XConnect considers protection of your privacy to be of utmost importance and is committed to providing you with a personalised service that meets your requirements in a way that safeguards your privacy. This policy explains how we may collect information about you and then use it in order to satisfy your particular requirements. It also outlines some of the security measures that we take in order to protect your privacy and gives certain assurances on things that we will not do.

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 indicate if you do or do not (as applicable) wish to receive information from us about other services or products. Normally this is done by way of a tick boxes on an application form or contract. You may revise the choice that you have made at any time by writing to us to inform us of the change.

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. We will not use sensitive personal data about you other than for the specific purpose for which you provide it.

1. Collection of information

We may collect personal information about you from a number of sources, including:
• 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, payment method and possibly 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 your preferences

2. Use of information

2.1 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:
a) identify you when you contact us;
b) 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);
c) 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;
d) carry out marketing analysis and customer profiling (including with transactional information) and create statistical and testing information;
e) help to prevent and detect fraud or loss; and
f) 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 shown your consent.

2.2 In some circumstances, we may do certain credit checks with licensed credit reference agencies when you apply to take a service or product. If this is applicable then it will be stated in our terms and conditions of business.

3. Disclosure of information

We may disclose information we hold about you to third parties for the purpose of providing services you have requested, as part of the process of sale of one or more of our businesses, or where legitimately requested for legal or regulatory purposes, as part of legal proceedings or prospective legal proceedings. From time to time, these third parties may be located outside the European Economic Area in countries, which do not have the same standards of protection for personal data as the UK.

4. Monitoring

You should also note that communications with you (including phone conversations and emails) may be monitored and recorded by us for quality assurance and compliance purposes.

5. Protection of information

We maintain strict security measures in order to protect personal information. This includes following certain procedures, for example to check your identity when you telephone us, encrypting data on our websites and in order to ensure compliance with all applicable legal requirements.

6. The Internet

6.1 If you communicate with us via the internet then we may occasionally use email to contact you about our services and products. When you first provide personal information to our website we will normally give you the opportunity to indicate whether you would prefer us not to contact you in this way. However, you can always send us an email at any time to change your preferences.

6.2 Please be aware that communications over the Internet, such as emails/webmails, are not secure unless they have been encrypted. Your communications may route through a number of countries before being delivered - this is the nature of the World Wide Web/Internet. We cannot accept responsibility for any unauthorised access or loss of personal information that is beyond our control.

6.3 We may use "cookies" to monitor website user traffic patterns and site usage. This helps us to understand how our customers and potential customers use our websites so that we can develop and improve the design, layout and functionality of the sites. A cookie is a piece of information that is stored on your computer's hard drive and which records your navigation of a website so that, when you revisit that website, it can present tailored options to you based upon the stored information about your last visit. You can normally alter the settings of your browser to prevent acceptance of cookies.

6.4 If you do not want us to deploy cookies in your browser, you can set your browser to reject cookies or to notify you when a web site tries to put a cookie on your computer. However, rejecting cookies may affect your ability to use some of the products and/or services at our Web site.

7. Turning off cookies in different browsers:

7.1 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.

7.2 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. On 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).

7.3 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.

7.4 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.

8. Links

This website may contain links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. This privacy policy applies solely to information collected on this website.

9. Transferring your data outside of the European Economic Area (EEA)

Since XConnect operates globally, it may be necessary to transfer your personal information to other offices or to companies who process data on our behalf located in countries outside of the EEA. This may happen where our servers or such companies are based outside of the EEA or where you use our services and products while visiting countries outside of the EEA. The data protection and other laws of these countries may not be as comprehensive as those in the UK or the EU - in these instances we will take steps to ensure an adequate level of protection is given to your information.

10. Further information

If you would like any further information or have any comments on our Privacy Policy then please write to us at the address below. We may amend this policy from time to time, in which case the amended version will be published on our website.

XConnect
Cooper House
316 Regents Park Road
London N3 2JX
United Kingdom

This policy applies to personal information held about individuals. It does not apply to information we hold about companies and other organisations.