Privacy policy

This Privacy Notice summarises how Dot Dot Dot collects, stores, processes and updates personal data used to help us achieve our mission. When we collect and store information we are subject to the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).

The following information will help you to:

understand how to view data held by Dot Dot Dot about you
find out how to correct information we hold about you, if necessary
find out how to exercise your legal rights in relation to personal data about you.

Data controller and responsible persons

When we refer in this Privacy Notice to “Dot Dot Dot”, “we” or “us” we mean Dot Dot Dot Property Ltd, a company registered in England. The Data Controller for the purposes of the GDPR is Dot Dot Dot Property Ltd of The View Tube, Marshgate Lane, London E15 2PJ. Dot Dot Dot has an employee responsible for implementing and overseeing data protection compliance who can be contacted at privacy@dotdotdotproperty.com.

Dot Dot Dot’s Chief Executive has responsibility for data protection compliance.

Dot Dot Dot Property Ltd is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Our registration number is Z313474X and our registration information can be viewed on the ICO website.

Why Dot Dot Dot collects, processes and stores personal information

Dot Dot Dot needs to collect, store and process personal information in order to carry out its core functions of finding great property guardians, marketing, guardian management, property management, business development and sales. In this context, ‘processing’ also refers to Dot Dot Dot just keeping your information.

Legal basis of consent

Dot Dot Dot’s main legal basis for processing personal data is where it is necessary for the purpose of the legitimate interests pursued by us to process your information. We aim to do this as long as we do not interfere with your freedoms or rights.

There are other instances where we can justify processing your personal information including:

Where you have given consent (also known as ‘agreement’)
Where we are under a legal obligation to collect information or a contractual obligation to process/disclose the information
Where we need to protect the vital interests of another person or organisation

How Dot Dot Dot collects personal information

Personal data will often be collected through the following types of interaction:

Use of our website (including data collected from cookies on our website—for more information on our use of cookies, please see our cookies policy), and information entered into the website
Use of a data collection site managed by us; these are hosted by a managed service provider and will include the URL tfaforms.com (Form Assembly)
Information provided to our employees, directors, agents, service providers, and contractors, regardless of communication method (examples include as part of a phone call, by email, in a meeting or home/site visit)
Information recorded in our IT systems and databases including text and images
Information provided by you in paper form and stored by us including text and images
Events (such as photos, or videos, for which we will seek your consent on an event-by-event basis)
Still and moving image and audio captured by CCTV, where this exists at certain operational sites, and is controlled by Dot Dot Dot. Notices displayed locally will inform you if this is the case.

In detail: what data we collect, handle and store

Here, we look at how your personal information is used depending on your actual or proposed relationship to us. These relationships include:

Applicants for housing
A current guardian living in a building that we manage
A former guardian who has moved out of a building that we manage
Any other individual not included in one or more of the above categories

During the application process, you will be invited to tell us information about sensitive categories of personal data, for example demographic information and protected characteristics. We collect this information to help us judge whether our services are accessible. We do not use individual information of this nature in any housing decisions.

The lists of collected data we highlight below are not intended to be exhaustive. Generally the information we hold will have been provided to us by you (at the point of application, or when we communicate with you).

Applicants for housing

We collect, process and store the following information:

Contact information
Demographic and protected characteristics information (e.g. age, race, sexuality)
Information on unspent convictions
Volunteering, educational and occupational history
Financial details, including earnings
Details relevant to becoming a property guardian
Details relevant to property management
Images of your identification documents and proof of address, in order to comply with legal duties of property manager

We collect this data in order to:

create an electronic record of your application
process your application, including verifying your identity
invite you to viewings, meetings and other activities
conduct research designed to help us improve the quality of our services
handle complaints and disputes
ensure we make unbiased, fair decisions when offering housing
ensure that our service is accessible to as many people as possible

A current guardian living in a building that we manage, or a former guardian who has moved out

We collect, process and store the following information:

Contact details
Demographic and protected characteristics information (e.g. age, race, sexuality)
Information on unspent convictions
Volunteering, educational and occupational history
Financial details including actual or expected earnings, regular payments and liabilities including debt
Details relevant to being a property guardian, including notes on our interactions and conversations
Details relevant to property management
Images of your identification documents and proof of address, in order to comply with legal duties of property managers
Your volunteering
Your service requests to us (for example, repairs)
Your payments and fees account status
Notes gathered from property inspections about your conduct
Actions we have taken to recover monies owed
Responses to customer satisfaction surveys designed to help us improve the quality of our services

We collect this data in order to:

create an electronic record of your housing
communicate with you about your housing, your building and your relationship with Dot Dot Dot
collect your fees and any amounts due to us
ensure efficient and effective property management and contract management
promote and advertise our services (we will always seek consent from you for any marketing we do, for example, if we feature your
volunteering story on our social media channels)
build a picture for our clients (property owners) of who we house. The summaries we send them will always contain anonymised data
conduct research
handle complaints and disputes
provide any tenancy/housing references we are asked to

Any other individual not included in one or more of the above categories

We collect, process and store the following information:

Contact details
Communication preferences
Records of your contact with us and our contact with you

We collect this data in order to:

communicate with you by your preferred methods about services and activities which you may find useful.
progress transactional or professional activity (examples would be a licensing application, contact with you for a professional reason if you are an employee of a local authority or another organisation that regulates or controls our activities).
conduct research which is designed to help us improve the quality of our services

Marketing

We will use your personal data to send you updates (by email or text message) about our housing services, including available properties and viewings.

We may ask you to confirm or update your marketing preferences if you ask us to provide further services in the future, or if there are changes in the law, regulation, or the structure of our business.

We will always treat your personal data with the utmost respect and never sell it to third-party organisations for marketing purposes. We will also never share your data with third-party organisations that are not conducting work directly related to Dot Dot Dot business.

How to opt out of our marketing communications

If you have signed up to receive one of our newsletters via email (this does not include the guardian volunteer report form), you can unsubscribe by clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ button at the bottom of the email.

You can also get in touch at hello@dotdotdotproperty.com, stating which email newsletter you would like to be unsubscribed from. We aim to unsubscribe you within seven working days.

Market research

On occasion we may work with a market research organisation to carry out a survey on our behalf. You will always be notified beforehand in order to seek consent for taking part.

Sharing data with third parties

From time to time we share selected information with third parties in order to achieve:

efficient and effective property management and contract management (for example, we may share information about who lives in which property with our clients and building owners, or with a contractor undertaking a repair on our behalf, or with debt collectors when necessary)
our legal and regulatory obligations (for example, we’ll share information with the fire brigade, law enforcement, or the courts when necessary)
our social impact goals (for example, we may share information with organisations that our guardians volunteer for)
a better service or to create awareness of what we do among our target audience (for example, from time to time we work with media/creative/digital agencies who are contracted to help us create appropriate messaging for marketing campaigns. We may use your anonymised data to help inform this messaging).

This will usually consist of contact information but may include other categories of data commensurate with our objectives.

How long we keep your data for

As per the UK GDPR, any personal data we hold on you will only be kept until it no longer serves the original purpose for which it was collected and used.

Prospective guardians

If your application to become a guardian is successful but you are not housed with us within 12 months, we will get in contact to ask if you’d still like to receive our property viewing emails.

Current guardians

Your data will be stored for as long as you are a guardian with us. We will also periodically review this information to ensure that it is up-to-date. We also ask that you let us know if your information changes.

Former guardians

After you stop being a guardian with us we will retain your information for 18 months for research and social impact purposes. After 18 months, the data will be anonymised.

Your rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

You have a number of rights under the provisions of the GDPR. With regard to your data, you have the right to:

access and check your personal data
request a correction to your personal data
withdraw consent: if you have provided us with a consent to use your personal data you have a right to withdraw that consent easily at any time. Withdrawing a consent will not affect the lawfulness of our use of your personal data in reliance on that consent before it was withdrawn
request a restriction on processing: you can restrict processing of your personal data in certain circumstances, e.g. if you contest the accuracy of the data
object to your personal data being processed for direct marketing (including profiling), or in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal data, e.g. processing carried out for the purpose of our legitimate interests unless there are compelling legitimate grounds for the processing to continue or the processing is required for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims
request erasure (exercise your “right to be forgotten”) of your personal data
receive the personal data you provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and/or transmit that data to a third party—in certain situations (“right to data portability”)
not be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (including profiling) that produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you

To exercise any of these rights, please complete our request form, or contact us at privacy@dotdotdotproperty.com.

Find out more about your rights on the Information Commissioner’s Office website.

Processing methods, storage and security

We store your data using the following methods:

Form Assembly
Salesforce
Mailchimp
Paper records
Google Workspace
Calendly

Regardless of the type and extent of personal information we hold about you, you can expect the following safeguards:

Cloud based storage: The majority of information we process is stored on the cloud, and storage on hardware is limited. This lessens the threat of information being lost through not having any back-up or it being physically stolen. The programmes we have chosen to use have renowned security systems which minimise our risk of being hacked/ having any data stolen.

Password protection: All of our information stored in the cloud is protected by password. Dot Dot Dot also uses LastPass, a password manager that locks all passwords in a secure vault. One master password is required to access all other passwords, making it a secure system. LastPass was chosen as it is a safe and secure way of sharing and storing organisational passwords.

Physical storage: All information that is not stored on the cloud will be stored on hardware that is both password protected and encrypted or securely locked on site. This reduces the risk of physical information being stolen or compromised.

Need to get in touch?

You can contact our data protection officer at privacy@dotdotdotproperty.com if you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you to exercise a right under data protection law to make a complaint.

Changes to this Privacy Notice

We aim to keep our Privacy Notice up to date, to reflect changes in our business operations, to reflect improvements and quality and to respond to feedback and any changes in legislation.

This Privacy Notice was last updated in November 2023.