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Privacy and cookies

The following is to explain your rights and give you the information you are entitled to under UK data protection legislation.

The data controller

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) is the data controller. The Data Protection Officer can be contacted at dataprotection@communities.gov.uk or by writing to the following address: Data Protection Officer, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Fry Building, 2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF.               

Why we are collecting your personal data

We collect your data for the following purposes:

  • We securely store the data, including name and address details, that you add to the online Right to Buy RTB1 application for up to 30 days, in order for you to save the form before completion and complete it at a later date. It will be deleted from the system 30 days after you first save the form
  • We track usage of this website using small data files known as cookies. The cookies are not used to identify you personally, they are used to remember settings and information you have already provided so that you don’t gave keep entering them and measuring how you use the website so that we can make sure it meets your needs. Find out more about our cookie use below.
  • To pass your contact details on to the Right to Buy agent’s service, if you use the contact an agent contact form, so that they can get back to you and answer your queries.

Our legal basis for processing your personal data

The collection of your personal data is lawful under article 6(1)(e) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation as it is necessary for the performance by DLUHC of a task in the public interest/in the exercise of official authority vested in the data controller. 

Who we share your personal data with

DLUHC may appoint a ‘data processor’, acting on behalf of the department and under our instruction, for instance we pass on your contact details to our Right to Buy agent’s service if you complete the form requesting assistance.  We ensure that the processing of your personal data remains in strict accordance with the requirements of the data protection legislation.

How long we retain your data

Right to buy application form (RTB1):
Your personal data will be held for 30 days from the date you first save the RTB1 form.

Right to Buy agent contact form
Your personal data will be held for 1 day

Your rights

The data we are collecting is your personal data, and you have considerable say over what happens to it. You have the right:

  1. to see what data we have about you
  2. to ask us to stop using your data, but keep it on record
  3. to ask to have your data corrected if it is incorrect or incomplete
  4. to object to our use of your personal data in certain circumstances
  5. to lodge a complaint with the independent Information Commissioner (ICO) if you think we are not handling your data fairly or in accordance with the law. You can contact the ICO at https://ico.org.uk/, or telephone 0303 123 1113.

Please contact us at the following address if you wish to exercise the rights listed above, except the right to lodge a complaint with the ICO: dataprotection@communities.gov.uk or Knowledge and Information Access Team, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Fry Building, 2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF.

Sending data overseas

Your personal data will not be sent overseas

Automated decision making

Your personal data will not be used for any automated decision making

Storage, security and data management

Your personal data will be stored securely and will be protected to make sure nobody has access to it who shouldn’t.

You can ask us for details of our instructions to staff on how to collect, use and delete your personal data.

Cookies

We put small files (known as ‘cookies’) onto your computer to collect information about how you browse the site.

Cookies are used to:

  • remember your progress
  • measure how you use the website so it can be updated and improved based on your needs

Cookies aren’t used to identify you personally.

Find out more about how to manage cookies

Essential cookies

When you first visit this website you should see a welcome message at the top of the page giving you the option to accept cookies or set your own preferences. We’ll store a cookie so that your computer knows you’ve seen it and knows not to show it again.

Measuring website usage (Google Analytics)

We use Google Analytics software to collect information about how you use the website. We do this to help make sure the site is meeting the needs of its users and to help us make improvements.

Google Analytics stores information about:

  • the pages you visit
  • how long you spend on each page
  • how you got to the site
  • what you click on while you’re visiting the site

We don’t collect or store personal information so this information can’t be used to identify who you are.

We don’t allow Google to use or share our analytics data.

Measuring website usage (Hotjar)

On some pages we also use Hotjar to collect further information about how you use the website in order to help improve the site’s user experience.

Cookie details

Cookie Name Duration Purpose
OwnYourHomePrefs 1 year 1 month Records users choice about accepting non-essential cookies.
OwnYourHomeComparison 1 day Records the schemes the user is comparing.
favouritescheme Until browser clears site cookies. Records the user’s current favourite scheme.
_gat_gtag_UA_[ID] 1 minute

Google Analytics cookie

Set for users who agree to have cookies

Unique user ID.
_gid 2 years Google Analytics cookie.
_ga 1 day Google Analytics tracking cookie.
IDE 1 year YouTube Used by Google DoubleClick to register and report the website user’s actions after viewing or clicking one of the advertiser’s ads.
GPS For the length of the session YouTube to store user location.
CONSENT Approximately 17 years Set by YouTube – purpose unclear.
YSC For the length of the session YouTube to store a unique user ID.
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE 6 months YouTube to estimate bandwidth.
_hjSessionUser{site_id} 365 days Hotjar cookie that is set when a user first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the Hotjar User ID, unique to that site in the browser. This ensures that behaviour in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID.

_hjSession{site_id}

 30 minutes Hotjar cookie that holds the current session data. This ensures that subsequent requests within the session window will be attributed to the same Hotjar session.
_hjid 365 days Hotjar cookie that is set when the user first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the Hotjar User ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behaviour in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID.
_hjIncludedInPageviewSample 30 minutes

This cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that user is included in the data sampling defined by your site’s pageview limit.
_hjIncludedInSessionSample 30 minutes This cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that user is included in the data sampling defined by your site’s daily session limit.
_hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress 30 minutes This cookie is used to detect the first pageview session of a user. This is a True/False flag set by the cookie.