Warm Home Discount feasibility exercise: privacy notice
Published 9 September 2021
© Crown copyright 2021
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/warm-home-discount-scheme-feasibility-exercise-privacy-notice/warm-home-discount-feasibility-exercise-privacy-notice
This notice sets out how we will use your personal data, and your rights. It is made under Articles 13 and/or 14 of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).
Your data
The data we collect
We will process the following personal data:
- address data for domestic properties in England and Wales
- property characteristics for domestic properties in England and Wales
- address data for recipients of certain benefits and Tax Credits
- energy costs for domestic properties in England and Wales calculated from property characteristic data
- modelled energy cost and property characteristic data for households who participated in the 2018 English Housing Survey
Purpose
The Warm Home Discount scheme is a key policy for reducing fuel poverty, providing 2.2 million households a year with rebates on their energy bills.
The government has recently consulted on reforms to expand the scheme to 2.7 million households, improve the fuel poverty targeting, and increase the number of rebates that are awarded automatically.
This data processing is for a feasibility exercise to test the data processing between the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), the Valuation Office Agency, and the Department for Work and Pensions necessary for the Warm Home Discount Scheme reforms proposed from 2022 onwards.
Legal basis for processing
The legal basis for processing your personal data is public task.
Processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest, under Article 6(1)(e) of the UK GDPR. The specific public task is research necessary for the purposes of testing the feasibility of BEIS’s proposed reforms to the Warm Home Discount Scheme. The Warm Home Discount Scheme’s objective is to address fuel poverty which is an objective of public interest and is laid out in law in the Schedule of The Digital Government (Disclosure of Information) Regulations 2018 and the Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act 2000.
Section 9 of the Energy Act 2010 provides the enabling powers for the Warm Home Discount as a scheme for reducing fuel poverty.
Section 35 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 provides the legal gateway for the data to be shared for this exercise.
What we do with your data
Your personal data will be shared by us with the Department for Work and Pensions as part of this exercise.
As your personal data will be stored on our IT infrastructure, it will also be shared with our data processors Microsoft and Amazon Web Services.
How long we keep your data
Your personal data processed and shared as part of this exercise will be kept by us from the start of the exercise, August 2021, until the end of the exercise or 31 December 2021, whichever is earlier.
Automated decision making
Your personal data will not be subject to automated decision making. This exercise only tests the data-matching and data-sharing processes between BEIS and the Department for Work and Pensions.
Where personal data has not been obtained from the data subject
Your personal data were obtained by us from a combination of the Valuation Office Agency, the online public access data of Energy Performance Certificates, Ordnance Survey, and the English Housing Survey.
Your rights
You have the right to request:
- information about how your personal data are processed, and to request a copy of that personal data
- that any inaccuracies in your personal data are rectified without delay
- that any incomplete personal data are completed, including by means of a supplementary statement
- that your personal data are erased if there is no longer a justification for them to be processed
- in certain circumstances (for example, where accuracy is contested) to request that the processing of your personal data is restricted
You also have the right to:
- object to the processing of your personal data where it is processed for direct marketing purposes.
- object to the processing of your personal data
International transfers
Your personal data will be processed in the UK.
Your personal data will not be processed in the European Economic Area (EEA) or by an international organisation.
As your personal data is stored on our IT infrastructure and shared with our data processors Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, it may be transferred and stored securely outside the EEA. Where that is the case, it will be subject to equivalent legal protection through the use of Model Contract Clauses.
Complaints
If you consider that your personal data has been misused or mishandled, you may make a complaint to the Information Commissioner, who is an UK independent regulator. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:
Information Commissioner's Office
Email icocasework@ico.org.uk
Contact form https://ico.org.uk/glo...
Telephone 0303 123 1113
Textphone 01625 545 860
Any complaint to the Information Commissioner is without prejudice to your right to seek redress through the courts.
Contact details
The data controller for your personal data is BEIS. You can contact the BEIS Data Protection Officer at:
Contact the DPO:
BEIS Data Protection Officer
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
1 Victoria Street
London
SW1H 0ET