Content

You can download a printable version of the Privacy Policy (PDF 99KB – will open in a new window).

We know that your privacy is very important to you. We make it our business for it to be as important to us.

We aim to be as clear as possible about how and why we use personal information about you. If your questions are not fully answered by the information below, please contact us as detailed in section headed, Maintaining the personal information we hold for you. We’ll be happy to help.

In order to make this information easier to read, we have organised it into a series of headings. Simply click on a subject to go straight to it or scroll through the page for full details.

Our guiding privacy principles

Compliance with the Data Protection Act 1998 underlies all of our privacy practices. We also have a set of guiding principles which govern how we use the personal information that we collect about you. These principles are:

we aim to continuously improve our website, communications, products and services for you. We use personal information about you to help us to do this.
we give you control over the personal information that we hold about you, who is allowed to see it and how it is used
we will not use your personal information to contact you for direct marketing purposes unless you specifically allow us to by giving us your consent
we take all reasonable care to safeguard your personal information through security policies and secure business processes

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Why we collect personal information about you

to provide you with products and services. Each product and service has different information requirements. Therefore the personal information we need, and what it is needed for, can differ. For full details please refer to the terms and conditions for each product or service.
to enhance or improve your user experience with us. When you indicate your marketing preferences, we may use this information to personalise the website or our communications with you to better meet your needs.
to provide you with information about products and services that we, Royal Mail Group Limited (including Parcelforce Worldwide) or our partner companies believe will be of interest to you. We will only do this with your consent. If you have registered online to use the website or applied online for a product or service, you can change your mind and remove or add your consent at any time through “Your Profile” page. You will need to sign in to your account in order to do this.
to keep your personal information secure. To minimise the risk of unauthorised access to your personal information, we use some of your personal information to authenticate your identity when using the website and our customer service helpdesk.

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How we collect personal information about you

We collect personal information from you in a number of ways:

directly from you. Sometimes we'll ask you for personal information about you, for example in our registration form, when you communicate with our customer services team, or when you buy any product or subscribe for any service.
from what you do on our website. This can show us for example which products or services you use most and least. We will use this information to personalise the website to better meet your needs and, where you have given us your consent, to provide you with information about our products and services that we believe will be of interest to you.
from third parties. We may ask third parties for personal information about you, for example when we acquire third party marketing lists or get authorisation for a payment you make using a credit or debit card or to complete a credit or fraud check.

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Personal information we receive from third parties

Credit reference and fraud prevention agencies
We may receive personal information about you from credit reference and fraud prevention agencies.

When you order any product or subscribe for any service we or our partner companies may check your records at credit reference and fraud prevention agencies.

When credit reference agencies receive a search request, they will place a search footprint on your credit file that may be seen by other organisations (whether or not your application proceeds). Credit reference agencies supply to us or our partner companies both public (including the electoral register) and shared credit and fraud prevention information.

If you are making a joint application or tell us you have a spouse or financial associate we may link your records together so you must be sure that you have their agreement to disclose personal information about them. Credit reference agencies also link your records together and these links will remain on your and their files until such time as you or your partner successfully files for a disassociation with the credit reference agencies to break that link.

If you require details of those credit reference and fraud prevention agencies from whom we obtain and with whom we share your personal information or further details about the use of your personal information by credit reference and fraud prevention agencies please contact our Data Protection Act Services Team (see section below, Maintaining the personal information we hold for you).

Network operators and service providers
We may receive personal information about you from other network operators and service providers in connection with some of our services and you agree to such operators and service providers providing us with access to, and transferring to us, any of your personal information to allow us to connect you to, and to provide you with, the services.

Information providers
We may receive personal information about you from information providers, for example marketing lists or lifestyle, interest and preference information. We may add this information to the existing personal information we hold about you.

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Who sees your personal information?

the personal information we collect about you will be used within the Royal Mail group of companies and, where appropriate, by and on behalf of our partner companies (see below). Exactly who sees your personal information depends on the context in which you provided it and whether or not you have given any marketing preferences. You can change your mind about your marketing preferences at any time through “Your Profile” page. You will need to sign in to your account in order to do this on our website or by contacting us in the manner set out in any relevant product or service literature.

Sometimes we'll share your personal information with third parties outside the Royal Mail group. We may do this for the following reasons:

to provide you with a product or service. Some of our products and services are provided in conjunction with our partner companies, and we'll need to share your personal information with them to provide you with the products or services. We make it clear in the terms and conditions for each service whether personal information will be shared with such third parties or not.
to assist us or our partner companies to provide products or services to you. To enable third parties to provide us or our partner companies with such assistance, we may need to share your personal information with them. When we do so, these companies are required to act in accordance with our or our partner companies instructions and they must keep your personal information secure.
to provide you with information about other products, services and promotions. If you have given your consent, we may share some of your personal information with our partner companies so that they can provide you with information about other products, services and promotions that may be of interest to you.
to protect the Royal Mail group or others. We may share your personal information with third parties when we believe it is necessary to protect our or another person’s rights, property, or safety. This includes exchanging personal information with third parties to protect against fraud and reduce payment risks.
to provide personal information collected during the application process to credit reference agencies. This personal information may be recorded by them. We may give details of your account and how you manage it to them. If you do not pay us or our partner companies in full and on time credit reference agencies may record the outstanding debt. This personal information may be supplied to other organisations by credit reference agencies to perform similar checks and to trace your whereabouts and recover debts that you owe. Records remain on file with the credit reference agencies for 6 years after they are closed, whether settled by you or defaulted.
if you give us false or inaccurate information and we suspect or identify fraud we will record this and may also pass this information to fraud prevention agencies and other organisations involved in crime and fraud prevention.
to comply with applicable laws, regulations and codes of practice or in response to a valid request from a competent authority

We will only deal with third parties that we trust to treat our customers’ personal information with the same stringent controls that we apply ourselves.

Your personal information may be processed outside the European Economic Area (EEA) where privacy laws may not provide protection to the same level as in the UK, but before any such processing takes place we will take steps to ensure that your personal information will be adequately protected as required by the Data Protection Act.

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