Council rent

In order for us to collect and use your information, we have to have a legal basis for doing so.  

The legal basis for processing your personal information is 'part of our public task as a local authority'.

In delivering our services, the council may process special category personal data, for example data concerning your health. We need an additional legal basis in order to process this kind of information. The legal basis for processing your special category information is 'your information is of substantial public interest, according to the definition set out in the Data Protection Act 2018'.

The type of personal information we collect can include:

• name (including any previous name)
• current and previous or forwarding address 
• details of other household members, including date of birth, and contact details
• your contact details, including phone number and email address if you have one
• date of birth
• details of physical or mental health or disabilities
• details of any support needs
• name of your employer or nature of self-employment
• proof of identification
• data relating to criminal convictions and offences

Should you not provide personal details we may be unable to verify your circumstances and therefore will be unable to process any application for assistance.

We may share the information provided by you with:

• other services within the council including Housing, Legal Services, Financial Support and Finance
• sheriff officer and debt collection agencies
• Edinburgh Sheriff Court 
• other local authorities
• third sector agencies if you have also approached or been referred to their services*
• Councillors* 
• Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) and Members of the UK Parliament (MPs)* 
• external organisations such as the Scottish Government 
• The Scottish Prison Service if you are or have been in prison
• our software suppliers to enable us to deliver this service

Note, the groups marked with a star (*) above will only be given access to your data if we receive a signed mandate of authority to do so.

We will also comply with requests for specific information from other regulatory and law enforcement bodies, such as Police Scotland, where this is necessary, relevant and proportionate.

We may receive information about you from:

• The Department for Work and Pensions and other local authorities
• other council services
• third party organisations such as Citizens Advice Bureau

Your personal information will not be transferred outside of the UK. 

East Lothian Council is legally required to protect the public funds it administers. For this reason, your information may also be used to prevent and detect fraud, and we may share your information with other organisations responsible for auditing and administering public funds.

Find out more about how the council can use the data you provide

We retain information in our core processing system and in our document management and workflow system (which holds electronic copies of documents relevant to your rent account).

We keep your personal data in line with our data retention policy, called a Retention Schedule.  

• you have the right to be informed about how your information will be used
• you have the right to access your personal information - normally this is done by placing a Subject Access Request with the council
• you have the right to ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information
• in certain circumstances you have the right to have your personal information erased
• in certain circumstances you have the right to ask us to limit the ways we use or share your information
• in certain circumstances you have the right to ask us to move, copy or transfer your information to another organisation in an electronic format
• in certain circumstances you have the right to object to the ways we process your information
• in circumstances where your data is processed automatically without human intervention you have the right to certain protections

Find out more about a Subject Access Request

Find more information about data protection and your rights on the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) website  

We take your privacy seriously and would like to know about your concerns so that we can address them as soon as possible.  If you wish to make a complaint, we recommend that you contact the council’s Data Protection Officer using the contact details below.

If we are unable to resolve the issue to your satisfaction, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).  

Find more information about raising a concern with the ICO on their website   

If you have provided anyone else’s personal details, please make sure that you have told them that you have given their information to East Lothian Council.  We will only use this information for the purpose of administering rent.