Help to Buy – Wales: privacy notice

In line with UK General Data Protection Regulations (UK GDPR) This privacy notice explains how we collect, use, and process your personal data fairly, lawfully, and transparently.

If you apply for a Wales Shared Equity Loan from Help to Buy – Wales Ltd, we will use your personal information to assess your eligibility. If successful, we will use your information to: -

• process your application for a Shared Equity Loan.
• Meet our legal and regulatory obligations.
• manage your account.
• communicate with you.
• respond to enquiries.
• Keep your data updated.
• keep you informed of our products and services if you opted in during your application.

For marketing communications, you can opt-out of this at any time by emailing enquiries@helptobuywales.co.uk, or clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ link in any of our marketing emails.

Help to Buy – Wales Ltd will be the data controller for any personal data you have provided in relation to your application to the Help to Buy – Wales Shared Equity Loan scheme. The information will be processed as part of our public task and the official authority vested in us to undertake the core role and functions of the Welsh Government.

For the Help to Buy – Wales Shared Equity Scheme, we will collect the following personal data:

• Name
• Contact number
• Date of birth
• Address
• Email address
• Employment History
• Employment Remuneration
• Financial position

Special Category Data

Help to Buy – Wales Ltd will process ‘special category data’ (equality and diversity questionnaire) under Article 9(2)(a) of the UK GDPR solely for statistical research purposes in accordance with Article 89(1) with safeguards to protect the data subjects rights and freedoms. 

This will include:

• Gender
• Sexual orientation
• Religion
• Disability

Personal data provided to Help to Buy – Wales Ltd is held on secure servers within the UK and stored in a restricted folder.

Help to Buy – Wales Ltd has procedures to deal with any suspected data security breaches. If a suspected breach occurs, Help to Buy – Wales Ltd will notify you and any applicable regulator where we are legally required to do so.

Help to Buy – Wales Ltd and the Welsh Government. 

We may also need to share personal information relating to your application with third parties such as credit reference agencies, financial crime prevention organisations, Development Bank of Wales Plc and its associated companies, and associated agents both for the assessment of this application, the prevention of financial crime and the on-going management of any funding provided.

Support service teams and its system technical administrators who support the IT system. System technical administrators will not use your details in any way.

We may contact you to request your permission to use your business details for marketing activities. Help to Buy – Wales Ltd will not use your data without your consent.

Your contact details may be used for research and evaluation purposes, including independent contractors commissioned by the Welsh Government. Participation is completely voluntary, however, we really appreciate your views and experiences to inform organisational improvement.

Your contact details will only be used for approved research and will be deleted once this approved research is complete.

Your personal data will be retained on Help to Buy – Wales Ltd secure IT systems until your Help to Buy – Wales equity mortgage is repaid, in line with the Help to Buy – Wales Ltd retention policy after which time it will be securely destroyed. We may delete the information sooner if it is no longer being used.

We may collect or receive personal information about you from third parties, including but not limited to:

• Credit reference agencies (CRAs)
• Government bodies and agencies
• HM Revenue & Customs and other tax authorities
• Regulators
• Law enforcement agencies
• Fraud prevention agencies (FPAs)
• Insurers
• The Electoral Roll and other sources of publicly available information (e.g. Sanctions list, media)
• Our service providers
• Companies and organisations that introduce you to us
• Financial advisers
• Land agents
• Card associations
• Retailers
• Comparison websites
• Market research providers
• Tracing and debt recovery agents
• Organisations providing data services to support us in managing our relationship with you and operating our business.

On occasion, we may also collect information from people who are acting on your behalf. This could be from a joint applicant or a power of attorney. If this person provides us with information, well record that it’s been provided and by who.

Under data protection legislation, you have the right:

• to be informed of the personal data Welsh Government holds about you and to access it
• to require us to rectify inaccuracies in that data
• to (in certain circumstances) object to or restrict processing
• for (in certain circumstances) your data to be ‘erased’
• to (in certain circumstances) data portability
• to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) who is our independent regulator for data protection.

Should you have any queries regarding this privacy notice please contact the enquiries@helptobuywales.co.uk.

For further details about the information the Help to Buy – Wales Ltd holds and its use, or if you want to exercise your rights under the data protection legislation, please see contact details below:

Data Protection Officer

dpo@developmentbank.wales

Development Bank of Wales
1 Capital Quarter, 
Tyndall Street, 
Cardiff
CF10 4BZ

The contact details for the Information Commissioner’s Office are:

Customer Contact
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Telephone: 0303 123 1113

Website: www.ico.org.uk