most of our processing of your data is done on the basis of our legitimate interests which are listed in the next section.

For Full and Prospective Members however, some of our data processing relates specifically to the provision of housing and is thus done on the basis of the corresponding contractual relationship.

Additionally, we may occasionally ask for your consent to process your data for a specific purpose. Where you give us consent to process your data we will always keep a clear record of how and when this consent was obtained, and you can withdraw this consent at any time by contacting dataprotection@chapeltowncohousing.org.uk.

We may also share your personal information when we are compelled to do so by a legal authority acting in compliance with the law.

Legitimate interests

The law allows personal data to be legally collected and used by an organisation if it is necessary for a legitimate business interest of the organisation – as long as its use is fair and balanced and does not unduly impact the rights of the individual concerned.

Governance:

  • Delivery of our co-operative purposes as set out in the Fully Mutual Rules of Chapeltown Cohousing Ltd.
  • Reporting criminal acts and compliance with the legal instructions of law enforcement agencies.
  • Internal and external audit for financial or regulatory compliance purpose.
  • Statutory reporting.

Publicity:

  • Conventional direct marketing by direct mail and other forms or marketing, publicity or advertisement.
  • Unsolicited commercial or non-commercial messages, including recruitment of potential members or investors, awareness-raising.
  • Personalisation to tailor and enhance the recipient experience in our digital and postal communications.
  • Analysis, targeting and segmentation to improve communication efficiency.
  • Processing for research purposes.

Operational management:

  • Member and supporter recording and monitoring for recruitment, or administration purposes.
  • Provision and administration of member benefits such as repairs.
  • Physical security, IT and network security.
  • Processing for historical, research or statistical purposes.

Financial management and control

  • Processing of financial transactions and maintaining financial controls.
  • Prevention of fraud, misuse of services, or money laundering.
  • Enforcement of legal claims.

Purely administrative purposes

  • Responding to any solicited enquiry from any of our stakeholders.
  • Delivery of requested resources or information.
  • Administration of existing financial transactions.
  • Providing ‘thank you’ communications and receipts.

 
When we use your personal information, we will always consider if it is fair and balanced to do so and whether it would be within your reasonable expectations that we would use your data in this way.

We will balance your rights and our legitimate interests to ensure that the way in which we use your data never goes beyond what you would expect and is not unduly intrusive or unfair.

Sensitive personal information

Under data protection law, certain categories of personal information are recognised as sensitive, including health information, race, religious beliefs, and political opinions (‘sensitive personal data’). If you express an interest in joining ChaCo, we may collect sensitive personal data about you.

We would only collect sensitive personal data where there is a clear reason for doing so – eg: in order to understand whether a potential resident helps us to meet our various allocation targets, or to record whether they have particular needs that ChaCo should be aware of.

We will only use sensitive information provided to us for the purpose it is provided.

Sharing your personal data

Your personal data will be treated as strictly confidential, and will normally be shared only with the other members of ChaCo and only so far as is necessary for the smooth running of the organisation. We will only share your personal data with third parties outside of ChaCo with your consent. We may share aggregated statistical data on a wider basis.

These are assurances that every ChaCo member has an obligation to help fulfill. For example, if you print out a list of member contact details, you have a responsibility not to allow others access to that data: it must be treated as confidential.

How long do we keep your personal data?

We will try to keep your personal data for no longer than reasonably necessary. There is a legal requirement to keep accounting information for a minimum period of six years. We may also retain your data for longer periods in case of any legal claims/complaints.

Your rights and your personal data

Unless subject to an exemption under the GDPR, you have the following rights with respect to your personal data:

  • The right to request a copy of your personal data which ChaCo holds about you;
  • The right to request that ChaCo corrects any personal data if it is found to be inaccurate or out of date;
  • The right to request your personal data is erased where it is no longer necessary for ChaCo to retain such data;
  • The right to withdraw your consent to the processing at any time for situations where ChaCo has previously requested it as a processing condition;
  • The right, where there is a dispute in relation to the accuracy or processing of your personal data, to request a restriction is placed on further processing;
  • The right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners Office.

Further processing

If we wish to use your personal data for a new purpose, not covered by this Data Protection Notice, then we will provide you with a new notice explaining this new use prior to commencing the processing and setting out the relevant purposes and processing conditions. Where and whenever necessary, we will seek your prior consent to the new processing.

Contact details

To exercise all relevant rights, queries or complaints please in the first instance contact ChaCo by emailing dataprotection@chapeltowncohousing.org.uk

You can contact the Information Commissioners Office on 0303 123 1113 or via email https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/email/ or at the Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire. SK9 5AF.