left Bar

British Gas Privacy Policy

This policy applies to personal information we hold about individuals, sole traders and partnerships. It does not apply to information we hold about companies and other organisations.

www.energy-savers.co.uk is brought to you by British Gas, which is owned by Centrica plc. Centrica plc and its subsidiary companies believe it is important to protect your privacy, and so we are committed to giving you a personalised service that meets your needs in a way that also protects that privacy

This policy explains how we may collect information about you and then use it to meet your needs. It also explains some of the security measures we take to protect your privacy, and tells you certain things we will not do.

When we first obtain personal information from you, or when you take a new service or product from us, we will give you the opportunity to tell us if you do or do not want to receive information from us about other services or products. You can normally do this by ticking a box on an application form or contract. You may change your mind at any time by emailing us at the address below.

1. Collecting information
We may collect personal information about you from a number of sources, including the following:

  • From you when you agree to take a service or product from us, in which case this may include your contact details, date of birth, how you will pay for the product or service and your bank details.
  • From you when you contact us with an enquiry or in response to a communication from us, in which case this may tell us something about how you use our services.
  • From documents that are available to the public, such as the electoral register.
  • Please note that some of the personal information we hold about you may be 'sensitive personal data' within the meaning of the Data Protection Act 1998 - for example, information about your health or ethnic origin.

2. Using information
Information you provide or we hold about you (whether or not under our contract or contracts with you) may be used by us or our agents to:

  • identify you when you contact us.
  • help identify accounts, services and products which you could have from us from time to time (we may do this using an automatic scoring system, which uses the information you have provided, any information we hold about you and information from other agencies, including credit-reference agencies).
  • help run, and contact you about the improved running of, any accounts, services and products we have provided before, or provide now or in the future; (we may contact you by e-mail or text message if you have given us these contact details).
  • create statistical and testing information and carry out marketing analysis and customer profiling (including using information about what you buy from us and how you pay for it, for example usage rates and any discounts we have offered you - these are examples only and not a complete list).
  • help to prevent and detect fraud or loss; and
  • contact you in any way (including mail, e-mail, phone, visit, text or multimedia messages) about products and services offered by us and selected partners. We will only contact you in this way if you have previously given your permission.

We may allow other people and organisations to use information we hold about you:

  • to provide services you have asked for;
  • as part of the process of selling one or more of our businesses;
  • if you have failed to pay us, in which case we may transfer your debt to a another organisation and provide them with details about you and that debt;
  • if we have been asked to provide information for legal or regulatory purposes; or
  • as part of current or future legal proceedings?
From time to time, these other people and organisations may be outside the European Economic Area in countries that do not have the same standards of protection for personal information as the UK.

We may also allow your information to be used by other Centrica Group companies (including those using the British Gas, Scottish Gas and Dyno Group brands) for them to carry out any of the above purposes.

We may monitor and record communications with you (including phone conversations and e-mails) for quality assurance and to make sure that we are meeting our legal and regulatory requirements.

If you give us information on behalf of someone else, you confirm you have given them the information set out in this document, and that they have given permission for their personal information to be used in the way we have described. If you give us sensitive information about yourself or others (such as health details or details of any criminal convictions of members of your household), you agree (and confirm that the person the information is about has agreed) to us processing this information in the way set out in this document.

British Gas
If we believe that you, or a member of your household, need extra care (for example because of your age, health, disability or financial problems), we may record this fact on our records. We will use this information to protect you and your household from having your energy supply cut off. We may share your information with:

  • Social Services, charities and other support organisations if we believe at any time that you are not able to continue protecting your welfare or the welfare of other members of your household by making sure there is an energy supply to your home; and other energy suppliers if we believe you are considering changing supplier. We assess which customers need extra care and record and share this information, in line with the Energy Retail Association ‘safety net procedures’.
  • We may pass your address, property and postcode, and details of your gas appliances, flue, hot-water cylinder, system controls and electrical installations (including details of any repairs or removals) to organisations that supervise these activities including CORGI (Council of Registered Gas Installers) and the ECA (Electrical Contractors Association). These organisations may pass this information to local authorities to meet building regulations. They may also use this information to contact you to inspect appliances or systems, recall faulty products and carry out audits, and for health and safety purposes. Where appropriate, we will give you or the property owner (or both) a certificate to show that your appliances and so on meet building regulations.

3. Credit References & Fraud Prevention
We will check your details with one or more credit-reference and fraud-prevention agencies to help us make decisions. We have given a brief guide to how we, the credit-reference and fraud-prevention agencies will use your information below. If you would like more information about this, please contact us at Privacy Manager, British Gas, 30 The Causeway, Staines, TW18 3BY. Or e-mail us at deborah.lamb@centrica.co.uk

We will search at credit-reference and fraud-prevention agencies for information about you and all the people you are applying with - if you are providing information about others on a joint application, you must make sure they agree that we can use their information to do this. If you provide false or inaccurate information and we suspect fraud, we will pass your details to credit-reference and fraud-prevention agencies. Law enforcement agencies may use this information.

We will use the information provided to us by credit-reference and fraud-prevention agencies to:

  • help make decisions about credit or credit-related services for you and anyone applying with you;
  • check your identity;
  • prevent and detect fraud and money laundering; and
  • manage your account.
When credit-reference agencies receive a search from us they will record this on your credit file whether your application is successful or not.

We and other organisations may also use this information to prevent fraud and money laundering, for example when:

  • checking details on applications for credit and credit-related services;
  • managing credit and credit-related accounts and services;
  • recovering debt;
  • checking details on applications and claims for insurance; and
  • checking details of employees and people applying for jobs.
Organisations from other countries may use the information recorded by fraud-prevention agencies.

If you want to see what information credit-reference agencies hold about you, you can contact the following three credit-reference agencies currently operating in the UK. The information they hold may not be the same, so it is worth contacting them all. They will charge you a small fee.

CallCredit Consumer Services Team
PO Box 491
Leeds
LS3 1WZ
Phone: 0870 0601414

Equifax PLC Credit File Advice Centre
PO Box 3001
Bradford
BD1 5US
Phone: 0870 010 0583
Website: www.myequifax.co.uk

Experian Consumer Help Service
PO Box 8000
Nottingham
NG80 7WF
Phone: 0870 241 6212
Website: www.experian.co.uk

If you want contact details for the fraud-prevention agencies we use, please contact us at:
Privacy Manager
British Gas
30 The Causeway
Staines
TW18 3BY.
Or e-mail us at deborah.lamb@centrica.co.uk

4. Protecting information
We have strict security measures to protect personal information. This includes following certain procedures (for example, checking your identity when you phone us) and encrypting (encoding) data on our websites.

5. The Internet
If you communicate with us using the internet, we may occasionally e-mail you about our services and products. When you first give us personal information through our website, we will normally give you the opportunity to say whether you would prefer us not to contact you by e-mail. However, you can always send us an e-mail (at the address set out below) at any time if you change your mind.

Please remember that communications over the Internet, such as e-mails and webmails (messages sent through a website), are not secure unless they have been encrypted. Your communications may go through a number of countries before they are delivered - this is the nature of the Internet. We cannot accept responsibility for any unauthorised access or loss of personal information that is beyond our control.

We may use 'cookies' to monitor how people use our site. This helps us to understand how our customers and potential customers use our website so we can develop and improve the design, layout and function of the sites. A cookie is a piece of information that is stored on your computer's hard drive which records how you have used a website. This means that when you go back to that website, it can give you tailored options based on the information it has stored about your last visit. You can normally alter the settings of your browser to prevent it from accepting cookies.

If you do not want us to u?e cookies in your browser, you can set your browser to reject cookies or to tell you when a website tries to put a cookie on your computer. However, you may not be able to use some of the products or services on our website without cookies.

6. Turning off cookies in different browsers

Internet Explorer 6.0

  • From your browser menu, select 'Tools', and then 'Internet Options'. This will bring up the 'Internet Options' dialogue box
  • On the top of the dialogue box, select 'Privacy'. This will bring up the 'Privacy Settings' box.
  • On the Privacy tab, move the slider up for a higher level of privacy or down for a lower level of privacy.
  • Move the slider to the top to block cookies from all web sites.
Following these instructions will stop your computer from accepting cookies in future. You may reconfigure your computer to accept cookies again by following these instructions, but by selecting 'Enable', and the 'OK' button on the bottom of the menu box by selecting on 'Default' button (Internet Explorer 6.0).

You can find information on disabling cookies in other browsers see www.allaboutcookies.org.

7. Links
This website may contain links to other sites or recommended suppliers. Please remember that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of these other sites. This privacy policy applies only to information collected on this website.

8. Further Information
If you would like any more information or you have any comments about our privacy policy, please either write to us at Privacy Manager, British Gas, 30 The Causeway, Staines, TW18 3BY. Or e-mail us at deborah.lamb@centrica.co.uk. We may amend this policy from time to time, in which case we will publish the amended version on our website, and you can ask us for a copy by writing to the above address or by e-mailing deborah.lamb@centrica.co.uk