BSG Utilities Privacy Policy

Valid until 06/08/2024. View the current privacy policy here.

BSG Utilities takes its data protection and information security responsibilities very seriously. The effective management of all personal data, including its security and confidentiality, lies at the heart of our business and underpins our practices and processes. We have robust compliance and risk management practices and protocols in place to ensure your data is safe.Please read this privacy notice carefully as it contains important information on who we are and how and why we collect, store, use and share your personal data. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal data and how to contact us or supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.

  1. Who Are We?
    • BSG Utilities is the controller and responsible for your personal data (collectively referred to as “BSG Utilities”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy notice). BSG Utilities is a limited company (13787104) whose registered office is at Fourth Floor, CAI Building, Coble Dene, Royal Quays, North Shields, England, NE29 6DE.
  • If you have any questions about this privacy notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact us using the details set out below.
 
  1. Contact details

Email address: [email protected]

Postal address: C/O Greystone Swan, Fourth Floor, CAI Building, Coble Dene, Royal Quays, North Shields, England, NE29 6DE.

Telephone number: 0191 337 1907

  1. Information we collect about you
    • We will need to collect certain personal information in order to provide our service to you.The information collected may include:
    • Name, Address, Telephone number and Email address;
    • The Following from the documentation provided:
    • Invoice Details
    • Financial Details
    • Energy Specific Details
    • Supplier Details
    • Personal identifying information
    • Technical Data including internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access our website.
 
  1. How and Why we use your personal data
  • We may use your personal data only for the following purposes:
    • to register you as a client of RMC and provide services to you;
    • to administer our relationship with you, including processing payments, accounting, auditing, billing and taking other steps linked to the performance of our business relationship;
    • to carry out background checks, where permitted;
    • compliance with our legal obligations, including maintaining records, compliance checks or screening and recording (e.g. anti-money laundering, financial and credit checks, fraud and crime prevention and detection, which may include automated checks of personal data you provide about your identity against relevant databases);
    • to analyse and improve our services and communications and to ensure business policies are adhered to e.g. policies covering security and internet use;
    • to manage access to our premises and for security purposes;
    • to protect the security of our communications and other systems and to prevent and detect security threats, frauds or other criminal or malicious activities;
    • for insurance purposes;
    • for credit reference checks via external credit reference agencies;
      • In order to process your application, we will supply your personal information to credit reference agencies (CRAs), and they will give us information about you, such as about your financial history. We do this to assess creditworthiness and product suitability, check your identity, manage your account, trace and recover debts and prevent criminal activity. We will also continue to exchange information about you with CRAs on an ongoing basis, including about your settled accounts and any debts not fully repaid on time. CRAs will share your information with other organisations. The identities of the CRAs, and the ways in which they use and share personal information, are explained in more detail at Credit Reference Agency Information Notice (CRAIN) | Experian
    • to exercise or defend our legal rights
      • for any other purposes related and/or ancillary to any of the above or any other purposes for which your personal data was provided to us;
      • for statistical analysis to help us manage our practice e.g. in relation to our financial performance, client base, work type or other efficiency measures;
      • to communicate with you to keep you up-to-date on the latest developments, announcements, and other information about our, events and initiatives;
      • to send you details of client surveys and marketing campaigns; and
      • to collect information about your marketing preferences to personalise and improve the quality of our communications with you.
  • Under data protection law, we can only use your personal data if we have a reason for doing so. We may process your personal data in connection with any of the purposes set out above on one or more of the following legal grounds:
  • q) for the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract;
  • r) to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
  • s) because our legitimate interests, or those of a third-party recipient of your personal data, make the processing necessary, provided that those interests are not overridden by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms;
  • t) where you have given consent; or
  • u) in order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights or for the purpose of legal proceedings.
  • Please note a legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your information, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests.
 
  1. How do we protect your personal data?
  • We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. We have satisfied all legal requirements under this obligation.
  • We limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know or who are undergoing training with us. They will only process your personal data on our instructions, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
  • We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.
  • If we have given you a username and password which allows you to access certain parts of your matter via our systems, such as a data room, you are responsible for keeping such details confidential.
  • You accept the inherent security risks of providing information and dealing online over the internet and will not hold us responsible for any breach of security unless this is due to our negligence or wilful default.
 
  1. Marketing
    • We may use your information to send you updates about any services or events we believe may interest you.
    • For all other kinds of marketing, we will not share your personal data without your consent with any other organisation for marketing purposes.
    • Our marketing e-mails will contain an opt-out button. Please use this button if you would like us to stop sending you marketing material. Alternatively, you can ask us to stop sending you marketing material at any time by emailing us at [email protected] or writing to our marketing department at our registered address.
 
  1. Your Rights
    • Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
    • Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
    • Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
    • Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
    • Request restriction of processing of your personal data.
    • Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
    • Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.
 
  1. No fee usually required
    • You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.
 
  1. What we may need from you
    • We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.
 
  1. Time limit to respond
    • We will endeavour to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.
 
  1. Sale of business
    • If this business is sold or integrated with another business your details may be disclosed to our advisers and any prospective purchasers and their advisers and will be passed on to the new owners of the business.
 
  1. Your consent
    • By submitting your information, you consent to the use of that information as set out in this policy. If we change our privacy policy we will post the changes on this page, and may place notices on other pages of the website, so that you may be aware of the information we collect and how we use it at all times. We will also e-mail you should we make any changes so that you may consent to our use of your information in that way. Continued use of the service will signify that you agree to any such changes.
  • Owing to the global nature of the Internet infrastructure, the information you provide may be transferred in transit to countries outside the European Economic Area that do not have similar protections in place regarding your data and its use as set out in this policy. However, we have taken the steps outlined above to try to improve the security of your information. By submitting your information, you consent to these transfers. (Discuss any specific overseas transfers that are known about, explain the steps taken to ensure adequate protections are in place,
 
  1. Cookies
    • A cookie is a small piece of data that websites store on your computer. Some cookies only exist whilst you remain on the site and are erased when you close your browser; these are known as session cookies. Others remain on your machine between sessions allowing us to recognise you when you return to the site; these are known as persistent cookies.
  • Session Cookies
  • We use these to improve your user experience. For example, a cookie is stored when a form has been submitted but contains errors. The correct information submitted is stored temporarily so that the user does not have to repeat themselves.
  • Persistent Cookies
  • We use these to remember who you are. For example, we store a cookie allowing us to automatically log you in on your return. We also like to keep track of how many different individuals are visiting our site each day; again, this requires a cookie to be stored on each user’s machine.
  • You can enable or disable cookies by modifying the settings in your browser. You can find out how to do this, and find more information on cookies, at: www.allaboutcookies.org.
 
  1. How to complain about the use of your data
    • If you wish to raise a complaint about how we have handled your personal data, including in relation to any of the rights outlined above, you can contact us on the details at the start of this notice and we will investigate the matter for you.
    • If you are not satisfied with our response, or believe we are processing your data unfairly or unlawfully, you can complain to the Supervisory Authority – Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wimslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.You can find further information about the ICO and their complaints procedure here: https://ico.org.uk/concerns/