Privacy, Cookies and Legal Disclaimer

Centrica plc and its subsidiary companies believe it is important to protect your privacy, and so we are committed to giving you a 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, and tells you certain things we will not do.

1. Centrica plc and your personal data

For this website, centrica.com, and associated services, the data controller is Centrica plc.

This notice explains your statutory rights and how we collect and use your personal data. It describes the processing activities that are carried out by Centrica in relation to the this website, the purposes for which these activities are performed and the legal bases that we rely upon for these processing activities.

We may update this privacy notice from time to time to ensure it is always up to date and accurate. Any changes we may make to our privacy notice will be posted on this page, and we will communicate any significant changes to you where possible.

You can contact Centrica’s data protection officer by writing to The Data Protection Officer, Centrica Plc, Millstream, Maidenhead Road, Windsor, Berkshire, SL4 5GD. 

You can also contact our data protection officer at privacy@centrica.com.

2. Personal data we collect

2.1 - Here we set out the details of the types of personal data we collect.

We subsequently set out what we use the data for:

• Your contact details: information that allows us to contact you directly such as your name, email address, telephone number and address
• Communication you have with us: information about any communication you have with us
• How you use mobile applications and websites: we use technology such as cookies (subject to your cookie preferences) when you use our website, and we collect information about the pages you look at and how you use them.
• Device and machine information: information about the computer hardware and software on your computers and smartphones that is used to connect or communicate with us.
• Exercising your rights: if you exercise any of your statutory rights under data protection law, we will keep a record of this and how we respond.
• Responses to surveys and competitions:  including records of any surveys you respond to or your entry into any competitions we run.

2.2 - What we use your personal data for and why

Where we process your personal data because we have a legitimate interest to.

• We process these items of your personal data because we have a legitimate interest to do so. We process the following categories of personal data, including:

Where we process your personal data so you can’t be identified any more

• We may anonymise and aggregate any of the personal data we hold (so that it does not identify you). We may use anonymised and aggregated information for purposes that include testing our IT systems, research, data analysis, improving our site, apps and developing new products and services.

2.3 - Sources we collect your personal data from

We will collect personal data from a number of sources. These include:

• Directly from you: when you set up an account with us, purchase products or services from us, submit information via our websites or apps, complete forms we provide to you, enter our competitions and promotions, make a claim, make a complaint, exercise your statutory rights, contact us by phone, email or communicate with us directly in some other way.
• Our website and mobile applications: we collect information about how you use them and any smart devices you connect to them.
• Other companies we work with: provide us with information to help us deliver our products and services to you. These include companies in the same group of companies as us: who may provide relevant information about the products and services bought from them.
•  Third party data and insight providers: companies which provide us with relevant information about you which we append to our existing records, to help us operate our business and deliver our services to you.

2.4 - Who we share your personal data with

We share personal data with the following categories of third parties

2.5 - Transferring your personal data internationally

British Gas is part of a global organisation and in common with other organisations, we use third parties located in other countries to help us run our business.  As a result, personal data may be transferred outside the countries where we and our customers are located.  This includes countries outside the European Economic Area ("EEA") and to countries that do not have laws that provide specific protection for personal data.   We have taken steps to ensure all personal data is provided with adequate protection and that all transfers of personal data outside the EEA are done lawfully.  Where we transfer personal data outside of the EEA to a country not determined by the European Commission as providing an adequate level of protection for personal data, the transfers will be under an agreement which covers the requirements for the transfer of personal data outside the EEA, such as the European Commission approved standard contractual clauses.

2.6 - How long we keep personal data for

We will keep your personal data for as long as necessary in order to achieve the processing purposes.

2.7 - Your rights in relation to your personal data

You may have the following rights in relation to your personal data: 

• the right to be informed about the personal data we collect, how your personal data is being used, and from whom we collect your personal data when we obtain it from other sources;
• the right to access the personal data we hold about you;
• the right to request the correction of inaccurate personal data we hold about you;
• the right to request the blocking or deletion of your personal data in some circumstances;
• the right to request that we port elements of your data either to you or another service provider;
• the right to object to us processing your personal data (where we do so only because you have consented, or because we are using automated means to make decisions that affect you); and
• the right to withdraw your consent.

You only have the benefits of some of the above rights in limited circumstances, which depend on the legal reason why we collected your personal data.

To exercise any of the above rights, or if you have any questions relating to your rights, please contact us using the details below.

2.8 - Getting in touch

If you have any privacy-related questions or comments, please contact Centrica’s data protection officer by writing to The Data Protection Officer, Centrica Plc, Millstream, Maidenhead Road, Windsor, Berkshire, SL4 5GD.

You can also contact our data protection officer at privacy@centrica.com.

If you are unhappy with the way we are using your personal data you can also complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office or your local data protection regulator. We are here to help and encourage you to contact us to resolve your complaint first.

3. Protecting information

We have strict security measures to protect information. This includes following certain procedures such as encrypting (encoding) all the communications between you and our website.

Our website uses an Extended Validation SSL certificate that provides the strongest encryption level available.

4. How we use cookies

In Brief

• We use cookies, and let our partners use cookies, on our websites and apps.
• Some of these cookies are essential to provide our websites and apps.
• We also use cookies for reasons which are not essential, but which offer you a better experience. Some of the cookies are used for the creating of profiles for the purpose of showing you advertising, both on our own websites and apps and also on the websites and apps of our partners.
• You can set your browser to reject cookies if you do not want them; we have included information on how to do this below. If you continue to browse our site and do not set your browser to reject cookies, we will treat this as your consent.
• You may also be able to control the effect of third party cookies through that third party’s own site. For example, you can tell Facebook that you do not wish to see adverts based on data from partners. We’ve included links to each advertising partner’s settings.

What am I being asked to consent to?

We are asking you to consent to our use of cookies which are not essential to the provision of our site to you.

We have included information below about how we use cookies, so that you can make an informed decision as to whether you want to block these cookies or not. You can also use your browser’s “Private Browsing” mode, so that cookies get deleted automatically when you close your browser.

You can change your mind at any time, by adjusting your browser settings.

What are cookies?

When you browse our website, or use our apps, we and our partners store some data on your computer or phone, and collect some information from your device.

This includes:

• small text files called “cookies”
• the Internet address of your device, which is a sequence of numbers called your “IP address”
• information about your browser and device’s operating system
• tiny transparent images called “pixel tags”
• mobile device identifiers, such as an iPhone’s Advertising Identifier, and
• data stored in your browser.

We’ll use the term “cookie” throughout this document to cover all of these.

How do we use cookies?

We place our own cookies, and enable our partners to place their own cookies, on your devices, for the reasons below.

Some of these cookies disappear when you close your browser, and others last for a longer period of time. We use longer-lasting cookies when we need to know who you are for more than one browsing session; for example, to remember your preferences for the next time you visit.

Where we enable our partners to place cookies, these partners will see some information about you (such as your Internet address), and they may use the information they collect, along with other information they already have, to create profiles for advertising purposes.

Cookies which are essential for us to provide our websites and apps to you

These cookies are necessary, and let you move around the website and support all our essential features like navigation and video playback.

They’re not for gathering information, remembering your preferences, or advertising to you.

As these cookies are essential, we are not asking for your consent. If you disable these cookies, you might not be able to use our website properly, and we may not be able to provide some services to you.

Cookies which are not essential but help us give you a better experience

We use cookies to remember your settings (like layout, text size, font, where you have visited already, and other parts of our website you can customise) to improve the way you use our website and enquire about how well we have met your needs. Things like online surveys, web chat and your settings are supported by these cookies.

In addition to our own cookies, we enable partners to place cookies for this purpose, including:

• Hotjar: We use Hotjar to serve our user satisfaction surveys. We use this score to understand how satisfied users are with Centrica’s website. Hotjar captures whether you have been offered a survey recently so we don’t overload you with surveys.
• Investis: We use this provider for our investor tools, including share price and market data information.

Cookies which are not essential but help us improve our websites and apps

We want to provide the best websites and apps we can, and give you the best online experience. To do this, we need to understand how you use our websites and apps, and we use cookies to help us with these.

They keep track of the pages you visit and any errors you come across, for example.

We only use that information to improve how our website works, understand the interests of our users and measure how effective our advertising is.

In addition to our own cookies, we enable partners to place cookies for this purpose, including:

• Google: We use Google to provide statistical counting of users, paths, pages visited and so on. We use information such as your IP address, browser type, unique identifiers, and product holding information, stored in cookies on your device to record how you interact with our website. We do this to understand how our customers use our site, how we can design it to serve them better, and where our customers come from, including marketing campaigns, all of which are crucial in providing a better service for our customers. You can find out more about Google analytics for web-based ads here: https://policies.google.com/privacy

Cookies which are not essential and which are used for advertising purposes

We advertise our products and services online, and we use cookies, and let our partners use cookies, to show you relevant advertising, both on our websites and apps, and on our partners’ websites and apps. For example, on Facebook.

Centrica has added tracking code from each of these partners to its website. When you load the page containing this tracking code, it tells the relevant partner which page you have loaded, along with some information about you, such as your IP address. Our partners collect this information whether you are a registered user of their service or not, and whether you are signed in to their service or not.

We use this to create groups of people who have accessed different pages on our website, and we target advertising on our partners’ sites to those groups. So, for example, if you have visited a page about a new boiler, we might use this information to show you adverts on Facebook or Twitter for new boilers.

These cookies use limit the number of times you see an advertisement, as well as help measure the effectiveness of the advertising campaign.

The advertisers we work with include:

How can I block cookies?

You can change the security settings of your web browser in order to stop your device receiving and storing cookies, to allow receiving and storing cookies from selected websites only, or to be notified before receiving cookies. You may delete cookies stored in your browser at any time. Information stored in such cookies will be removed from your device.

There is more information about this on www.aboutcookies.org which gives instructions on how you can manage cookies on different browsers.

You can normally turn off pixel tags too by switching off cookies in your browser. There are also browser add-ons and extensions that specifically block web beacons.

To avoid pixel tags in emails, you can turn off the automatic loading of remote images in your email service. However, if you choose to load images, you would also load any pixel tags in the email.

You could also use your browser’s “Private Browsing” mode. You will still get the benefit of cookies for the duration of your browsing, but they will be deleted automatically when you close your browser.

5. 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 nor the accuracy of any of the information made available on those sites. This privacy policy applies only to information collected on this website.

Legal information

1. The information contained in this website has been prepared solely for the purposes of providing general information about the Centrica Group and/or its subsidiaries.
2. The information contained on this website ('the Information') which shall include, without limitation, information contained in press releases, annual or interim reports, audio webcasts, video interviews, transcripts, presentations and other financial information does not constitute advice or an offer to sell or deal in any securities and must not be relied upon in connection with any investment decision. Past performance is no guide to future performance and persons needing advice should consult an independent financial adviser.
3. Centrica has taken care in the preparation of the content of this website. The Information presented is believed to be reliable but is subject to change at any time without notice. To the extent permitted by law, Centrica disclaims all warranties, either expressed or implied terms of satisfactory quality, fitness for a particular purpose or non-infringement. All such implied terms and warranties are hereby excluded.
4. Centrica shall not be liable for any loss which may arise from the use of the Information.
5. Centrica does not represent that the Information is accurate, comprehensive, verified or complete. In particular, the information contained in press releases, annual or interim reports, audio webcasts, video interviews, transcripts and presentations and financial information should not be deemed correct or current. Centrica shall not accept any liability for the accuracy or completeness of the Information and does not, does not intend to, and specifically disclaims any duty to, update or correct Information.
6. Certain links in this site will lead you to websites which are not under the control of Centrica. When you activate any of these you will leave the Centrica website and Centrica has no control over and will accept no responsibility or liability in respect of the material on any other website.
7. If any provisions of these disclaimers and exclusions shall be unlawful, void or for any reason unenforceable then that provision shall be deemed severable and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of the remaining provisions.
8. The copyright in the material contained in this website belongs to Centrica or its licensors. Any person may copy any part of this material, subject to the following conditions:
   • the material may be used for non-commercial purposes;
   • the copies must retain any copyright or other intellectual property notices contained in the original material; and
   • the products, technology or processes described in this website may be the subject of other intellectual property rights reserved by Centrica or by other third parties. No licence is granted in respect of those intellectual property rights. Images on this site are protected by copyright and may not be reproduced or appropriated in any manner without written permission of their respective owner(s).

Centrica plc - Registered office and Corporate Headquarters

Centrica plc
Millstream
Maidenhead Road
Windsor
Berkshire
SL4 5GD

Registered in England & Wales No 3033654

VAT registration number: GB 684 9667 62

Main switchboard

Tel: +44 (0)1753 494000
Fax: +44 (0)1753 494001

Email

Email disclaimer

North America

The information contained in or attached to this email is intended only for the use of the addressee. If you are not the intended recipient of this email, or a person responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are strictly prohibited from disclosing, copying, distributing, or retaining this email or any part of it. It may contain information which is confidential and/or covered by legal, professional or other privilege under applicable law. If you have received this email in error, please notify us immediately by return email.

The views expressed in this email are not necessarily the views of Centrica plc, nor its North American subsidiaries, and the said companies and their respective directors, officers and employees make no representation, nor accept any liability, regarding its accuracy or completeness, unless expressly stated to the contrary.

Rest of the World

The information contained in or attached to this email is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, or a person responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are not authorised to and must not disclose, copy, distribute, or retain this message or any part of it. It may contain information which is confidential and/or covered by legal professional or other privilege (or other rules or laws with similar effect in jurisdictions outside England and Wales).

The views expressed in this email are not necessarily the views of Centrica plc, and the company, its directors, officers or employees make no representation or accept any liability for its accuracy or completeness unless expressly stated to the contrary.

PH Jones is a trading name of British Gas Social Housing Limited. British Gas Social Housing Limited (company no: 01026007), British Gas Trading Limited (company no: 03078711), British Gas Services Limited (company no: 3141243), British Gas Insurance Limited (company no: 06608316), British Gas New Heating Limited (company no: 06723244), British Gas Services (Commercial) Limited (company no: 07385984) and Centrica Energy (Trading) Limited (company no: 02877397) are all wholly owned subsidiaries of Centrica plc (company no: 3033654). Each company is registered in England and Wales with a registered office at Millstream, Maidenhead Road, Windsor, Berkshire SL4 5GD.

British Gas Insurance Limited is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority. British Gas Services Limited are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. British Gas Trading Limited is an appointed representative of British Gas Services Limited which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.