Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy
We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy notice will inform you as to how we look after your personal data when you visit our website (regardless of where you visit it from) and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.
Please also use the ‘Glossary’ to understand the meaning of some of the terms used in this privacy notice.
Purpose of this privacy notice
This privacy notice aims to give you information on how we collect and process your personal data through your use of this website, including any data you may provide through this website when you use our eTenancy services (either directly or indirectly through a property manager), utilise our site and or related platform, submit a property enquiry, search for a property using the site’s ‘find your home’ option, listing a property with us, and/or create an account with us.
This website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.
It is important that you read this privacy notice together with any other privacy notice or fair processing notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This privacy notice supplements the other notices and is not intended to override them.
Controller
StuRents Limited is the controller and responsible for your personal data (collectively referred to as "StuRents", "we", "us" or "our" in this privacy notice).
We will act as a data processor in respect of personal data collected on your behalf from a property manager, guarantor, supplier or third party which is provided via our platform, when any of the above parties, for example, utilise our eTenancy services.
We have appointed a data privacy manager who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact the data privacy manager using the details set out below.
Contact details
Our full details are:
Full name of legal entity: StuRents Limited
Email address: dataprotection@sturents.com
Postal address: Data Privacy Manager, StuRents Limited, Unit 602, 164-180 Union Street, London, SE1 0LH
Telephone number: 0330 5001130
You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.
Changes to the privacy notice and your duty to inform us of changes
This version was last updated on 17th November 2021.
It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.
Third-party links
This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.
Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).
We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:
We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data may be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this privacy notice.
In most instances, we do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you as a user of our platform (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data).
We do collect Special Category Data if you are a user of our eTenancy services. We collect the following Special Category Data during our eTenancy process;
Special Category Data:
We do not collect any information about criminal convictions and offences. However, if you are a tenant or guarantor user, third parties may undertake credit reference checks utilising your details which are collected on our platform. This is so the Property Manager can administer your contract with them and ensure an appropriate letting arrangement is found according to your financial circumstances. This is discussed further below.
If you fail to provide personal data
Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with services). In this case, we may have to cancel a service you have with us but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.
We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:
Please see our Cookie Policy below for further details.
We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:
Generally, we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data other than in relation to sending third party direct marketing communications to you via email or text message. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting us using the details provided in this Privacy Policy.
Purposes for which we will use your personal data
We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.
Note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.
Purpose/Activity | Type of data | Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest |
---|---|---|
To register you as a new tenant, guarantor, or property manager |
(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Financial |
Performance of a contract with you |
To facilitate users to enquire about properties of interest, arrange viewings, make bookings, or find potential housemates |
(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Profile Data |
Necessary for our legitimate interests (to provide users with the ability to find properties of interest and communicate with landlords and property managers to arrange viewings or make bookings. |
To facilitate the protection of users' tenancy deposits with a regulated deposit protection provider |
(a) Identity (b) Contact |
(a) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation (facilitate the compliance with landlords' or property managers' legal obligations) (b) Performance of a contract concluded in your interests (c) Necessary for our legitimate interests (To keep you informed in respect of your deposit protection and to provide landlords and property managers with an efficient online facility to protect tenancy deposits) |
To allow tenant users to take up Utility Services including (but not limited to) gas supply, electricity supply, water supply, tv licence, internet and/or television-related packages for a property |
(a) Identity (b) Contact |
Necessary for our legitimate interests (to provide landlords with the ability to take up Utility Services for the property they rent or will rent in the future). |
To allow landlord or property manager users to utilise third party platforms for accounting services and CRM |
(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Financial (d) Transaction (d) Marketing and Communications |
(a) When the landlord or property manager has obtained your consent and/or has established an alternative legal justification via their terms and conditions with you to share for this purpose (b) Performance of a contract (c) Necessary for your, our and the landlord or property manager's legitimate interests (to ensure accurate accounting and tenant records are maintained securely to be able to administer tenancies and manage tenant details more efficiently) |
To process and deliver our platform to you including: (a) Manage payments, fees and charges, including facilitating credit reference checks and facilitating payments (b) Facilitate any contracts or arrangements entered in to between you and a third party via out platform (including assured shorthold tenancy or licence to occupy) (c) Collect and recover money owed to us |
(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Financial (d) Transaction (e) Marketing and Communications (f) Technical (g) Usage |
Performance of a contract with you |
To manage our relationship with you which will include: (a) Notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy policy (b) Asking you to leave a review or take a survey (c) If you are a landlord, letting agent or other business/advertising user, to send you e-mails detailing the relevant statistics about your property portfolio (d) If you are a tenant or guarantor to contact you via email and SMS to notify you if the rent due under an Assured shorthold tenancy has fallen in to arrears, or if a rent or tenancy related paying is coming due |
(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Profile Data (d) Marketing and Communications |
(a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation (c) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated, to keep you informed in respect of your property lets, and to study how customers use our products/services) |
To enable you to partake in a competition or complete a survey |
(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Profile (d) Usage (e) Marketing and Communications |
(a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our products/services, to develop them and grow our business) |
To perform our legal obligation under fraud protection regulations and credit risk reduction |
(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Financial |
(a) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation |
(a) To administer and protect our business and this website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data) (b) To allow you to participate in interactive features of our service when you choose to do so. |
(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Technical |
(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise) (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation |
To deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you. This includes Google Analytics which tracks the pages you visit on our site |
(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Profile (d) Usage (e) Marketing and Communications (f) Technical |
Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our products/services, to develop them, to grow our business and to inform our marketing strategy) |
To use data analytics to improve our website, services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences. This includes Google Tag manger, AdWords, Analytics, Facebook and Bing |
(a) Technical (b) Usage |
Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of customers for our products and services, to keep our website updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy) |
To make suggestions and recommendations to you about goods or services that may be of interest to you |
(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Technical (d) Usage (e) Profile |
Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our products/services and grow our business) |
To facilitate Right to Rent checks which are undertaken by third parties |
(a) Sensitive Category Data |
(a) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation (b) Explicit Consent |
Marketing
We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal data uses, particularly around marketing and advertising. You can manage your preferences to various platform communications by logging into your account and going to the Settings page in your account.
Promotional offers from us
We may use your Identity, Contact, Technical, Usage and Profile Data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which services and offers may be relevant for you (we call this marketing).
If you are a landlord or letting agent, we will send to you regular emails detailing relevant statistics about your property or properties on our website, which will not constitute marketing. As a user, we may send to you regular emails detailing your activity on our website and guidance on how to use our services, as well as property bulletins to inform you of available properties on our website that are relevant to your search activity, which will not constitute marketing.
You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us or purchased services from us or if you provided us with your details when you entered a competition, registered for an account with us, listed a property on our platforms, and/or proceeded to our site via channels such as Facebook, Google, Bing and/or another analytical advert. In each case, this is only if you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.
Third-party marketing
We will get your explicit opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any company outside StuRents group of companies for marketing purposes.
Opting out
You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by logging into the website and checking or unchecking relevant boxes to adjust your marketing preferences or by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you.
Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of creating an account with us, utilising our eTenancy platform as a tenant, guarantor or property manager, listing a property with us, or having purchased a service or other transaction from us.
Cookies
You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly. For more information about the cookies we use, please see below.
Change of purpose
We will only use your personal data 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 you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us.
If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated 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 data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.
We may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table above. We may also share your personal information with any member of our group, which means our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company and its subsidiaries, as defined in section 1159 of the UK Companies Act 2006. We will not sell any personal information of yours that identifies you or allows you to be contacted by third parties without your consent.
We may disclose your personal information to third parties:
If due to your financial circumstances, tenancy and/or letting arrangements a property manager finds it necessary to undertake such a credit reference check, the report shall be made available to the landlord user via our site once we have received it from the third-party supplier. This is in order that a suitable letting arrangement can be provided to you via out platform.
If required under a legal obligation, contractual obligation or if it is in our, a tenant's, property manager's, landlord's or guarantor's legitimate interests to do so (i.e. to facilitate, manage and administer tenancy arrangements), we may disclose all such personal data to third parties (including credit reference agencies). A third party may:
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 notice.
We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. If we share your personal data in either our controller or processor capacity with a third-party service provider acting as a sub-processor (like with an accounting platform), we do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.
We may share your personal data with employees of StuRents who are based outside the European Economic Area (EEA). Such staff may be engaged in, among other things, the fulfilment of your order, the processing of your payment details and the provision of support services. This will involve transferring your data outside the EEA.
A number of our external third parties are based outside the EEA so their processing of your personal data will involve a transfer of data outside the EEA. These include third parties we use to collect payments and perform credit reference checks on our site.
Credit/debit card and bank details are not stored by StuRents, and are stored and managed by FCA regulated third party payment providers. If you require details of these third parties, please contact us.
Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is met or a derogation applies:
Please contact us if you would like further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data out of the EEA.
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.
How long will you use my personal data for?
We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collect it for, including for the purposes of satisfying and 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 hard 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 data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.
Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. Be aware that in some capacities, we may act as a data processor, and in this capacity, we may not be able to comply with the following requests. However, we will inform the relevant data controller of your request and assist them as required under UK GDPR.
Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data 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 data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
Object to processing of your personal data 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 as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which overrides your rights and freedoms.
Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data's accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.
If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us.
No fee usually required
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.
What we may need from you
We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.
Time limit to respond
We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.
‘LAWFUL BASIS’
Legitimate Interest means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service/product and the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us.
Performance of Contract means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.
Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject to.
Explicit consent means processing your data only when we have your express consent to do so.
Cookies
What is a cookie?
A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer if you agree. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer's hard drive.
Information about our use of cookies
Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.
We use the following cookies:
You can find more information about the individual cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them in the table below:
Cookie |
Purpose |
stu_auth |
Stores your authentication token to allow you to be logged in automatically next time you visit |
stu_ad |
Stores the fact that you arrived at our site from an advert elsewhere online |
stu_cookie |
Stores the fact that you have read and closed our cookie notice |
stu_survey |
Stores the fact that you have completed or hidden one or more surveys whilst on the site |
sturents_new |
Stores the fact that you have signed up as a new user |
PHPSESSID |
Allows the website to function |
Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager |
Used to enable us to understand how our users interact with our website and to diagnose technical problems and to target advertising to users who visit our site. You can read more information on the cookies used by Google by visiting Google's help pages |
Microsoft Clarity |
Used to enable us to understand how our users interact with our website and to
diagnose technical problems. |
Please note that third parties (including, for example, advertising networks and providers of external services like web traffic analysis services) may also use cookies, over which we have no control. These cookies are likely to be analytical/performance cookies or targeting cookies. You can prevent the site loading third party analytics tools by clicking here.
You are able to block cookies by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies. However, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you will be unable to sign in to our website.
With regards to Google Analytics, Google have an opt out page here that provides visitors with the ability to prevent their data from being used by Google Analytics.
Except for essential cookies, all cookies will expire after 30 days.
Where we store your personal data
Please note we use third parties to collect payments and perform credit reference checks on our site and the data that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the European Economic Area (EEA). It may also be processed by staff operating outside the EEA who work for our payment processors. Such staff may be engaged in, among other things, the fulfilment of your order, the processing of your payment details and the provision of support services. Credit/debit card and bank details are not stored by StuRents, and are stored and managed by third party payment providers. By submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.
Please further note that we store your data on a secure third party CRM system.
Please note that where you have registered on the site and chosen a password which enables you to access certain parts of our site, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.
Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.
Uses made of the information
We use information held about you in the following ways:
Disclosure of your information
We may share your personal information with any member of our group, which means our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company and its subsidiaries, as defined in section 1159 of the UK Companies Act 2006.
We will not sell any personal information of yours that identifies you or allows you to be contacted by third parties without your consent.
In addition to the above, we may also share your information with selected third parties including:
We may disclose your personal information to third parties:
Your Rights
You have the right to:
Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data 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 data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
Object to processing of your personal data 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 as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want to establish the data's accuracy, (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it, (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims, (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.
You can also exercise any of these rights at any time by contacting us by email to dataprotection@sturents.com.
Our site may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of our partner networks, advertisers and affiliates. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.
Changes to our Privacy Policy
Any changes we may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy.
Contact
We welcome comments, questions, feedback and requests regarding our site and this privacy policy and these should be communicated to us by submitting a support request when logged in..
Please note that third parties (including, for example, advertising networks and providers of external services like web traffic analysis services) may also use cookies, over which we have no control. These cookies are likely to be analytical/performance cookies or targeting cookies..