What information do we gather?
To be able to provide you with the best service possible, we will need to gather certain personal information from you when you contact or interact with us. We will also use this information for security, identification and verification purposes.
We will only ever collect information that helps us provide our services to you. We will keep your information for as long as is needed and only for the following purposes:
- legitimate business activities
- statutory or legal obligations
- auditing and regulatory purposes
When you make an enquiry with us about any of the services we offer, we’ll ask you to provide some contact information. This may include some or all of the following:
- full name
- previous names
- current home address
- previous residential addresses
- date of birth
- landline and mobile phone number
- email address
If you give personal information about someone else (such as a joint applicant), you must have their permission to do so.
Once we have gathered information from you and you subsequently make contact with us, we will use specific pieces of your information to help us identify you and verify that we are dealing with the right person.
Where we offer other products such as insurance, we will need to collect and process information that is “sensitive”. This type of information includes details about your health and any criminal convictions you have. Before we gather this type of information we will explain to you why it is required and will always store this information securely.
Throughout your relationship with us, we will hold your personal information securely in our systems. This will include any information provided by you or others (for example, if you’re making a joint application) in various ways, including (but not limited to):
- in applications, emails and letters, during telephone calls and conversations in our offices, when registering for services, in customer surveys, when you participate in competitions and promotions, when using our website, and during fact find reviews and interviews.
- from analysis (including the creation of profiles used to uniquely identify you when you use our online, mobile and telephony services) which are used to help us combat fraud and other illegal activity; and
- information we receive from or through other organisations (for example, credit reference agencies, mortgage lenders, insurance companies, comparison websites, social networks, and fraud prevention agencies) whether in the course of providing products and services to you or otherwise, and from information we gather from your use of and interaction with our internet and the devices you use to access them
If there is a change to any of your personal information and you notify us, we will update your records in our systems. Where we have introduced you to another organisation, we are unable to update your details with them and you will need to contact them personally to notify them of these changes.
- full name
- previous names
- current home address
- previous residential addresses
- date of birth
- landline and mobile phone number
- email address
If you give personal information about someone else (such as a joint applicant), you must have their permission to do so.
Once we have gathered information from you and you subsequently make contact with us, we will use specific pieces of your information to help us identify you and verify that we are dealing with the right person.
Where we offer other products such as insurance, we will need to collect and process information that is “sensitive”. This type of information includes details about your health and any criminal convictions you have. Before we gather this type of information we will explain to you why it is required and will always store this information securely.
Throughout your relationship with us, we will hold your personal information securely in our systems. This will include any information provided by you or others (for example, if you’re making a joint application) in various ways, including (but not limited to):
- in applications, emails and letters, during telephone calls and conversations in our offices, when registering for services, in customer surveys, when you participate in competitions and promotions, when using our website, and during fact find reviews and interviews.
- from analysis (including the creation of profiles used to uniquely identify you when you use our online, mobile and telephony services) which are used to help us combat fraud and other illegal activity; and
- information we receive from or through other organisations (for example, credit reference agencies, mortgage lenders, insurance companies, comparison websites, social networks, and fraud prevention agencies) whether in the course of providing products and services to you or otherwise, and from information we gather from your use of and interaction with our internet and the devices you use to access them
If there is a change to any of your personal information and you notify us, we will update your records in our systems. Where we have introduced you to another organisation, we are unable to update your details with them and you will need to contact them personally to notify them of these changes.
If someone gives information about you – or you give us details about someone else – we may add it to the personal information we already hold about you or them. This will only be used in the ways we describe in this privacy notice.
When arranging a mortgage or insurance for you, we will need to ask you for your direct debit details to pass onto the lender or insurance provider so it can collect payments. Where we charge a fee for arranging a mortgage, or the mortgage we are arranging carries a cost – for example, a valuation fee – we will need to ask you for payment information such as your debit card or credit card details.
Third parties
Sometimes we may pass your information on to third parties who provide services to us. When we do this it is on the understanding that they care for your information as carefully as we do, keep it confidential and use it only for the agreed purposes above.
Using our website
If you use our website, we will collect information about the devices you’re using – or ask third parties to do this for us. As this involves using technologies such as cookies, please read our Cookies policy.
JC is the sole owner of the information collected via our website (www.charcol.co.uk) and also any information you provide in relation to an enquiry when you speak to or communicate with one of our advisers or staff. We may use your data together with that of other users and this may be aggregated to build statistical and analytical tables. At no time will your data be individually identifiable in such tables.
When you visit our website, we collect certain data automatically. This may include (but isn’t limited to) the following:
- how you connect to the internet (including your IP address)
- how you use our site, for example your screen resolution and browser data stored on your device (such as cookies – see our Cookies policy for more on this)
- information about the device software you use, such as your internet browser
- location data such as the city or region of the IP address you used when accessing our online services.
Please remember, that whilst we have security measures in place to protect your personal information, the internet is not 100% secure. We cannot therefore guarantee the security of any information you send us online. We are also not responsible for any loss or damage you or others may suffer as a result of losing the confidentiality of your information.
Recording phone calls
To help us train our staff to provide a quality service, check that we have done what you asked us to do correctly and resolve any queries or issues, we record and monitor our phone calls with you. We also monitor phone calls for regulatory purposes and to help detect and prevent fraud and other crimes.