Compare Genie is a trading style of Sentient Technology Solutions Ltd who are a limited company registered in the United Kingdom, Registered number: 11362541 Registered office: 27, Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AX,United Kingdom. Sentient Technology Solutions Ltd is registered with the ICO. Our registeration number is ZA89373. Copyright © 2018-2020 Sentient Technology Solutions Ltd
This policy applies to all users of our website and/or our comparison services.
This policy applies to the information which we may hold about you. This includes:
We are a data controller in relation to the information that we collect and hold about you. As a result, we are legally responsible for how that information is handled by us. The nature of our services mean that we may transfer information (including personal data) about you to third parties (who will also be acting as controllers in respect of that data). This policy only deals with how we handle personal data relating to you.
We will comply with data protection law in the way we use and share your personal data. Among other things, this means that we will only use your personal data:
We will take every reasonable precaution to safeguard the personal information that you supply.
If you have any queries relating to our use of your personal information, or any other related data protection questions, please contact us at info@comparegenie.co.uk
If you provide us with your information through this website, for instance by filling in one of the forms requesting us to compare insurance quotes, we shall use your information as set out in this Privacy Policy and in the notices we provide when you submit your information. By submitting your personal information, you consent to our use of the information as set out in this Privacy Policy and such notices. You will be able to withdraw that consent at any time by the methods described in this Privacy Policy. In particular, we may need to collect your special categories data to allow us to provide you with quotes, as set out below.
If you give us your personal information, we will use it to provide you with the quote comparison information you request (including the annual renewal service – see section 4). If you request a quote comparison through our website, we will forward the personal information you submit to providers to enable us to obtain a quote for you. The providers may use your personal information for their own purposes, as set out further below.We cannot provide a quote comparison to you unless we are able to share your personal information in this way.
Please note that we can offer both online and offline insurance comparison services depending upon the product you wish to receive a quote on.
The Privacy Policy also applies to our energy comparison service and any other service we have available on our website, www.comparegenie.co.uk
Note that it is your responsibility to check and ensure that all information, content, material or data you provide on our website is correct, complete, accurate and not misleading and that you disclose all relevant facts.
We make sure that we have appropriate security measures to protect your information (see section 14 Security below).We will periodically review your personal information to ensure that we do not keep it for longer than is permitted by law (see section 9 below which details how long we keep your personal information for).
Special Categories Data
In order to provide you with a quote we may need to collect personal information which data protection legislation defines as special categories data, such as medical history or criminal convictions. We may also need to share this data with providers to enable them to generate their quotes for you. We may process this data because it is in the substantial public interest to do so for the purposes of arranging and/or advising on contracts of insurance.
Providing data about other people
If you are providing us with another person’s information you should first ask them to read this Privacy Policy and our Terms and Conditions By giving us information about another person you are confirming that they have given you consent to provide the information to us and that they understand how their details will be used.
We will use your data in the following ways:
Quote Confirmation
When you obtain (or request) a quote with us, you will automatically be sent confirmation of your quote (or confirmation of your quote request when using our offline insurance comparison service) by email so that you have a record of it and can easily retrieve your quote (where applicable) in the future. This is a standard part of the service that we offer.
Being kept up to date by us
Where you tell us you are happy to receive information from us we may send you communications which may include the following:-
Depending on the contact preferences you select, we may communicate with you by email, SMS, post and telephone.
Annual renewal service
As part of our service, we may also contact you by email and/or SMS around the anniversary of when you completed your quote in order to remind you to carry out a new quote for the forthcoming year. We believe that this is an important part of the service to help ensure you do not forget to renew your insurance. As part of this service we may also resubmit your quote details to give you an idea of what your quotes could be for your next renewal. In order to provide this service to you, we may send that information to our insurance providers so that they can calculate their quotes. When they do this, our insurance providers may carry out “soft” credit checks on you with credit reference agencies, and these checks may be performed ahead of the renewal date. You may see these “soft” credit checks on your credit report but they will have no impact on your credit rating (please see section 7 for more details on soft credit checks).
If you don’t want to receive communications from us you can let us know at any time by unsubscribing via email info@comparegenie.co.uk or through our contact us page. You can use this unsubscribe option at any time. Also, if you initially decided to receive updates from us but then changed your mind you can always use the unsubscribe link in our e-mail communications.
Data protection law says that we are allowed to use personal information only if we have a proper reason to do so such as consent or legitimate interests.
Our grounds for processing your personal information are as follows:
You can withdraw your consent at any time. Please contact us if you want to do so.
You have a right to object to our use of your personal information for these legitimate interests (please see section 13 below).
When you use any of our services, we may disclose your personal information to the following parties:
Where permitted by data protection and privacy law, we may also disclose information about you (including electronic identifiers such as IP addresses):
If we reasonably believe false or inaccurate information has been provided and fraud is suspected, details may be passed to fraud prevention agencies to prevent fraud and money laundering.
If we transfer personal data about you to providers, it will be solely to enable them to provide a quote for you (or in the case of the energy comparison service, to switch energy providers). Providers will be acting as data controllers in respect to any use by them of personal data transferred by us to them. You should read your chosen provider’s privacy policy when given the opportunity to do so.
To ensure providers have the necessary facts to assess your insurance risk, verify your identity, to help prevent fraud and to provide you with their best premium and payment options, they may obtain information from third parties at quotation and renewal and in certain circumstances where policy amendments are requested. The checks may be against both public data (such as information from the electoral roll) and private data (such as your credit history).
This information may include a quotation search from a credit referencing agency. This search will appear on your credit report and will be visible to other credit providers. It will be clear that this is a quotation rather than a credit application by you to pay by monthly installments. This may happen regardless of whether you get a quote via the internet or phone for any of these services.
Some providers may use the personal data you provide to obtain a quote for their own internal purposes such as fraud prevention or for internal analysis (such as monitoring customer demographics, market trends or pricing analysis). Some of the providers may also use personal data they hold about you (or which is held by other members of their group or in some instances the company whose brand is administered by them) from loyalty schemes and other account information. Some providers may pass this personal data to their insurance underwriters.
Providers may also exchange information about you through various databases, such as the Claims and Underwriting Exchange (CUE), which holds a record of incidents reported to providers by policyholders and third party claimants, as a way to help prevent fraud. Providers may also exchange information with other databases such as the No Claims Discount Database, the Motor Insurance Anti-Fraud and Theft Register, run by the Association of British Insurers (ABI), and the Hunter Database (a central insurance and claims checking system). Providers may also share information with insurance underwriters. As mentioned above, the exchange of your information in this way allows providers to verify the information that is provided during the quote process and also helps detect fraudulent claims.
If you provide us with your driving licence number (‘DLN’) via our quote form the providers may pass this information to the DVLA in order for a search to be carried out to confirm your (or any named driver’s) licence status, entitlement and relevant restriction information and endorsement/conviction data. Carrying out these searches help providers to validate your information, preventing fraud and reducing incidents of negligent misrepresentation and non-disclosure. DLN searches may be carried out as part of your quote or at any point throughout the duration of your insurance policy. These searches will not appear on your (or the named driver’s) driving licence record information.For details of the information about you that the DVLA may hold, please see https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/driver-and-vehicle-licensing-agency or http://www.mylicence.org.uk/.
Some providers who offer products designed for students or graduates may also undertake additional checks against higher education sources to verify your student or graduate status.
If you decide to enter into a contract with a provider through this website, the information you have provided to us, together with any further information requested by, and supplied by you or us to the provider, will be held by the provider for the purposes set out in that provider’s privacy policy. Therefore, you are strongly advised to read your chosen provider’s privacy policy and satisfy yourself as to the purposes for which the provider will use your personal information before entering into the contract. We have no responsibility for the uses to which a provider puts your personal information.
In relation to our online insurance comparison service, if during the quote process you tell us that you are you happy to be contacted by providers, you agree that your personal data may be used by the top three competing providers who provided you with the cheapest quotes to contact you with a view to seeing if you are interested in purchasing the quoted product.
Please note that the companies contacting you are solely based on the cheapest price retrieved not exclusively based on the cover you selected.
Where our offline insurance comparison service is used, up to 5 providers will contact you directly to provide a quote by telephone and where you have provided consent, by email and/or SMS.
If you click through to a third party website from our website (or confirm a switch with an energy provider), we cannot guarantee you will not be contacted by those parties. We are not responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other websites. Whenever possible we will only partner with other websites which maintain the same standards as are present on our own website but we cannot guarantee this. If you click through to any providers to their own website, you will be subject to that provider’s website terms and conditions and privacy policy which we would recommend you read carefully. Our business energy comparison system is provided Love Energy Savings.com Limited, registered office at Unit 2 Springfield Court, Summerfield Road, Bolton, England, BL3 2NT. By using that service we will need to review and agree to their own Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions.
If you no longer wish to be contacted by providers for marketing purposes, please follow the instructions in their marketing communications, or consult their privacy policies for further information about unsubscribing.
Unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law, we will only hold your personal information on our systems for the period necessary to fulfil the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy or until you request it is deleted. Even if we delete your personal information it may persist on backup or archival media for legal, tax or regulatory purposes.
We also handle the above data for our own legitimate business interests including but not limited to, the keeping of records and accounts, staff training and monitoring, recording sales or quotation requests generated, communicating with providers and in marketing out other similar services to you or reminding you if a renewal comes up.
Except as set out in this Privacy Policy, we will not disclose any of your personal data to other parties without your permission unless we are legally required to do so by, for example, a court order, for the purposes of prevention of fraud or other crime, or by a regulator.
From time to time there may be a requirement to process your personal data in other countries outside of the European Economic Area where data protection safeguards differ to those of the UK. Where this is necessary, we will ensure that your data is kept securely and only processed in accordance with the data protection legislation. Your use of our services will be considered to be an indication of your consent to this transfer.
Please note that some providers may carry out some of their administrative services from outside of the EEA.Where this is the case it will be set out in their terms and conditions and privacy policy.
This website uses cookies. A cookie is a piece of data that may be stored on your computer while you visit a website. The cookie stored by this website will be used to identify your computer. You may disable the use of cookies in your internet browser, but this will restrict your use of our website. In particular, you will not be able to use our quote comparison service.
When you visit our website, our server will automatically record your IP address and the time and duration of your visit. We may also use the records of the pages you visit on this website to analyse trends, administer the site and track your movements through the website so that we can improve the usability of and access to the website.
This website also uses Google Analytics to allow us to monitor how users use our website.
Please see our cookie policy for more information including how you can stop or manage cookies.
Advertisements
The advertisements that you see displayed on our website are delivered by certain third party advertising companies. No information which identifies you, for example your name, address, email address or telephone number, is used to provide this advertising. Sometimes we may use cookies to show you Compare Genie adverts while you are online.You can find out more about this and how to turn off cookies by reading our cookie policy
We respect the fact that your personal information is your information so we want to be clear about what rights you have under data protection legislation and how you can exercise them.
In relation to our offline insurance comparison service, some automated decision making may take place in relation to the way we pass your details to providers. This is necessary for providing the service to you. Please do not use our service if you object to the use of your information in this way.
If you raise an objection we will stop processing your personal information unless very exceptional circumstances apply, in which case we will let you know why we are continuing to process your personal information. If you disagree with our decision on this, you have the right to complain to the privacy regulator. \
Please see section 9 “How long do we retain your personal information” before contacting us.
If you still wish to exercise your right, you should contact us at info@comparegenie.co.uk and we will respond to your request within a month.
You have the right to request copies of the personal information we hold about you.
Once we’ve received your request we will provide our response within one month. If your request is unusually complex and likely to take longer than a month, we will let you know as soon as we can and tell you how long we think it will take.
The Data Protection Officer
Compare Genie – Trading name of Sentient Technology Solutions Limited
27, Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AX,United Kingdom
We reserve the right, where applicable, to request confirmation of your identity before taking action.
We do our best to keep the information you disclose to us secure. We place a high priority on protecting and managing data in accordance with accepted standards including ISO 27001.
We will also, where it’s appropriate, ensure that our website uses https to help keep information about you secure.
However, we can’t guarantee or warrant the security of any information which you send to us, and you do so at your own risk. By using our website you accept the inherent risks of providing information online and will not hold us responsible for any breach of security.
We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy from time to time. You should therefore check this Privacy Policy each time you visit our website. Where required by law we will obtain your consent to make these changes. If you do not agree with any changes please do not continue to use this website.
Updated July 2020
