The Dispute Service Ltd is committed to protecting the privacy of our users. This policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information.
This is the privacy policy of The Dispute Service Ltd (registration number 4851694) registered at West Wing, First Floor, Maylands Building, Maylands Avenue, Hemel Hempstead, HP2 7TG. The Dispute Service Ltd is the Scheme Administrator for Tenancy Deposit Scheme (TDS) on behalf of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC). The privacy policy of DLUHC can be accessed here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tenancy-deposit-protection-privacy-notice
The Dispute Service Ltd is the Data Controller of your personal data. As a controller, we process the data we hold in accordance with this privacy notice and in compliance with the Data Protection Act 2018 and all other relevant legislation.
When you become a member of TDS, we will collect specific data about yourself and/or your organisation to include your name, telephone number, address, contact email addresses, and bank details.
When you protect a tenancy deposit with TDS, we will collect specific information about that tenancy to include the property address, tenancy dates, deposit value, details of the parties to the tenancy agreement, and other relevant information about the property and tenancy.
We will also collect all necessary information in order for us to repay a deposit or resolve a deposit dispute. In the event of a dispute, you will be invited to submit any evidence which you wish to support your claim and you are responsible for uploading this evidence. All evidence submitted to TDS will be visible to both TDS, and any other parties to the dispute.
When contacting our Customer Services team, we will record phone calls and these will be stored for 3 months.
We may also collect certain information about your device and usage of the site, such as your IP address, browser type, operating system, access times and pages visited.
When a deposit is registered by a TDS member, we will ask the member to provide the name of the tenant or tenants along with an email address and/or mobile number. We will also ask the member to provide us with relevant details about the tenancy to include the property address, deposit amount, tenancy dates, and other details about the property.
You will be invited to activate an account which allows you to manage your data and deposit. You will be responsible for keeping your details up to date, and adding any additional data required such as your bank details so that we can make repayment at the end of the tenancy. In the event of a tenancy deposit dispute at the end of the tenancy, TDS will collect information provided to us through our online disputes portal. You will be invited to respond to a repayment request, and any resulting dispute, and will have the opportunity to submit evidence. This evidence can be accessed by both TDS, and any party to the dispute.
We may also collect certain information about your device and usage of the site, such as your IP address, browser type, operating system, access times and pages visited.
TDS will collect information relevant to your job application, and/or any resulting employment. Your information will be stored securely and removed when it is no longer required by TDS to fulfil any responsibility as an employer or legislative requirement. For job applications, we will retain a copy of your data for up to 12 months.
TDS collects data in the following ways:
TDS uses electronic communication media when sending correspondence to customers and parties to a dispute. This allows TDS to track the delivery of the communications (e.g. emails) sent to the parties to ascertain whether delivery is completed successfully.
In the event that electronic communications are opened by the recipient, TDS may be able to see how many times the email has been opened and on what date(s). TDS can also determine the location where these events occurred.
TDS collects personal information to fulfil its contractual requirement to operate a tenancy deposit protection scheme. This allows parties to protect tenancy deposits, and have any resulting disputes resolved.
As tenancy deposit protection is mandatory, TDS must collect information such as names and contact details in order to be able to contact parties regarding the deposit protection and to comply with the legislation.
TDS collects and stores data in order to contact our customers and provide our services to them.
TDS will request personal information from tenants in the event that an insurance claim is required due to their deposit being misappropriated by the deposit holder.
TDS may use information to conduct surveys in relation to improving our services.
TDS uses data for the following purposes:
TDS will always ask for consent before using any information for a purpose other than those set out in this privacy policy.
TDS processes personal information on our servers throughout the United Kingdom and the EU in accordance with current and incoming legislation. TDS may therefore process personal information on a server located outside of the country where you live.
We do not share personal information with individuals or companies outside of TDS except in the following circumstances:
Where you choose to engage in our independent adjudication service which consists of submitting personal information and evidence to an online portal, this evidence will be viewable by employees dealing with the case at TDS along with the agent, landlord(s) and tenant(s) who are party to the tenancy agreement, including any persons acting on their behalf.
We retain the right to share your information with organisations or individuals if we reasonably believe in good faith that disclosure of information is necessary to:
TDS reserves the right to share non-personal information publicly and with our partners for educational purposes, publication of annual reviews or publication of statistics.
Tenancy Deposit Scheme may disclose your information to third parties who provide services on our behalf, or with whom we have contractual agreements such as hosting providers, payment processors, and marketing partners.
Under the Data Protection Act 2018, you have a number of rights regarding the data we hold for you. TDS wants to ensure our customers are aware of their rights and how we ensure they are met:
Right to rectification – Your right without undue delay to rectification of inaccurate personal data. Our customers are able to update their personal details online under their account or alternatively, can contact TDS for help updating details.
Right to erasure – Your right to the deletion of your personal data. TDS will consider a request for data erasure on a case by case basis depending on whether TDS must retain the data for legislative purposes.
Right to restrict data processing – Your right to obtain from us restriction of data processing. TDS will consider the circumstances that may be relevant around any request. Where processing restrictions are granted, such personal data will only be processed with consent or in relation to legal claims.
Right to data portability – Your right to receive personal data in a structured, commonly used format. You are able to find your personal data under your account. Alternatively, TDS will provide all data held for you in a readable format.
Right to object – Your right to object at any time to processing of personal data. TDS will only proceed with processing if we have compelling legitimate grounds for processing after an objection to processing.
Right to not be subject to automated-decision making – TDS will not subject any individual to automated-decision making.
All individuals are entitled under the Data Protection Act to request a copy of the information an organisation holds on them. An individual who makes a written request and pays any fee applicable is entitled to:
TDS will deal with any subject access requests within 30 days in accordance with legislation. In exceptional cases, it may takes us more than 30 days to respond to your subject access request; where this is the case we will always let you know we require more time.
To make a subject access request please send your full name and details of the data you are requesting to the following email: GDPR@tenancydepositscheme.com or by post to West Wing, First Floor, The Maylands Building, 200 Maylands Avenue, HP2 7TG. We may contact you to verify your identity, we will normally require photographic ID and a copy of a recent utility bill before we can satisfy your request.
To make a complaint or for further information regarding personal information held by TDS on yourself, please email: GDPR@tenancydepositscheme.com
You have the right to make an enquiry or complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you are unhappy with our use of your data. Further details can be found on the ICO website at https://www.ico.org.uk.
All information will be stored securely and is disposed in a secure manner when no longer required.
Information relating to a deposit protection or dispute will be held for seven years from the end of the tenancy, and any resulting dispute, in accordance with our Government contract
Phone calls which are recorded in our customer contact centre are stored for 3 months.
TDS will hold data for as long as reasonably required in order to:
When deleting your personal data, it will be removed from our live, test and development databases immediately. We will not actively remove this data from our log-files or back-up databases as these are not freely available to be used in the normal course of business. The data will be expunged from these databases through the normal cycle of over-writing back-ups.
We reserve the right to update or change this privacy policy at any time. Any changes will be effective immediately upon posting the revised policy on the site.
This privacy policy was last updated on September 2nd 2024
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