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Privacy Policy

Centrica plc and its subsidiary companies consider protection of your privacy to be of utmost importance and are 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 from us, we will give you the opportunity to indicate if you do not wish to receive information from us about other services or products (to "opt out"). Normally this will be done by way of tick box on an application form or contract. You may revise the choice that you have made at any time by writing to us informing 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.

Collection of Information
1. We may collect personal information about you from a number of sources, including:

from you when you agree to take a service 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;
from publicly available sources, such as the electoral register.

Use of Information
2. We will use personal information about you for a number of purposes, including:
to help to identify you when you telephone us to make an enquiry - for example, by asking you for your date of birth or telephone number so that we can avoid disclosing information to a person who is not authorised by you to receive it:

to write to, email or telephone you with information about other services or products either from us or from our carefully selected partners. We will not use your information in this way if you have opted out or otherwise not consented.
to help us to administer accounts, services and products which we offer.
to help detect fraud or loss.
Information we hold about you and your preferences will help us to make sure that we contact you about things likely to be of relevance and interest to you.

3. Whether or not you have opted out in relation to use of your information for direct marketing, it is our practice to search the Mailing, Telephone, Fax and Email Preference Services (as applicable) so that if you have registered your details with those Services you will not receive any direct marketing material from us via that channel.

4. 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.

Disclosure of Information
5. Other companies in the Centrica group may use personal information for any of the purposes set out above. This is limited to companies which we control and includes those using the British Gas, Scottish Gas, Goldfish and AA brands.

6. We do not sell mailing lists to third parties for their marketing purposes. Where we have told you in advance, we may disclose certain information to third parties such as a gas, electricity or telecoms network service providers for purposes solely connected with the provision of our service via their networks. Where required or permitted by law, information may be provided to others, such as the Police or the Inland Revenue.

Where a service is to be provided by a third party, for example, a hotle you have chosen through the AA Hotel Booking Service, we may disclose your personal information to that third party for the purpose of ensuring the effective delivery of the service to you.

Protection of Information
7. 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.

The Internet
8. 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.

9. We use "cookies" to monitor site 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.

Monitoring of Calls
10. We may monitor and record communications we receive. This may be done to improve the service which we provide, to ensure compliance with our practices and procedures and where, for example, a contract is entered into by that means, to provide evidence of the transaction.

Further Information
11. If you would like any further information or have any comments on our Privacy Policy then please write to us or send us an email. We may amend this Policy from time to time in which case the amended version will be published on our websites and a copy may be obtained by writing to the above address.

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

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