Privacy Policy
1 Introduction
1.1 We are committed to protecting the privacy of visitors to the Website in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 (the "Act") and we follow the guidelines provided by the Information Commissioner.
1.2 This Privacy Policy explains how we may collect personal data and how we use the information we may collect about you.
2 Information we collect about you
2.1 We only collect information which is necessary for the operation of the provision of our Service to you. We will not keep your personal data for longer than necessary to provide the Service, or as required by law.
2.2 We collect personal data from you via this Website and from third party sources, in order to assess your application for credit. In considering your application, the main activities we undertake, are as follows:
2.2.1 assessment of your repayment performance under any previous credit agreement;
2.2.2 checking of any records held about you in relation to any insurance claims made by you;
2.2.3 undertaking credit services and/or other automated decision making process; and
2.2.4 checking of your information with fraud prevention agencies to prevent fraud, including money laundering, to recover debt, and to carry out statistical analyses.
3 Disclosure to Third Parties
3.1 In the provision of our Service to you, we disclose your information (some of which will include sensitive personal data - e.g. about your health, alleged offences etc) to the following third parties who will provide us with further information about you, such third parties may also be required to disclose your information to selected third parties in relation to this application, and as required by law:
3.1.1 one or more Credit Reference Agencies;
3.1.2 corporate groups and/or affiliate companies, including but not limited to our parent company Post Net Limited;
3.1.3 any other creditor in the context of your current application form to assist you in your application;
3.1.4 any collector or tracing agent, to any company, business or intermediary associated with us to recover debt; and/or
3.1.5 any prospective purchaser of our company, including but not limited to sale of our assets in the event of Advantage Loans going into insolvent liquidation or having a Receiver or Administrator appointed over its assets.
Such disclosures enable us to assess your application.
4 Additional Disclosures
4.1 We may provide aggregated demographic statistics and other related information to third parties but these statistics will not contain any information which could be used to identify any individual customer.
4.2 We reserve the right to access and disclose to third parties any information to comply with applicable laws, including but not limited to, disclosure in accordance with the Act, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 and lawful authority requests, to safeguard the proper operation of our systems and to protect ourselves and our customers/prospective customers.
5 Protection of personal information
We use our reasonable endeavours, including up to date industry procedures, to protect your private use of the Website and to secure such use from unauthorised access, use, disclosure or loss or your personal data.
6 Direct Marketing
6.1 We may contact you by post, telephone and/or email (or such other channel we may adopt from time to time) about services and/or products offered by us, or by other group companies which we consider to be of interest to you.
6.2 We may provide your information to selected third parties who may contact you by post, telephone and/or email (or such other channel they may adopt from time to time) with information which may be of interest to you.
6.3 You have the right at any time to stop us from contacting you or giving your details to others for marketing purposes. If you wish us to stop, please write to the DPA Officer, Debt Line PO Box 5571 Bournemouth BH1 1ZN
7 Data Protection Warning
IMPORTANT - USE OF YOUR INFORMATION
In considering your application we will search your record at credit reference agencies. They will add to your record details of our search and your application and this will be seen by other organisations that make searches. It is important that you give us accurate information. We will check your details with fraud prevention agencies, and, if you give us false or inaccurate information and we suspect fraud, we will record this. We and other organisations may use and search these records to:
- Help make decisions about credit and credit related services, for you and members of your household;
- Help make decisions on motor, houshold, credit, life and other insurance proposals and insurance claims, for you and members of your household;
- trace debtors, recover debt, prevent fraud, and to manage your accounts or insurance policies;
- check your identity to prevent money laundering, unless you furnish us with other satisfactory proof of identity.
We, the credit reference agency(ies) and the fraud prevention agency(ies) will also use the records for statistical analysis about credit, insurance and fraud. We will/may also use the information about you to carry out market research.
Please telephone us on 08700 620 624 if you want to have details of those credit reference agencies and fraud prevention agencies from whom we obtain and with whom we record information about you. You have a legal right to these details.
You have a right, on payment of a fee, to receive a copy of the information we hold about you if you apply to us in writing.
8 Data Protection Compliance Officer
Please contact our Data Protection Compliance Officer if you have any queries about how we use your personal data - 08700 620 624