Privacy Policy

urbanest is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. This privacy policy describes how we collect and use your personal information, in accordance with the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.

urbanest is a group of legal entities that develop and operate student accommodation in London. The list of urbanest legal entities that this privacy policy applies to can be found at the end of this web page. In this policy, whenever you see the words ‘we’, ‘us’, ‘our’, ‘urbanest’, it refers to the urbanest group of legal entities.

This privacy policy applies to the following groups of people:

• Tenants.
• Tenant guarantors.
• Prospective tenants and guarantors.
• Tenant guests.
• Business customers.
• Suppliers/contractors (including prospective).
• Corporate social responsibility/scholarship applicants.
• Job applicants.
• Urbanest website visitors.
• Any other persons who are not employees of Urbanest.

urbanest is a “data controller”. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use your personal information. We are required under data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice. We may update this notice at any time. It is important that you read this notice, together with any other privacy notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing your personal information, so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information.

We will comply with data protection law. This says that the personal information we hold about you must be:

• Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.
• Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.
• Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.
• Accurate and kept up to date.
• Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.
• Kept securely.

We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal information on the following grounds:

• Contractual – where we need to perform a contract we have entered into with you.
• Legal requirement – where we need to comply with a legal obligation.
• Legitimate interests – where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
• Vital interest – where we need to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests).
• Public interest – where it is required in the public interest or for official purposes.

Personal data, or personal information, means any information regarding an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where identity has been permanently removed (anonymous data). We may collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you for the following reasons:

Categories of information	Purpose of processing personal information
Bank account details & payment card information	To allow payments to be made or refunded, fraud prevention, tenancy administration, staff training.
Accounting data for tenants/suppliers	To determine what tenant/suppliers charges are paid/unpaid, fraud prevention and tenancy/contract administration, staff training.
Personal information related to a tenancy (e.g. tenancy start/end date, room number, etc)	Building management, tenancy administration, marketing, fraud prevention, staff training.
Utility usage information (e.g. meter readings)	To administer utility billing and monitor energy usage.
Contact details	Building management, tenancy administration, marketing, fraud prevention, staff training, supplier account administration.
Emails to/from Urbanest	Building management, tenancy administration, marketing, fraud prevention, complaint handling, staff training, supplier account administration.
Proof of ID	To confirm a persons identity for commercial and security purposes.
Tenant proof of student status	To confirm a persons student status for commercial and security purposes.
Recordings of telephone calls to/from Urbanest and Urbanest call log data	Tenancy administration, marketing, fraud prevention, complaint handling, staff training, supplier account administration.
CCTV of communal areas of residential buildings	Building management, tenancy administration, fraud prevention, complaint handling, staff training, security and welfare.
SkyGuard / Solo Protect voice recordings	Complaint handling, security and welfare.
Electronic door access logs	Building management, tenancy administration, fraud prevention, complaint handling, security and welfare.
Web live chat discussions	Tenancy administration, marketing, fraud prevention, complaint handling, staff training.
Web traffic data and IP address/location of visitors to the Urbanest website	Marketing, fraud prevention.
Tenant postal package delivery data	To permit tenant deliveries to be administered in the building, fraud prevention.
Accident book data	Building management, complaint handling, security and welfare, health and safety.
Landlord references	To permit Urbanest to provide landlord references for tenants.
Asset tracking data	To permit Urbanest to lend tenants portable items (e.g. irons, games consoles etc).
Tenant health data for disabled residents (e.g. personal emergency evacuation plans)	To permit Urbanest to plan evacuation and evacuate disabled students in a safe manner. To permit Urbanest to provide additional support to disabled residents where required.
Tenant welfare and behavioural information (further details on how we might share this information can be found later in this policy).	To permit Urbanest to safeguard tenants and other 3rd parties within our residential buildings.
Tenant health data provided by tenants without this information being requested by Urbanest.	To allow Urbanest to receive to receive unrequested health information from tenants.
Data provided by tenants in the form of a market research questionnaire	To allow Urbanest to better understand the student accommodation sector and the preferences of Urbanest customers.
Personal data related to corporate social responsibility programmes or scholarship applicants	To allow management of CSR and scholarship programs.
Personal data related to individuals applying for work at Urbanest	To allow Urbanest to review applications of potential new staff members or individuals seeking work experience.
Personal data related to suppliers/contractors	To allow Urbanest to manage supplier/contractor relationships.
Personal data related to business customers	To allow Urbanest to manage business customer relationships.

In some circumstances where we are concerned about the welfare or behaviour of a tenant we may share this information with third parties either in the vital interest of the data subjects, the public interest, or in accordance with other exceptions permitted under data protection law. Where information of this nature is shared, it will usually be one of the third parties listed below:

• A tenant’s university/educational establishment (e.g. university welfare office).
• Healthcare professionals (e.g. local authority mental healthcare team).
• Emergency services.

We have suitable safeguards, policies and procedures in place to ensure this information is treated confidentially and is only shared with third parties after careful consideration. We may share this data without consent of the data subject especially where it is in the public interest or the vital interests of the tenant.

In highly exceptional circumstances, we may also contact next of kin to share welfare or behavioural information. However, any decision to share this information with next of kin can only be authorised at the highest level of the organisation and after careful consideration for the data privacy rights and freedoms of the tenant.

We may share your personal data with the local authority for the purposes of council tax administration at our buildings. This may include your name, contact details, university council tax exemption letter, tenancy start/end date and any other relevant information required for the purposes of council tax administration.

We may share your personal data with the local authority for the purposes of HMO licensing. This may include your name and contact details, tenancy start/end date and any other relevant information required for the purposes of HMO licensing.

Where urbanest have rented you a flat without utilities included within the rent, we may share your personal data with the utility providers. This may include your name, contact details, university tenancy start/end date, opening/closing meter readings and any other relevant information required for the purposes of utility bill administration.

Occasionally we may receive health data or other sensitive data from a tenant without having requested this information. An example of this being when a tenant may email us a doctor’s letter that we have not requested. In this situation, we will deem that the tenant has provided explicit consent for us to process this data or alternatively that we are processing the sensitive data on the basis that it has been manifestly made public by the tenant.

Although we provide free internet access within their residential buildings, the internet connection is controlled and managed exclusively by a third party on our behalf. In addition, this third party owns all the internet management hardware within the building. This third party is Glide Student and Residential Limited of 1 Rivermead Court, Kenn Business Park, Windmill Road, Kenn, Clevedon, BS21 6FT. As we have no authority or ability to access personally identifiable information passing over the internet connection Cablecom Networking Limited is deemed to be the data controller of the internet data.

We will only retain your personal information for as long as it is necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements. In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such information without further notice to you.

If you fail to provide certain vital information when requested, we may not be able to enter into a contract or provide services to you or continue to perform elements of existing the contracts that we have entered into with you, or we may be prevented from complying with our statutory obligations.

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal information for a different purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so. Please note that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, where this is required or permitted by law.

Automated decision-making takes place when an electronic system uses personal information to make a decision without human intervention. We are allowed to use automated decision-making in the following circumstances:

• Where we have notified you of the decision and given you 21 days to request a reconsideration.
• Where it is necessary to perform the contract with you and appropriate measures are in place to safeguard your rights.
• In limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent and where appropriate measures are in place to safeguard your rights.

If we make an automated decision on the basis of any particularly sensitive personal information, we must have either your explicit written consent or it must be justified in the public interest, and we must also put in place appropriate measures to safeguard your rights. You will not be subject to decisions that will have a significant impact on you based solely on automated decision-making, unless we have a lawful basis for doing so and we have notified you.

Personal data provided to us may be profiled to help us with targeted advertising. For example, we may use your personal data to find online users with a similar profile to yourself who may be interested in our products or services.

You can ask us to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by either following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you or by contacting us at any time.

We will share your personal information with third parties where required by law, where it is necessary to administer the working relationship with you or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so. We require third parties to respect the security of your data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We may transfer your personal information outside the UK. If we do, you can expect a similar degree of protection in respect of your personal information.

We may share personal information with the following categories of recipients:

• IT service providers, including internet service providers, head office IT system provider, web application service providers, data backup providers, mail hosting providers, customer management systems, call recording systems, postal package tracking systems, asset tracking systems, worker voice recording protection systems.
• Organisations providing legal services.
• Health and safety advisors.
• Auditors, accountants, lawyers and other professional advisors.
• Statutory bodies where we are required to share data.
• Banks, card payment gateways, merchant acquirers, and other financial services organisations.
• Debt collectors and credit reference agencies.
• Emergency services and healthcare professionals.
• Universities and other educational establishments.
• Local authorities.
• Organisations requesting landlord references.
• Investors.
• Guarantors/tenants.
• Urbanest marketing agencies.
• Contractors working for Urbanest including security contractors, maintenance contractors, IT contractors and other relevant contractors.
• Insurers.
• Other entities within the Urbanest group.
• Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy policy.

From time to time we may share your personal data with urbanest entities or third parties who are located outside of the UK. This will involve transferring your data outside the UK.

Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the UK, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

• We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data.
• We may use specific contracts approved for use in the UK which give personal data the same protection it has in the UK.
• Our tenant guarantors are located worldwide. When contacting these guarantors, we put in place suitable safeguards and utilise the UK GDPR performance of a contract derogation to allow us to contact them.

Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism or exemption used by us when transferring your personal data out of the UK.

Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

• Request access to your personal information (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
• Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.
• Request erasure of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal information where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).
• Object to the processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
• Request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
• Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.

If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please email dataprotection@urbanest.co.uk. You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances. We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that no personal information is disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. Please note that the above rights are not absolute and that depending on the circumstances we may determine that it is necessary (by reference to the rights and obligations imposed on us under the UK GDPR) for the processing of all or some of the personal information that you provided us with to continue.

Information system and data security is imperative to us to ensure that we are keeping our customers and contractors safe. We operate a robust and thorough process for assessing, managing and protecting new and existing systems which ensures that our systems are up to date and secure against the ever-changing data protection threat landscape. Our staff complete mandatory information security and data protection training annually to reinforce responsibilities and requirements set out in our information security policies. We have put in place procedures to identify any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach wherever we are legally required to do so.

In the limited circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact dataprotection@urbanest.co.uk. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

We have appointed a Group Data Protection Leader to oversee compliance with data protection legislation. If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, please email dataprotection@urbanest.co.uk. You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory body for data protection issues.

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We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time, and we will provide you with a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information. This privacy policy has been in effect since 31st March 2021.

The urbanest group consists of a number of legal entities (see list below). These legal entities operate as ‘joint data controllers’ which means from a data protection perspective they act as a single group. Data is shared freely between entities in the group where required for business purposes and in accordance with relevant data protection legislation. The group of companies have appointed Urbanest UK Ltd as the legal entity that will respond to all data protection queries for the group.

Where you have received either (1) a positive test result for a serious communicable disease (SCD), or (2) are suspected of having a SCD, or (3) are self-isolating or should be self-isolating in accordance with public health authority guidance as a result of an SCD, Urbanest may share this personal information about you with:

• Our residents or other third parties you may have come in to contact with (to facilitate contact tracing).
• Our residents or other third parties living in your shared flat or shared living areas.
• The University or educational establishment that you are a student at.
• Any relevant Public Health Authorities (e.g. Public Health England).
• Any relevant health professional (e.g. NHS 111).
• Any other relevant public authority.
• Our employees (to facilitate your welfare management and the protection of our employees and contractors).

 

This information will be shared and processed in accordance with UK GDPR Article 9 part 2, and in relation to the public interest.

 

Where we do share this personal data about you we will usually notify you – unless it is only shared amongst Urbanest employees.

The legal entities in the PDF below represent the ‘joint data controllers’ within the urbanest group.  The contact address for all these organisations is 101 St Martin’s Lane, London WC2N 4AZ.

Click here to download