Data privacy for Partners

Utility Warehouse Limited (“Utility Warehouse”, "UW", “we” or “us”) has issued this Data Privacy Notice (“Notice”) on behalf of itself and its affiliates within the Utility Warehouse group to describe how we handle personal data that we hold about our independent distributors of Utility Warehouse’s goods and services whom we refer to as ‘Partners’ (collectively referred to as “you”).

We respect the privacy rights of individuals and are committed to handling personal data  responsibly and in accordance with applicable law. This Notice sets out the personal data that we collect and process about you, the purposes of the processing and the rights that you have in connection with it.

If you are in any doubt regarding the applicable standards, or have any comments or questions about this Notice, please use the contact details at the bottom of this page.

The affiliates within our group of companies include:

• Electricity Plus Supply Limited;

• Gas Plus Supply Limited;

• Telecom Plus PLC;

• Telecommunications Management Limited;

• Utilities Plus Limited;

• Utility Warehouse Limited;

• Utility Debt Collectors Limited; and

• 1p Mobile Limited.

We may notify you if this list of companies changes.

As a Partner of Utility Warehouse, or when making an application to become a Partner, we may process personal information about you and your dependents, and other individuals whose personal information has been provided to us. The types of personal information we may process include, but are not limited to:

• Identification data – such as your name, gender, photograph, date of birth, driving licence details, staff member IDs.

• Contact details – such as home and business address, telephone/email addresses, emergency contact details.

• Background information – such as criminal records data (for vetting purposes, where permissible and in accordance with applicable law).

• National identifiers – such as national ID/passport.

• Financial information – such as the amount you earn from your position as a Partner and money loaned to you (eg to obtain a vehicle through hire purchase ).

• IT information – information required to provide access to company-hosted IT systems and networks such as IP addresses, log files and login information which you may need to use as a Partner.

Sensitive personal data includes any information that reveals your racial or ethnic origin, religious, political or philosophical beliefs, genetic data, biometric data for the purposes of unique identification, trade union membership, or information about your health/sex life and personal information relating to criminal convictions and offences (“Sensitive Personal Data”). As a general rule, we try not to collect or process any Sensitive Personal Data about you, unless authorised by law or where necessary to comply with applicable laws.

However, in some circumstances we may need to collect, or request on a voluntary disclosure basis some Sensitive Personal Data for legitimate purposes (such as information about criminal convictions for insurance purposes).

We may use your personal data for the purposes of assisting you with your business development activities, for due diligence purposes to ensure that you are permitted to act as a Partner in relation to the sale of Utility Warehouse services, training and sales quality purposes, to allow you to hire or purchase vehicles from us, or to permit you to borrow funds from us for your business development purposes.

If you apply for any credit with us, such as to participate in the UW Vehicle Plan, we will carry out additional checks through approved third party suppliers.  We are required to perform these checks to comply with our regulatory obligations when providing finance. These are checks to:

a) verify your identity; 

b) assess your credit worthiness.  Such credit checks may form a "footprint" on your credit file that may be visible to other organisations.  The external credit reference agency will provide us with your credit information, such as your credit score and any judgements against you which will allow us to assess your ability to pay; and 

c) comply with our anti-money laundering and anti-bribery and corruption obligations by checking sanctions lists and other publicly available information.  Please find further information here before making such an application https://www.equifax.co.uk/privacy-hub/crain

(i) Other legitimate business purposes
We may also process your personal data to investigate violations of law or breaches of the Partner Policies and Guidelines. We may monitor your business performance in compliance with our policies and procedures and we may also use your personal data to reward you with benefits or holidays for or other incentives (for example, to book reward activities on your behalf). We will also use your personal data in relation to disciplinary procedures in accordance with our policies and procedures.

(ii) Law-related purposes
We also may use your personal data where we consider it necessary for complying with laws and regulations, including collecting and disclosing personal data as required by law (e.g. for tax, health and safety, anti-discrimination laws), under judicial authorisation, or to exercise or defend the legal rights of the Utility Warehouse group of companies.

We take care to allow access to personal data only to those who require such access to perform their tasks and duties, and to third parties who have a legitimate purpose for accessing it. Whenever we permit a third party to access personal data, we will implement appropriate measures to ensure the data is used in a manner consistent with this Notice and that the security and confidentiality of the information is maintained.

(i) Transfers to other group companies
As mentioned above, we will share your personal data with other members of the Utility Warehouse group for other legitimate business purposes such as IT services/security, tax and accounting, to process the hire purchase of vehicles and general business management.

(ii) Transfers to third party service providers
In addition, we make certain personal data available to third parties who provide services to us. We do so on a “need to know basis” and in accordance with applicable data privacy law. For example, some personal data will be available to third-party companies who provide us with commission payment support services and assist you with your business development activities and to help improve the success of your sales, for example with training providers and merchandising stores. We may share your personal data with third parties when arranging incentives or for you to receive benefits or other incentives, to enable you to exercise your share options, or to ask you to fill in performance/satisfaction surveys.  As stated above, if you apply for credit to purchase a vehicle for example we use third party credit reference agencies.

(iii) Transfers to other third parties
We may also disclose personal information to third parties on other lawful grounds, including:

• To comply with our legal obligations, including where necessary to abide by law, regulation or contract, or to respond to a court order, administrative or judicial process, including, but not limited to, a subpoena, government audit or search warrant.

• In response to lawful requests by public authorities (including for national security or law enforcement purposes).

• As necessary to establish, exercise or defend against potential, threatened or actual litigation.

• Where necessary to protect the vital interests of another person.

• In connection with the sale, assignment or other transfer of all or part of our business.

• With your consent.

Our legal basis for collecting and using the personal information described above will depend on the personal data concerned and the specific context in which we collect it.

However, we will normally collect personal data from you where we need the personal data to perform a contract with you (i.e. to administer a contract to enable you to be independent distributor of Utility Warehouse goods and services), or where the processing that personal data is in our legitimate interests (for example, conducting performance and satisfaction surveys, carrying out disciplinary action, and providing training and screening) and not overridden by your data protection interests or fundamental rights and freedoms. In some cases, we may also have a legal obligation to collect personal data from you or may otherwise need the personal data to protect your vital interests or those of another person.

If you have questions about or need further information concerning the legal basis on which we collect and use your personal data, please email us at [email protected].

Our suppliers operate at a global level, we may need to transfer personal data to suppliers based in countries other than the ones in which the information was originally collected. When we export your personal data to a different country, we will take steps to ensure that such data exports comply with applicable laws. For example, if we transfer personal information from the United Kingdom to a country outside which has not been approved as providing an ‘adequate’ level of protection’ by the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Officer, such as the United States, we will implement an appropriate data transfer mechanism such as standard contractual clauses or taking other measures to provide an adequate level of data protection under UK law.You can request a copy of such transfer mechanism).

Personal data  will be kept as long as needed to carry out the purposes described in this Notice or as otherwise required by applicable law. Generally this means your personal data will be retained for as long as you are a Partner and/or in receipt of a residual income from us plus a period of seven years thereafter in accordance with our document retention policy.

You may exercise the rights available to you under applicable data protection laws as follows:

• If you wish to access, correct, update or request deletion of your personal data, you can do so at any time by contacting us using the contact details at the bottom of this page.

• ou can object to processing of your personal data, ask us to restrict processing of your personal data or request portability of your personal data if technically feasible. Again, you can exercise these rights by contacting us using the contact details at the bottom of this page.

• If we have collected your personal data on the basis of your consent, you may withdraw your consent at any time. Withdrawing your consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing prior to your withdrawal.  We may need to keep some personal data in reliance on lawful processing grounds other than consent.

• You have the right to raise a complaint to us about the processing of your personal data;

• In addition you may raise a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office. For more information, please contact the Information Commissioner’s Office Data protection framework | ICO.
   

We respond to all requests we receive from individuals wishing to exercise their data protection rights in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time in response to changing legal, technical or business developments. When we update our Privacy Notice, we will take appropriate measures to inform you, consistent with the significance of the changes we make.

You can see when this Privacy Notice was last updated by checking the “issued” date displayed at the top of this Privacy Notice.

If you have any questions or concerns about our use of your personal data please contact our data protection officer using the following details: [email protected].

The data controller of your personal information is Utility Warehouse Limited, which is registered with the ICO with registration number ZA243042.