Business Information Data Privacy Policy

Contact information
When you apply for Experian services from our websites we will ask you to provide some contact information. Contact information may include some or all of the following: Full name, residential address, land line telephone number, mobile phone number and email address.  We will only retain your Contact information for as long as there is a continuing need to use it.  This could include dealing with disputes/complaints/legal issues.

Payment information
Where the services you select on our website carry a cost, we may ask you to provide some payment information. Payment information may include some or all of the following: Credit/debit card details (card number, expiry date, card security code (CVV) and card billing address. This Payment information is only retained for as long as it is needed, for example, for monthly payments.

Security details
For most of the services you select on our websites, we will ask you to provide security information that only you will know. Security information may include some or all of the following: a memorable word, a security question and answer which may contain personal data. We will retain your Security information for up to three years after the provision of the service.

Device information
We also collect certain data automatically from your visit to our websites or use of our services which may include some or all of the following: How you connect to the internet (IP Protocol Address) and how you engage with our site, screen resolution, Browser data stored on your device (such as cookies – see also Cookie policy – click here), Information about the software you are using such as internet browser, Location data (city, region of the IP address you used when accessing our Products and Services). We will only retain your Device information for as long as there is a continuing need to retain it.

Other
Finally, in some products and services we offer services such as free text chat. We will retain this information for up to 30 months in case it is required to resolve any disputes or complaints. After which it will be deleted or anonymised and retained to help with product development and customer service.

As part of providing our My Business Profile service to you we will confirm your identity and authenticate the information you provide for security purposes.

Required product registration information such as name, address(es), and date of birth, are utilised to establish your membership or one-time transaction record and to verify your identity. We require this verification in order to provide you with access to your company information. For security reasons and to protect the confidentiality of your information, we will verify your identity by checking details you supply against details about you held on other databases to which we have access for these purposes. A record of this check will be kept and, with your consent, may be used by other organisations for verification and fraud prevention purposes.

We will use your information to process the payment/s you commit to when signing up to our services and for the collection of any future payments or overdue amounts for those services.

Your payment card provider may let us know if the card details relating to your Experian payment change. If this happens, we reserve the right to update certain card details to make sure your access to our services isn’t interrupted.

So, for example, if you get a new payment card with a later expiry date to the one you currently pay with (but all the other details stay the same), we may update your payment card expiry date accordingly.

We will use your information to be able to provide and improve the customer support we provide to you (e.g. when you have questions or when you forget your log-in information).

We will use your information to ensure that our team has the knowledge and expertise to ensure we provide the best possible experience to you when you interact with us.

We will use your information for fraud investigation, detection and prevention measures and in order to provide suitable security for your account and your information that we hold (such as to enable us to prevent others logging in to your account without your permission from unknown devices).

We will use your information for reporting and analytical purposes (e.g. geographic distribution of customers) to enable us to improve our products and services and provide appropriate levels of support to our customers.

Where you have signed up to use a product or service we will use your contact information to keep you up to date with the latest product news as well as informing you about other Experian products and partner products we can offer you that might help your business. You can always change your communication preferences by following the onscreen prompts after you have accepted our terms and conditions and read our privacy policy.

All our marketing communications will include the option to unsubscribe from us contacting you again.

Experian may select particular customers and invite them to be involved in market research. If you accept this invitation, we will use the feedback you give us to help decide on how to improve our products and services.

We will use your information to track your activity on our websites to help us better understand your interests and how you interact with us. We will use this information to help us detect if someone else is trying to access your account(s) or use the services you take from us. We will also use this information to better engage with you and to ensure that you get the best service we can provide and improve the products in the future.

We will use your information to ensure that we maintain comprehensive and up to date records of the ways we process your personal information and other operational activities and therefore we will use the information you provide for record-keeping, updates and general administrative purposes.

Your personal information may be used to collect debt from you in the case of non-payment for our products and services.

Whilst we will try to make sure that you are happy with the service we provide and do not feel the need to complain, if you do complain to us, we will use the information we have about you to help us manage your complaint and to bring it to a close.

Like any other business, we are required to comply with many laws and regulations. We will, where necessary, use your information to the extent required to enable us to comply with these requirements.

From time to time we will run prize draws, competitions, promotions and surveys and, only if you agree, we will use the personal data you provide to us, to run such activities and to do what we agree to do as part of them.

In our My Business Profile service it is possible to challenge the data we hold and provide new data. This will be validated offline through a phone call.

Experian may use performance tracking technology within our emails to improve our future interactions with you. This means we are able to capture information including (but not limited to) the time and date you open our e-mails and the type of device used to open the email. We use this information primarily to understand whether our e-mails are opened and what links are clicked on by our customers. We then use this information to improve the emails that we send to you and the services that we provide.

Legitimate Interests
In the United Kingdom, we can also use personal information where the benefits of doing it are not outweighed by the interests or fundamental rights or freedoms of data subjects. The law calls this the “Legitimate Interests” condition for processing. For example we may use data collected from our websites for:

• Helping to prevent and detect crime such as fraud and money laundering. Fraud and money laundering cost the British economy many billions of pounds every year. That cost is ultimately passed on to the public in the form of higher prices. By helping to avoid fraud such as identity theft, we help to stop this from happening.
• Complying with/supporting compliance with legal and regulatory requirements. Additionally, the services we provide help other organisations to comply with their own legal and regulatory obligations. For example, Experian is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
• Internal training purposes - to enable us to train our staff to better provide services to our customers.
• Reporting and analytical purposes – to provide management information and information to improve our services.
• Website usage tracking activity – to help us to improve our services.
• To maintain our records and other administrative purpose - to enable Experian to provide the most accurate data for our customers and clients.
• Complaint and dispute resolution – we will need to use customer data when investigating queries and complaints.
• To improve data accuracy and completeness - when you use our My Business Profile service.
• Email tracking to improve our communications to our customers.
• Debt Collection.

1. Group companies
As a member of the Experian group of companies, we can benefit from the large IT infrastructure and expertise that exists within our business. This means that the personal data you provide to us may be accessed by members of our group of companies for support and administrative purposes.

2. Suppliers
We use a number of service providers to support our business and these service providers may have access to our systems in order to provide services to us and/or to you on our behalf.

3. Resellers, distributors and agents
We sometimes use organisations to help provide our products services to clients and customers. Personal information may be provided to them in connection with this purpose.

4. Fraud prevention agencies
We will check your details with the records we hold and share with fraud prevention agencies. If false or inaccurate information is provided and fraud is identified, we will record this and details will be passed to the other fraud prevention agencies. Law enforcement agencies may access and use this information.

We and other organisations may also access and use this information to prevent fraud and money laundering, for example, when:

• Checking details on applications for credit and credit related or other facilities.
• Managing credit and credit related accounts or facilities.
• Checking details on proposals and claims for all types of insurance
• Checking details of job applicants and employees

Please contact us at Experian Ltd, PO Box 8000, Nottingham, NG80 7WF if you want to receive details of the fraud prevention agencies.
We and other organisations may access and use the information recorded by fraud prevention agencies from other countries.

5. Public bodies, law enforcement and regulators
The police and other law enforcement agencies, as well as public bodies such as local and central authorities can sometimes request personal information. This may be for the purposes of preventing or detecting crime, apprehending or prosecuting offenders, assessing or collecting tax, investigating complaints or assessing how well a particular industry sector is working.

6. Individuals
You can obtain a copy of the information we hold about you. See section 'Your rights to how we use your personal information' for further information on how you can do this.

7. We will use your payment information to show how well you are paying your bills.  This information will be shared with other organisations through our Payment Performance programme.  For further information on how this works please see the Credit Reference Agency Information Notice (CRAIN).

While countries in the European Economic Area all ensure rigorous data protection laws, there are parts of the world that may not be quite so rigorous and don’t provide the same quality of legal protection when it comes to your personal information.

To make sure we keep your personal information safe, we apply strict safeguards when transferring it overseas. For example:

1. Sending your personal information to countries approved by the European Commission as having high quality data protection laws, such as Switzerland, Canada and the Isle of Man
2. Putting in place a contract that has been approved by the European Commission with the recipient of your personal information that provides a suitable level of high quality protection, or
3. Sending your personal information to a member organisation approved by the European Commission as providing a suitable level of high quality protection. For example, the Privacy Shield Scheme that exists in the US.

We have put in place various safeguards to ensure that individuals’ whose personal information we handle are not unduly harmed by the activities we use their personal data for. These include making information available to individuals so that they understand how their personal data will be used by Experian, explaining their rights to obtain the information we hold and to have their information corrected or restricted and providing information about how individuals can complaint if they are dissatisfied.

We restrict access to your personal data to those employees, and third parties, who need to know that information to provide products or services to you. We maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect your personal data.

Experian have a comprehensive Global Security Policy based on internationally recognised standards of security (known as ISO27001 standard) and holds ISO27001 certification in the key areas of Global Security Admin team who are responsible for administering logical access to systems and in the Data Centre.

Experian has a dedicated Cyber Security Investigations team who safeguard Experian’s key assets such as its systems and storage facilities. This team, identify and effectively manage any security developments that may threaten Experian's people, process, or technology through intervention and the thorough investigation of security incidents. Experian holds Cyber Essentials Certification and performs risk assessments against our critical and external facing applications annually.

Experian is annually audited by an External QSA (Qualified Security Assessor) from Trustwave and have successfully maintained compliance since 2010.

Contact Information
Contact information such as names and addresses are kept while there is a continuing need for us to have it.

Payment Information
Payment information such as card and bank details are kept while there is a continuing need for us to have it.

Security Details
Security check information such as date of birth and answers to questions such as “what is your mother’s maiden name?” are kept while there is a continuing need to retain it.

Device Information
Device information such as how you connect to the internet and screen resolution are kept for up to 3 years after the provision of the service.

Other
Finally, in some products and services we offer services such as free text chat. We will retain this information for up to 30 months in case it is required to resolve any disputes or complaints. After which it will be deleted or anonymised and retained to help with product development and customer service.

In all of these cases, our need to use your personal information will be reassessed on a regular basis, and information which is no longer required for any purposes will be deleted/disposed of securely.