Privacy Policy

What is this privacy statement about?

To supply our customers with our services we need to use information about you, and some of that may be personal or private. For example, we may need to know your name and address, or details of how you would like to be contacted (e.g. your mobile phone number or email address).

As we do this, we would like you to take some time to read this privacy statement. It will explain what information we might collect about you, why we collect it, what we may use it for, and who we may give it to. We will also explain your rights towards your information and how we look after it while we have it.

What information do we collect about you?

The information we collect about you may vary based on what service we provide to you. Typically, we need details like:

• Your name and address so we know who you are and what services you need from us
• Your contact details like phone number or email so that we can keep in touch with you about our services

We only collect information about you that we need to ensure you get the best service from us. We respect your privacy and we try to minimise what we do collect.

What is sensitive personal information?

This category of personal information is more sensitive and relates to, for example, a person’s physical or mental health, race or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union memberships, their genetic or biometric data and sexual orientation.

We have in place additional measures to protect your sensitive personal information and its confidentiality. We will use your sensitive personal information in order to meet your requirements in relation to the service we provide to you.

We will only disclose your sensitive personal information to the third parties as referred to in this Privacy Policy or where Winn Holding considers it is necessary, subject to us putting in place appropriate security or confidentiality obligations.

Why do we collect this information?

We collect your information where processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are party or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract with you.

How do we collect information about you?

We prefer to collect the information we need directly from you. That way, you know what we have, and we can be sure you have provided us with the most accurate and up-to-date information. We will usually do this:

• When you contact us for any reason
• Where absolutely necessary, we may occasionally collect information about you from other ‘third parties’ such as medical professionals, insurers, solicitors and appropriate government agencies

What do we do with the information we collect about you?

We use your information in various ways, such as to:

• Meet the purposes that you provided your information for
• Provide you with the services you want
• Administer our relationship, including;

• Create statistical information, market research, analysis and customer profiling to better manage and run our business
• Comply with any legal obligations we may have

Who might we share your information with?

We appreciate that you have provided your information to us and may not want us to share it with other people or organisations, however sometimes it is necessary for us to do so.

We only share your information where we are permitted or required to by law, or where you have given us your consent to do so. We may share your information with, for example:

• Any of your family, associates, or someone who represents you, where you have asked us to do so
• Our employees who provide you with our services
• Carefully selected contractors and specialists to help us provide you with our services
• Any person or organisation where we are required to because of a Court order, legal duty, or statutory obligation
• Credit reference agencies, fraud prevention agencies, and tracing agents, in order to help prevent and detect fraud, or as part of our debt collection process

We are careful to minimise such sharing

Although we are a UK company, we may sometimes share your information with an organisation, such as a contractor working on our behalf, who is outside the UK. Such companies may also be outside of Europe. We may do this, but we will only do so where we are permitted to by law.

Whenever we share your information we do everything we can to ensure it is protected from misuse or loss.

How do we look after and secure your information?

When we use information about you we take all reasonable efforts to do so fairly and lawfully.

We think it likely that our customers know we use information about them, and we provide notices of such wherever we can.

We never use information about you unless it is lawful for us to do so and we have a clearly defined need or purpose.

When we collect information about you we ensure that we minimise what we collect. We try to collect enough accurate and up to date information to ensure we provide you with the service you require and no more.

We do not keep your information for longer than we need it, ensuring that the records we have about you are managed properly and deleted promptly and securely when we no longer require them.

We make every effort to ensure your rights towards your information, which we detail below.

We take appropriate care to secure the information we hold about you. We have robust technical security such as passwords and information encryption. We also have policies and procedures to ensure your information is only available to our employees who need to see it to do their job, and we train those employees on data protection appropriately.

Also, we establish robust procedures and contracts to extend these protections to any other person or organisation we may need to give your information to.

In everything we do with your information we aim to be fair, lawful, and open, and we take seriously our obligations towards your privacy and the protection of information we may hold about you.

On our websites

When visiting our websites, you may also be providing us with certain information via our use of website ‘cookies’. You can find out more about this by reading our Cookie Policy here.

When you enter data onto secure areas of our websites, a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) is initiated. A SSL is a security device which ensures that any data which you enter is encrypted during transmission over the internet. Encryption means the data is encoded so that it is not legible until such time as we decode it.

No data transmission over the internet can ever be entirely secure. While we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its security and you must be aware of this when using our websites.

Our websites may contain links to other websites. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own Terms & Conditions and privacy policies and that we cannot accept responsibility for their content. This privacy statement applies only to our website.

External Links

Whilst we make every effort to ensure that our websites only include quality, safe and relevant external links, you are advised adopt a policy of caution before clicking any external web links mentioned throughout our websites.

We cannot guarantee or verify the contents of any externally linked website despite our best efforts. Users should therefore note that they click on external links at their own risk and our website and its owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned.

Social Media Platforms

Communication, engagement and actions taken through external social media platforms that our website participates on are custom to the terms and conditions as well as the privacy policies held with each social media platform respectively.

You are advised to use social media platforms wisely and communicate/engage upon them with due care and caution in regard to their own privacy and personal details. Our websites will never ask for personal or sensitive information through social media platforms and encourage users wishing to discuss sensitive details to contact them through primary communication channels such as by telephone or email.

Our website may use social sharing buttons which help share web content directly from web pages to the social media platform in question. You are advised before using such social sharing buttons that you do so at their own discretion and note that the social media platform may track and save your request to share a web page respectively through your social media platform account.

Shortened Links in Social Media

Our website, through our social media platform accounts, may share web links to relevant web pages. By default, some social media platforms shorten lengthy web addresses (URLs), (for example: http://goo.gl/XC61E3).

You are advised to take caution and good judgement before clicking any shortened URLs published on social media platforms via our website. Despite the best efforts to ensure only genuine URLs are published, many social media platforms are prone to spam and hacking and therefore our website cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any shortened links.

By email and phone

If you have contacted us by email, or provided an email address, we may use that to contact you if we need to.

You should also be aware that information conveyed by email could be deliberately or accidentally intercepted or corrupted. Whilst we make every effort to ensure that emails we send to you are free from viruses this cannot be guaranteed. We recommend that you scan all emails for viruses with appropriate and frequently updated virus checking software.

If you have given us your phone number (landline or mobile), we may use it to contact you if we need to, including sending texts. If you contact us, or we contact you, we also record your phone call, for security, compliance and training purposes.

Please let us know if your mobile phone number or email address changes so that we can keep this information up to date.

Your rights

The Data Protection Act 2018 and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) grants you certain rights towards your personal information. We take all reasonable efforts to ensure we allow you to exercise those rights.

You have the right to see all the personal information we hold about you

We will handle routine enquiries as part of our usual customer service. If you want to see more of the information that we have about you, you can make a data subject access request.

You can write to us at: Data Protection Team, Winn Holding Ltd, Brinkburn Street, Byker, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 1PL.

To help you make your request, we have produced a form which you can find on our website here.

We may reply to you where we need further information to help respond effectively to your request.

To ensure that we only provide your information to you and not someone else, you will need to provide us with two current forms of identification.

We provide your information free of charge. In the case of subsequent or excessive requests from you to provide your information, we may charge a reasonable fee based on administration costs (as we are allowed to by law). We will inform you if this fee is applicable.

Once we receive your written request, any clarifications, identification, and in the case of subsequent or excessive requests your administration fee, we will respond as soon as we can within 28 calendar days.

You have the right to stop us causing you ‘damage or distress’

Unless you have consented to us using your information, or you have a contract with us, or we are acting to comply with a legal obligation or in a life or death situation, you can object to us using your personal information in a way that causes you ‘substantial and unwarranted damage or distress’.

Damage means that we will use or have used your information in a way that caused you some loss or harm which we should not have.

Distress means that we will use or have used your information in a way that caused you some upset or anguish which was more than an annoyance.

You can write to us and ask us to stop using your information in that way. We will respond within 28 days.

You have the right to have your information corrected

We take all reasonable steps to ensure that the information we have about you is accurate and up to date.

If you think that what we have is not accurate or up to date, please tell us as soon as possible and we will ensure it is corrected with undue delay.

You have the right to stop us direct marketing to you

We are keen to promote our services and may make you aware of products that help with this. Also, from time to time we may tell you about other offers we think may interest you.

We may do this, or we may share your information with carefully selected partners who offer services or products that we think you may be interested in. Every time we contact you about such offers we will give you the opportunity not to hear about them anymore.

If you do not want to receive such offers at all, please let us know via email marketing@winngroup.co.uk, by calling 0191 276 1000, or in writing to:

Also, we will not send you these offers by phone if you have registered with the Telephone Preference Service or by mail if you have registered with the Mailing Preference Service.

You have the right to stop us taking ‘automated decisions’ about you

We do not routinely use software to take automated decisions about you.

Winn Holding and data protection

The Data Protection Act 2018 governs how we may use your personal information. We are registered under the Act and regulated by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

You can find our registration details here:

You can also find considerably more information about this on the ICO website or by contacting them at:

Our Data Protection Officer is Gemma Wilkinson.

Changes to this statement

From time to time, we may amend this privacy statement to reflect changes in the law, guidance from the ICO, our experience of handling your information, or for other legitimate reasons. We will do this by posting the amended privacy statement on this website. We therefore suggest you check this statement from time to time to ensure you are aware of the latest version.

This policy was last reviewed on 20/11/2023

Contact

If you have any questions or ideas, please refer to the data protection team at Winn Holding, who will be pleased to help you. You can contact the team by calling 0191 276 1000, by email to DPTeam@winnsolicitors.com or in writing to:

Group Websites:

Winn Solicitors – Privacy Policy

Winns Wills – Privacy Policy

Winn Assist – Privacy Policy

On Hire – Privacy Policy

On Insurance – Privacy Policy

Onhealth – Privacy Policy

Resources & Further Information

1. Data Protection Act 2018
2. UK General Data Protection Regulation
3. Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003
4. Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 – The Guide
5. Stripe Privacy Policy
6. Google Privacy Policy
7. Twitter Privacy Policy
8. Meta Privacy Policy
9. LinkedIn Privacy Policy
10. Instagram Data Policy
11. MailChimp Privacy Policy
12. Campaign Monitor Privacy Policy
13. AdRoll Privacy Policy
14. Crazy Egg Privacy Policy
15. LiveChat Inc Privacy Policy
16. Mitel Privacy Policy
17. Puzzel Privacy Policy
18. Arken Privacy Policy
19. SmartSearch Privacy Policy
20. ClickGuard Privacy Policy
21. Experian Credit Reference Agency Information Notice (CRAIN)