Link Housing Advice Services Welfare Advice

To allow us to provide the service you would expect from us, we process the following information about you:

• Name
• Address
• Telephone number(s)
• National Insurance number
• Date of birth
• Email address
• Health information
• Ethnicity
• Bank account details
• Sexual orientation
• Religion
• Alternative contacts
• Dependant(s) name and date of birth
• Partner name, date of birth, NI number, marital status, ethnicity, economic status, gender, marital status, date of death

We need your information and will use your information:

• to enable us to supply you with the services and information which you have requested or expect from us
• to provide you with advice and information about social security benefits and tax credits
• to assess your eligibility and entitlement to social security benefits and tax credits and assist you to make relevant claims
• to assess your entitlement to charitable grants, Scottish Welfare Fund and other non statutory benefits including food banks and assist you to make relevant claims
• to assess the appropriateness of disputing and/or appealing a benefit decision and assist you to submit these
• to demonstrate our compliance with our Scottish National Standards for Information and Advice Providers accreditation
• to analyse what we collect so that we can administer, support and improve  our business and the services we offer
• to contact you in order to send you details of any changes to the benefit systems which may affect you
• for all other purposes consistent with the proper performance of our operations and business
• to contact you for your views on our  services.

Your data is stored electronically on Advice Pro case management system.

We review our data retention periods regularly and will only hold your personal data for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity, or as required by law (we may be legally required to hold some types of information), or as set out in any relevant contract we have with you.

To view how long we keep your personal data, please visit our retention schedule here.

The Welfare Rights Service receives referrals from Link Housing and process your personal data based on legitimate interest. We process your special category data for reasons of substantial public interest (equality of opportunity and treatment).

The information you provide to us will be treated by us as confidential.

We may disclose your information to third parties who act for us for the purposes set out in this notice or for purposes approved by you, including the following:

• ACM Solutions who provide the Advice Pro case management system

We may receive the following information from third parties:

• Benefits information including from Department of Work and Pensions and Local Authority.
• Information via a self referral via Lightning Reach.

If your details change, please contact Customer Service Centre 03451 400 100 to inform us to ensure that all of the information we hold about you is up to date.

You can contact our data protection officer at datamanagement@linkhaltd.co.uk or by post to Link House, 2c New Mart Road, Edinburgh EH14 14L. 

You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information. 

You have the right to ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.

You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances. 

You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances. 

You have the the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances . However, if Link can demonstrate that there is a compelling reason to process such personal data then we may refuse to stop processing your personal data.  

You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.