Data protection and privacy policy
© Copyright 2010 United Utilities Group PLC
United Utilities is a group of companies which includes United Utilities Group PLC and United Utilities Water PLC, Further details of these companies can be found in the subsidiaries section of this web site. We, United Utilities, will process any personal information that you provide to this site and have the relevant registrations in the United Kingdom under the Data Protection Act 1998. We will comply with the provisions of this Act, including in relation to the security of any personal information which we ask you to provide to us. We endeavour to take all reasonable steps to protect your personal information.
You understand that we may use your personal details if you register as a user of the services provided by United Utilities or use the United Utilities web site generally for the purposes which we describe in this policy. The purpose of this statement is to set out how your personal information will be used by companies within United Utilities.
- When you use this site, you may be asked to provide certain information such as your contact details, bank details, or other information relating to services you have with us. We will store this data and hold it, for instance, on computers. We will use this data to provide you with the services or information you have requested and for other purposes which we set out in this policy.
- Information (including information on the services we provide you such as electricity, water usage and telecommunications, and about any monies you owe us) that you provide or that is obtained by United Utilities or kept in its customer records, will be shared within United Utilities to help us understand your relationship across the whole of United Utilities, and to effectively administer your overall relationship with us. We will also use this information for assessment and analysis (e.g. market, customer and product analysis) to enable us to review, develop and improve the services which we offer and to understand and select products and services which we think, from the information we have about you, will interest you.
- We may also give information about you as follows:
- to employees and agents of the group to administer any accounts, products and services provided to your by the group now or in the future;
- to collection agencies, lawyers, and local authorities to help us trace and collect debts on your accounts;
- to anyone to whom we transfer or may transfer our rights and duties under our agreement with you;
- if we have a duty to do so or if the law allows us to do so;
- to the police and other law enforcement agencies investigating criminal offences if we are satisfied of the circumstances surrounding the request.
Email - You should be aware that information conveyed by e-mail could be deliberately or accidentally intercepted or corrupted. The company does not accept any responsibility for any changes or breaches of confidence which may arise through use of this medium. The content of e-mails sent and received by company employees may be intercepted or monitored by the company for security and training purposes. Whilst we make every effort to ensure that e-mails we send to you are free from viruses this cannot be guaranteed. We recommend that you scan all e-mail for viruses with appropriate and frequently updated virus checking software.
You are advised not to use e-mail to send us credit/debit card information, bank account details, billing or other personally identifiable information as e-mail may travel unencrypted and can be read by anyone who receives or intercepts it. Once your information reaches us, we store it behind a secure firewall that blocks access to the information from outside of our network. Only United Utilities authorised individuals and, where necessary, those of our third party partners, are allowed to access the information.
We take reasonable precautions to protect your information, however you should understand that "perfect security" does not exist on the internet or on email networks and that use of these mediums involves some level of risk to you.
Method of response - You acknowledge and agree that we may treat specific actions by you, such as sending us an email, or supplying us with an email address for customer service to respond to you, as a request that we may, where necessary, communicate in our response personal and/or account information by email. We also reserve the right to select an alternative method to communicate with you. We may update your account with the email address you contact us with.
In order that we can monitor and improve the site, we may gather certain information about your use, including details of your domain name and IP address, operating system, browser, version and the web site that you visited prior to our site. New technologies are emerging on the internet that help us to deliver customised visitor experiences. In particular, there is a technology called "cookies" which may be used by us to provide you with customised information from our web site. A cookie is an element of data that a web site can send to your browser, which may then store it on your system.
Cookies allow us to understand who has seen which pages and advertisements, to determine how frequently particular pages are visited and to determine the most popular areas of our web site. We may use cookies so that we can give you a better experience when you return to our web site. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies. You do not have to accept cookies. If you would prefer for us not to use cookies, you can set your browser to reject cookies or to let you know of a cookie before it is placed on your computer. Information about cookies and how to reject them can be found from the Information Advertising Bureau at http://www.allaboutcookies.org/.
We may supplement the information that you provide to us with information that we receive from third parties. We may also share your data with third parties for the purpose of investigation of fraud.
You have the right to see information about personal data (as defined in the Data Protection Act) we keep about you upon written request, identification and payment of a fee.
If you wish to make a request to access your information please contact:
Data Protection and Fraud Manager, United Utilities, Grasmere House, Lingley Mere Business Park, Lingley Green Avenue, Warrington WA5 3LP
If you are concerned that any of the information we hold on you is incorrect, or have any queries about our privacy policy, please contact us at the above address or contact our Data Protection and Fraud Manager at caroline.bishop@uuplc.co.uk
Please be aware that this policy applies only to http://www.unitedutilities.com/. This site may link to other web sites that may be accessed through our site. We are not responsible for the data policies or procedures or the content of linked non-United Utilities web sites.
In the course of undertaking the activities specified in this privacy policy we may transfer data outside the European Economic Area. If this is the case, we will ensure that your personal data is given a similar level of protection to that which you have within the United Kingdom.