The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is new regulation set by the European Parliament which aims to strengthen and unify data protection for all individuals within the European Union. For more information please visit the Information Commissioners Office website below:
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/
Premium Credit (‘we / us’) is a finance company which provides affordable finance options for several products and services such as car insurance, football tickets, school fees and much more.
GDPR is relevant to us because it sets out how we can collect, process and store your personal information. It also provides certain rights to you in respect of the personal information which we collect, process and store.
We collect any personal and financial information necessary to carry out due diligence checks and provide financial agreements. Personal information means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person, such as name, address, date of birth, telephone number, email address, bank account number and sort code, proof of address and proof of identity. This includes data which either by itself or with other data held by us or available to us, can be used to identify you.
We obtain personal and financial information directly from you, or indirectly from our credit intermediaries, your service providers, credit reference agencies, fraud prevention agencies or similar companies who carry out identity, verification or other checks.
We will use your data to carry out regulatory and due diligence checks before, and during the setup of a financial agreement option, including credit reference agency checks which may leave a ‘footprint’ on your credit file. This means that the credit reference agency will add details of our search to your CRA record, which will be seen by other organisations making searches (for example other lenders or providers of credit).
For more information about how we process your personal data, please refer to part D of your credit agreement.
We may share your personal information with various third parties including (but not limited to) the following:
• Credit reference agencies
• Collection and recoveries agencies
• The Police and fraud prevention agencies or other regulatory authorities or government agencies
• Debt collection agents
• Agents and advisers who we use to help run your accounts and services
• Any intermediary
• Any service provider
• HM Revenue & Customs, regulators and other authorities
• If you have a debit, credit or charge card with us, we will share transaction details with companies which help us to provide this service (such as Visa and Mastercard)
• Our professional advisors and our auditors
Personal information we hold about you can be requested by completing the following form.
We will keep your personal information for as long as we need it to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected. We will keep personal information after that in order to comply with legal and regulatory requirements. If you would like further information about our data retention practices, please contact us.
Yes, you may request us to delete your personal information by submitting a request to DataProtectionOfficer@pcl.co.uk
Please note your request to delete your personal information will be refused where it is lawful and permitted to do so under data protection law, such as where the personal information has to be retained to comply with legal obligations or to exercise or defend legal claims.
We will ensure we have appropriate physical and technological security measures to protect your information regardless of where it’s held. If we outsource any processes, we will ensure the supplier has appropriate security measures in place and they will be required to comply with GDPR.
If you have any questions or queries about the personal information we collect, process and store about you, you can contact us in writing to The Data Protection Officer, Premium Credit Ltd, Ermyn House, Ermyn Way, Leatherhead, Surrey KT22 8UX or by telephone: 0344 736 9836. Alternatively please visit the ‘my support’ pages of our website at http://www.support.mypremiumcredit.com/ where you can choose from a number of options including ‘Changing my details’ or ‘Contact us’.
For more information about how we process your personal data, please refer to part D of your credit agreement.
Personal information means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person. This includes data which either by itself or with other data held by us or available to us, can be used to identify you. Your personal information comprises personal and financial information that we have obtained from you, the Intermediary(s), your Service Provider(s), credit reference agencies, fraud prevention agencies or similar companies who carry out identity, verification or other checks. We collect your personal information directly from you and we obtain it indirectly from these other sources. We also keep information about the conduct of your Account and any communications between us.
By entering into this Agreement you confirm that all information provided to us or to the Intermediary(s) by you or on your behalf, and either as part of your application for credit or at any time afterwards, is true, complete and accurate in all respects. If your personal information such as your marital status, contact details, or home address changes you must inform us without delay. See ‘Contact us’ below.
Personal information also includes special categories of personal data. This is data about your racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, genetic data, biometric data, data concerning your health, sex life or sexual orientation (as relevant). We do not usually ask you for this type of information nor do we obtain it from third party sources (such as the Intermediary(s)). The exception is data concerning your health – this may be processed if you volunteer this information when we ask you about the conduct of your Account, for instance, if you tell us that you are unable to meet repayments because you have a health condition. Personal information also includes criminal convictions and offence details and we may process these if fraud prevention agency checks reveal a fraud or if we identify a fraud on your Account.
What we may use and process your personal information for and the legal basis for our use and processing
We are required by data protection law to indicate to you the legal basis which relates to our use and processing of your personal information. This may include (as relevant):
This information is condensed. For full details about our sharing of your personal information with the credit reference agencies (CRAs) please contact us (details below).
We may use your personal information to help us assess your eligibility for credit as part of your application for credit and, if you obtain credit, in managing your Account, as well as to confirm and verify your identity and other details, and by entering into this Agreement you agree that we may:
(a) search your records at CRAs when you first enter into this Agreement and periodically during the term of this Agreement such as if you apply to increase the credit amount. These searches will tell us about your credit history. When the CRAs receive a search from us they will place a footprint on your credit file and in this way they will add to their record about you details of our search which will be seen by other organisations making searches (for example, other lenders or providers of credit). These details will be used by those other organisations when assessing your applications for credit. Credit searches and other personal information about you which we provide to the CRAs will be used by the CRAs and shared with those other organisations to trace your whereabouts, recover debts that you owe and to verify your identity. Records remain on file at the CRAs for 6 years after they are closed, whether settled by you or defaulted. We, the Intermediary and a Service Provider may use information about you and the conduct of your Account to help make credit, credit-related and Service-related decisions about you or to trace debt and to fight fraud, money-laundering, terrorism and other crimes and to keep to any laws or regulations in any country;
(b) use a credit scoring or other automated decision-making system (this means that we will do automated credit scoring using details obtained from you, the Intermediary, and from the CRAs, to make decisions without human intervention based on about whether or not you are likely to meet the repayments on your Account – we will do this when assessing your application for credit and periodically after that if you apply to increase your credit limit then a decision will be taken based on the credit score).
Linked records
If you tell us that you have a spouse or financial associate, which creates a joint financial unit in a similar way to a married couple – for example if you share the same address, we may search, link and/or record information at the CRAs about you both; link any individual identified as your financial associate in our own records, take both your and their information into account in future applications by either or both of you; and continue this linking until one of you notifies us that you are no longer in a financial unit together. Information held about you by CRAs may be linked to records relating to any such person. When we search for information about you at credit reference agencies we may also search for information about the people with whom you are linked, and use that information about you when deciding whether or not to go ahead with this Agreement. We may also use information about you when making a decision about a person with whom your records are linked.
Whether or not we go ahead with this Agreement your records may become linked to any person revealed to be linked to you by this Agreement (for example a joint applicant). When the CRAs receive a search from us they will link together your records and these links will remain on their files until such time as you or the other person successfully files for a disassociation at the CRAs. If your circumstances change such that you are no longer a financial unit with another person you should contact the CRAs about this.
Obtaining details of credit reference agencies and copies of your data
You can contact us by writing to us at Premium Credit Ltd, Ermyn House, Ermyn Way, Leatherhead, Surrey, KT22 8UX to request:
(a) details of the credit reference agencies we use (as mentioned above, you will need to contact the credit reference agency directly about the information they hold about you for which you will have to pay them a fee); and
(b) a copy of the personal information we hold about you (further details below on this – see “Your rights under applicable data protection law”).
The CRAs operating in the UK are CallCredit, Equifax and Experian. You can contact them to find out what information they hold about you. The information they hold may not be the same so you may wish to contact more than one. They are entitled to charge a small statutory fee. The identities of the CRAs, their role also as fraud prevention agencies, the data they hold, the ways in which they use and share personal information, their data retention periods and your data protection rights with the CRAs are explained in more details at the websites below:
If you would like further information about our data retention practices you can ask for this at any time (contact details below).