Changes to data protection rules – GDPR effective May 25th 2018
Data protection rules are being tightened up and this affects everyone. You need to be aware of and agree to our privacy policy when dealing with personal information that we process.
We know how important it is for you to understand how we use your data. This Privacy Policy sets out how and why we collect, store, process and share your personal data. We will always be transparent with you about what we do with your personal data.
This Policy also tells you what your rights are in relation to the personal data you give to us. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or your rights under it please contact:
Address: Holland House, 20 Oxford Road, Bournemouth, Dorset. BH8 8EZ
Telephone: 0333 00 34 999
Home Emergency Assist is a data ‘Controller’. We will collect basic personal data about you which does not include any special types of information or location based information. This can however include name, address, email address, date of birth, landline/mobile telephone numbers, your purchase activity, your credit or debit card information or other payment information, and information you give us when speaking to our customer services team, when you engage with our social media platform (for example by tagging us in a post on Facebook). All of this data is held electronically as we phase out paper records.
We need this information in order to fulfil a quotation, contract and analyse the services which we provide. We will not collect any personal data from you we do not need in order to provide services to you.
All personal data is processed by our staff in the UK however for the purposes of IT hosting and maintenance this information is located on servers within the Europe. We have a Data Protection regime in place to oversee the effective and secure processing of your personal data and have implemented various strategies, controls, policies and measures to keep your data secure and keep these measures under close review. We protect your data by using encryption techniques and we use other safeguards such as firewalls and password protection. This means that your data is protected and only accessible by co-workers who need it to carry out their job responsibilities.
We will use your personal data to provide you with the information, products and services requested or purchased from us (i.e. to complete certain tasks, processes, payments taken online) and to communicate with you regarding those products and services that you purchase from us and to respond to your questions and comments.
We may also use your personal data to measure how satisfied our customers are and provide customer service (including troubleshooting in connection with purchases or your requests for services or when you ask questions on social media).
We rely on our contractual arrangements with you as the lawful basis on which we collect and process your personal data when taking out a policy with us. Alternatively, in some cases, we rely on our legitimate interests as a business (for example, to measure customer satisfaction and troubleshoot customer issues, or for some limited marketing activities). Where we rely on our legitimate interests, we will always make sure that we balance these interests against your rights.
We may use your personal data for our internal business purposes, such as enhancing our site, improving our services and products and identifying usage trends. We may also use your data to monitor the use of our website and ensure that our website is presented in the most effective and relevant manner for you and your device and setting default options for you (such as language);
It is in our legitimate interests as a business to use your personal data in this way. For example, we want to ensure our website is customer friendly and works properly and that our products and services are efficient and of high quality. We also want to make it easy for you to interact with us. Where we rely on our legitimate interests, we will always make sure that we balance these interests against your rights.
We will only pass on your personal information to third parties where necessary to fulfil obligations under your contract with us and rely on our legitimate interests as a business to use your personal details in this way. This may include, but is not limited to; insurers, claims handling agents, contractors/engineers.
There may be other scenarios where we are subject to a legal obligation to share or disclose your personal data, such as collection agencies or authorities to assist with crime detection, prevention or investigation. When we send you marketing material via SMS, and email, we will rely on our legitimate interests as a business, always ensuring that your rights are protected.
If you would like information on how we use cookies, please see our Cookies Policy.
We retain all personal information for the duration of your contract and for up to 6 years from the end date as required under current legislation. After this time it will be deleted, all paper records are securely destroyed. Information we use for marketing purposes will be kept with us until you notify us that you no longer wish to receive this information.
You have a number of rights relating to your personal information and what happens to it which you can find in the Guidance from the UK information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)
https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public
If at any point you believe the information we process on you is incorrect, you can request to see this information and even have it corrected or deleted. If you wish to raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal data, you can contact our Customer Service Team who will log your complaint so that the matter can be investigated for you. If you wish to opt out of any/all marketing activity or would like to speak to us in relation to any of your rights please contact our Customer Service Team.
You can contact our Customer Service Team on 0333 00 34 999.
If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are processing your personal data otherwise in accordance with the law you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) via their website https://ico.org.uk/concerns or by calling 030 123 1113
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make any significant changes we will let you know but please regularly check this policy to ensure you are aware of the most updated version.
This Privacy Policy was last updated on 9th September 2019.