We are incorporated in England and Wales (our registered office address is 139 New Road Side, Horsforth, Leeds,West Yorkshire,LS18 4QD (Company number:10077444)) ("we", "us", "our") and we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office ("ICO") with registration number ZA686195.
This notice sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us.
Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it. When you provide your personal data to us, you are deemed to have read this privacy notice and to have accepted the terms set out herein.
This privacy notice is provided in a layered format so you can click through to the specific areas set out below.
Important information and who we are
We are the controller and responsible for your personal data.
Our full contact details are:
Switch Your Energy Limited
139 New Road Side,
Horsforth, Leeds,
West Yorkshire,LS18 4QD
Alternatively you can email us at info@switchurenergy.co.uk
Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy notice are welcomed by using the contact details above.
Please note that you have the right to make a complaint at any time to the ICO, the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO, so please contact us in the first instance.
Changes to our privacy notice
We keep our privacy notice under regular review to ensure that it properly reflects our use of your personal data. We will notify you of any changes we may make to our privacy notice in the future. Please note that if we collect your contact details, we will notify you by email. Otherwise, please check this page for any updates on your next visit to our website.
This privacy notice was last reviewed and updated on 12 July 2022.
It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please let us know if any personal information which we hold about you needs to be corrected or updated at any time.
How we collect personal data
Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).
We use different methods to collect personal data about you, and there are different ways that we might do so. This privacy notice tells you what to expect when we collect personal data about individuals in the following ways:
This privacy notice also explains the types of personal information we collect from you, and the lawful basis we rely on under data protection legislation to use your personal data. Under data protection legislation, we are only permitted to use your personal data if we have a lawful basis for doing so as set out in the data protection legislation. Where we rely on our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) as the lawful basis for processing, we have done so on the basis that our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) do not override your interests and fundamental rights. This is called the "balancing test" and you have the right to ask us for information on the test that has been undertaken, by using the contact details above.
Visitors to our website
We will collect details of your visits to our websites, including traffic data, location data, weblogs and other communication data and the resources you access on our website. We also collect information about your device and your visits to and use of our site, including, where available, your device's IP address, geographical location, operating system, referral source, browser type, length of visit and number of page views. We will collect this information for the purposes of system administration, optimising the use of our site and reporting aggregate information to third party suppliers. This is statistical data about our users' browsing actions and patterns, and does not identify any individual.
In particular, we use an analytics service provider for website traffic analysis and reporting and to track information such as which browser, screen resolution and IP address you are using to access our website, in addition to tracking your movements around our website. Please see section 3.4 for more details on how we use this information.
Please note that we do use cookies on our website. More information on how we use cookies can be found in our Cookies Policy.
Third parties
Our site contains links to and from the websites of our third party partner networks, suppliers and affiliates. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites collect personal data for their own purposes and have their own privacy notices. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for these third parties or their data activities on such websites. Please check their privacy notices before you submit any personal data to these websites.
Social media
Any information you provide to us via social media (including messaging, "liking" or "following" and other communications) is controlled by the relevant social media network.
Our website contains links to our social media pages. We currently use:
We recommend that you read their privacy notices and contact them directly if you have any concerns regarding their use of your personal data.
Contacting us
Our website provides you with different ways to contact us. You may choose to call us, or submit a query to us or request a call-back from us. All communications are handled, reviewed and responded to internally by us, unless we tell you otherwise.
As part of communicating with us, you will submit personal data about yourself which includes your name, email address, telephone number and any other additional information you choose to provide to us. We will use your personal data for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) where it is necessary for any of the following:
We will retain records of our correspondence with you, for a period of 7 years from the date of last correspondence.
Please note that we record all telephone calls from our call centre, either when we contact you or you contact us. We use a third party service provider to provide call recording and other telecommunication services on our behalf. It is in our legitimate interests to record these calls to:
We will retain copies of call recordings for a period of 7 years from the date of your call.
Using our services
Our website provides price comparison services for energy suppliers. We will collect personal data from you when you complete a form on our website in order to access our price comparison services or when you contact us by post, telephone or email.
We also have partnerships with other companies, and therefore we (or they) are able to offer you price comparison services for water, telecoms and insurance. We explain in section 5 below what personal data and the circumstances where we will share your personal data with these companies.
The table below sets out the categories of personal data we collect from you, the purposes for which we use your personal data and the lawful basis we rely upon for processing your personal data:
|
Category of personal data |
Purpose |
Lawful basis of processing |
|
Title, first name, surname, email address, telephone number, mobile number, and address; and Any other personal data you provide us with |
To provide you with our price comparison services To send your details to our energy partner, for them to enter into a contract with you for provision of their services |
It is in our legitimate interests to use this information to be able to deliver our service and to provide you with a realistic indication of prices available to you |
|
Title, first name, surname, email address, telephone number, mobile number, and address; and Any other personal data you provide us with |
To contact you in relation to utility renewals |
It is in our legitimate interests to use this information to deliver our service to you and ensure you are aware when your current utility contact expires |
|
Meter number, meter serial number and business address |
To undertake the following searches with GB Group Services (and other similar third party data providers from time to time) (where applicable): (i) with your address to find a meter number associated with that address; (ii) with your meter number to check it is associated with the business address we hold; and (iii) using your meter serial number to confirm your meter number |
It is in our legitimate interests to undertake these searches to ensure we have an accurate meter number for you in order to provide you with a realistic indication of prices available to you and to ensure it matches your business address |
|
Meter number, annual consumption and business address |
To undertake searches with ElectraLink to confirm your consumption (including half-hourly data where relevant), your current energy supplier and the business address associated with that meter, in order to provide a more realistic indication of prices available to you, for the purpose of locking-in and managing your contract effectively. |
Consent - you will be provided with a clear choice to participate in these searches and share your data with this third party and you have the right to withdraw consent at any time in accordance with section 9.3(f). Please also see section 5 for more information. |
|
Meter number and annual consumption |
To undertake searches with Xoserve on the national energy database to confirm your annual consumption, in order to provide a more realistic indication of prices available to you, for the purpose of locking-in and managing your contract effectively. |
It is in our legitimate interests to undertake these searches to ensure that: (a) the details you have provided us with are accurate; (b) we provide accurate information to your new energy provider to mitigate the risk of any errors and/or delay for you in signing-up to your new energy contract; and (c) to help us manage your contract effectively by assessing your usage throughout the term of the contract |
|
Title, first name, surname, email address, telephone number, mobile number, and address; and Any other personal data you provide us with |
To provide you with price comparison services on behalf of our water partner To send your details to our water partner, for them to enter into a contract with you for provision of their services |
It is in our legitimate interests to use this information to be able to deliver our service and to provide you with a realistic indication of prices available to you |
|
Title, first name, surname, email address, telephone number, mobile number, and address; and Any other personal data you provide us with |
To provide you with price comparison services on behalf of our telecoms partner To send your details to our telecoms partner, for them to enter into a contract with you for provision of their services |
It is in our legitimate interests to use this information to be able to deliver our service and to provide you with a realistic indication of prices available to you |
|
Title, first name, surname, email address, telephone number, mobile number, and address; and Any other personal data you provide us with |
To refer you to our insurance partner or other service partners, for them to provide you with their price comparison services |
Consent - you will be provided with a clear choice to share your data with these third parties and you have the right to withdraw consent at any time in accordance with section 9.3(f). Please also see section 5 for more information. |
|
Title, first name, surname, email address, telephone number, mobile number, and address; and Any other personal data you provide us with |
To carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us |
Contractual necessity, as this information is needed by us to perform our obligations under the contract |
|
Title, first name, surname, email address, telephone number, mobile number, and address; and Any other personal data you provide us with |
To notify you about any changes to our services |
Contractual necessity, as this information is needed by us to perform our obligations under the contract |
|
Title, first name, surname, email address, telephone number, mobile number, address and IP address; and Any other personal data you provide us with |
To ensure that content from our website is presented in the most effective manner for you and your device |
It is in our legitimate interests to study how customers use our products/services, to develop them and to grow our business |
|
Title, first name, surname, email address, telephone number, mobile number, address and IP address; and Any other personal data you provide us with |
To enable us to effectively administer, develop, support and improve our website and improve your browsing experience by personalising our website |
It is in our legitimate interests to study how customers use our products/services, to develop them and to grow our business |
|
Title, first name, surname, email address, telephone number, mobile number, and address; and Any other personal data you provide us with |
To enable us to provide customer services in relation to our services and to deal with enquiries and complaints made by or in relation to our customers and/or products supplied to our customers |
It is in our legitimate interests to provide you with our services, investigate and resolve your enquiry or complaint |
|
Title, first name, surname, email address, telephone number, mobile number, address and IP address; and Any other personal data you provide us with |
To allow you to participate in interactive features of our service, where you choose to do so |
Consent - you will be provided with a clear choice to participate in these features and you will have the right to withdraw consent at any time in accordance with section 9.3(f) |
|
Title, first name, surname, email address, contact number, business postcode (if this is also your home address) |
To pass your details onto a named third party for them to contact you about their services (for example, if you want to make an enquiry about boiler installation services). |
Consent - you will be provided with a clear choice to consent to us sharing your personal data with our named third-party partner and you will have the right to withdraw consent at any time in accordance with section 9.3(f). |
We may also use your personal data for analytical purposes. Where this takes place, your personal data will be anonymised as far as we are able to do so for this purpose, and we rely on our legitimate interests to tailor our service, grow our business and to inform our marketing strategy.
In the course of using our services, whether you choose to switch utility suppliers or not, we will retain your personal data for a period of seven years from the date you provide us with your personal data and/or express an interest in our services, subscribe to our services, or re-subscribe to our services (whichever is the later).
Our third party partners
We work with a number of third party partners to provide you with price comparison services. When you access our services through our third party partners, we will collect personal data about you in the following circumstances:
Please note that we will be the controller of your personal data from the stage we are provided with your personal data (either directly from you or one of our third party partners, whichever is the earlier). You should refer to this privacy notice for details on how we will use and treat your personal data. Please refer to sections 3.1, 3.3 and 3.4 for further information on how we will use your personal data when we are providing you with our services.
Our third party marketing partners
From time to time, we will obtain personal data from our third party marketing partners. This includes your name, email address, telephone number and business address. In these circumstances, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that such third party has collected your personal data fairly and lawfully and, if applicable, has obtained all appropriate consents required from you to allow us to market to you. We ensure that we use experienced business database providers and we take reasonable steps to ensure they take the protection of your personal data and compliance with data protection legislation seriously.
If we have obtained your personal data from a third party source, we will inform you of where we collected your personal data within a reasonable period of time of having obtained your personal data and provide you with a copy of this privacy notice.
We rely on our legitimate interests as a lawful basis for processing your personal data, to offer and promote our products and services to you.
Subscribing to our marketing
If you are a customer, or have made an enquiry relating to our energy price comparison services (or services offered by one of our other trading names), we will have given you a clear opportunity to object or opt-out of receiving marketing communications at the time of collecting your personal data. If you have not opted out of receiving the marketing communication, we will contact you by email, SMS or telephone in our legitimate interests to promote our products and services that are relevant to your purchase or enquiry. We will also provide you with the option to unsubscribe or object to continuing receiving marketing with each communication. You have the right to object to receiving these communications at any time by contacting us on the details above.
If you are not a customer but are interested in our products and services or you are an existing customer but interested in other products and services we offer (excluding our energy products and services), we will provide you with a clear choice to consent to receiving marketing promotional material, updates, reminders and communications by giving you an opt-in to receiving such communications. If you have provided your consent we will collect your contact details (name, postal address and email address) to provide you with such communications.
You have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. For full details on how to withdraw consent please see above.
We use a third party email and SMS marketing platform service provider, to manage our SMS and newsletter subscriptions. They will not use your personal data for any other purpose other than as we instruct them to.
If you ever decide you no longer wish to receive our marketing communications, you can opt out at any time by unsubscribing from the mailing list, using the link provided in the marketing communications email, or by using the contact details above. If you do unsubscribe, please note that we will still keep your email in a separate secure list so that we can make sure that you do not receive our marketing communications again in the future.
Third party energy brokers
If we take over the management of your contract from your existing energy broker, your energy broker will provide us with certain information about you. This will include your name, email address, contact number and meter number, which we will use for the purposes set out in section 3.4 above (including contacting you in relation to utility renewals).
Where we have received your personal data in these circumstances, we will provide you with a copy of this privacy notice either at the time of first communicating with you or at the latest, within one month of having received your personal data, and we will also inform you of who provided us with your personal data.
What happens if you do not provide the personal data that we request?
We will need some of your personal data as a contractual necessity in order to provide you with our services or contact you and follow up with you in respect of any query or complaint you have submitted on our website. For example, we need to know your personal contact details in order to identify you and contact you.
Where information is needed for these purposes, if you do not provide it we will not be able to provide you with our services, or contact you and follow up with you in respect of the query or complaint you have submitted on our website. We explain this is the case at the point where we collect this information from you.
Your data and third parties
We use third parties to provide services to us from time to time. We will share data with them where it is in our legitimate interests for our business administrative needs. A list of third parties that we use and how they process personal data is set out in the table below. Please note that these third parties are located within the UK or the European Economic Area, unless otherwise stated below.
|
Third party |
What data? |
Why do we share this data? |
How long is this data kept by this third party? |
|
Energy suppliers (gas and electric) |
Title, first name, surname, email address, home number, mobile number and address |
We share this data for a number of reasons, including: To enable you to switch energy suppliers To whom disclosure is necessary to enable us and/or a supplier to determine if you are eligible to subscribe to our services and/or the supplier's services; and To whom disclosure is necessary to enable us to provide you with any service to which you have subscribed (including for the purposes of contract fulfilment, processing payments, credit referencing, designing, maintaining and administering the site). |
These third parties will be acting as controllers of your personal data. You will be notified of which energy supplier your personal data has been provided to at the relevant time. Please refer to their own privacy notice for information about how your personal data is used and retention periods. If you wish to exercise your individual rights in relation to your energy provider, you will need to contact them directly. |
|
Water partner and/or our telecoms partner |
Title, first name, surname, email address, home number, mobile number and address |
We share this data for a number of reasons, including: To enable you to switch water and/or telecoms suppliers; whom disclosure is necessary to enable us and/or a supplier to determine if you are eligible to subscribe to our services and/or the supplier's services; and To whom disclosure is necessary to enable us to provide you with any service to which you have subscribed (including for the purposes of contract fulfilment, processing payments, credit referencing, designing, maintaining and administering the site). |
These third parties will be acting as controllers of your personal data. You will be notified of which water supplier and/or telecoms supplier (as applicable) your personal data has been provided to at the relevant time. Please refer to their own privacy notice for information about how your personal data is used and retention periods. |
|
Price comparison service providers for insurance and other services |
Title, first name, surname, email address, home number, mobile number and address |
We share this data to enable these third parties to provide you with price comparison services. The type of price comparison services you receive will depend on the specific service request you make. |
This third party will be acting as a controller of your personal data. We will not share your personal data with price comparison service providers unless you confirm to us you are happy for us to do so. Please refer to their own privacy notice for information about how your personal data is used and retention periods. |
|
ElectraLink |
Meter number |
We share this data to enable ElectraLink to undertake searches to ascertain your current energy consumption and confirm your current energy supplier and the address associated with that meter. This enables us to provide a more realistic indication of the prices available to you, for the purpose of locking-in and managing your contract effectively. |
This third party will be acting as a controller of your personal data. Please refer to their own privacy notice for information about how your personal data is used and retention periods. |
|
Xoserve |
Meter number |
We share this data to enable Xoserve to undertake searches to confirm your current energy consumption. This enables us to provide a more realistic indication of the prices available to you, for the purpose of locking-in and managing your contract effectively. |
This third party will be acting as a controller of your personal data. Please refer to their own privacy notice for information about how your personal data is used and retention periods. |
|
Third party data providers such as GB Group Services |
Meter number, meter serial number and business address |
We share this data to enable these third parties to confirm your meter number and the business address associated with that meter number. This enables us to provide a more realistic indication of the prices available to you and to ensure it matches your business address. |
This third party will be acting as a controller of your personal data. Please refer to their own privacy notice for information about how your personal data is used and retention periods. |
|
Lead generation providers |
Title, first name, surname, email address, home number, mobile number, business postcode (if this is also your home address) and any other personal data you provide to us |
To market to you on our behalf and/or to enable us to understand why you may not have proceeded with our services and/or switched utility providers. One of our lead generation providers are based in South Africa (although their servers are based in the UK). Where we transfer personal data outside of the UK, we rely on the European Commission's standard contractual clauses (currently approved by the ICO as an adequate transfer mechanism), a copy of which is available here: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32010D0087&from=en |
Please see section 3.3 and section 3.7 above. |
|
Cloud hosting service providers |
Title, first name, surname, email address, home number, mobile number, business postcode (if this is also your home address) and any other personal data you provide to us |
Hosting of our servers and all of our customer data. |
We are responsible for deleting your personal data from the servers of our cloud hosting service providers in accordance with sections 3.3 and 3.4 above. |
|
Telecommunications provider |
Title, first name, surname, email address, home number, mobile number, business postcode (if this is also your home address) and any other personal data you provide to us |
To provide our main call system and to record our calls |
7 years for call recordings |
|
Email and SMS marketing platform provider |
Title, first name, surname, email address, home number, mobile number, business postcode (if this is also your home address) |
To provide marketing services. |
Please see section 3.3 above. |
|
Electronic waste recycling service providers |
Title, first name, surname, email address, home number, mobile number, business postcode (if this is also your home address), IP address and any other personal data you provide to us |
To dispose of our hardware where we longer use it |
The hardware received by these providers are securely wiped of any personal data on receipt before the hardware is recycled. |
|
Leads2Trade |
Title, first name, surname, email address, contact number, business postcode (if this is also your home address) |
To make your introduction to Leads2Trade, for them to contact you in relation to your enquiry for boiler installation services. |
This third party will be acting as a controller of your personal data. Please refer to their privacy notice for information about how your personal data is used and retention periods. |
Please note, Switch Your Energy Ltd act as a processor in relation to the sub-licence from certain suppliers to access the Electricity Central On-line Enquiry Service (ECOES).
Disclosure of your information
We will not usually disclose your personal data other than as already explained in sections 3 and 5 above. However, there may be circumstances where we need to share personal data other than as anticipated in sections 3 and 5 above. These include:
Keeping your personal information secure
We know that you provide your personal data in good faith and expect it to be looked after. This is why we take the security of your personal data seriously. This means that we have taken steps internally in order to ensure that our systems adequately protect your personal data. This includes:
Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our website and prior to us receiving it. Any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access including those measures set out above.
Automated Decisions
We use automated decision making when you complete a form on our website and submit it to access our price comparison services. This means we make decisions using the personal data you provide using only technology and none of our employees or any other individuals have been involved. You will receive quotes from suppliers, and these quotes will vary in price depending on the information you provide us, including how much your utility bill is usually (whether paid on a monthly, quarterly or yearly basis) and where you are located in the UK. For example, if you usually pay a significant utility bill each month, this indicates that you have a high utility usage and therefore the quotes returned from our suppliers are likely to be higher as compared to someone who has a low utility usage and month bill. You have a right to object to automated decision-making - please see section 9.3(e) below.
Your rights
You have rights in respect of your personal data and this section explains a bit more about those rights that are applicable to how we use your personal data, and the circumstances in which you are able to exercise these rights. If you would like more information about any of your rights, please contact us on the details set out above.
Accessing your personal data
We want you to fully understand and be comfortable with how we use your personal data. You can contact us at any time to ask whether we process any personal data about you. If we do hold or use your personal data in any way, you have the right to access that personal data. All we ask is that:
Please allow us up to one month from receipt of your request (or verification of your identity, whichever is the later) in order to provide you with our response.
Requesting more information
We hope that you can understand that it is very difficult to cover all the possible ways in which we collect and use personal data. We have tried to be as clear and as open as we can and will continue to update this privacy notice as our use of personal data develops. However, if you have any questions regarding our use of your personal information, we will be happy to give you peace of mind by answering any questions or providing any additional information that we can. If you do have any specific questions, or need anything explaining, please get in touch on the contact details above.
Additional rights
You also have some additional rights that you may exercise as set out here. We may publish a policy, from time to time, to explain how we will handle such requests and what you can expect from us when you make a request to exercise your rights. If we do publish any such policy, we will provide a link to it here. In each instance we may ask you to make your request in writing to the contact addresses above and provide verification of your identity.
