Privacy Notice for Accommodation and Residential Services

This Privacy Notice explains who we are, how and why we collect and use personal information about you, our purposes and lawful bases for processing, who we share your personal data with, relevant retention periods, and how you can exercise your privacy rights. Please do read this notice to understand our practices and if you have any questions please contact us using the contact details provided.

WHO WE ARE

The Manchester Metropolitan University (‘the University’) is the Data Controller in respect of the personal data you provide as part of your accommodation application and on-going student accommodation management. The University is registered as a Data Controller with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). We manage personal data in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the University’s Data Protection Policy.

THE PERSONAL DATA WE PROCESS

We currently collect and process the following personal data to assess your eligibility to apply for accommodation, and manage your  application:

• Your full name.
• Your gender.
• Your date of birth.
• Your course and level of study.
• Your permanent, correspondence, and other contact details such as landline/mobile phone numbers and email addresses.
• Your answers to questions on Alcohol Free, Disability and health and Third Party Consent (Nominated Contact).

We may collect further personal data directly from you according to your enquiry.

THE PURPOSES OF THE PROCESSING AND LAWFUL BASIS

Lawful basis - Contract:

• We process personal data with a view to entering into an accommodation contractual relationship with you.
• We process personal data in order to fulfil our accommodation contractual obligations to you.

Your information will enable us to:

• Assess and manage your accommodation application.
• Confirm that you are a student or eligible applicant
• Allow you to apply for accommodation  and use the application  Portal.
• Provide you with accommodation.
• Carry out any administration relating to your stay.
• Send you service messages and information about matters that affect you or your room during your stay.

Lawful basis - Legitimate interests: we process personal data for these purposes in ways which you would reasonably expect and which we believe have minimal privacy impact.

Your information will enable us to:

• Deal with your enquiries and to make contact with you when you request information from us.
• Handle any complaints you may have so that we can improve our business.
• Administer any complaints, investigations and disciplinary proceedings concerning student misconduct.

Lawful basis - Consent: we offer you as real choice and control whether you wish to participate in these activities.

Your information will enable us to:

• Contact you about events or activities which are held for our residents and that we think may be of interest to you.
• Invite you to participate in student focus groups and/or surveys.
• Invite you to be involved in our marketing activities, which may include using your image or creating videos, vlogs or social media content.

Lawful basis - Legal obligation: under the Equality Act 2010 we are obliged to consider reasonable adjustments and offer support on the grounds on health and disability.

Your information will enable us to:

• Determine whether any adjustments need to be made for you if you have declared a disability.
• Take account of, and provide additional support for, any disabilities, health issues or conditions.

Lawful basis - Public task: In order to a perform specific task which is in the public interest and has a basis in law.

Your information will enable us to:

• Safeguard residents, staff and other third parties on our sites.
• Prevent and detect criminal activity, fraud and misuse of or damage to our properties.

Lawful basis - Vital interests: should the need arise, in order to potentially protect your life or the life of another.

Your information will enable us to:

• Protect your vital interests, or those of another party, in an emergency situation.

We may also need to share your personal data with certain third parties for specific reasons:

• To enable nominated accommodation providers (owners) to enter into a contract with you and subsequently provide you with services and facilities. This purpose may include processing sensitive personal data you choose to disclose regarding health conditions or disabilities relevant to your accommodation. At present our nominated providers include (but are not limited to): Unite Students (Unite Group) and IQSA (IQ Student Accommodation). There may also be occasions where there are significant public health incidents and emergencies, including but not limited to COVID-19, where there is an ongoing need to exchange information with our nominated suppliers, which may include basic contact and address data and on occasion data relating to health.
• To deliver externally hosted IT services or products to the University. Such information will only be used to provide the contracted services, and in accordance with the terms of agreements with the University. Approved IT and infrastructure providers currently include Glide Student (Cablecom Networking Ltd).. MMU may occasionally request that externally hosted IT services are restricted in certain instances, for example in cases concerning debt recovery. In these instances, the relevant room number is provided to the external company to allow for service restriction. No further details are exchanged.
• Where we provide links to websites of other organisations, this Privacy Notice does not cover how that organisation processes personal information. We encourage you to read the privacy notices on the other websites you visit.
• Your Nominated Contact (Third Party), if you have given us your consent, the name of a nominated person, their relationship to you and their email address in order for us to verify them if they contact us and discuss relevant accommodation issues. Your Nominated Contact (where applicable) will receive an email from us to notify them that their personal data has been submitted. They will be asked to log into our portal to confirm their details and approve the request. If they want to be removed as your Nominated Contact, they can request this by writing to accommodation@mmu.ac.uk.

THE RIGHT TO WITHDRAW CONSENT

If we have collected and processed your personal information with your consent, then you can withdraw your consent at any time. Withdrawing your consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing we conducted prior to your withdrawal, nor will it affect processing of your personal information conducted in reliance on lawful processing grounds other than consent. You can withdraw your consent by writing to accommodation@mmu.ac.uk stating your name, your student ID number and in the e-mail subject state: Withdrawal of Consent.

DATA RETENTION

Your personal data will only be retained for as long as it is necessary in accordance with the University’s Retention and Disposal Schedule. This is a publicly available document and can be viewed here. Specifically, we will retain the personal data relating to student accommodation management until the termination of our accommodation relationship with you + 6 years. This includes:

• Records documenting the allocation and ongoing management of student accommodation.
• Records associated with charges for student accommodation including damage charges.
• Records documenting student complaints from those students living in student accommodation.
• Records documenting student incidents that take place within student accommodation.

YOUR RIGHTS IN RESPECT OF THE PROCESSING

The GDPR provides data subjects with the following data subject rights:

• The right to be informed – this privacy notice assists with fulfilling these obligations.
• The right of access.
• The right to rectification.
• The right to erasure.
• The right to restrict processing
• The right to data portability
• The right to object

If the data you submit as part of your accommodation application changes such as Alcohol Free, Disability and Health or Third Party Consent (Nominated Contact), please contact accommodation@mmu.ac.uk so this can be rectified.

Please note, that these rights apply in certain circumstances, for example according to the lawful basis utilised by the University. The right of access to personal information held about you exists in order to be aware of, and verify, the lawfulness of the processing. To exercise these rights please write to: dataprotection@mmu.ac.uk. For information about the data subject rights please refer to the main Student Privacy Notice.

CONTACTING US

For questions or concerns about this Privacy Notice or our use of your personal information, please contact accomodation@mmu.ac.uk in the first instance.

Our Data Protection Officer can also be contacted using dataprotection@mmu.ac.uk, by calling 0161 247 3331 or in writing to: Data Protection Officer, Legal Services, All Saints Building, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, M15 6BH.

RIGHT TO LODGE A COMPLAINT WITH THE SUPERVISORY AUTHORITY 

You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as the supervisory authority in respect of the processing of your personal data. We would encourage you to expend our internal complaints procedure through our initial contact and the University Data Protection Officer, prior to contacting the ICO. If you wish to contact the ICO the following contact information can be used:  casework@ico.org.uk or telephone: 0303 123 1113. For any further contact information please see: https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/.

UPDATES TO THIS PRIVACY NOTICE

We may update this privacy notice from time to time in response to changing legal, technical or business developments. When we update our privacy notice, we will take appropriate measures to inform you, consistent with the significance of the changes we make. We will obtain your consent to any material Privacy Notice changes if and where this is required by applicable data protection laws.