2. Our legal grounds for handling your personal data

The UK’s data protection laws allow us to use your personal data provided we have a lawful basis to do so.  This includes sharing it in certain circumstances, as described below.

We consider we have the following reasons (legal bases) to use your personal data:

• Your consent: we may also use your data when you consent to it. You can withdraw this consent at any time, in which case we will cease to use it, unless we have a right and a need to continue processing it for one of the other reasons set out above.

More information on how we use your personal data and for what purposes is set out below.

3. What personal data is collected about you and how we collect it

We may collect data about you from the following sources:

Data provided by you:

• When you use our services and throughout the course of our dealings with you: your name, gender, marital status, national insurance number, postal address, time at address, previous addresses, email address etc, other information you may provide to us when using our services.
• When you talk to us: for example on the phone, or in person including call recordings and voice messages. We may monitor or record calls with you to check we have carried out your instructions, to resolve queries or disputes, to improve the quality of our service or for regulatory or fraud prevention purposes
• In writing: for example letters, emails, texts and other electronic communications etc.
• Online: for example when you use our website.
• Photos: selfies and photographs of your documents.
• In financial reviews and in any surveys etc.

From time to time we may contact you to ask for your consent to use your personal data for other purposes. Your personal data may also be used for other purposes where required or permitted by law.

When we and fraud prevention agencies process your personal data, we do so on the basis that we have a legitimate interest in preventing fraud and money laundering, and to verify identity, in order to protect our business and to comply with laws that apply to us. We, and fraud prevention agencies, may also enable law enforcement agencies to access and use your personal data to detect, investigate and prevent crime. Fraud prevention agencies can hold your personal data for different periods of time, and if you are considered to pose a fraud or money laundering risk, your data can be held for up to six years.