CUSTOMER PRIVACY NOTICE

About this privacy notice

This privacy notice has been written to provide you with information about how UC Energy Ltd (“UC Energy”) and UrbanChain Ltd (“UrbanChain”) handle or intend to handle personal information in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (“UK GDPR”). When we say “we”, “us”, or “our” we mean UC Energy and UrbanChain, as UC Energy may be required to share your personal information with UrbanChain from time to time, and therefore this privacy notice applies to both companies. A full list of UrbanChain’s group companies can be found here: https://urbanchain.co.uk.

This policy relates specifically to our collection and use of personal information of:

• Customers, for the purposes of home energy supply and account administration;

• Visitors to our website.

As our products and services may be provided to you by different companies within our group it may be that your personal information is passed to the relevant group company or companies.

About us

UC Energy is primarily responsible for the energy supply to your home. UC Energy is a private limited company (company number 10972017). UC Energy is a trading subsidiary of UrbanChain and its registered office address is 6th Floor, 49 Peter Street, Manchester, England, M2 3NG. UrbanChain is a private limited company (company number 10771684) with a registered office address of 6th Floor, 49 Peter Street, Manchester, England, M2 3NG.

We are registered as data controllers with the Information Commissioner’s Office and our registration numbers are:

• UC Energy: ZB541338

• UrbanChain: ZB541331

We aim to process information about you fairly, lawfully, and in a transparent manner. The aim of this document is to provide you with sufficient information for you to be able to understand what we are doing with your data.  If you are unsure how we are handling information about you or you think we could improve our privacy information, please let us know.

Information we collect

We collect and hold a range of information about you during the course of our relationship with our customers (which includes consumers and electricity generators) and website users. This includes:

• Your contact details and contact details of people associated with your account including name, email address, postal address, and telephone numbers;

• Other details linked to your account with us and details of others linked to your account, such as age, gender, date of birth, account number, customer identification information, contract details, household details, property type, nominees, occupier details, next of kin or people with a power of attorney and their details;

• Vulnerability information, such as health and disability information;

• Details of services you have purchased from us which includes details about payments you have made to us and details of any services you have purchased from us;

• Records of any information that you provide to us whilst engaging with our services or that you input into our website or our peer-to-peer systems;

• Records of your correspondence with us, either through our website, telephone, e-mail, or post;

• Financial information relating to your financial position and the amount of money you have paid us; any amount(s) outstanding and associated recovery action. Depending on your chosen method of payment, we may hold your bank account details. If you pay someone else’s bill, we will have a copy of your payment information. If someone else pays your bill, we will have a copy of their information linked to your account;

• Other information necessary to undertake or manage the performance of contracts between you and us;

• Technical data including your IP address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, and other technology on the devices you use to access our website;

• Marketing and communications information including your communication and marketing preferences;

• We may carry out insight and satisfaction surveys to help us to monitor our performance and to improve our services to our customers.

If you are a consumer of our services, we may also hold the following information in relation to you:

• Details of your current provider;

• Information relating to your consumption of electricity and your account, including meter numbers, meter details, energy use, average electricity consumption patterns, tariff details, incident details, and notes added to your account.

If you are a generator, we may also hold the following information in relation to you:

• Details of your generation assets (any intermittent and non-intermittent asset that generates electricity) including (but not being limited to) capacity, historic half-hourly data for at least one year, efficiency, usage, and any information about your export meter.

These lists are not exhaustive, as we hold records of most contacts we have with you or about you, and we process this information, so we can deliver our services to you.

You need to let us know if your details (like your name, email, or phone number) change so that we can keep that information up to date. You also should let us know if your circumstances change as you may be eligible for additional support.

How information is collected

Generally, the information we hold will have been provided by you via telephone, email, and another form of correspondence with us (e.g. during the provision of our services for you or when we communicate with you), but we may also hold information provided by third parties where this is relevant to your own circumstances. For example, we may collect some of the following information from third parties:

• Industry organisations who are involved in your energy supply like distribution and network companies, meter equipment owners, meter readers, and other energy suppliers as well as from industry organisations who operate and maintain databases on behalf of the industry to assist (for example) in the change of supply process;

• Other industry organisations who may keep us informed as to your personal circumstances (for example, health information);

• Landlords or letting agents, including local authorities and social housing providers, who own or manage your;

• Service providers, such as agents appointed to assess your energy consumption, who are contracted by us to provide services to you on our behalf;

• Publicly available sources, such as the electoral register, Companies House, and the Land Registry;

• Credit reference agencies.

In addition, as you interact with our website or other systems, we will automatically collect technical data about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies and other similar technologies.

We will only ask for personal information that is appropriate to enable us to administer our services to you. In some cases, you can refuse to provide your details if you deem a request to be inappropriate. However, you should note that this may impact our ability to provide our services to you if you refuse to provide information that stops us from doing so.

Purposes for processing

We have set out below a description of all the ways we plan to use your information, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate. We may process your information for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your information.

Our marketing communications

We may use your personal information to contact you to inform you about services we believe might be of interest to you via email or text message (we call these marketing communications).

You can ask us to stop sending you marketing communications by following the unsubscribe links on any marketing communications sent to you or by contacting us at any time.

Where you opt out of receiving these marketing communications, this will not apply to personal information provided to us as a result of the provision of our services and we will still be required to contact you in relation to the services we provide.

Sharing personal information

There may be times when we will share relevant information with third parties for the purposes as outlined above, or where we are legally required to do so. When sharing personal information, we will comply with all aspects of data protection law.

Where necessary or required, we may share your personal information as follows:

• With third-party service providers or agents, in connection with delivery management, or analysis of the performance of services performed on our behalf.

• With our insurers and legal advisers.

• With industry regulators, such as OFGEM.

• With the police and other relevant authorities (e.g. Department of Work and Pensions, HM Revenues and Customs) in relation to the prevention or detection of crime and fraud; the apprehension or prosecution of offenders, and the assessment or collection of tax or duty.

• With third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy policy.

This list is not exhaustive as there are other circumstances where we may also be required to share information, for example:

• To meet our legal obligations.

• In connection with legal proceedings (or where we are instructed to do so by Court order).

Our relationships with third-party services providers are governed by contractual provisions with us and they only have access to personal information to perform the described purposes and may not use it for other purposes.

A list of third parties we regularly share information with is available upon request.

Where we store personal information

The personal information that we collect is stored within the UK. However, there may be some circumstances where it is necessary to transfer and store personal information at a destination outside the UK or the EEA. In these circumstances, we will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that personal information is treated securely and in accordance with data protection law and, in the event that personal information is transferred outside the UK or the EEA, shall ensure that this is carried out subject to the requirements of the UK GDPR.

How long do we keep it for

We will only retain personal information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. Details of retention periods for different aspects of personal information are available upon request. After this period, we will securely destroy or anonymise personal information in accordance with data protection law.

Automated decision making

We may use your personal information in automated processes to make decisions about you, such as credit scoring, electricity usage and/ or volume, use, projected use, and associated pricing. Automated decision-making involves processing your personal information without human intervention to evaluate things like your financial situation, for example in the payments you make to us.

We are allowed to use automated decision-making in the following circumstances (i) where we have notified you of the decision and given you one month to request a reconsideration; (ii) where it is necessary to perform the contract with you and appropriate measures are in place to safeguard your rights; or, (iii) in limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent and where appropriate measures are in place to safeguard your rights.

You will not be subject to decisions that will have a legal effect or other significant impact on you, based solely on automated decision-making, unless it is one of the circumstances outlined above, or, we have a lawful basis for doing so and we have notified you.

Your Rights

Right of access

You have the right of access to the information we hold about or concerning you.  If you would like to exercise this right, please do so in writing. If you are seeking to obtain specific information (e.g. about a particular matter from a particular time period), it helps if you clarify the details of what you would like to receive in your written request. If someone is requesting information on your behalf, they will need written confirmation from you to evidence your consent for us to release this and proof of ID (both yours and theirs). We have one month to provide you with the information you’ve asked for (although we will try to provide this to you as promptly as possible). In response to a subject access request, we will provide you with a copy of the information we hold that relates to you.

Right of rectification or erasure

If you feel that any data that we hold about you is inaccurate you have the right to ask us to correct or rectify it.  You also have a right to ask us to erase information about you where you can demonstrate that the data we hold is no longer needed by us, if you withdraw the consent upon which our processing is based, or if you feel that we are unlawfully processing your data.  Your right of rectification and erasure extends to anyone we have disclosed your personal information to and we will take all reasonable steps to inform those with whom we have shared your data about your request for erasure.

Right to restriction of processing

You have a right to request that we refrain from processing your data where you contest its accuracy, or the processing is unlawful and you have opposed its erasure, or where we don’t need to hold your data anymore but you need us to in order to establish, exercise or defend any legal claims, or we are in dispute about the legality of our processing your personal data.

Right of portability

You have a right to receive any personal data that you have provided to us in order to transfer it onto another data controller where the processing is based on consent or contract and is carried out by automated means called a data portability request.

Right to object

You have a right to object to our processing of your personal data where the basis of the processing is our legitimate interests including but not limited to direct marketing and profiling.

Right to withdraw consent

In the circumstances where you may have provided consent to the collection, processing and transfer of personal information for a specific purpose has been provided, you have the right to withdraw consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact us using the contact details below. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

Please note, there are some specific circumstances where these rights do not apply and we can refuse to deal with your request.

Complaints

If you have a concern about the way we are collecting or using personal information, we would ask that you raise your concern with us in the first instance by using the contact details below.

You also have a right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) should you feel that we have not handled your information in line with legislative and regulatory requirements. They can be contacted at:

• Information Commissioner’s Office

• Wycliffe House

• Water Lane

• Wilmslow

• Cheshire

• SK9 5AF

• 0303 123 1113 | www.ico.org.uk

Further information

For further information on how to request your personal information and how and why we process your information, you can contact our Data Protection team using the contact details below:

• data@urbanchain.co.uk

• Unit 10&19, Enterprise House

• Lloyd Street North, Manchester

• M15 6SE

Changes to this privacy policy

We may change this privacy policy from time to time. This privacy notice was last updated in May 2023.