Privacy Policy
At energyadvice.scot are committed to protecting your privacy. This policy explains why, how and when we collect personal data about our website visitors and customers. It also covers how we keep it secure and who we may disclose it to.
How do we collect information from you?
We obtain information about you via our website when you complete the contact form and through cookies.
Customer information is obtained over the course of the enquiry with us. This can be done by phone, email, livechat or contact form.
What type of information do we collect from you via our website?
The following types of personal information are from the contact form:
- Name
- Address
- Email address
- IP address
Use of Cookies
This website uses cookies. These are small pieces of information sent by us to your computer and stored on your hard drive to allow that website to recognise you when you visit.
These do not identify you as an individual. They collect statistical data about your browsing actions and patterns. This information helps us to improve our website and deliver a better more personalised service.
It is possible to switch off cookies. For more information visit our full cookies policy.
Google Analytics Cookies
These cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site.
The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the website from and the pages they visited.
For more information on Google Analytics’ privacy policy visit here
Google Maps
These are Google Maps third-party cookies, which are unique identifiers to allow traffic analysis to Google Maps.
For more information on Google Maps’ privacy policy visit here
What Information is collected from me as a customer?
- Your name
- Your contact details
- Your specific enquiry details and circumstances*
- Details of the trader
- Any emails we have sent to each other
- Any notes or comments made on your enquiry by our advisors
- Information related to how you accessed our website (if applicable)
*This depends on your circumstances and the issue you wish us to advise on. This may include Special Category data, if relevant to the case.
Purposes and Lawful Basis of Collecting Data
Purpose | Lawful Basis |
To assist you in your enquiry | Legitimate Interests |
To forward you relevant information or advice via email or text, following the resolution of your query | Legitimate Interests |
Protecting ADS’s legitimate business interests and legal rights, including but not limited to, use in connection with legal claims, compliance, regulatory and investigative purposes (including disclosure of such information in connection with legal process or litigation) | Legitimate Interests |
To monitor use of our websites and online services | Legitimate Interests |
To monitor any customer account to prevent, investigate and/or report fraud, terrorism, misrepresentation, security incidents or crime | Legitimate Interests |
To provide our funders with anonymous statistics on service use | Legitimate Interests |
To comply with applicable law and legislation | Legal Obligation |
To share relevant data to organisations that require confirmation of certain information for referrals to take place. | Consent We require consent to collect and process data for this purpose. |
Who we may share information with
- Extra Help Unit
- The Energy Ombudsman
- The Scottish Government
- The Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
- Citizens Advice
Your data protection rights
Under data protection law, you have the following rights:
- Your right of access – You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information.
- Your right to rectification – You have the right to ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.
- Your right to erasure – You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.
- Your right to restriction of processing – You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
- Your right to object to processing – You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
- Your right to data portability – You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.
You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you in most cases.
Please contact us at DPO@advice.scot if you wish to make a request.
Retention Periods
Service | Retention Period | Data Type |
Energy & Post | Three months | Call recordings |
Two years | Name, contact details, specific enquiry details and circumstances, complainant details, emails, advisor notes/comments, website data | |
Five years | Generic referral data, generic outcome data, generic categorisation data |
Links to other websites
Our website may contain links to other sites run by other organisations. This privacy policy applies only to our website, so we encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit. We are not responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other sites.
Links to other websites
Our website may contain links to other sites run by other organisations. This privacy policy applies only to our website, so we encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other sites even if you access them using links from our website.
Also, if you linked to our website from a third party site, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of the owners and operators of that third party site and recommend that you check the policy of that third party site.
Review of this policy
We keep this Policy under regular review. This Policy was last updated in August 2022.
