In the last 12 months, rent has increased by an average of 1.5% in the UK, and with this aggressive hunt for rent, lettings agencies have made the process more difficult. 

If you are looking for rent, you may be required to provide all sorts of documentation and references, including bank statements, payslips, invoices, work contracts, landlord reference, friends and family reference, work reference and many others.

 

But, do you know how all this information is handled?

Today we are going to look at the type of data collected by agencies, as well as the third parties with whom this data is being shared.

Many letting agencies collect and process the following details about you:

Name

Address

Email

Phone Number

Address history

Gender

Marital status

National Insurance Number

Employment history

Financial information

IP address

Type of browser used to access their website (e.g Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Safari etc)

Products you searched or viewed on their website

Where did you clicked on the page

How much did you stayed on the website

How did you interact with the website

Date and time when you accessed the website

 

All this information is usually stored for up to 7 years. We also found in our research that there are some agencies that share your personal data with companies from USA and/or India.

As you can see there are a lot of things these agencies collect and do with your data, and it raises a big issue regarding data privacy.

It’s time to do something about privacy. Your privacy is a right, not a privilege. Take back control over your data!

 

#keepitprivate #dataprivacy #dataprotection