Archived privacy statements
 

Utility Warehouse Limited and its affiliates ("Utility Warehouse", “UW”, "us", or "we") respect your right to privacy. At Utility Warehouse, we look after any information which could identify you (“personal information”) carefully. We strictly comply with all UK data protection laws, and we are listed on the public register of data controllers, which is looked after by the Information Commissioner.

This Privacy Notice tells you who we are, how we collect, share and use your personal information, and how you can exercise your privacy rights. It applies to personal information that we use to provide you with our services or products, and personal information which we collect through our website. If we change the way we handle your personal information, we'll update this Privacy Notice and you'll be able to see the changes.

Please take a moment to read this Privacy Notice so that you understand how we use your personal information.

If you have any questions or concerns about our use of your personal information, then please contact us at  [email protected].

You can also write to us at:

Privacy Team
Utility Warehouse Ltd
508 Edgware Road 
The Hyde 
London
NW9 5AB 

The data controller of your personal information is Utility Warehouse Limited, which is registered with the ICO with registration number ZA243042.

We recommend reading this Privacy Notice in full to understand how we use your personal information. Use the links on the left to navigate to a particular section.

We’re UW, a multi-utility supplier based in the United Kingdom. We supply people and businesses with utility, household and financial products and services, including gas, electricity, broadband, fixed line telephony, mobile and insurance.

To provide our services we are affiliated with a group of companies, including:

• Electricity Plus Supply Limited

• Gas Plus Supply Limited

• Telecom Plus PLC

• Telecommunications Management Limited

• Utilities Plus Limited

• Utility Warehouse Limited

• UW Home Services Limited

• UDC

• Glow Green Limited (Glow Green's Privacy Notice) 

• 1p Mobile

We may notify you if this list of companies changes.

This privacy notice also applies to our Partners who recommend our services and provide support to the customers within their network. Partners handle your personal information in a way which is compatible with this privacy notice. Learn more about Partners here.

We collect your personal information when you contact us, when you use our website, when you sign up to one of our services, and as part of our ongoing provision of services. When collecting your personal information, we’ll always make clear to you which information is necessary in connection with a particular service. 

We collect different types of personal information depending on our relationship with you and the services we provide to you.


Broadly, these types of personal information include:

Information about you
Your name, gender, date of birth, email address, telephone number, mobile number, billing/delivery/supply address, orders and receipts, and a record of the products and services that we provide to you.

Financial information
Your bank account, card, and Direct Debit details. We may also check your credit score if you order a mobile handset. We are PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliant, meaning we follow the industry security standard.

Service and usage information

• Energy (gas and electricity)
  Energy usage information, such as amounts and times of energy consumption;

• Mobile
  Call data records, such as who contacted you, who you contacted, when the contact took place, the duration and your location when you used your mobile device; Similar information is recorded for data consumption while using your mobile device;

• Phone and broadband
  Call data records, such as who contacted you, who you contacted, when the contact took place, and call duration;

• Insurance
  Data required to rate the risk of the insurance product you choose, such as information about your house and household (such as number of occupants), joint policy holders’ possessions, and your claims history;

• Cashback scheme
  Information about the amount you spend and the retailers you use;

• Faults
  Information about your home network, meter or usage patterns in order to fix the fault.

Marketing and communications information

• Preferences
  Your marketing preferences and whether you want to hear from us or third parties we work with; 

• Surveys 
  When you choose to complete any customer surveys we send you, we will receive the information you volunteer about your use of our goods and services.
   

Technical information
IP address, device type, unique device identification numbers, browser-type, broad geographic location (e.g. country or city-level location) and other technical information. We also track how your device has interacted with our website by using cookies – see Section "Cookies and other similar tracking technology" for more information.

Service Communications
Content of your communications with us, including emails, letters webchats and phone calls. 

Sensitive information
Some of the information you provide may include sensitive personal information. You may provide this voluntarily, or we may need to collect it from you. Where we need to collect this information, we will obtain your consent or let you know our legal grounds for doing so, at the point when we ask you to provide this information.

Sensitive personal information includes:

• Health-related information;

• Information about your race or ethnicity;

• Vulnerability information, for example if you have a health condition or disability;

• Information related to criminal convictions, if you apply for our insurance products.

Data received from third parties
Sometimes we will collect personal information from third parties. We use this information to provide you with our services and products, and as otherwise necessary to run our business. This can include:

• Verifying your creditworthiness with a credit reference agency;

• Validating and verifying your bank account details;

• Checking the land registry to find out who is responsible for the energy bill at a property;

• When you’ve given a third-party permission to share with us the information they hold about you. For example, your previous telephone, broadband, mobile or energy supplier;

• Information our suppliers provide us about the product or service you have purchased.

Most commonly, we process your personal information for one of the following reasons:

To fulfil the contract between us
We need to process your personal information to perform our contract with you. For example, to provide you with the services you purchased, manage your account, accurately bill you for services, and take payment from you. Without your personal information, we would be unable to provide you with the products or services you order from us.

For legitimate business interests
Sometimes, we need to process your personal information for a legitimate business interest. For example, to run our business and to provide the best possible service to you.

To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
As a multiservice provider, we must comply with the relevant legal and regulatory bodies, including the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the Office of Communications (Ofcom), and the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem).

You have provided your consent
In specific situations, we’ll ask for your consent before we collect and process your information. For example, if you have informed us you’re in a vulnerable situation, we’ll ask for your explicit consent before we add your details to our Priority Services Register. When we ask for consent to process your information, we'll let you know why we want your information, what we will do with it and how you can withdraw consent.

To learn more about the UW Privacy Notice and how we may use your personal information, click here.

We may disclose your personal information to the following categories of recipients: 

• Our group companies;

• Third-party providers who help us provide our services to you or who process your personal information  for the reasons above and based on our instructions. We have measures in place to make sure they keep your personal information protected.  Should you choose to move your services away, for example to a new energy supplier, information such as your meter readings or equipment or money you may owe us will be provided to that new supplier so that they can begin to supply your gas and electricity;

• The Partner who signed you up as a customer or the Partner who looks after your account with us. More details here;

• Law enforcement bodies, regulators, government agencies, and courts where we believe disclosure is necessary as a matter of law or regulation, to exercise, establish or defend our legal rights, or to protect your vital interests or those of any other person; 

• Health or social care bodies such as  social services, healthcare and other support organisations, where we believe that you or a member of your household needs any extra care (perhaps because of age, health or disability), to help you by making sure that there is an energy supply to your home or to other energy suppliers in line with the Energy Retail Association 'Safety Net Procedures';

• Potential buyers (and their agents and advisers) in connection with any proposed purchase, merger or acquisition of any part of our business, provided that we inform the buyer it must use your personal information only for the purposes disclosed in this Privacy Notice; 

• To any other person with your consent.

Transferring your information outside the EU
Sometimes we may transfer your personal information to organisations who operate outside the EU, including in countries which do not have the same data protection standards as the UK. We have taken appropriate measures to ensure that your personal information will still be protected in accordance with this Privacy Notice. Further details can be provided upon request.

We use technical and organisational measures to protect your personal information. These measures provide a level of security appropriate to the risk of processing your personal information.

We check your identity when you get in touch with us, and we follow our security procedures and apply suitable technical measures, such as encryption, to protect your information.

Specific measures we use include:

• Implementing secure design principles within our information technology infrastructure;

• Adopting security safeguards against attacks;

• Adhering to security policies and training staff to enforce controls and procedures in line with data protection law and other industry-specific compliance requirements.

We keep your personal information for as long as necessary for the reason we collected it. In most cases, this means we will keep your personal information while you are one of our customers, and for seven years after. Sometimes we may retain it for longer if we are required to by law.

At the end of this period, your data will be deleted, destroyed or anonymised. We may aggregate anonymised data for statistical analysis and business planning.

Cookies are pieces of information sent to and from web pages. They can be used to identify when you have visited a website and how you interacted with it. 

We use cookies and other similar tracking technology to improve our website. For further information about the types of cookies we use, why, and how you can control cookies, please see our Cookies Policy.

Occasionally, our use of your personal information may result in automated decision-making, including profiling. This may affect you legally or otherwise.

Automated decisions are made by computer determination, such as software algorithms, without human review. For example, we may use automated decisions to analyse your creditworthiness and verify your identity when we process your application for certain products and services.

When we make an automated decision about you, you have the right to express your point of view, contest the decision, and request a human review of the decision. You can exercise this right by contacting us using the details at the top of this Privacy Notice.

Please be aware that our site may provide links to other websites. We are not responsible for the content, security, or data processing policy of these websites.

You have various privacy rights in relation to your personal information:

• Accessing your personal information
  You can request a copy of your personal information at any time;

• Correcting your personal information
  You can ask us to correct the personal information we hold on you if it is incorrect;

• Erasing your personal information
  You can ask us to delete your personal information in certain circumstances;

• Objecting to or restricting processing of your personal information
  You can object to our processing of your personal information in certain circumstances;

• Transferring your personal information
  You can ask us to transfer your personal information to you or a third party, including a new supplier should you choose to move your services away; 

• Withdrawing your consent to processing
  You can withdraw your consent to our processing of your personal information, however this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing conducted prior to your withdrawal;

• Opting-out of marketing communications
  You can ask us to cease marketing communications at any time by contacting us using the details at the top of this Privacy Notice, by clicking the unsubscribe or opt-out link in our emails, or by texting STOP to the number given in our text messages; 

• Complaining to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)
  You can complain about our collection and use of your personal information by contacting the ICO. 

We respond to all requests from individuals wishing to exercise their data protection rights in accordance with data protection law. We will try to respond to your request within one month; however, if it is complex or you make several requests, we may extend our time to respond. If we do, we will inform you.

You are able to exercise your rights free of charge, however if you make unfounded, repetitive or excessive requests, we may charge a fee or refuse to carry out your requests.

From time to time, we may update our Privacy Notice in response to legal, technical or business developments. We will take appropriate measures to inform you of any updates, in line with the significance of any changes. If necessary, we will obtain your consent to any material Privacy Notice changes.

You can see when this Privacy Notice was last updated by checking the last updated date, displayed at the top of this page.

Privacy policy: Last updated 22 May 2018