CustomerPrivacy Notice

We take your privacy very seriously. Please read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on who we are and how and why we collect, store, use and share your personal data. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal data and how to contact us or supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.

We collect, use and are responsible for certain personal data about you. When we do so we are subject to the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).

Key terms

It would be helpful to start by explaining some key terms used in this policy:

We, us, ourEncom Energy Limited t/as Encom Energy Systems
Our data protection contactCompliance Director
028 95 380 910
Personal dataAny information relating to an identified or identifiable individual
Special category personal dataPersonal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, philosophical beliefs or trade union membership

Genetic data

Biometric data (where used for identification purposes)

Data concerning health, sex life or sexual orientation

Data subjectThe individual who the personal data relates to

Personal data we collect about you

The personal data we collect about you depends on the particular products and services we provide to you. We will collect and use the following personal data about you:

  • your name and contact information, including email address and telephone number
  • information to check and verify your identity, eg your date of birth
  • your gender, if you choose to give this to us
  • your address
  • demographic information
  • information about your home including floor plan, number of occupants, utility providers and devices used
  • information about your current and past use of energy
  • information about your electricity tariff
  • information about how you use the products and services we supply
  • information about your meter and how much energy is used in your home
  • your billing information, transaction and payment card information
  • information relating to energy grants
  • information about how you use our website, IT, communication and other systems
  • your responses to surveys, competitions and promotions

We collect and use this personal data for the purposes described in the section “How and why we use your personal data” below. If you do not provide personal data we ask for, it may delay or prevent us from providing products and services to you.

How your personal data is collected

We collect most of this personal data directly from you—in person, by telephone, text or email and/or via our website and apps. However, we may also collect information:

  • directly from a third party, eg:
  • Northern Ireland Electricity (NIE);
  • Government agencies e.g. if you have applied for a grant;
  • from a third party with your consent, eg your bank or building society
  • from cookies on our website

For more information on our use of cookies, please see our Cookie Policy

How and why we use your personal data

Under data protection law, we can only use your personal data if we have a proper reason, eg:

  • where you have given consent;
  • to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
  • for the performance of a contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract; or
  • for our legitimate interests or those of a third party.

A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your personal data, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests. We will carry out an assessment when relying on legitimate interests, to balance our interests against your own.

The table below explains what we use your personal data for and why.

What we use your personal data for
Providing products and/or services to you
Our reasons
To perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract
What we use your personal data for
Preventing and detecting fraud against you or us
Our reasons
For our legitimate interest, ie to minimise fraud that could be damaging for you and/or us
What we use your personal data for
Inviting you to participate in energy pilot schemes, analysing your participation in such schemes to enable us to monitor the pilot and your energy usage
Our reasons
For our legitimate interests, ie to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the most competitive service to you
What we use your personal data for
Conducting checks to identify our customers and verify their identity
Our reasons
Depending on the circumstances:
  • to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
  • for our legitimate interests
What we use your personal data for
To enforce legal rights or defend or undertake legal proceedings
Our reasons
Depending on the circumstances:
  • to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
  • in other cases, for our legitimate interests, ie to protect our business, interests and rights
What we use your personal data for
Gathering and providing information required by or relating to audits, enquiries or investigations by regulatory bodies
Our reasons
To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
What we use your personal data for
Ensuring business policies are adhered to, eg policies covering security and internet use
Our reasons
For our legitimate interests, ie to make sure we are following our own internal procedures so we can deliver the best service to you
What we use your personal data for
Operational reasons, such as improving efficiency, training and quality control
Our reasons
For our legitimate interests , ie to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price
What we use your personal data for
Ensuring the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information
Our reasons
Depending on the circumstances:
  • for our legitimate interests, ie to protect trade secrets and other commercially valuable information;
  • to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
What we use your personal data for
Statistical analysis to help us manage our business, eg in relation to our financial performance, customer base, product range or other efficiency measures
Our reasons
For our legitimate interests, ie to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price
What we use your personal data for
Preventing unauthorised access and modifications to systems
Our reasons
Depending on the circumstances:
  • for our legitimate interests, ie to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for you and/or us;
  • to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
What we use your personal data for
Protecting the security of systems and data used to provide the goods and services
Our reasons
To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

We may also use your personal data to ensure the security of systems and data to a standard that goes beyond our legal obligations, and in those cases our reasons are for our legitimate interests, ie to protect systems and data and to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for you and/or us

What we use your personal data for
Updating and enhancing customer records
Our reasons
Depending on the circumstances:
  • to perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract;
  • to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
  • for our legitimate interests, eg making sure that we can keep in touch with our customers about existing orders and new products
What we use your personal data for
Statutory returns
Our reasons
To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
What we use your personal data for
Ensuring safe working practices, staff administration and assessments
Our reasons
Depending on the circumstances:
  • to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
  • for our legitimate interests, eg to make sure we are following our own internal procedures and working efficiently so we can deliver the best service to you

How and why we use your personal data—in more detail

More details about how we use your personal data and why are set out our Website privacy policy and the Encom Energy app Privacy Policy.

How and why we use your personal data — Special category personal data

We do not process Special Category personal data relating to our customers.

How and why we use your personal data—sharing

See “Who we share your personal data with” for further information on the steps we will take to protect your personal data where we need to share it with others.

Marketing

We will use your personal data to send you updates (by email, text message, telephone or post) about our products and/or services, including exclusive offers, promotions or new products and/or services.

We have a legitimate interest in using your personal data for marketing purposes (see above “How and why we use your personal data”). This means we do not usually need your consent to send you marketing information. If we change our marketing approach in the future so that consent is needed, we will ask for this separately and clearly.

You have the right to opt out of receiving marketing communications at any time by contacting us at sales@encomenergy.co.uk.

We may ask you to confirm or update your marketing preferences if you ask us to provide further products and/or services in the future, or if there are changes in the law, regulation, or the structure of our business.

We will always treat your personal data with the utmost respect and never sell or share it with other organisations outside the Encom Energy Systems group for marketing purposes.

Who we share your personal data with

We routinely share personal data with:

  • third parties we use to help deliver our products and/or services to you, eg payment service providers, warehouses and delivery companies;
  • other third parties we use to help us run our business, eg marketing agencies cloud storage providers or website hosts;
  • our bank;

We only allow those organisations to handle your personal data if we are satisfied they take appropriate measures to protect your personal data. We also impose contractual obligations on them to ensure they can only use your personal data to provide services to us and to you.

We occasionally also share personal data with:

  • our external auditors, eg in relation to the audit of our accounts, in which case the recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations;
  • our professional advisors (such as lawyers and other advisors), in which case the recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations;
  • law enforcement agencies, courts, tribunals and regulatory bodies to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
  • other parties that have or may acquire control or ownership of our business (and our or their professional advisers) in connection with a significant corporate transaction or restructuring, including a merger, acquisition, asset sale, initial public offering or in the event of our insolvency—usually, information will be anonymised but this may not always be possible. The recipient of any of your personal data will be bound by confidentiality obligations.

We will not share your personal data with any other third party.

Who we share your personal data with—further information

If you would like more information about who we share our data with and why, please contact us (see “How to contact us” below).

Where your personal data is held

Personal data may be held at our offices and those of our third party agencies, service providers, representatives and agents as described above (see above: “Who we share your personal data with”).

Some of these third parties may be based outside the UK/EEA. For more information, including on how we safeguard your personal data when this happens, see below: “Transferring your personal data out of the UK and EEA”.

How long your personal data will be kept

We will not keep your personal data for longer than we need it for the purpose for which it is used.

If you no longer have an account with us, we are no longer providing goods or services to you, or the warranty or guarantee periods in relation to the goods or services we provide to you have expired, we will delete or anonymise your account data after 1 year.

Transferring your personal data out of the UK and EEA

Countries outside the EEA and the UK have differing data protection laws, some of which may provide lower levels of protection of privacy.

It is sometimes necessary for us to transfer your personal data to countries outside the UK and EEA. In those cases we will comply with applicable UK and EEA laws designed to ensure the privacy of your personal data.

Your rights

You have the following rights, which you can exercise free of charge:

Access

The right to be provided with a copy of your personal data

Rectification

The right to require us to correct any mistakes in your personal data

Erasure
(also known as the right to be forgotten)

The right to require us to delete your personal data—in certain situations

Restriction of processing

The right to require us to restrict processing of your personal data in certain circumstances, eg if you contest the accuracy of the data

Data portability

The right to receive the personal data you provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and/or transmit that data to a third party—in certain situations

To object

The right to object:

  • at any time to your personal data being processed for direct marketing (including profiling);
  • in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal data, eg processing carried out for the purpose of our legitimate interests unless there are compelling legitimate grounds for the processing to continue or the processing is required for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims
Not to be subject to automated individual decision making

The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (including profiling) that produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you

The right to withdraw consents

If you have provided us with a consent to use your personal data you have a right to withdraw that consent easily at any time

You may withdraw consents by [insert details as relevant depending on consents]

Withdrawing a consent will not affect the lawfulness of our use of your personal data in reliance on that consent before it was withdrawn

For more information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, please contact us (see “How to contact us” below) or see the Guidance from the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) on individuals' rights.

If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please:

  • email, call or write to us—see below: “How to contact us” and
  • provide enough information to identify yourself eg your full name, address and customer or matter reference number and any additional identity information we may reasonably request from you;
  • let us know what right you want to exercise and the information to which your request relates.

Keeping your personal data secure

We have appropriate security measures to prevent personal data from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed unlawfully. We limit access to your personal data to those who have a genuine business need to access it. Those processing your personal data will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We also have procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.

How to complain

Please contact us if you have any queries or concerns about our use of your personal data (see below “How to contact us”). We hope we will be able to resolve any issues you may have.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with:

  • the Information Commissioner in the UK

The UK's Information Commissioner may be contacted using the details at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or by telephone: 0303 123 1113.

Changes to this privacy policy

This privacy notice was published on October 2022 and last updated on March 2023.

We may change this privacy notice from time to time—when we do we will inform you via our website or other means of contact such as email or via Encom Energy applications.

How to contact us

You can contact us by post, email or telephone if you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you, to exercise a right under data protection law or to make a complaint.

Our contact details are shown below:

Compliance Director

028 95 380 910

sales@encomenergy.co.uk