Privacy

Pledgetodaysavetomorrow.co.uk is brought to you by British Gas, which is owned by Centrica plc. Centrica plc and its subsidiary companies believe it is important to protect your privacy, and so we are committed to giving you a personalised service that meets your needs in a way that also protects that privacy

This policy explains how we may collect information about you and then use it to meet your needs. It also explains some of the security measures we take to protect your privacy, and tells you certain things we will not do. Please note that this policy only applies to this website. To see the policy that applies to the main British Gas website at house.co.uk

You should read this policy in conjunction with the Website Terms and Conditions.

When we first obtain personal information from you, or when you take a new service or product from us, we will give you the opportunity to tell us if you do or do not want to receive information from us about other services or products. You can normally do this by ticking a box on an application form or contract. You may change your mind at any time by emailing us at the address below.

1. Collecting information

We may collect personal information about you from a number of sources, including the following.

• From you when you agree to take a service or product from us, in which case this may include your contact details, date of birth, how you will pay for the product or service and your bank details.
• From you when you contact us with an enquiry or in response to a communication from us, in which case this may tell us something about how you use our services.
• From documents that are available to the public, such as the electoral register.

Please note that some of the personal information we hold about you may be 'sensitive personal data' within the meaning of the Data Protection Act 1998 - for example, information about your health or ethnic origin.

2. Using information

Information you provide or we hold about you (whether or not under our contract or contracts with you) may be used by us or our agents to:

• identify you when you contact us;
• help identify accounts, services and products which you could have from us from time to time (we may do this using an automatic scoring system, which uses the information you have provided, any information we hold about you and information from other agencies, including credit-reference agencies);
• help run, and contact you about the improved running of, any accounts, services and products we have provided before, or provide now or in the future; (we may contact you by e-mail or text message if you have given us these contact details);
• create statistical and testing information and carry out marketing analysis and customer profiling (including using information about what you buy from us and how you pay for it, for example usage rates and any discounts we have offered you - these are examples only and not a complete list);
• help to prevent and detect fraud or loss; and
• contact you in any way (including mail, e-mail, phone, visit, text or multimedia messages) about products and services offered by us and selected partners. We will only contact you in this way if you have previously given your permission.

We may allow other people and organisations to use information we hold about you:

1. to provide services you have asked for;
2. as part of the process of selling one or more of our businesses;
3. if you have failed to pay us, in which case we may transfer your debt to a another organisation and provide them with details about you and that debt;
4. if we have been asked to provide information for legal or regulatory purposes; or
5. as part of current or future legal proceedings.

From time to time, these other people and organisations may be outside the European Economic Area in countries that do not have the same standards of protection for personal information as the UK.

We may also allow your information to be used by other Centrica Group companies (including those using the British Gas, Scottish Gas and Dyno Group brands) for them to carry out any of the above purposes.

We may monitor and record communications with you (including phone conversations and e-mails) for quality assurance and to make sure that we are meeting our legal and regulatory requirements.

If you give us information on behalf of someone else, you confirm you have given them the information set out in this document, and that they have given permission for their personal information to be used in the way we have described. If you give us sensitive information about yourself or others (such as health details or details of any criminal convictions of members of your household), you agree (and confirm that the person the information is about has agreed) to us processing this information in the way set out in this document

3. Protecting information

We have strict security measures to protect personal information. This includes following certain procedures (for example, checking your identity when you phone us) and encrypting (encoding) data on our websites

4. The Internet

If you communicate with us using the internet, we may occasionally e-mail you about our services and products. When you first give us personal information through our website, we will normally give you the opportunity to say whether you would prefer us not to contact you by e-mail. However, you can always send us an e-mail (at the address set out below) at any time if you change your mind.

Please remember that communications over the Internet, such as e-mails and webmails (messages sent through a website), are not secure unless they have been encrypted. Your communications may go through a number of countries before they are delivered – this is the nature of the Internet. We cannot accept responsibility for any unauthorised access or loss of personal information that is beyond our control.

We may use 'cookies' to monitor how people use our site. This helps us to understand how our customers and potential customers use our website so we can develop and improve the design, layout and function of the sites. A cookie is a piece of information that is stored on your computer's hard drive which records how you have used a website. This means that when you go back to that website, it can give you tailored options based on the information it has stored about your last visit. You can normally alter the settings of your browser to prevent it from accepting cookies.

If you do not want us to use cookies in your browser, you can set your browser to reject cookies or to tell you when a website tries to put a cookie on your computer. However, you may not be able to use some of the products or services on our website without cookies.

5. Turning off cookies in different browsers

Internet Explorer 5.0

1. From your browser menu, select ‘Tools’.
2. Then select ‘Internet Options’. This will bring up the ‘Internet Options’ dialogue box.
3. On the top of the dialogue box, select ‘Security’, then ‘Custom Level’. This will bring up the ‘Security Settings’ box.
4. Scroll down using the scroll bar on the right hand side of the box, until you come to the section carrying the title ‘allow cookies to be stored on your computer’.
5. Of the options available, select ‘Disable’, and then select the ‘OK' button on the bottom of the menu box.

Internet Explorer 6.0

1. From your browser menu, select ‘Tools’, and then ‘Internet Options’. This will bring up the ‘Internet Options’ dialogue box.
2. n the top of the dialogue box, select ‘Privacy’. This will bring up the ‘Privacy Settings’ box.
3. On the Privacy tab, move the slider up for a higher level of privacy or down for a lower level of privacy.
4. Move the slider to the top to block cookies from all web sites.

Following these instructions will stop your computer from accepting cookies in future. You may reconfigure your computer to accept cookies again by following these instructions, but by selecting 'Enable', and the 'OK' button on the bottom of the menu box (Internet Explorer 5.0); or by selecting on 'Default' button (Internet Explorer 6.0).

Netscape 4.7

1. First, on your top menu, select ‘Edit’, and then ‘Preferences’. This will bring up the ‘Preferences’ menu box.
2. From the options on the left-hand side, select ‘Advanced' which will bring up another menu.
3. Halfway down, you will see a section on cookies, and if you wish to turn cookies off, you should select ‘Disable’, and then the ‘OK’ button on the bottom of the menu box.

You may reconfigure your computer to accept cookies again by following these instructions, but by selecting ‘Accept All Cookies’, and then selecting the ‘OK’ button on the bottom of the menu box.

Netscape 6.0

1. First, on your top menu, select ‘Tasks’, and then ‘Privacy & Security’.
2. From here you have the option to ‘block cookies from this site’, ‘unblock cookies from this site’ or view and remove and prevent cookies from being reaccepted from selected sites.

You can find information on disabling cookies in other browsers see www.allaboutcookies.org

Links

This website may contain links to other sites or recommended suppliers. Please remember that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of these other sites. This privacy policy applies only to information collected on this website.

Further Information

If you would like any more information or you have any comments about our privacy policy, please either write to us at Data Protection Officer, Privacy Unit, British Gas, 3 The Square, Stockley Park, Uxbridge UB11 1BN, United Kingdom or email us at house@house.co.uk.

We may amend this policy from time to time, in which case we will publish the amended version on our website, and you can ask us for a copy by writing to the above address or by e-mailing us at house@house.co.uk