British Gas Lite website privacy notice

We collect the following types of personal data from all customers:

• Your contact details and the contact details of people associated with your business account: information that allows us to contact you directly such as your name, email address, telephone number and addresses associated with your business account or order.
• Audio and video recordings, and contemporaneous notes: records of site visits by our revenue protection and field operations teams.
• Responses to surveys: we keep records of any surveys to which you and your business respond.
• Records of your discussions with our customer support teams, including webchat and emails: when you share comments and opinions with us, ask us questions or make a complaint we will keep a record of this. This includes when you send us emails, or contact us via webchat or through social media such as through Twitter or on Facebook.
• How you use mobile applications and websites: we use technology such as cookies (subject to your cookie preferences) when you use our applications or websites, as well as our pages and profiles on social media sites, and we collect information about the pages you look at and how you use them.
• Location information: your smartphone or computer's IP address may tell us an approximate location when you connect to our websites.
• Device and machine information: information about the computer hardware and software on your computers and smartphones that is used to connect or communicate with us.
• Exercising your rights: if you exercise any of your statutory rights under Data Protection Law, we will keep a record of this and how we respond.

We collect the following types of personal data from sole traders and partners in a partnership:

• Anti-fraud information: where you purchase insurance products and services from us, we will carry out anti-fraud checks.
• Advertising and direct marketing preferences and responses: information about how you respond, or interact with, any direct marketing or advertising communications directed to you, including any requests for these communications to stop.
• Business account information: information about your account with British Gas Lite including your log in details for our websites and mobile applications, unique account number, unique customer identification, contract details, job details, property type, insurance policy details, premises details, previous supplier, proposed new supplier, meter point numbers, meter details, energy consumption, tariff details, marketing preferences, repairs and service history, claims history, complaints details, incident details, and dispatch appointment details.
• Transaction and payment information: credit/debit card details and bank account details you provide to make payment for the products and services you and your business purchase from us.
• Purchase and account history: records relating to the products and services which you and your business have purchased or used from us or other companies in the Centrica group.
• Financial information: information that allows us to understand your creditworthiness and financial position.
• Lifestyle and demographic insight information: how you use our services and connected devices such as Hive.

You are not required to provide to us any of the personal data described above, however, if you do not do so, you may not be able to purchase our products and services or the functionality of our products may be reduced.

Where we process your personal data because of our contract

We process these items of your personal data to enter or fulfil the contract between us, including:

Where we process your data because we're legally obliged to

We process these items of your personal data because we have a legal obligation to, including:

Where we process your personal data because we have a legitimate interest to do so

We process these items of your personal data because we have a legitimate interest to do so. We process the following categories of personal data, including:

Where we process your personal data because you have allowed us to

We process these items of your personal data when you have provided your consent to the processing, you may revoke your consent at any point:

Where we process your personal data so you can’t be identified any more

We may anonymise and aggregate any of the personal data we hold (so that it does not identify you). We may use anonymised and aggregated information for purposes that include testing our IT systems, research, data analysis, improving our site, apps and developing new products and services.

We will collect personal data from a number of sources. These include:

• Directly from you: when you set up an account with us, purchase products or services from us, submit information via our websites or apps, complete forms we provide to you, enter our competitions and promotions, make a claim, make a complaint, exercise your statutory rights, contact us by phone, email or communicate with us.
• Our website and mobile applications: we collect information about how you use them and any smart devices you connect to them.
• Our smart devices such as smart meters and other devices we provide: we collect information about how you use them.
• Other companies we work with: provide us with information to help us deliver and match our products and services to you. These include:
  • Companies in the same group of companies as us: who may provide relevant information about the products and services bought from them.
  • Meter installation booking companies.
  • Debt collection agencies.
  • Service and metering engineers: who will provide us with information about your boiler, central heating, and any insured products in your business premises.
  • Lead generation providers and brokers.
  • Other companies' apps and products: provide us with information if you connect them to our products or services.
• Credit and Anti-fraud reference agencies: provide us with information about your transaction and claim history and credit history.
• Client relationship management agencies: we will check the information we hold about you against information other companies hold about you to see it is accurate and up to date. If any conflict arises, the other company will provide us with changes that need to be made to your personal information.
• Network operators and distributors: to connect your meter to the energy network.
• Third party data providers: companies to which you give contact information, where you give permission for them to pass it on to us for updating information we hold about you.
• The government and regulators: provide us with information about the complaints they receive.
• Housing associations: some housing associations provide us with tenants’ information, to enable us to make contact about their energy supply.
• Social media: information you submit to our social media accounts.
• Our business customers: provide us with information about their own customers.
• Your previous energy provider: we may ask your previous energy provider for information about meter readings, equipment, and payments.
• Other companies’ apps and products: if you give them permission to provide us with information when you connect them to your connected devices and smart home products.
• Tracing activities: where you do not have an energy supply contract with us but move into a site, where we are supplying either gas or electricity or both to that site, we will use third parties such as Google, Land Registry, etc to try and identify you so that we can contact you about the energy supply being consumed by you.
• Public registers: such as the Land Registry and Companies House.
• Private registers: such as Zoopla provide us with information about your property.

We share personal data with the following parties:

Email, SMS, post and telephone marketing: from time to time, we may contact you by email, SMS, telephone or post with information about our products and services we believe you may be interested in. When you contact British Gas Lite we may also provide you with information about products and services we believe you may be interested in.

If you have not consented to receiving direct marketing communications, we will only send these communications to you when permitted to do so by law, but in all circumstances we will respect your marketing preferences which you set when you first create your account with us (or you first deal with us), or which you update from time to time.

You can let us know at any time that you do not wish to receive marketing messages by contacting us on webchat through www.britishgaslite.co.uk. You can also unsubscribe from our marketing by clicking on the unsubscribe link in any email marketing messages or by replying STOP to the number indicated on any marketing text messages we may send to you.

You can find out more about cookies and how to manage their use by reading our cookie policy, which is available at: www.britishgaslite.co.uk/cookie-policy

The details here provide a high-level overview of how and where we capture and / or use personal data on our own and third party websites and mobile applications.

British Gas Websites and Mobile Applications

When you visit any of our websites or download any of our mobile applications you will always be provided with access to the site’s or application’s own privacy notice and cookie policy.

Our aim is to ensure that our websites and mobile applications are always working optimally for those who use them. When you visit our websites and you are not logged in i.e. you are an anonymous visitor, we will use cookies and similar technologies - in accordance with your cookie preferences - to track anonymously details such as response times, the pages you view and the functionality you use. No individual is uniquely identifiable from this data and it is used purely to enable us to constantly review and improve these services

Any adverts you may see whilst using the website anonymously will be generic in nature i.e. it will not use any personal data to ‘personalise’ the advert to you.

If you chose to complete an online application, enquiry or other form then the form will set out explicitly how the data you provide will be used.

When you are logged in we will use cookies and similar technologies - in accordance with your cookie preferences - to track your use of the site or application. In this instance some data may be recorded to your record to enable us to provide the best ongoing service to you.

In this instance any adverts you see may be tailored specially to you – for instance if you are already a business energy customer adverts for business energy would not be appropriate.

Third party websites and applications

We work with advertising partners, including search engines, social media sites and providers, to show you advertising about our products and services, including those offered by group companies. This takes place on third party websites or mobile applications where our advertising partners have purchased advertising space.

To provide you with the most appropriate advertising content, our advertising partners use information gathered via cookies and similar technologies about the websites, mobile applications, social media content and ads you interact with or view when connected to the Internet, as well as information which we provide (such as a hash of your email address or phone number), to make sure the advertising you see is more relevant to you.

British Gas is part of a global organisation and in common with other organisations, we use third parties located in other countries to help us run our business. As a result, personal data may be transferred outside the countries where we and our customers are located. This includes countries outside the European Economic Area ("EEA") and to countries that do not have laws that provide specific protection for personal data. We have taken steps to ensure all personal data is provided with adequate protection and that all transfers of personal data outside the EEA are done lawfully. Where we transfer personal data outside of the EEA to a country not determined by the European Commission as providing an adequate level of protection for personal data, the transfers will be under an agreement which covers the requirements for the transfer of personal data outside the EEA, such as the European Commission approved standard contractual clauses.

We will keep your personal data for as long as is necessary in order to achieve the processing purposes. We delete call recordings after seven years, unless we have a reason to keep it longer.

You may have the following rights in relation to your personal data:

• the right to be informed about the personal data we collect, how your personal data is being used, and from whom we collect your personal data when we obtain it from other sources;
• the right to access the personal data we hold about you;
• the right to request the correction of inaccurate personal data we hold about you;
• the right to request the blocking or deletion of your personal data in some circumstances;
• the right to request that we port elements of your data either to you or another service provider;
• the right to object to us processing your personal data ([1] where we have a legitimate interest to do so, as listed in section 2, but your rights override ours based on your particular situation (which you will need to explain to us), [2] where we are processing it for the purpose of direct marketing, or [3] because we are using automated means to make decisions that have a legal or similarly significant effect); and
• the right to withdraw your consent to those processing activities which we carry out on the basis of consent, listed in section 2.

You only have the benefits of some of the above rights in limited circumstances, which depend on the legal reason why we collected your personal data.

To exercise any of the above rights, or if you have any questions relating to your rights, please contact us using the details below.

If you have any privacy-related questions or comments, please contact Centrica’s data protection officer by writing to The Data Protection Officer, Centrica Plc, Millstream, Maidenhead Road, Windsor, Berkshire, SL4 5GD.

You can also contact our data protection officer at privacy@centrica.com.

If you are unhappy with the way we are using your personal data you can also complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office or your local data protection regulator. We are here to help and encourage you to contact us to resolve your complaint first.