Vulnerable persons - In order to provide specific services to vulnerable people we may need to process personal data about you or members of your household with organisations such as Social Services, Housing Associations, Social Landlords, Public Health England, Law Enforcement Agencies, Local healthcare providers, the Drinking Water Inspectorate, other utility companies and our internal Priority Services teams.
This may include data of a sensitive nature, such as health information (which is known as Special Category or Sensitive Personal Data). We may also share data about your personal circumstances, for example any frailties or relating to a risk of violence. If we need to do this, we will always try to obtain your consent prior to sharing the data, unless it is not possible under the circumstances and it is in your vital interests for us to do so or there is a substantial public interest or safeguarding issue.
We will only share limited personal data which is proportionate to the need for sharing it.
Should we need to process data about children (those under 16), we will seek consent from an adult with parental responsibility or any appointed guardian.
Profiling – We may use certain types of personal data collected to help us understand how we can focus on sending you information which is relevant to you or to your circumstances. For example whether you could benefit from having a water meter or a more manageable payment scheme.
Examples of data we use for profiling include, water consumption, ability to pay and demographic data.
We will only use this data to improve your situation and will not pass on your “profile” to any third parties for the purposes of marketing.
Marketing – On occasions we may wish to tell you about products or services we feel would be of benefit or interest to you. These products or services may be provided by us or carefully selected third parties. We may need to share some of your personal data with others in order to do this.
We may need to ask for your consent to share such offers and each time you are contacted with such offers you will be given the opportunity not to receive any more. If you don’t want to be contacted about any offers at all, please contact us by writing to United Utilities, Haweswater House, Lingley Mere Business Park, Lingley Green Avenue, Warrington, WA5 3LP or please let us know by calling 0345 075 0715.
Please be aware that each year when we issue bills, we are required by our regulators to supply certain information which will be included with your bill.
If you have agreed to receive marketing, products or services from another company and later decide you no longer want these, please contact that company directly to let them know.
Surveys – If you participate in any surveys such as the Water Talk forum, this is used purely for the purposes of feedback to assist us in improving our services. No personal data provided will be used for marketing purposes.
Website - In order for us to monitor and improve our website (www.unitedutilities.com) we may gather information about your use, including details of your domain name and IP address, operating system and browser type for system administration.
Open Banking - If you apply for financial support with payment of your water bill we undertake an affordability assessment which includes capturing information on your household income. If you choose to provide this information via Open Banking this means we can use your banking data to populate the income element of your application. The provider of our Open Banking Service is Consents.online. We will have access to limited transaction information in your current account for the last 12 months. This data will be used to determine your income and support our assessment of your eligibility for different tariffs. We will only use your open banking data with your informed consent, which will be sought from you via a link sent to your mobile phone, or to your email address. This consent is valid for one-time access only. Only the minimum data required to complete the eligibility assessment will be processed and stored for audit purposes.
We do not give your open banking data to any third parties to use for their own purposes. Please refer to the “Who sees your personal data?” section of this Privacy Notice for further details of the categories of organisations your data may be shared with and for what purposes. We will keep the open banking data provided throughout your contract period and for a reasonable period thereafter. After this time, we will delete your open banking data.
Your rights in relation to your open banking data are the same as for any of your data that we collect, store and use. Please refer to the “Your Data Protection Rights” section of this Privacy Notice for further details of your rights.
If you are unhappy with the way we intend to use your open banking data you can withhold your consent and we cannot access your data. If you provide consent and are subsequently unhappy with the way we use your open banking data, please refer to the “Who can I contact about my personal data?” section of this Privacy Notice for details of how to contact us.