Guidance

English Housing Survey: privacy notice for survey participants

Updated 28 November 2023

Applies to England

Our privacy notice explains why and how we (the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities - DLUHC) uses the personal data you provide in the English Housing Survey. We also provide information about your rights and how to contact us, if you have any questions.

1. What personal data we collect and how

When we refer to personal data, we mean any information about a living identifiable person who can be directly or indirectly identified from that information.

The English Housing Survey collects personal data, where you choose to provide it, at the interview. We keep the collection of personal data to the minimum and ask only for personal data where we believe they are necessary for meaningful research. All the findings we publish are anonymised; no-one looking at the findings will be able to identify you in any way.

The personal data the English Housing Survey collects, where participants choose to provide them include:

• name so we can address participants and members of their household correctly
• date of birth
• email address
• phone number

The interviewer also collects, with the participant’s permission, special category personal data as background information, such as ethnicity, religion, health and sexual orientation. That information is needed for research about equality in society. You can choose not to provide that information.

During the interview, the interviewer confirms the participant’s address and postcode and we use the address and postcode to add the Unique Property and Unique Address Reference Numbers linked to that address.

The identifiable information we typically use on the English Housing Survey is normally limited to the contact details of the people who have taken part in the survey and the Unique Property and Unique Address Reference Numbers of the addresses covered in the survey. We use it for quality assurance purposes and to enable us to process the data correctly. When we use the participant’s background information for research, we “pseudonymise” them, that means, we use only identifiers which do not reveal people’s “real world” identity. All the findings we publish are anonymised; no-one looking at the findings will be able to identify you in any way.

2. Who are the data controllers?

In research terms, the data controller is the body that determines what personal data is processed, why and how and, in this case, by commissioning the English Housing Survey.

DLUHC and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) commission the English Housing Survey together and are the independent data controllers of the information participants provide. DLUHC uses the information from the English Housing Survey to: compile analysis datasets; produce statistics from those datasets; carry out further research; and share the data with DESNZ so it can carry out in-house or commissioned research.

This privacy notice explains how DLUHC uses personal data from the English Housing Survey.

3. The lawful basis for using personal data

Data Protection legislation sets out when we are lawfully allowed to process your personal data. The lawful basis that applies here is Article 6(1) (e) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest). Our research is essential to government and organisations, including charities, who want to improve housing, house condition, building safety, fuel poverty and climate change.

To the extent that we use any special categories of personal data in our research, we do so under Article 9(2)(g) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (it is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest) and Section 10(3) of the Data Protection Act (2018), in that it meets a condition in Part 2 of Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018 (the use is necessary for the research purpose).

4. Who are the data processors?

In research terms in the case of the English Housing Survey, the data processor is the body that collects research data, checks and processes them, analyses them as directed by the data controller, and then passes them onto the data controller.

The National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), CA Design Services, Building Research Establishment are the data processors of the information collected on the English Housing Survey. All the data processors require the permission of DLUHC to use the data they collect as part of the English Housing Survey for their own purposes.

5. Who has access to your personal data?

The following organisations will have access to your personal data.

1. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), as one of the commissioners of the research.

DLUHC
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF

2. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), as one of the commissioners of the research.

DESNZ
1 Victoria Street
London
SW1H 0ET

3. National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) will have access as one of the three agencies contracted to carry out the research.

NatCen
35 Northampton Square
London
EC1V 0AX

4. CA Design Services will have access as one of the three agencies contracted to carry out the research.

CA Design Services
The Design Centre
Hewett Road
Gapton Hall
Great Yarmouth
NR31 0NN

5. The Building Research Establishment will have access as one of the three agencies contracted to carry out the research.

BRE
Bucknalls Lane
Watford
WD25 9XX

6. Where applicable, third parties commissioned by DLUHC or DESNZ to carry out follow-up research will have access to your phone number and/or email address, where you choose to provide those when you agree to be contacted for follow-up research. Where required, third parties commissioned by DLUHC or DESNZ to carry out follow-up data analysis or processing will have access to the Unique Property and Unique Address Reference Numbers of your address.

7. The Secure Data Service of the UK Data Archive has access to the postcodes of participants (see the section ‘How do we use your information’).

UK Data Archive
University of Essex
Wivenhoe Park
Colchester
CO4 3SQ

6. How do we use your information

The information you give us will be treated as confidential as directed by the Code of Practice for Statistics.

We collect personal data for two purposes: to ensure that we carry out the survey correctly; and to help us make full use of the data.

In order to ensure that our interviewers have carried out the survey correctly, we contact a percentage of the participants afterwards to check whether they are happy with the interview or not. At the end of the survey, you will be asked whether you would like to be contacted again for that purpose. If you agree to be contacted, the interviewer will ask you to provide a phone number.

To maximise the value of the information you supply, DLUHC may need to combine it with information in other databases using your address or Unique Property and Unique Address Reference Numbers. After a participant’s information is combined with the other data, we will delete the address or Unique Property and Unique Address Reference Numbers from the combined data. The purpose of this type of data linking is to enrich the findings of the English Housing Survey so DLUHC can fulfil its public functions in the best possible way. The purpose is not to look in-depth at the personal circumstances of a particular person.

At the end of the survey, the interviewer will ask you whether you would like to be contacted again for follow-up research by DLUHC or by a third party commissioned by the department. If you agree to be contacted for this purpose, then you will be asked to provide a phone number and/or an email address.

The English Housing Survey is used by researchers outside DLUHC and DESNZ. The version of the data researchers outside DLUHC and DESNZ use does not contain identifiable information. From time to time, some of those external researchers would like to add information that describes participants’ local area to the English Housing Survey data. They can do that only with DLUHCs permission. The local information is combined with the English Housing Survey data using postcodes released through the Secure Data Service of the UK Data Archive. More detailed location information is not made available. Researchers accessing those postcodes have to comply with the strict terms and conditions of the Secure Data Service (PDF, 200KB).

Your contact or personal details will not be used for marketing activities.

7. Data storage, security and access

Your personal data will be stored by the organisations detailed in the ‘Who has access to your personal data’ section according to their own protocols. DLUHC has rigorously evaluated the agencies’ protocols for security.

Data will be transferred between organisations detailed in the ‘Who has access to your personal data’ section via secure portals, one between DLUHC, NatCen, CA Design Services and the Building Research Establishment; one between DLUHC and the Secure Data Service of the UK Data Archive and one between DLUHC and DESNZ.

Access to the personal data within all the organisations is restricted to a small number of employees and researchers working on the survey or using it for research.

8. Data retention

The English Housing Survey is carried out every year. The main data collection, processing and analysis activities of each year’s survey start in April and conclude two and half years after that. The personal data collected as part of the English Housing Survey will be stored by NatCen, the Building Research Establishment, CA Design Services, DLUHC during that period. After that, the personal data are retained by DLUHC and the postcodes by the UK Data Archive for a further seven and a half years.

9. Details of data transfers

Data will be stored within the UK, Ireland or Spain.

10. Your rights

Participation in the research is voluntary and you have the right to withdraw at any stage. We hope that you will choose to take part, as we rely on the voluntary cooperation of people invited to take part to get a clear picture of people’s housing circumstances and the condition and energy efficiency of their homes. This helps us to act on issues related to housing, building safety and climate change.

You have the following rights:

1. The right to be informed – this means individuals have the right to be informed about the collection and use of their personal data.
2. The right of access – this means individuals have the right to access their personal data.
3. The right to rectification – this means individuals have the right to have inaccurate personal data rectified, or completed if it is incomplete.
4. The right to restrict processing – this means individuals have the right to request the restriction or suppression of their personal data.
5. The right to object – this means individuals have the right to object to the processing of their personal data in certain circumstances.

The rules about research and statistical work in the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act (2018) mean that certain rights that you may have in respect of your personal data under the UK GDPR (such as the right to restrict or object to processing activity) may not apply to the personal data we use as part of our research work. If you would like more information about this, please contact us (dataprotection@levellingup.gov.uk).

If you are interested in learning more about your privacy rights, you can find more information on the Information Commissioner’s Office website.

During the English Housing Survey fieldwork period you may request that your data are deleted or, if they are not accurate, you have the right to have inaccurate personal data amended. If you wish to lodge a complaint, you can do so by contacting NatCen Social Research, by emailing info@natcen.ac.uk or calling 0800 652 45672 quoting the reference number on the front of your letter.

If you have taken part in the survey and wish to request that your data are deleted, you can do so by emailing info@natcen.ac.uk or calling 0800 652 45672, quoting the reference number on the front of your letter.

Once the fieldwork period has ended, please contact the English Housing Survey Team at DLUHC (ehs@levellingup.gov.uk).

11. How to contact us

This privacy notice covers all the main ways that we use the various types of personal data we may hold about you, to make sure that we are as transparent as possible and to avoid using your information in a way that would surprise you.

As a public organisation we are required to appoint a Data Protection Officer who oversees our internal data protection compliance, informs and advises us on our data protection obligations, advises us on our data protection impact assessment process and acts as our contact point with the Information Commissioner.

If you feel that we have missed anything that you would like to know, or you have any particular questions about our privacy policy, you can  contact the Data Protection Officer at dataprotection@levellingup.gov.uk or write to:

Data Protection Team
Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF

If we cannot resolve the issues you raise, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office. Please go to https://ico.org.uk/ or phone 0303 123 1113 for more information.