Developing a Regulatory and Deployment Framework for Smart Social Housing Sensors

This is a Glasgow City Region-funded consultancy project led by Intelligens Consulting.

Glasgow City Region faces a clear challenge: there is no practical, trusted framework to guide RSLs on the lawful and proportionate use of sensor technologies in social housing

Uncertainty across data protection, human rights, tenancy law, fairness, consent and safeguards creates hesitation, inconsistent practice and missed opportunities

RSLs want to adopt sensors but fear “getting the law wrong.” Current advice is fragmented and not grounded in deployment realities

This project will fill that gap

We will develop a clear, authoritative Smart Social Assets Handbook explaining:– what deployments are lawful and proportionate– the regulatory and operational basis for each scenario– what data can be collected, shared and retained– how to communicate with and protect tenants– the safeguards and governance required– how to prepare for new technologies

Our methodology defines a taxonomy of assessment factors and produces profiles for each use-case (agreed by a working group convened by GCR) that set out intrusiveness, permissions and safeguards—resulting in a practical PDF guide for consistent decision-making

The output will be a trusted framework supported by templates, workflows, governance guidance and foundations for a future digital/AI knowledge base

Our team combines regulatory insight, evidence-based research, IoT deployment experience and legal scholarship

Central to this is Professor Guido Noto La Diega, a leading expert in IoT law, consumer protection and digital rights, and author of Internet of Things and the Law

His leadership ensures the framework is legally robust, credible and aligned with emerging UK and EU thinking

We complement this with strong operational experience delivering IoT programmes with Wheatley Group, GMCA, Renfrewshire, North Ayrshire, Perth & Kinross and others

This ensures guidance reflects how sensors work in real homes, including installation, permissions, tenant expectations, governance and data flows

Together, the team provides the strategic, legal and operational depth needed to give Glasgow City Region—and Scotland’s housing sector—the confidence to deploy smart social asset technologies safely and consistently

Led by Intelligence Consulting (Iqbal Singh Bedi), this project aims to create a governance and deployment framework for smart sensors in social housing. Burness Paull are involved too.

In a nutshell, there is no single practical regulatory framework that tells social landlords and councils how to legally and ethically deploy sensor technologies, which leads to underadoption of smart technologies in social housing. With a framework in place, we hope that uptake can increase in a sustainable and responsible way.

The key deliverable of this project will be a smart social assets handbook, i.e. a practical, usable guide for social landlords and councils, including:
–deployment rules per use case
–safeguards and governance requirements
–operational workflows
–data protection impact assessment prompts and templates
–tenant communication guidance
–proportionate-use decision tool