- PH Jones and your personal data
PH Jones is a trading name of British Gas Social Housing Limited, which is part of the Centrica group.
The data controller is British Gas Social Housing Limited.
This is our privacy notice for PH Jones. It explains your statutory rights and how we collect and use your personal data. It describes the processing activities that are carried out by PH Jones, the purposes for which these activities are performed and the legal bases that PH Jones relies upon to justify these processing activities.
This notice applies to personal data we hold about individuals (such as company directors, or contacts on business accounts), including sole traders and partners. It does not apply to information which we hold about companies and other legal organisations.
We may update this privacy notice from time to time to ensure it is always up to date and accurate. Any changes we may make to our privacy notice will be posted on this page, and we will communicate any significant changes to you.
You can contact Centrica’s data protection officer by writing to The Data Protection Officer, Centrica Plc, Millstream, Maidenhead Road, Windsor, Berkshire, SL4 5GD.
You can also contact our data protection officer at privacy@centrica.com.
- Personal data we collect
We collect the following types of personal data:
- Your contact details and the contact details of people associated with your account: information that allows us to contact you directly such as your name, email address, telephone number and addresses associated with your account or order.
- Account information and details of other people linked to your account: information about your account including your login details for websites and apps, age, gender, date of birth, unique account number, unique customer identification, contract details, job details, household details, property type, insurance policy details, nominees, executors, or people with a power of attorney and their details, premise details, previous supplier, proposed new supplier, meter and gas point numbers, meter details, energy consumption, tariff details, marketing preferences, repairs and service history, claims history, complaints details, incident details, and dispatch appointment details.
- Vulnerability information: information that allows us to understand whether you are in a vulnerable situation, including health and disability information.
- Exercising your rights: if you exercise any of your statutory rights under data protection law, we will keep a record of this and how we respond.
- Records of your discussions with our customer support teams, including call recordings, webchat and emails: when you share comments and opinions with us, ask us questions or make a complaint we will keep a record of this. This includes when you send us emails, phone our support team or contact us via webchat or through social media such as through Twitter or on Facebook.
You are not required to provide to us any of the personal data described above, however, if you do not do so, you may not be able to purchase our products and services or the functionality of our products may be reduced.
- What we use your personal data for and why
Where we process your personal data because of our contract
We process these items of your personal data to enter or fulfil the contract between us, including:
| Reason or purpose | Personal data used |
| Provide our services to you and maintain your account (such as site visits by our engineers) | · All the personal information we collect |
Where we process your personal data because we’re legally obliged to
We process these items of your personal data because we have a legal obligation to, including:
| Reason or purpose | Personal data used |
| Look after vulnerable customers | · Contact details· Account information and details of other people linked to your account· Vulnerability information |
| Assist law enforcement agencies, and other public authorities |
·The personal data processed for this purpose would depend on the scope of the enquiry, and will be limited to what is necessary to achieve the purpose of the request. |
Where we process your personal data because we have a legitimate interest to
We process these items of your personal data because we have a legitimate interest to improve the services we provide to you, or to identify new services you might be interested in, or to advertise our services to you, if you would like any further information regarding this please contact us. We process the following categories of personal data, including:
| Reason or purpose | Personal data used |
| Develop new products and services | · Contact details· Information about your job· Call recordings· Exercising your rights |
| Staff training | · All the personal information we collect |
| Investigating misuse of the service, fraud and debt collection | · All the personal information we collect |
| For the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims | · All the personal information we collect |
| Maintain accuracy and relevance of your data | · All the personal information we collect |
| Assist law enforcement agencies, and other public authorities | · The personal data processed for this purpose would depend on the scope of the enquiry, and will be limited to what is necessary to achieve the purpose of the request. |
Where we process your personal data so you can’t be identified any more
We may anonymise and aggregate any of the personal data we hold (so that it does not identify you). We may use anonymised and aggregated information for purposes that include testing our IT systems, research, data analysis, improving our site, apps and developing new products and services.
- Sources we collect your personal data from
We will collect personal data from a number of sources. These include:
- Directly from you: when you set up an account with us, purchase products or services from us, submit information via our websites or apps, complete forms we provide to you, enter our competitions and promotions, make a claim, make a complaint, exercise your statutory rights, contact us by phone, email or communicate with us directly in some other way.
- Our website and apps: we collect information about how you use them.
- Other companies we work with: provide us with information to help us deliver our products and services to you. These include:
- Companies in the same group of companies as us: who may provide relevant information about the products and services bought from them.
- Service engineers: who will provide us with information about your boiler, central heating, and insured products in your home.
- Other companies’ apps and products: provide us with information if you connect them to our products or services.
- Credit and Anti-fraud reference agencies: provide us with information about your transaction and claim history, credit history and account management information.
- The government and regulators: provide us with information about the complaints they receive.
- Social media: information you submit to our social media accounts.
- Landlords and housing associations and providers: provide us with tenants’ information, to enable us to make contact about their energy supply.
- Other companies’ apps and products: if you give them permission to provide us with information when you connect them to your smart home products.
- Who we share your personal data with
We share personal data with the following parties:
| Who | Examples |
| Landlords and housing associations and providers | Your landlord or housing provider |
| Companies in the same group of companies as us | Our parent company, Centrica Plc. |
| The government or our regulators | · Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO);· Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem); and· Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) |
| Credit reference agencies | |
| Companies that support us in running our business, providing our services, our IT infrastructure and to further understand our customers | · Safety auditors and quality assurance checkers· Trimble – To obtain and analyse geo information for field management reporting;· Boston Consulting Group – To answer adhoc business questions;· Accenture – To embed financial controls and reporting;· Survey Monkey – To answer business questions around customer perception / experience / understanding;
· uSwitch – To deliver energy tariffs for your comparison; · Financial Ombudsman Service – To provide response on your complaints and questions; · Zeta – To send you emails; · Response Tap – To analyse and understand the performance of our webpages to ensure consistency within digital channels; · Yard – To measure, optimise, and tailor activity; · Virtuatel – To conduct automated customer surveys; and · Pega – To allow better customer relationship management and business process management · Debt collection agencies |
| Law enforcement agencies and other public authorities |
· Police forces;
· HMRC; |
- Transferring your personal data internationally
PH Jones is part of a global organisation and in common with other organisations, we use third parties located in other countries to help us run our business. As a result, personal data may be transferred outside the countries where we and our customers are located. This includes countries outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”) and to countries that do not have laws that provide specific protection for personal data. We have taken steps to ensure all personal data is provided with adequate protection and that all transfers of personal data outside the EEA are done lawfully. Where we transfer personal data outside of the EEA to a country not determined by the European Commission as providing an adequate level of protection for personal data, the transfers will be under an agreement which covers the requirements for the transfer of personal data outside the EEA, such as the European Commission approved standard contractual clauses.
- How long we keep personal data for
We will keep your personal data for as long as necessary in order to achieve the processing purposes.
- Your rights in relation to your personal data
You may have the following rights in relation to your personal data:
- the right to be informed about the personal data we collect, how your personal data is being used, and from whom we collect your personal data when we obtain it from other sources;
- the right to access the personal data we hold about you;
- the right to request the correction of inaccurate personal data we hold about you;
- the right to request the blocking or deletion of your personal data in some circumstances;
- the right to request that we port elements of your data either to you or another service provider;
- the right to object to us processing your personal data ((1) where we have a legitimate interest to do so, as listed in section 3, but your rights override ours based on your particular situation (which you will need to explain to us), (2) where we are processing it for the purpose of direct marketing, or (3) because we are using automated means to make decisions that have a legal or similarly significant effect); and
- the right to withdraw your consent to those processing activities which we carry out on the basis of consent, listed in section 3.
You only have the benefits of some of the above rights in limited circumstances, which depend on the legal reason why we collected your personal data.
To exercise any of the above rights, or if you have any questions relating to your rights, please contact us by using the details below.
- Complaints
If you have any privacy-related complaints, please contact Centrica’s data protection officer by writing to The Data Protection Officer, Centrica Plc, Millstream, Maidenhead Road, Windsor, Berkshire, SL4 5GD.
You can also contact our data protection officer at privacy@centrica.com. If you are unhappy with the way we are using your personal data you can also complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office or your local data protection regulator. We are here to help and encourage you to contact us to resolve your complaint first.
Version 1.1. December 2018