TV Licensing

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TV Licensing privacy and security policies

This website is operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in its capacity as the Licensing Authority and by its agents, trading as 'TV Licensing' of 100 Temple Street, Bristol BS1 6AB ('we').

Introduction
What is 'TV Licensing'?
What personal information do we collect and when do we collect it?
How do we use the information that we collect?
When will TV Licensing contact me?
Will we share your personal information with anyone else?
For how long will we keep personal information?
Will your personal information be kept secure?
How can you find out what personal information TV Licensing holds about you?
Can your personal information be updated if it has changed or is incorrect?
Will your telephone calls to TV Licensing be recorded?
Will we send emails and text messages to you?
How do I opt out of receiving emails and/or text messages from TV Licensing?
Cookies
Changes to this privacy policy
Contacting TV Licensing about this Privacy Policy

This statement sets out TV Licensing's policy regarding the information about you that we may collect and process when you visit www.tvlicensing.co.uk. It also outlines how we deal with personal information that you might give us when you contact us, when we contact you or which we may process in the course of our administration of the TV Licence system. It provides further detail to accompany specific statements about privacy which you may come into contact with when we collect your personal data (for example, at the bottom of some of our forms). The policy also contains information about cookies, the types of cookies that are used on this website and how you may disable such cookies.

TV Licensing is legally obliged to use your information in accordance with all laws concerning the protection of personal data, including the Data Protection Act 1998 (the Act). The BBC is the data controller for the purposes of the Act. Whenever we process information about you, we will do so in accordance with the Act.

We aim to be as clear as possible about how and why we use information about you so that you can be confident that your privacy is protected. If your questions are not fully answered by this policy, please contact:

The Data Protection Manager
TV Licensing
Bristol
BS98 1TL

The BBC is a public authority in respect of its television licensing functions and retains overall responsibility. The BBC is committed to safeguarding your personal information and takes steps to ensure that its contractors and subcontractors comply with both the principles of the Act and information security best practice in general.

"TV Licensing" is a trade mark of the BBC and is used under licence by companies contracted by the BBC to administer the collection of television licence fees and enforcement of the television licensing system. The majority of administration is contracted to Capita Business Services Ltd, with cash related payment schemes contracted to Revenues Management Services Ltd. Over-the-counter services are provided by PayPoint plc (and the Post Office in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man). Marketing and public relations activities are contracted to the AMV Consortium. This consortium is made up of the following four companies: Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO Ltd., Fishburn Hedges Boys Williams Ltd., PHD Media Ltd. and Proximity London Ltd. Postal services are provided by UK Mail.

In addition, and with the agreement of the BBC, some of the companies listed above subcontract a small proportion of their TV Licensing work and activities to other companies. These companies include Orchestra (printing and mailing services) and Computer Sciences Corporation (database management services).

In order to receive or use certain services which are provided by TV Licensing you may be asked to provide:

your name
your TV Licence number (or membership number for cash payment schemes)
your postal address
your bank account details or your credit/debit card details
other contact details such as an email address and telephone number (Providing your email address and/or telephone number makes it easier for us to contact you, thereby enabling us to provide a more convenient service to you)

We may also collect other types of personal information if we are required to do so in order to administer the licensing system (for example, your age and National Insurance number if you were to apply for an over 75 licence).

We collect most information from you directly. However, we do on occasion seek information about you from third parties. For example, when we receive an application for an over 75 licence, we require confirmation of the applicant's age – and usually we will obtain this from the Department for Work and Pensions.

On our website, we use cookies to gather information about visitors which we use only for the purpose of enhancing your online experience. We do not seek to identify individuals from this information (see the cookies section for more information about cookies and how we use them). Similarly, we log the IP address of any user visiting the website, but this data is not used to develop a personal profile of you. (An IP address is a number that can uniquely identify a specific computer or other network device on the internet).

Finally, we may also collect information on whether a TV is being used at an address.

We may use the information that we have collected for any of the following purposes:

To administer the television licensing system, including: to process your TV Licence application; to confirm personal details; to assess and collect the licence fee; to enforce the relevant law and to perform any relevant TV Licensing function.
To communicate with you from time to time about matters relating to your TV Licence.
To ensure that correspondence is accurate and lawful.
To verify your identity when you contact TV Licensing so that we can protect your privacy and prevent unauthorised processing of your data.
For training purposes so that we can continuously improve our customer service standards (e.g. for listening in to calls).

We may also use and disclose information in aggregate (so that no individual customers are identified) for the following purposes:

To report on our activity to the BBC and the BBC Trust.
To understand and improve the effectiveness of the TV Licensing website for our users.
For historical, statistical or research purposes.
Strategic development purposes.

The majority of personal data processed by TV Licensing is processed within the UK. However, a small amount of data is processed outside of the European Economic Area. TV Licensing only processes personal data outside of the European Economic Area when the BBC has satisfied itself that the organisation processing the data ensures an appropriate level of protection for our customers’ personal data.

TV Licensing may contact you:

In relation to the application or renewal of your TV Licence or in connection with your TV Licence payment plan, cash scheme or savings card in order to confirm details or resolve queries;
In relation to any complaint or other correspondence you have initiated with TV Licensing;
To invite you to participate in surveys about TV Licensing’s services (participation is always voluntary); and
For other service messages (for example, about alternative methods of payment).

We will never sell your data to any third party. Any information you provide will only be used by us and our service providers. We will not disclose it to any other third parties without obtaining your prior consent unless we are required or permitted to do so by law (for example, to law enforcement agencies).

We will only hold your personal information for as long as it is necessary to do so having regard to the purposes for which it was collected.

We will ensure that all personal information that is under our control is held securely and in accordance with applicable laws.

We cannot ensure the security of your data when it is being transmitted to our website or being sent to us through the post and all transmission of personal information and other data is done at your own risk. Once we have received your information we will use strict procedures and security features to prevent any unauthorised access.

You have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you. These requests are referred to in the Data Protection Act 1998 as Subject Access Requests. We are permitted by law to charge a fee (£10) for processing such requests and will require confirmation of your identity before we process it. If you wish to make a Subject Access Request, please write to:

The Data Protection Manager
TV Licensing
Bristol
BS98 1TL

If you are the licence holder, you may transfer your licence to a new address and perform certain other transactions through our website. You may also contact us by telephone, email, letter or fax to change your personal information (depending upon what information it is that you are wishing to change; some changes may require written confirmation).

If you are not the licence holder, but are authorised to update details on the licence holder’s behalf (for example, if you have Power of Attorney), we will ask you to confirm that you are authorised to perform the activity required before you can progress through our website in order to carry the action out. If you are contacting us by means other than our website (e.g. via our call centre or through the post), we may ask you to provide proof that the licence holder permits changes to the personal information held before we will make the changes requested.

As a quality control measure, telephone calls made to and from TV Licensing may be recorded or monitored for training purposes to ensure that we continuously improve our customer service standards. Recordings of telephone calls are only kept for a limited amount of time.

We will only send emails and text messages to you if we have your consent to do so. However, the type of consent required is different in each case.

When you have provided us with your email address, we will take this to mean that you have consented to receive an email from us either acknowledging or confirming fulfilment of your initial request or transaction; and to occasionally receiving other purposeful emails from us, such as reminders when your licence is due for renewal.

Unlike an email address, a mobile phone number can of course be used for both phone calls and text messages. If you provide us with your mobile phone number, we will only use it to contact you via text if we have your explicit permission to do so.

If you are receiving text messages from us, you may unsubscribe at any time by following the instructions included within the text message.

Similarly, if you are receiving emails from us, you may unsubscribe at any time by following the instructions included within the email.

You can opt out of receiving your TV Licence and payment plan (if applicable) electronically by logging into your TV Licence online (www.tvlicensing.co.uk/yourlicence) and following the instructions. You may do this at any point, but you must make the request at least four weeks prior to the expiry of your current TV Licence in order for it to be processed in time.

When you unsubscribe (i.e. opt out) from either text message and/or email communications, we will suppress your details on our systems so as to ensure we have a record of your decision to not be contacted in that particular manner. We will not use the email address or mobile phone number for such messages again unless you opt back in.

When unsubscribing from either email or text communications, you should always follow the specific instructions given in the particular email or text that you wish to discontinue receiving.

a) What is a cookie?

A cookie is a small amount of data stored on a computer that contains information about the internet pages that have been viewed from that computer. They are commonplace on the internet and are used by websites to improve the user’s online experience by storing information about how the user navigated around and interacted with it. This information is then read by the website on the next occasion that the user visits.

Cookies are sent automatically by websites as they are viewed, but in order to protect a user’s privacy, a computer will only permit a website to access the cookies it has sent, and not the cookies sent by other sites. Furthermore, users can adjust the settings on their computer to restrict the number of cookies that it accepts, or notifies them each time a cookie is sent. This should improve privacy and security, but will generally mean that certain personalised services cannot be provided, and it may therefore prevent the user from taking full advantage of a website's features.

For further information on cookies, please visit www.aboutcookies.org.

b) What sort of cookies are used on this website?

On the TV Licensing website we use two types of cookies: session cookies and stored cookies.

Session cookies expire at the end of the user's browser session and can also expire after the session has been inactive for a specified length of time, usually 20 minutes. Session cookies are stored in the computer's memory and are automatically deleted from the user's computer when the browser is closed.

Stored cookies are stored on the user's computer and are not deleted when the browser is closed. Stored cookies can retain user preferences for a particular website, allowing those preferences to be used in future browsing sessions.

c) How does TV Licensing use cookies?

TV Licensing uses a number of independent measurement and research companies. They gather information regarding the visitors to TV Licensing sites on our behalf using cookies, log file data and code which is embedded on our website. TV Licensing uses this type of information to help improve the services it provides to its users. TV Licensing strictly requires that third parties do not use any information for their own business or other purposes.

d) Can I browse the TV Licensing website without receiving any cookies?

Yes. If you have set your computer to reject cookies, you can still browse www.tvlicensing.co.uk. However, certain functions may not be available to you unless you enable cookies.

e) How do third party organisations which carry TV Licensing advertising material use cookies?

TV Licensing uses a range of advertising activities in order to raise awareness, remind people to pay, inform them of ways to pay and to deter evaders. They include television, radio and online campaigns.

Where online campaigns are used (for example, banner advertisements on Hotmail), a TV Licensing cookie will be sent to your browser from the third party website's computer and stored on your computer's hard drive. However, we will not seek to collect personal data during this process. The responsibility to provide information about cookies on external sites lies with the controller of that website, not TV Licensing. We therefore recommend that you check the cookies policy of any external sites if you would like to know more about their use of cookies.

f) How can I find and control cookies?

You can usually adjust for yourself the number of cookies that your computer (or other device, such as a WAP-enabled mobile phone) receives. How this is done, however, varies according to which device and what browser software you are using.

As a general rule, the more commonly used web browser software packages tend to have a drop-down menu entitled ‘Tools’. One of the options on this menu is usually ‘Options’ – and if this is selected, ‘Privacy’ is usually one of the settings that may be adjusted by the user.

In the case of any device other than a PC (e.g. mobile phone), you should always refer to the manufacturers instructions.

Alternatively, you may wish to opt-out from only the cookies used by third-party companies (acting on behalf of TV Licensing) to measure the traffic to our site. This has the advantage of leaving other cookies in place, thereby minimising the loss of functionality associated with blocking all cookies.

You may find the following web sites useful for information on how to change cookie settings in a range of commonly used browsers :

Please note we only use cookies for the purpose of enhancing your online experience and no personal data is collected from you through this process.

We may amend this privacy policy from time to time. New versions will be posted on this website, so you may wish to check it any time you provide us with personal information.

If you have any questions, comments or complaints about this Privacy Policy please contact:

The Data Protection Manager
TV Licensing
Bristol
BS98 1TL
email: enquiries@tvlicensing.co.uk

This is version 2.0 of the TV Licensing Privacy Policy.

It was last updated on 27 August 2009.

General information about TV Licensing is available in the following languages:

TV Licensing

Privacy and security policies