Privacy Policy

This website is owned and operated by Comparison UK Limited trading as Equity Release UK and is intended for use by consumers in the United Kingdom. We abide by the relevant rules of the General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR").

Our contact information:

Equity Release UK (company number 11304102)
Kemp House
160 City Road
London
EC1V 2NX

0808 164 4512
info@equity-release.uk.com

We take the protection of your personal data very seriously. Our privacy policy explains what information we collect from you, what we do with it, how we keep it secure and the circumstances in which we provide it to third parties.

We obtain and process personal data in different ways depending upon the purpose of the processing and way in which we obtained your personal data.

In most circumstances, your data will only be processed within the UK.

You can at any time ask us to tell you what personal data relating to you we hold.

You also have the right to ask us to rectify your data if it is inaccurate, erase it or restrict the processing of it, in particular in regards to your right to object to processing under legitimate interests of your data for profiling (including the use of custom, lookalike or similar audiences) and for direct marketing. In some circumstances you can ask us to provide it to you in a format which would allow you to transfer it digitally to another.

Where we have requested, and you have given us consent to process your data you may withdraw that consent at any time.

Were our business to be sold all your data would be transferred to the purchaser so that they could use it in the same way as we do now.

If you are at all concerned about our processing of your data please let us know by contacting our Data Protection Officer at info@equity-release.uk.com. You may also complain about it to the Office of the Information Commissioner ("ICO") at www.ico.org.uk.

Our Service

Our service enables people to request quotes or information about the products shown on this website. Our service is connecting people who are looking to purchase those products with relevant service providers of those products.

Customer Data

As a customer seeking a quote we collect certain data from you, depending on the product you enquire about. We will collect this when you submit one of the forms on our website, or contact us by telephone to request a quote. This data may include:

• Name and address;
• Telephone number;
• Email address;
• Date of birth;
• Gender;
• Smoking status;
• Marital status;
• Financial status;
• Health;
• Product requirements;
• Your IP address (a unique number which allows your computer to communicate with others on the internet) and user agent (device information).

Where you ask us to provide you with a quote for your partner too, we will collect details regarding them from you, including their:

• Name;
• Date of birth;
• Gender;
• Smoking status;
• Health.

We do not collect any personal information from children, or about children. Some of the information above may come from your spouse or another member of your family.

We also collect data about your visits to our website and the pages that you viewed.

From time to time, the information we request may change. If it does it will be clear what we are requesting, and we only request information relevant to the product you are enquiring about.

Additionally, we might collect data about you if you:

• Contact us, or we contact you, by email, telephone or post.
• Post comments, material or other content on our site.

We store IP addresses in order to stop unwanted traffic (i.e. spam) to our site. For example, if we become aware that spam is coming from a particular IP address (i.e. computer or location), we can block that IP address.

Purpose

Once we receive your request, we will connect you with our relevant service providers in order to help you find a quote for the product you are looking for. Before we do this we may call you to confirm your details and/or requirements. Once we pass you to a service provider they will contact you directly with your quotes. They may contact you by telephone, text or email only about and directly in relation to your enquiry. You do not have to buy anything from any of our providers. There is no obligation to purchase.

We may also call you to ask about your experience using our site and service, and your experience in dealing with the service providers with which we connected you.

We may monitor and/or record these calls for the purposes of quality control and staff training, regulatory compliance, and to resolve disputes.

Direct Marketing

If you request a quote using our service then as our customer, we would like to email you, or send you text messages, about similar related products and services for which we think you might like quotes or information. We will only do this where you have opted into such communications.

Profiling, Custom & Lookalike/Similar Audiences

We work with Facebook, Google and other platforms to reach out to you with adverts for similar related products and services we think you might be interested in. We also like to use platforms to reach out to other people who might like to use our service.

We do this in two ways. In both cases, your data, along with other data, is used to create a custom audience and/or a lookalike/similar audience.

Whenever an audience is shared with a platform, the data is first hashed and pseudonymised, meaning that any data within the audience that could identify a person is replaced with an artificial identifier, and the process of transferring the data is secure. We don’t share more data than we need to for the purpose of creating the audience.

• Custom Audience – A custom audience is a list of existing users of our service. From time to time, we share this with these platforms. As explained above, the data is first hashed and pseudonymised. The platform uses this audience to show our existing users our adverts for our other products and services.
• Lookalike/Similar Audience – A lookalike/similar audience is an audience created by the platform. From time to time, we share with platforms a list of existing users. The platform profiles this list to find and create lookalikes – i.e. other platform users who have similar characteristics to the existing users – to which it shows our adverts. Again, as explained above, the data is first hashed and pseudonymised.

If we transfer data to these platforms, we will only do so where the entity we contract with is based within the UK.

At any time, you may object to such activity by opting out. You can also opt out on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/edit/ and Google https://adssettings.google.com/

Receiving Data from Service Providers

From time to time, service providers may return data to us. They may do this if they have a query regarding a request for quotes that we have sent to them in order to enable us to resolve the query. They may also return data to us, together with confirmation on whether or not a product has been purchased, in order to enable us to improve our marketing. We may also use such data to create custom and lookalike/similar audiences, as explained above.

Transferring Data to Service Providers

Where you have submitted an enquiry for Equity Release we will pass your personal information to Age Partnership Ltd (ICO registration number Z8957981). Age Partnership Ltd may contact you directly to provide information about Equity Release. Your information will be stored securely and in line with UK GDPR regulations. Age Partnership Ltd's privacy policy can be found at https://www.agepartnership.co.uk/privacy-policy/.

Data Storage

All our digital data is processed in the UK by Comparison UK Limited. Data may be stored at our off site ‘server farm’ this is located in the UK and the EEA (which is covered by UK GDPR 'adequacy rules’). It may also be shared with other members of our group. Your data is also shared with those who despatch direct marketing communications for us.

We have appropriate contracts in place with all suppliers to ensure the protection and confidentiality of data.

We don’t work with any service providers until we have a legal contract in place. This is to ensure that they respect your data and rights by keeping your data secure and confidential, limiting their use of your data (i.e. providing you with the requested quotes), and not sharing your data with anyone else. If we pass your request onto one or more of our relevant service providers, we will do this in a secure way.

Automated Decision Making

Before we pass your request to any service providers, our service may involve an element of automated decision-making. Our technology platform may automatically assess your product requirements and pass your request to such service providers that would like to receive requests for quotes at the time your request is made.

Retention

Your data will be retained in our systems for no less than five years after we obtain it or no less than five years after we pass you through to a Service Provider.

Legitimate Interest

We have a legitimate interest in processing your data in the following ways, because you have asked us to do it and it is also necessary to allow us to fulfil our contractual obligations to you.

• Connect you with relevant service providers;
• The automated decision making explained above;
• Using and sharing your IP address;
• Calling you to confirm your details and requirements;
• To email you about similar products and services;
• To create custom/lookalike/similar audiences;
• Receiving data from service providers.

You have the right to object to processing based on legitimate interests. In each case where we have identified legitimate interests as the legal basis for our processing, we have conducted a legitimate interests assessment.

Consent

We only need your consent to process information about your health. We will obtain that consent when you first provide us with that information. You can withdraw it at any time.

Your rights

You have the following rights under UK GDPR in relation to your personal data:

1. Request restriction of processing your personal data.
2. Request transfer of your personal data.
3. Right to withdraw consent.
4. Right of access to copies of your data.
5. Right to correct the data we hold on you.
6. Right to be forgotten and have your data removed from our record.
7. Object to processing of your personal data.

Please visit the ICO for more information about these rights.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us via the details on our contact us page.

No fee is usually required, but we may charge a reasonable fee to cover postage and admin.

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity, this is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

We try to respond to all requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month in this case, we will notify you.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

Any changes we may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by email. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy.

This policy was last updated on August 23rd, 2021.

Contact

If you have any questions regarding this privacy policy, or for any other reason, please contact us using the details on our contact us page .