Kent Savers Credit Union (“Kent Savers”) recognises individual concerns about how your personal or financial information is dealt with by us. We are committed to protecting the privacy of personal data. This privacy notice sets out how we deal with this information and how and when it may be shared with others. We may change this notice at any time in the future. It applies to information we collect about:
- People who apply for and use our products and services – for example: current members, local tenants and other customers
- People who are applying to us to become a member and any financially associated individuals whose details the applicant provides to us
- Other people we deal with in the course of delivering our services, for example: local authorities, registered social landlords, private landlords, employers
- Job applicants and our current and former employees, volunteers, committee or board members
- Visitors to our website
There are other types of information that apply in special cases, including:
- Health and Care details
- Other agencies that may be helping you
- Complaints
- Records of anti-social behaviour or criminal activities
- County Court Judgements (CCJ’s)
- Insolvency services
Most of the above information we hold concerning you comes directly from you, as we get most of it from your application form or other forms we ask you to complete, or from when you contact us. We will often give you more details about how we will use your information on documents that we ask you to complete or sign, or when we write to you. We may use your details to provide you with information about other services which may be of interest to you and we may contact you about these by post or telephone. We may contact you by electronic means (example: email or text messaging) only if you have provided us with your electronic contact details for this purpose.
2. Summary of your rights
The Data Protection Act 2018 states your right to request a copy of the information we hold about you. The GDPR states that you can access this information for free – however, there may be a fee charged for unfounded, repetitive or excessive requests or requests for the same information already provided, you will be informed of the cost at the time of application.
You have a right to ask for any information we hold to be corrected if it is inaccurate or incomplete. We must provide you with a copy of your information within one calendar month of the request. We can delay this for up to a further 2 months for complex or numerous requests. If we do this we must inform you about it and give you an explanation of the delay. If we have shared your information with a Data Processor (third party) we must also inform them of the rectification.
You have the right to block or restrict the processing of your personal data. We have ‘lawful rights’ to hold certain personal data about you, but we are not allowed to further process that data once we have been asked to restrict it.
You have the right to ask that your personal data be erased, if we no longer have any ‘lawful rights’ for keeping your data then we will adhere to your request.
You have the right to request that we do not use your personal data for marketing purposes. You can exercise your right to prevent such processing by ticking certain boxes on the forms we use to collect your data. You can also exercise the right at any time by contacting us or through our Members Area.
2. Supplying personal information
We are committed to protecting the privacy of our members’ personal information. Kent Savers requires any information marked as mandatory for membership to either meet legal obligations or to enable us to perform our contract with you. Where you are not able to provide us with this information, we may not be able to open an account for you. Where we request further information about you not required for these reasons, we will ask you for your consent.
3. How we use your personal information
Kent Savers Credit Union may process, transfer and/or share personal information in the following ways:
For legal reasons
- confirm your identity
- perform activity for the prevention of financial crime
- carry out internal and external auditing
- record information about you on a members’ register
- record details about your nominated beneficiary if you ask us to
For performance of our contract with you
- deal with your account(s) or run any other services we provide to you
- consider any applications made by you
- carry out credit checks and to obtain and provide credit references
- undertake statistical analysis, to help evaluate the future needs of our members and to help manage our business
- to send you statements, new terms & conditions (including changes to this privacy statement), information about changes to the way your account(s) operate and notifications of our general meetings
For our legitimate interests
- to recover any debts owed to us by members or employees or officers who have taken out a loan with us
With your consent
- to keep our members informed of Kent Savers news, changes and developments to our services in which they have an interest
- if you are applying for a loan and you use online banking, you can consent us to access your bank statements directly from your bank to avoid having to send them by post or email (see Open Banking below)
4. Sharing your personal information
We will disclose information outside Kent Savers:
- to third parties to help us confirm your identity to comply with money laundering legislation, including when you apply to become a member of Kent Savers
- to credit reference agencies and debt recovery and/or enforcement agents who may check the information against other databases – private and public – to which they have access to
- to any authorities if compelled to do so by law (e.g. to HM Revenue & Customs to fulfil tax compliance obligations)
- to fraud prevention agencies to help prevent crime or where we suspect fraud
- to any persons, including, but not limited to, insurers, who provide a service or benefits to you or for us in connection with your account(s)
- other people we deal with in the course of delivering our services, for example, local authorities, registered social or private landlords, employers
- to other members if they request to view the members’ register which contains certain limited information i.e. names, joining dates, leaving dates, and mailing addresses
- to our suppliers in order for them to provide services to us and/or to you on our behalf
- employees, volunteers, board or other committee members – all of which may be current or former or while applying to Kent Savers
- to anyone in connection with a reorganisation or merger of Kent Savers’s business
- other parties for marketing purposes (if you agree to this)
4.1 Where we send your personal information
While countries in the European Economic Area all ensure rigorous data protection laws, there are parts of the world that may not be quite so rigorous and do not provide the same quality of legal protection and rights when it comes to your personal information. Kent Savers does not currently and directly send information to any country outside of the European Economic Area.
Any party receiving personal data may also process, transfer and share it for the purposes set out above and in limited circumstances this may involve sending your information to countries where data protection laws do not provide the same level of data protection as the UK.
For example, when complying with international tax regulations we may be required to report personal information to the HM Revenue and Customs which may transfer that information to tax authorities in countries where you or a connected person may be tax resident.
5. Retaining your information
Kent Savers will need to hold your information for various lengths of time depending on what we use your data for. In many cases we will hold this information for a period of time after you have left Kent Savers.
We have to hold your details to allow us to process your application or request for services and then to provide them and ensure that we are able to carry out our responsibilities. For example:
- as a member, we will hold the details which we obtain from you at the outset of your membership and records concerning share deposits and loan repayments and your conduct in relation to your membership
- if you apply for membership and your application isn’t completed for any reason, we will remove your personal data after 12 months
This information will be retained once we stop providing services to you for so long as it is considered necessary or for a maximum of 7 years after you stop being a member. If you take out a loan with us, that information that will be retained for up to 6 years after repayment of the loan in full in accordance with our legal obligations, or for a longer period if a balance on a debt remains outstanding to us. Any staff employed by us or organisations and people working on our behalf may have access to this information.
In any event, we may retain your information for longer periods to comply with regulation and/or legislation, or to comply with an order by a court of competent jurisdiction or a criminal investigation by any law enforcement or fraud prevention agency.
6. Credit reference and fraud prevention agencies
We may use credit reference and fraud prevention agencies to help us make decisions. What we do and how both we and credit reference and fraud prevention agencies will use your information is summarised below. For further information, please read our policy on use of Credit Reference and Fraud Prevention Agencies or contact us for a copy.
In order to process loan applications you make we will supply your personal information to credit reference agencies (CRAs) and they will give us information about you, such as about your financial history. We do this to assess creditworthiness and product suitability, check your identity, manage your account, trace and recover debts and prevent criminal activity.
We will also continue to exchange information about you with CRAs on an ongoing basis, including about your settled accounts and any debts not fully repaid on time. CRAs will share your information with other organisations. Your data will also be linked to the data of your spouse, any joint applicants or other financial associates. This may affect your ability to get credit.
The personal information we collect from you will be shared with Fraud Prevention Agencies (FPAs) who will use it to prevent fraud and money laundering and to verify your identity.
The identities of the CRAs, and the ways in which they use and share personal information, are explained in more detail on:
- Transunion at www.transunion.co.uk/crain
- Equifax at www.equifax.co.uk/crain
- Experian at www.experian.co.uk/crain
7. Staying safe online
Kent Saver’s Membership Terms and Conditions contain specific information about information security precautions for Members and how to safeguard your account. Top tips for staying secure online – NCSC.GOV.UK.
8. Open banking
This section relates to Open Banking and should be read in conjunction with the other clauses in this Data Protection Privacy Notice. In the event of conflict with any other clauses, this clause shall prevail in respect of Open Banking.
8.1 what is open banking?
Open Banking is the secure way of providing access to your bank or building society account to providers who are registered for this purpose. Registered providers and participating banks and building societies are listed under the Open Banking Directory. Open Banking was set up by the UK Government to encourage more competition and innovation in the financial services sector.
As a forward thinking lender, we support the use of Open Banking as it allows us to process loan applications efficiently, securely and in our consumer’s best interests. By permitting access to your bank or building society account information we are able to make a better lending decision as we shall be able to verify your income, outgoings and other matters in order to assess what loan terms would be suitable for you based upon what you can reasonably afford to repay.
Further information about Open Banking is available from www.openbanking.org.uk.
8.2 How will my personal data be shared and used for the purposes of Open Banking?
By proceeding with your loan application via our website you have the option to select use of open banking, in which case you then expressly consent to us sharing your personal, contact and loan application details (“the Shared Personal Data”) with our registered Open Banking partner (“OB Partner”)_at the time who may also be a credit reference agency. During your loan application we shall safely and securely direct you to our OB Partner’s secure portal (“the Portal”) for the purposes of granting our OB Partner access to your bank or building society account information (“Transaction Information”). As soon as your Transaction Information is received it shall be reported back to us in the form of a completed search in order that we may continue to process your loan application (“the Permitted Purpose”).
8.3 Is Open Banking secure?
We are responsible for the secure transmission of any Shared Personal Data to our OB Partner, for safely directing you to the Portal and for the safe receipt and usage of your Transaction Information.
You will not be required to share your banking password or log in details with either us or our OB Partner. Once you have given your explicit consent to share your bank account information on the Portal you will be directed to your own bank or building society’s login page where you will enter in your own login details directly.
Save as set out above or elsewhere in this Data Protection Privacy Notice, we are not responsible for your direct data transmissions with our OB Partner or with your own bank or building society.
8.4 How will my Shared Personal Data and Transaction Information be used?
Our OB Partner shall, subject to their own terms and conditions and privacy policy, and, if your bank or building society is registered to provide access under the Open Banking Directory, obtain your Transaction Information and submit this back to us for the Permitted Purpose. By way of example, the Transaction Information that we shall receive is likely to include information relating to your income, outgoings and credit worthiness.
Our OB Partner shall be entitled to re-access your Transaction Information for up to 90 days from the date of your original search result in order to refresh the search results, obtain a snapshot of your data or gather additional data.
Our OB Partner shall hold the Shared Personal Data and the Transaction Information they receive and retain according to their own terms and conditions and privacy policy, available on their Portal, which you will be required to read and consent to, once directed, via our website.
Where our OB Partner is also a credit reference agency they may also share and keep a record of your Shared Personal Data and Transaction Information.
8.5 Will you use my Transaction Information data for any other purpose?
The Transaction Information we receive about you will only be used for the Permitted Purpose. We do not sell or share Transaction Information with any third party.
Save as set out above the information contained in the rest of this Data Protection Proivacy Notice deals with how we collate, use, transfer, store, delete and other terms applicable to your personal data including Shared Personal Data and Transaction Information.
8.6 Do I have to provide you with my consent to proceed?
Where your bank or building society have already permitted access to your Transaction Information you shall need to contact them directly in order to withdraw your consent under their particular Open Banking terms and conditions.
8.7 Are any of my other rights under this Privacy Policy affected?
Your individual data protection and privacy rights including the right to access, correct, delete, object, restrict, withdraw consent, request transfer and/or make a complaint, continue to apply to relevant personal data we control or process and are dealt with elsewhere in this Data Protection Privacy Notice.
Under Open Banking as your personal data is shared by your bank or building society and accessed by our OB Partner, you may also be able to exercise your individual data protection and privacy rights against either of them pursuant to their own terms and conditions and privacy policies.
9. Your rights
Your rights under data protection regulations are:
a) The right to be informed
b) The right to access
c) The right of rectification
d) The right to erasure
e) The right to restrict processing
f) The right to data portability
g) The right to object to data processing
h) Rights related to automating decision-making and profiling
i) Right to withdraw consent
j) The right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office
9.1 your rights explained
Right to be informed
You have the right to be informed about how we process your personal information.
Right to Access
You have the right to access your personal data and details of the purposes of the processing, the categories of personal data concerned and the recipients of the personal data. Providing the rights and freedoms of others are not affected, we will supply to you a copy of your personal data. You can access your personal data by logging into the Members Area of our website or via our smartphone apps on Apple’s AppStore or Google Play Store.
The right to rectification
You have the right to have any inaccurate personal data about you corrected and, taking into account the purposes of the processing, to have any incomplete personal data about you completed.
The right to erasure
In some circumstances you have the right to the erasure of your personal data without undue delay. Those circumstances include:
- the personal data is no longer needed for the purpose it was originally processed
- you withdraw consent you previously provided to process the information
- you object to the processing under certain rules of data protection law
- the processing is for marketing purposes
- the personal data was unlawfully processed
However, you may not erase this data where we need it to meet a legal obligation or where it is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.
The right to restrict processing
In some circumstances you have the right to restrict the processing of your personal data. Those circumstances are:
- you contest the accuracy of the personal data
- processing is unlawful but you oppose erasure
- we no longer need the personal data for the purposes of our processing, but you require personal data for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims; and
- you have objected to processing, pending the verification of that objection. Where processing has been restricted on this basis, we may continue to store your personal data.
We will only otherwise process it:
- with your consent
- for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims; or
- for the protection of the rights of another natural or legal person.
The right to object to processing
You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data on grounds relating to your particular situation, but only to the extent that the legal basis for the processing is that the data is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by us or by a third party.
If you make such an objection, we will cease to process the personal information unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override your interests, rights and freedoms, or the processing is for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.
You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes (including profiling for direct marketing purposes). If you make such an objection, we will cease to process your personal data for this purpose.
The right to data portability
To the extent that the legal basis for our processing of your personal data is:
a) consent; or
b) that the processing is necessary for the performance of our contract with you
You have the right to receive your personal data from us in a commonly used and machine-readable format or instruct us to send this data to another organisation. This right does not apply where it would adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others.
9.2 Rights related to automatic processing
Kent Savers uses an automated decision-making process for processing members’ loan applications to make sure that our decisions are quick, fair, efficient, and correct based on what we know.
The automated lending decision system looks at your credit score alongside information such as:
- the amount applied for
- your income and expenditure
- your history of repaying debts
- the number and value of County Court Judgements (CCJs) you have
- the number of accounts you have that are in default
- public information such as the insolvency service
- whether or not you are bankrupt
- your age
and makes a decision based on either:
- Set policies e.g. Kent Savers does not lend to those less than 18 years of age, or Kent Savers does not lend to people with over a certain value of county court judgements.
- The predicted likelihood of the repayment of the loan based on the statistical analysis of whether individuals who had a similar credit profile repaid their debts in the past.
Members have the right to have the decision reviewed by a member of staff, express their point of view, and obtain an explanation of the decision and challenge it.
9.3 Right to withdraw consent
To the extent that the legal basis for our processing of your personal information is your consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawal will not affect the lawfulness of processing before the withdrawal.
9.4 The right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office
If you consider that our processing of your personal information infringes data protection laws, you have a legal right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office which is responsible for data protection in the UK. You can contact them by:
1. Going to the ICO’s website at: https://ico.org.uk
2. Phone on 0303 123 1113
3. Post to Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, SK9 5AF
9.5 Contact us about your rights
For more information about how your rights apply to your membership of Kent Savers or to make a request under your rights you can contact us . We will aim to respond to your request or query within one month or provide an explanation of the reason for our delay.
10. your marketing preferences
If you are a member of Kent Savers and you would like to change your marketing preferences login to our Members Area or via our smartphone apps on Apple’s AppStore or Google Play Store or contact us . You may change your marketing preferences at any time.
11. Changes to this data protection privacy notice
We can update this Data Protection Privacy Notice at any time and ideally you should check it regularly here for updates. We won’t alert you for every small change, but if there are any important changes to the Notice or how we use your information we will let you know and where appropriate ask for your consent.
