Privacy policy

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 do this
• We give you control over the personal information we hold about you, including who is allowed to see it and how it is used
• We won’t use your personal information to contact you for direct marketing purposes unless you specifically allow us to by giving your consent
• We take all reasonable care to safeguard your personal information through security policies and secure business processes

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, 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 the Your Profile page. You will need to log 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

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 file(s) 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. You agree to such service providers and operators 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.

The personal information we collect about you will be used within the Post Office Limited 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 by contacting our customer services team using our online contact form, or contact us in the manner set out in any relevant product or service literature you are in receipt of.

Sometimes we'll share your personal information with third parties outside the Post Office. 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 in providing 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 Post Office Limited 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.

How long we keep your personal information depends on the context in which you provided it and the marketing preferences you have expressed. In particular:

• We will keep any personal information we or our partner companies need to provide you with any product you buy or service you subscribe to for the period during which we or our partner companies provide that product or service to you
• We may keep your contact details for as long as we have your consent to send you marketing information and/or pass your contact details to third parties
• We may keep records of any transactions you enter with us or our partner companies for up to six years. This is so that we can respond to any complaints or disputes that arise in that period
• We will keep other personal information about you if it is necessary for us to do so to comply with the law

We aim to give you control over the personal information we hold about you. You can update the personal information we hold for you at any time by contacting our customer services team using our contact form, or contact us in the manner set out in any relevant product or service literature you are in receipt of.

You can request details of all the personal information we hold about you by contacting our Information Rights Team. They will send you an application form which you should complete and return. The charge for this service is £10 for each request. You can contact the team by writing to: Information Rights Team, 1st Floor, Finsbury Dials, 20 Finsbury Street, London EC2Y 9AQ. Email: information.rights@postoffice.co.uk.

If you have given your consent, we at the Post Office or our partner companies may provide you with information about products, services and promotions that we at the Post Office, our partner companies believe will be of interest to you. You can change your mind about your marketing preferences at any time by contacting our customer services team using our contact form, or contact us in the manner set out in any relevant product or service literature you are in receipt of.

Please note:

The marketing preferences you give will not prevent you from receiving information about the benefits and features of specific products or services we already supply you.

When you select your marketing preferences, these preferences will only apply to the personal information stored about you on the database appropriate for that particular product or service or the database used to manage registrations on our website. If you have provided personal information to us through another channel, or have purchased other products or subscribed for other services, the use of that personal information may not be affected by the marketing preferences you select.

We take the security of your personal information seriously.

We've implemented technology and security policies, rules and measures to protect the personal information we have under our control, both on and offline, from improper access, use, alteration, destruction and loss.

Here are some of the ways we protect your personal information:

• If you provide personal information to us online the transmission of that information to us is protected by SSL 128 bit session encryption.  Encryption is the process through which sensitive information is scrambled before it is transmitted so that it remains private even if it is intercepted. However, unless your internet browser supports 128-bit encryption you will not be able to take advantage of this level of security
• Offline, your personal information is kept securely in our databases and offices, or, where relevant, by our partner companies

We will take all reasonable steps to protect your personal information, but data can never be guaranteed as 100% secure. Please note that we will not be liable for any breach of security unless we have been negligent.

As you would expect of us, we will take all reasonable measures to ensure that the personal information you provide through our website is held and managed securely. However, there is a lot that you can do to help keep your personal information safe – not just on our website, but whenever you provide personal information online.

A cookie is a small text file that is saved to the hard drive of your computer when you use a website.

For more information on how we use cookies and how they affect your browsing experience, please see our cookies policy.

This website includes links to other sites. We make every effort to provide links to high quality, reputable sites but we're not responsible for their privacy practices, website content or the services they offer.

Your communications with our Customer services teams (including by telephone or email) may be monitored and/or recorded for training, quality control and compliance purposes to ensure that we continuously improve our customer service standards.

We may change our Privacy Policy from time to time. Any changes will be published on our website which can be accessed at any time.

Post Office Limited is registered in England and Wales. Registered Number 2154540. Registered Office: Finsbury Dials, 20 Finsbury Street, London, EC2Y 9AQ

For further information about our privacy practices please contact our Information Right Team. You can contact the team by:

• Writing to Finsbury Dials, 20 Finsbury Street, London, EC2Y 9AQ
• Online via our contact form