fbpx

Privacy policy

We will always do our very best to keep the information we hold about you safe and secure. We will never share your data with any third party without your consent.

As a community, the London Renters Union is committed to keeping the information our members and supporters share with us safe and secure in line with the Data Protection Act (1998) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Our data privacy promise

We will always do our very best to keep your data safe and secure. We will never share your data with any third party without your consent.

How we use your data

We collect information about contact details, address and so on so that we can stay in touch with our members and supporters and let them know about the activities of the union and how to get involved.

We collect very basic information about the housing situation of our members (e.g. type of tenancy, name of landlord) so that we can build an accurate picture of our membership. It is not necessary to provide this type information in order to become a member of participate in the London Renters Union.

Where a member shares with us information about their housing problems so that we can provide them with member support, we will store that information in accordance with this privacy notice but it will only be viewable by a very limited number of people.

Emails, text messages and phone calls

We use a third-party provider, MailChimp, to deliver our email newsletter and updates about our activities. We gather statistics around email opening and clicks using standard technologies to help us monitor and improve our e-newsletter. For more information, please see MailChimp’s privacy notice. You can unsubscribe to general mailings at any time of the day or night by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any of our emails or by emailing our data protection officer by writing to hello@londonrentersunion.org.

We occasionally also use phone calls and text messages to contact our members and supporters who have given their consent to be contacted in this way. If you do not wish to be contacted in this way, please email hello@londonrentersunion.org.

How we keep your data safe

In order to store your data as securely as possible, we use professional database software provided by a company called Airtable. This software is widely recognised to be very secure and your data is always encrypted. We also store basic information (e.g. name and email address) in a database provided by MailChimp service. The entire MailChimp application is encrypted. From June 2020 we also collect some personally identifiable information on an open source analytics system called PostHog which we self-host on Heroku. The data is encrypted and is not accessible by third parties.

Only a very limited number of people have access to the information we store in our database (as of May 2018, just three). We have strict internal policies processes regarding access to and handling of your personal data. We work hard to keep your data safe and secure.

Some of the data centres used by Airtable and MailChimp are based in the US.  Any transfer and storage of personal data to Airtable and MailChimp servers in the US is governed by data processing agreements we hold with those companies, which guarantee the safety and privacy of your data in accordance with the relevant UK and EU legislation. PostHog data is stored solely in the EU.

Your right to your data

You are entitled to view, amend, or delete the personal information that we hold. Email your request to our data protection officer on hello@londonrentersunion.org.

Cookies on the London Renters Union website

The londonrentersunion.org website, like many others, uses Google Analytics to help analyse how users use the site. This analytical tool, as well as PostHog (mentioned above), uses cookies, which are small text files placed on your computer. They collect standard information anonymously about what pages are viewed and in what order, which we can then use to analyse traffic and make the website better. We never (and cannot) track any personally identifiable information of visitors to our site.

Here’s a nice guide to what cookies are.

In addition, the software that this website is based on (WordPress) uses cookies which simply record if someone comes onto the site. No other information is used.

You can disable cookies using your browser. Here are guides for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera.

You can also use this tool to opt out of Google Analytics completely.

JOIN THE LONDON RENTERS UNION

We’re a members-led, campaigning union and we’re taking action to make sure all Londoners have a decent, affordable and secure home. Join our community today and become part of the movement to transform the housing system.

LATEST NEWS

Rent Control Rally – 21st March

Rent Control Rally – 21st March

Time: Thursday 21st March 6:45-9pmVenue: Hamilton House, Mabledon Pl, London WC1H 9BDRegister using the form below Has your landlord recently pushed your rent up even higher? Or are you worried about the cost of housing? You’re not alone. On Thursday 21 March, London...

read more
All Member Assembly 2023

All Member Assembly 2023

One of the most exciting parts of Sunday’s All Member Assembly is that there’s time to debate motions that decide the whole union’s plans for the coming year. The organising team has decided that there’s only time to properly discuss and debate 4 motions. However, 6...

read more