Tenancy Deposit Scheme Northern Ireland is committed to protecting the privacy of our users. This policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information.

This is the privacy policy of Tenancy Deposit Scheme Northern Ireland (registration number NI615475) registered at Office 2-19, The Innovation Factory, 385 Springfield Road, Forthriver Business Park, Belfast, Northern Ireland, BT12 7DG. 

Tenancy Deposit Scheme Northern Ireland is a subsidiary of The Dispute Service Ltd (registration number 4851694) registered at West Wing, First Floor, The Maylands Building, Maylands Avenue, Hemel Hemsptead, HP21 7TG. Tenancy Deposit Scheme Northern Ireland operates under a contract with the Department for Communities.  



Data Controller

Tenancy Deposit Scheme Northern Ireland (TDSNI) is the Data Controller of your personal data. As a controller, we process the data we hold in accordance with this privacy notice and in compliance with the Data Protection Act 2018 and all other relevant legislation.

When you become a member/customer of TDSNI, we will collect specific data about yourself and/or your organisation to include your name, telephone number, address, contact email addresses, and bank details.  

When you protect a tenancy deposit with TDSNI, we will collect specific information about that tenancy to include the property address, tenancy dates, deposit value, details of the parties to the tenancy agreement, and other relevant information about the property and tenancy.  

We will also collect all necessary information in order for us to repay a deposit or resolve a deposit dispute. In the event of a dispute, you will be invited to submit any evidence which you wish to support your claim and you are responsible for uploading this evidence. All evidence submitted to TDSNI will be visible to both TDSNI, and any other parties to the dispute.

When contacting our Customer Services team, we will record phone calls and these will be stored for 3 months. 

We may also collect certain information about your device and usage of the site, such as your IP address, browser type, operating system, access times and pages visited.

When a deposit is registered by a TDSNI member, we will ask the member to provide the name of the tenant or tenants along with an email address and/or mobile number. We will also ask the member to provide us with relevant details about the tenancy to include the property address, deposit amount, tenancy dates, and other details about the property. 

You will be invited to activate an account which allows you to manage your data and deposit. You will be responsible for keeping your details up to date, and adding any additional data required such as your bank details so that we can make repayment at the end of the tenancy. In the event of a tenancy deposit dispute at the end of the tenancy, TDSNI will collect information provided to us through our online disputes portal. You will be invited to respond to a repayment request, and any resulting dispute, and will have the opportunity to submit evidence. This evidence can be accessed by both TDSNI, and any party to the dispute. 

We may also collect certain information about your device and usage of the site, such as your IP address, browser type, operating system, access times and pages visited.

TDSNI will collect information relevant to your job application, and/or any resulting employment. Your information will be stored securely and removed when it is no longer required by TDSNI to fulfil any responsibility as an employer or legislative requirement. For job applications, we will retain a copy of your data for up to 12 months.

• From any online form you fill out such as an application for membership to TDS TDSNI or a tenancy deposit repayment request, registering or responding to a dispute or collection of evidence forms.
• Through phone calls to our Customer Service Centre which are recorded and retained for a period 3 months from the call date.
• Through messages received on our social media accounts.
• Through evidence provided by parties to a tenancy deposit dispute such as contact details within a tenancy agreement.
• Through the use of our various communications tools, to include email, phone and social media.
• Through any surveys or questionnaires which our customers choose to actively participate in
• Through any updates to your online account.
• Any other situations where data is legally and voluntarily sent to TDSNI.

TDSNI uses electronic communication media when sending correspondence to customers and parties to a dispute. This allows TDSNI to track the delivery of the communications (e.g. emails) sent to the parties to ascertain whether delivery is completed successfully.

In the event that electronic communications are opened by the recipient, TDSNI may be able to see how many times the email has been opened and on what date(s). TDSNI can also determine the location where these events occurred.

TDSNI collects personal information to fulfil its contractual requirement to operate a tenancy deposit protection scheme. This allows parties to protect tenancy deposits, and have any resulting disputes resolved.  

As tenancy deposit protection is mandatory, TDSNI must collect information such as names and contact details in order to be able to contact parties regarding the deposit protection and to comply with the legislation.

TDSNI collects and stores data in order to contact our customers and provide an adequate service.

TDSNI will request personal information from tenants in the event that an insurance claim is required due to their deposit being misappropriated by the deposit holder.

TDSNI may use information to conduct surveys in relation to improving our services.

TDSNI uses data for the following purposes:

• To provide services relating to your tenancy. This will include contacting customers by email and phone to welcome them to our scheme and provide information about tenancy deposit protection and dispute resolution. We may also discuss additional relevant services offered by TDS Group if you are happy to do so.
• To submit any details requested by any authorised body investigating a crime.
• To submit any details requested by His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs or other government agency or local authority under the relevant legislation.
• To provide relevant information on deposit protection, and other products and services which are deemed relevant to your tenancy.
• To provide relevant information in the form of a newsletter.
• To provide relevant information on upcoming training and events.
• To provide you with the opportunity to offer your feedback through surveys.

TDSNI processes personal information on our servers throughout the United Kingdom and the EU in accordance with current and incoming legislation. TDSNI may therefore process personal information on a server located outside of the country where you live.

We do not share personal information with individuals or companies outside of TDSNI except in the following circumstances:

Where you choose to engage in our independent adjudication service which consists of submitting personal information and evidence to an online portal, this evidence will be viewable by employees dealing with the case at TDSNI along with the agent, landlord(s) and tenant(s) who are party to the tenancy agreement, including any persons acting on their behalf.

We retain the right to share your information with organisations or individuals if we reasonably believe in good faith that disclosure of information is necessary to:

• Fulfil an applicable law, regulation or legal process.
• Fulfil an enforceable Government request, to include data requested by HMRC.
• Protect vital interests of a data subject (e.g. life or death situations, vulnerable situations) and performance of a task in the public interest.
• Address fraudulent activity including in the prevention or detection of it.
• Address a security issue.
• Address a technical issue.

TDSNI reserves the right to share non-personal information publicly and with our partners for educational purposes, publication of annual reviews or publication of statistics.

TDSNI may disclose your information to third parties who provide services on our behalf, or with whom we have contractual agreements such as hosting providers, payment processors, and marketing partners. 

Under the Data Protection Act 2018, you have a number of rights regarding the data we hold for you. TDSNI wants to ensure our customers are aware of their rights and how we ensure they are met:

Right to rectification – Your right without undue delay to rectification of inaccurate personal data. Our customers are able to update their personal details online under their account or alternatively, can contact TDSNI for help updating details.

Right to erasure – Your right to the deletion of your personal data. TDSNI will consider a request for data erasure on a case by case basis depending on whether TDSNI must retain the data for legislative purposes.

Right to restrict data processing – Your right to obtain from us restriction of data processing. TDSNI will consider the circumstances that may be relevant around any request. Where processing restrictions are granted, such personal data will only be processed with consent or in relation to legal claims.

Right to data portability – Your right to receive personal data in a structured, commonly used format. You are able to find your personal data under your account. Alternatively, TDSNI will provide all data held for you in a readable format.

Right to object – Your right to object at any time to processing of personal data. TDSNI will only proceed with processing if we have compelling legitimate grounds for processing after an objection to processing.

Right to not be subject to automated-decision making – TDSNI will not subject any individual to automated-decision making.

All individuals are entitled under the Data Protection Act to request a copy of the information an organisation holds on them. An individual who makes a written request and pays any fee applicable is entitled to:

• Information on what data TDS hold for you.
• Clarification on whether any personal data is being processed.
• Reasons why any personal data is being processed.
• A copy of the data held.

TDSNI will deal with any subject access requests within 30 days in accordance with legislation. In exceptional cases, it may takes us more than 30 days to respond to your subject access request; where this is the case we will always let you know we require more time.

To make a subject access request please send your full name and details of the data you are requesting to the following email: 

or by post to West Wing, First Floor, The Maylands Building, 200 Maylands Avenue, HP2 7TG. We may contact you to verify your identity, we will normally require photographic ID and a copy of a recent utility bill before we can satisfy your request.

To make a complaint or for further information regarding personal information held by TDS on yourself, please email: 

You have the right to make an enquiry or complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you are unhappy with our use of your data. Further details can be found on the ICO website.

Retention of information

All information will be stored securely and is disposed in a secure manner when no longer required.

Information relating to a deposit protection or dispute will be held for seven years from the end of the tenancy, and any resulting dispute, in accordance with our Government contract

Phone calls which are recorded in our customer contact centre are stored for up to 90 days.

TDSNI will hold data for as long as reasonably required in order to:

• Comply with applicable law or respond to a valid process;
• Protect the rights of our customers.

When deleting your personal data, it will be removed from our live, test and development databases immediately. We will not actively remove this data from our log-files or back-up databases as these are not freely available to be used in the normal course of business. The data will be expunged from these databases through the normal cycle of over-writing back-ups.