Housing associations manage vast amounts of data. Vidomes – responsible for around 19,000 housing units in South Holland – alone oversees over one million documents. These documents must comply with GDPR regulations and cannot be retained indefinitely. CorporatieGids spoke with Tineke de Vries, Business Advisor for ICT & Digitisation at Vidomes, about how the association meets legal requirements, uses AI to automatically identify restricted documents, and benefits from data minimisation.
The idea that housing associations should no longer store all possible data is gaining traction at Vidomes. “Wanting to retain documents is entirely understandable,” Tineke begins. “It feels right to hold on to information, and collecting data comes more naturally than cleaning it up. After all, what if you need it later? But awareness is growing – driven by the desire to comply with GDPR, protect personal data, and increase sustainability – that not all data is needed forever. That’s why we’ve started working on clearing out and deleting data that’s no longer relevant.”
Over One Million Documents
This is no small task, given Vidomes manages more than a million documents. “Over the years, we’ve accumulated a massive amount of information that we’re no longer allowed to keep. That needs to be deleted. On the other hand, we also have data that no longer serves our operations. Both types need to be removed or redacted, while also raising awareness among staff about their role in information management. That means discussing whether specific data is needed, whether it’s relevant to the individual or the wider organisation, storing it properly and linking it to appropriate retention periods. That’s not only safer – it also makes truly relevant documents easier to find.”
Responsibility Lies with Everyone
According to Tineke, this new perspective on document retention must be constantly reinforced: “Like many other associations, we’ve automated many processes. Our ERP system Tobias 365, for instance, automatically generates and archives documents. Other systems also have buttons to send files directly to our ECM system, E-Content 365. But people are used to certain routines and often see proper data management as an extra burden. At Vidomes, however, everyone is responsible for the data they work with – and that includes proper archiving.”
Not All Data Is Useful Forever
Tineke illustrates with an example: “Take a mailing to residents about a renovation project. It’s very useful during the project and shortly thereafter, but what about after one, three or even five years? The renovation is long completed and tenant interactions will revolve around other matters. If such documents aren’t automatically deleted, they remain visible on the tenant’s profile, making important, current information harder to find.”
Linking Retention Periods
In the near future, Vidomes wants to link retention periods to all its documents. “This ensures that irrelevant data is deleted on time, and important data isn’t lost too early. We’ve taken our time to set this up correctly, because linking retention periods to all your records is a major task – and we want to get it right from the start.”
AI-Powered Cleanup
To make older data GDPR-compliant, Vidomes works with Archive-IT, the supplier of its ECM software. Tineke: “We store vast amounts of data in their E-Content system. Since 2018, we’ve changed the way we store data, but we still carry a legacy from the years before. Archive-IT offered functionality to identify and mask ID documents, but that didn’t cover all files – for example, those that were scanned at an angle. Thankfully, Archive-IT partnered with an AI tool provider to identify, mask, or delete such data and support the secure and efficient use of the tool. With it, we’ve been able to address unwanted data within Vidomes and comply with current legislation.”
Accurate Digital Housekeeping
“Before using the tool, we scoped the cleanup project,” Tineke explains. “We decided which documents and data needed removing – including blurring citizen service numbers (BSNs), replacing ID documents with blank pages, and deleting income statements. We tested the tool in a sandbox version of E-Content and conducted sample checks before making the changes live. The biggest advantage of this technology is the time it saves. Doing this manually would have taken many FTEs and a huge amount of time. Plus, the AI improves over time by learning from previous projects with other housing associations.”
Towards Mature Data Management
Vidomes plans to further improve how it handles retention and deletion. “We’re also moving from network drives to SharePoint, which includes a cleanup phase. In the future, we’ll increasingly use Microsoft products like SharePoint and Teams. We want to make use of new features like data classifications, where files can be tagged by type. That allows us to control access, usage, and retention more effectively. This is how we continue to ensure data is available, secure, and reliable – and for me, that’s the next step towards fully mature information management.”
Bron: CorporatieGids Magazine