Collecting information about you
We collect personal information about you whenever you use our products and services. Some of it is information you give us directly if you sign up or register for an account, and other information is collected as you interact with us by using our website or App or if you contact us with a query.
Information we get from your device
We collect information from the devices you use to access our site. This includes the following: your IP address (a number that identifies a specific device on the internet and is required for your device to communicate with websites), hardware model, operating system and version, software, user agent, device information, preferred language, serial numbers, device motion information, mobile network information and location data.
We collect Web server log files, which may include information such as dates and times of access, the features or pages you view, app or site crashes and other system activity, the third party site or service you were using immediately before you came to our site, and the URL you go to immediately after leaving our site.
Our website may also use Hotair and Apsee. These are third parties that assist us by providing recording services, which record mouse clicks and movements, page scrolling and any text you key into forms on the site. This data helps us to improve our website, find and fix errors and improve site functionality and is also used for statistical reporting about site use and performance
Information we get via Cookies
'Cookies' are small text files stored in your web browser that enable us to recognize your computer when you visit our website or our mobile app. Cookies are essential to keep certain parts of our website functioning correctly and securely. We also use them to make things quicker, easier and more personal to you, and to help us understand how our websites are used. They can also be used to present you with more tailored content or advertising.
To do all of these things, cookies collect some personal information about you whenever you use our websites. You can choose whether to accept or reject some or all types of cookies through your device's browser settings. We will make you aware of this by showing you our cookie banner when you visit our site.
If you then continue to use our websites without adjusting your browser settings, we will use cookies as set out in the sections below, so to help you make an informed choice, you need to understand why we use the different types of cookie and what that means for your online experience.
This section provides you with a summary of the main points and tells you how switching off the different types of cookie will affect your experience on our websites.
Most cookies we use are "session cookies," which are automatically deleted at the end of a browsing session, but we also use "persistent" cookies. These stay on your hard drive and we use it to automatically recognize you as the same visitor when you return to our site or app.
The cookie itself contains no personally identifiable information about you but it does pass an ID to our server which allows us to tie the cookie to you so we can update the homepage to let you know what has changed since your last visit.
Information we get from external companies
Like many companies, from time to time we may supplement the information we hold about you with data from companies like Experian or, in the UK, the Royal Mail that collate and update address and household information from a range of sources and make it commercially available. This helps us keep our records up to date, fill gaps in our data and learn more about our customers so we can continue to improve our products and services. We will only work with reputable organisations that obtain their data legally in accordance with data protection law.
Occasionally, we obtain lists of potential customers from companies that collate these details and make them commercially available for marketing purposes. We only deal with reputable companies that take privacy as seriously as we do and have obtained your consent to share this data with us or with companies in our sector for marketing, and you will always be able to opt out of receiving further marketing from us.
If we acquire another business, we will usually obtain customer information as part of the handover process. In this case, we or the other company will let you know that your personal information is changing hands, provide you with a copy of this privacy policy after completion of the acquisition, and explain what to do if you do not wish your information to change hands.
Information we get from social media
We may use information posted publicly on social media sites to help us understand how our customers interact with us. For example, we might look at which groups of customers are more likely to contact us via social media or to use social media to talk about our products and services. We do this in a way that does not identify individual customers.
How and why we use your personal information
We use the information we hold about you in a range of different ways, which fall into these broad categories:
- Things we need to do in order to provide you with the products or services you've requested;
- Things we need to do to meet legal or regulatory obligations;
- Things that enable us to run our business effectively and efficiently;
- Things we do with your consent for marketing purposes.
We're telling you this because European data protection law gives you rights over your personal data, which differ according to which of these categories it falls into. This section explains more about each category, the rights it gives you, how to exercise them and what that means in practice.
Providing our products and services
As you would expect, we use your personal information to provide you with our products and services; respond to queries and provide you with the best possible level of customer service. We use technical information about your device, such as operating system, browser version and location to present you with the correct version of our website or app and keep it functioning securely and correctly.