Privacy Policy

Protecting your personal details on h2oservices.com

Last updated: March 2007

www.h2oservices.com is brought to you by Sutton and East Surrey Water Services (hereafter referred to as SESWS). SESWS believes it is important to protect your privacy and we are committed to giving you a personalised service that meets your needs in a way that also protects your privacy. This policy explains how we may collect information about you and then use it to meet your needs. It also explains some of the security measures we take to protect your privacy. You should read this policy in conjunction with the product and Website Terms and Conditions.

When we first obtain personal information from you, or when you take a new service or product from us, we will give you the opportunity to tell us if you do or do not want to receive information from us about other services or products (as applicable). You can normally do this by ticking a box on an application form or contract. You may change your mind at any time by emailing us at membership@waterplc.com .
Some of the personal information we hold about you may be 'sensitive personal data' within the meaning of the Data Protection Act 1998 – for example, information about your health or ethnic origin.

1. Collecting information
We may collect personal information about you from a number of sources, including the following:

from you when you agree to take a service or product from us, in which case this may include your contact details, date of birth, how you will pay for the product or service and your bank details
from you when you contact us with an enquiry or in response to a communication from us, in which case this may tell us something about how you use our services
from documents that are available to the public, such as the electoral register

2. Using your personal information

2.1 SESWS will use your personal information for the following purposes:

to identify you when you contact us;
to help identify accounts, services and/or products which you could have from us from time to time;
to help administer, and contact you about improved administration of, any accounts, services and products we have provided before, or provide now or in the future;
to carry out marketing analysis and customer profiling (including with transactional information), conduct research, including creating statistical and testing information;
to help to prevent and detect fraud or loss;
to contact you in any way (including mail, email, telephone, text or multimedia messages) about products and services offered by us unless you have previously asked us not to do so;

2.2 We may monitor and record communications with you (including phone conversations and emails) for quality assurance and compliance reasons.

2.3 Where you give us information on behalf of someone else, you confirm that you have provided them with the information set out in these provisions and that they have not objected to such use of their personal information. Where you give us sensitive data about yourself or another person (such as health details or details of any criminal convictions) you agree (and confirm that the other person has agreed) to our processing such information in the manner set out in these provisions.

3. Protecting information

We have strict security measures to protect personal information. This includes following certain procedures (for example, checking your identity when you phone us) and encrypting (encoding) data on our websites.

4. The internet

4.1 If you communicate with us using the Internet, we may occasionally email you about our services and products. When you first give us personal information through our website, we will normally give you the opportunity to say whether you would prefer us not to keep you informed of other products and services by email. However, you can always send us an email (at the address set out below) at any time if you change your mind.

4.2 Please remember that communications over the Internet, such as emails and webmails (messages sent through a website), are not secure unless they have been encrypted. Your communications may go through a number of countries before they are delivered – this is the nature of the Internet. We cannot accept responsibility for any unauthorised access or loss of personal information that is beyond our control.

4.3 We may use 'cookies' to monitor how people use our site. This helps us to understand how our customers and potential customers use our website so we can develop and improve the design, layout and function of the sites.
A cookie is a piece of information that is stored on your computer's hard drive, which records how you have used a website. This means that when you go back to that website, it can give you tailored options based on the information it has stored about your last visit. You can normally alter the settings of your browser to prevent it from accepting cookies.

4.4 If you do not want us to use cookies in your browser, you can set your browser to reject cookies or to tell you when a website tries to put a cookie on your computer. However, you may not be able to use some of the products or services on our website without cookies.

5. Turning off cookies in different browsers

5.1 Internet Explorer 6.0 and 7.0

From your browser menu select Tools, and then Internet Options. This will bring up the Internet Options dialogue box.
On the top of the dialogue box, select the Privacy tab.
On the Privacy tab, move the slider up for a higher level of privacy or down for a lower level of privacy.
Move the slider to the top to block cookies from all websites.

You can reconfigure your computer to accept cookies again by returning to the Privacy tab and selecting the Default button, followed by the OK button.

5.3 Firefox 1.5

From your browser menu select Tools, and then Options. This will bring up the Options dialogue box.
Select Privacy followed by the Cookies tab. To block all cookies deselect Allow sites to set cookies and then click OK.

5.4 Firefox 2.0

From your browser menu select Tools, and then Options. This will bring up the Options dialogue box.
Select the Privacy option to view settings for Cookies. To block all cookies deselect Accept cookies from sites and then click OK.

You can reconfigure your computer to accept cookies again in Firefox by returning to Cookies and selecting Accept cookies from sites and then clicking OK.
Find out about disabling cookies in other browsers.

6. Links

This website may contain links to other sites or recommended suppliers. Please remember that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of these other sites. This privacy policy applies only to information collected on this website.

7. Further information

If you would like any more information or you have any comments about our privacy policy, please either write to us at Customer Services Manager, 59 Gander Green Lane, Cheam, Sutton, Surrey, SM1 2EW. Or email us at membership@waterplc.com

We may amend this policy from time to time, in which case we will publish the amended version on our website.
This policy applies to personal information we hold about individuals.