Purpose and lawful basis
When you make a complaint to us we need to collect information in order to thoroughly investigate and take appropriate action in relation to your concerns raised.
The lawful basis we will mainly rely on to process your personal data when investigating your complaint will be Article 6 (1) (c) of the UK GDPR, to comply with the section 193 of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 and the associated Homes and Communities Agency Regulatory Standards 2017.
If your complaint involves information relating to your ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, religion or health data we will process this under Article 9 (2) (g) of the UK GDPR and Schedule 1 Part 2 Paragraph 6 of the Data Protection Act 2018 for statutory purposes.
What we need?
When you complain we will need enough information from you to thoroughly investigate your complaint thoroughly. This will normally include your contact details, the details of the complaint and any other third parties whom may be implicated in your complaint.
Depending on your complaint we may need to obtain information from third parties.
Why we need to use it?
We retain our complaints case files from 6 years once they have been closed.
How long we keep it?
If your application is unsuccessful we will retain your information for 6 months from when it was declined.
If your application is successful and you become a Guinness customer your information will then become part of your customer file and retained for 6 years once you have stopped being a customer of Guinness.
Your Rights
You have the right to access your personal data held in your application file by us. (Access)
You also have the right to have inaccurate data corrected and incomplete data completed. (Rectification)
You have the right to request us to pause the use of your data only if you have contested the accuracy whilst we verify your application or to stop it’s deletion in the case of a legal claim. (Restriction)
You have the right to receive, or have transferred to another organisation, information you have provided to us in a re-usable electronic format, if your complaint relates to the performance of your contract. (Data Portability)
Who we share the information with?
We may need to share your information with our third party contractors if they are the subject of the complaint.
Sometimes we may need the involvement of external agencies such as your local authorities to seek a resolution to your complaint.
International transfers
All information through this process is held within the EU in accordance with Data Protection law.