Privacy Policy
1. Summary
This Privacy Policy sets out in detail the purposes for which we process your personal data, how we collect it from you and other sources, who we share it with, what rights you have in relation to that personal data, and anything else we think is important for you to know.
We mainly process your personal data to provide you with the services that you’ve requested from us through our website (www.comparethemarket.com) or our App (if available). Our website and App are together referred to in this policy as our “Platform”. To use our services, we need to share your personal data with third party insurance and product providers to provide you with the quote or service that you have requested or that we provide to you. The specific details of these third parties, as well as other reasons for which we process your personal data, are set out below.
We (Compare the Market Limited) are the data controller of the personal data that you provide on the Platform and/or that we collect about you. This means that we are the company responsible for deciding how your data is processed.
This Privacy Policy was last updated on: 30th September 2024.
Summary of why the latest update was made: Further information as to how your personal data is processed and who is processing it when using our credit card, loans, and mortgage comparison services.
What's on this page
Jump to sections
- 2. Types of information we collect from you, why we use it, where we get it from and how we collect it
- 3. Who do we share your information with, why and where do they process it?
- 4. What our insurance partners and comparison service partners may do with your data
- 5. Data retention periods and deletion policies
- 6. International transfers of personal data outside of the UK and what is in place to protect you when we make those transfers
- 7. Automated decision making, including profiling
- 8. Information about your rights and how you can exercise them
- 9. Contacting us
- 10. Your right to complain
2. Types of information we collect from you, why we use it, where we get it from and how we collect it
2.1 Quotation information
Which is (to the extent it is relevant to the quote or service that you have requested): your name, contact details (including email address and phone number), date of birth, address history, driving history, claims history, details about your vehicle and/or your home and belongings, details about your relationship, information about your employment and income, identification information, electronic identifiers (e.g. Internet Protocol (IP) address, or device ID, your browser and device operating system), your no claims history, and contextual information about your house type and geographical location.
Source(s) of information
- From you directly
- From your use of our Platform.
- From our third party energy comparison partners
- From publicly available sources and third party providers
Why we use it
- To provide you with the insurance, utilities and financial product quotes and comparison services you request from us or that we provide to you, this will include sharing information with our insurance and comparison partners so these quotes can be generated, where we already know information about you these services may be personalised;
- To send you necessary information about our services (e.g., confirmation emails regarding your quotes or account details);
- To manage, run and administer your account;
- Where possible, help you complete quotes quickly by pre-populating some of our on-line forms with information we already know about you;
- To provide you with an indication of what your quote may be when using external websites, we process the quotation information you have previously provided alongside the vehicle details you are interested in to produce this indication;
- Where we provide you with our Renewal Quote service, so we can inform you of this quote via the most relevant contact method, we will use the data you have previously provided from your latest or most relevant quote to generate this Renewal Quote, contact you about it, and display it on our Platform at various points in your anticipated renewal window via the contact details in your comparethemarket.com account. You can update, alter, or turn this service off at any time by adjusting the Renewal Quote settings under ‘Contact Preferences’ in your comparethemarket.com account;
- For our energy comparison service, to provide you with information about your historic and current energy usage, your carbon footprint and possible switching opportunities; and
- If you have signed up for this, to automatically send you any energy-saving service information to see if you could save money on your bills, including tips on how to save.
Lawful basis for processing this information
Contractual necessity, as we need this information to perform our contract with you and provide you with the service you have requested (e.g., quotes from our insurance and credit partners).
When we personalise your experience on our Platform we do so because it is our legitimate interest as a business to make your experience on our Platform as simple to use as possible.
2.2. Special category and criminal offence information
Which is: information about your health (e.g., any medical conditions), criminal convictions, and alleged or actual criminal offences (e.g., traffic offences).
Source(s) of information
- From you directly
Why we use it
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We will process this data to provide you with the quote or services you have requested or receive from us. For example, we will need information about traffic offences or any relevant medical conditions (e.g., epilepsy) to provide you with car insurance.
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We will retain a copy of this data for the purpose of making or defending claims or preventing or detecting fraud and other crime.
Lawful basis for processing this information
We process this information because it is in the substantial public interest for us to do so, for the purpose of arranging an insurance contract. We also process this information to prevent or detect unlawful acts, such as fraud.
2.3 Business energy switch information
Which is: the address of the business premises, the energy usage at such premises, your contact details, your direct debit details and any personal data you input for the purposes of using the business energy comparison service
Source(s) of information
- From you directly
Why we use it
- To share directly with our business energy comparison service provider, Bionic Services Limited, so that they can process the quote and administer the change in energy when necessary.
Lawful basis for processing this information
Contractual necessity, as we need to share this information with Bionic Services Limited so that they can process your switch and keep you informed.
2.4 App Information
Which is: your name, email, password, device information (IP address, device profile and device settings), information about your account (e.g., reward expiry periods), location services from your mobile device, information about your use of our App (e.g., what rewards have you used and what products you have compared via the App.)
Source(s) of information
- From you directly
- From your use of our platform
- From our social media partners
Why we use it
- To administer and provide you with access to our Meerkat app (and the Meerkat Movies and Meerkat Meals rewards programmes). Access to and use of our Meerkat app may be personalised based on information we already know about you.
- To help us regularly review and improve our Meerkat Meals and Meerkat Movies rewards and carry out research relating to your use of these rewards.
- If you have enabled push notifications on your device, to send you push notifications. Including marketing communications and information about the services that you have requested sent by push notifications. Such marketing may be determined by your device information (e.g., you may be interested in travel insurance if you’re at an airport).
- To send you service messages relating to your account (e.g., notifications that your rewards are about to expire).
- If you have enabled location services on your device, to identify when you have entered a particular location, to display to you what rewards are available near that location, to give us insight as to how you use your rewards, and tailor our messages to you.
Lawful basis for processing this information
Contractual necessity, as we need this information to provide you access to our App and the services it provides.
In relation to App information that is used to (i) review and improve our rewards programs, (ii) improve the general functioning of our App (iii) send you marketing that you have signed up for and/or (iv) personalise your experience whilst using the App, it is in our legitimate interests as to you.
In relation to use of your device information to receive marketing from us, we will only do so where we have your explicit consent.
Details of how you can withdraw your consent are in the ‘information about your rights and how you can exercise them’ section below. You may also be able to object to us sending you marketing by adjusting your device settings.
2.5 Fraud prevention information
Which is: contact details, electronic identifiers (IP address, device ID, telephone number) and your Quotation Information.
Source(s) of information
- From you directly
- From your use of our Platform
Why we use it
- To check and/or share your details with our insurance partners or lenders who may share your details with fraud prevention and detection agencies.
- Carry out analysis on data that is held in order to assist the identification of fraud.
- To check and validate that the contact details being submitted on our Platform are valid and being legitimately used.
Lawful basis for processing this information
Legitimate interests, as it is in our legitimate business interest to detect and minimise the risk of fraud or crime occurring on our platform.
We may have a legal obligation to disclose fraud prevention information to assist with relevant legal proceedings.
2.6 Sales information
Which includes some of your Quotation Information, including your name, contact details, quote references and information about the product or insurance policy you have purchased, including information about policies you have cancelled or have had cancelled by an insurance provider.
Source(s) of information
- From our insurance providers
- From our comparison service providers
Why we use it
- We are provided information about your purchase from our insurance partners and service providers to enable us to charge them for the policies and products purchased via our Platform. For information about how we make money please see information about us here.
Lawful basis for processing this information
Legitimate interests, as it is in our legitimate business interest to charge our insurance partners and service providers.
2.7 Rewards information
Which is: name, contact details, address, email address, a rewards identification number (this is used to prove you are eligible to participate in rewards schemes), details about any policies you take out with any of our partners or any product you buy through our platform, confirmations on whether you have taken out a policy and any other information you provide to us (e.g., as part of any complaints or queries about our reward schemes).
Source(s) of information
- From you directly
- From our insurance providers
- From our comparison service providers
Why we use it
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To administer our rewards scheme, which rewards our customers for buying policies and other products through our platform. You can find more information about our schemes here:
- To validate and check that you are eligible to participate in our rewards schemes;
- To notify you when you’ve been pre-approved for a reward following an eligible purchase;
- To contact you in relation to our reward schemes and deal with any complaints or queries you may have in relation to our rewards schemes;
Lawful basis for processing this information
Contractual necessity, as we need to use this information to perform our contract with you and provide you with the rewards that you have requested.
Legitimate interests, where possible we preapprove your rewards eligibility, automatically provide access to your rewards in your account and inform you that his has been done. We do this as it is in our legitimate business interest for you to access the rewards you are entitled to.
2.8 Marketing communications information
Which is: your contact details (postal addresses, email addresses, phone number).
Source(s) of information
- From you directly
- From your use of our Platform
Why we use it
- To send you marketing communications via the contact methods that you have signed up to. This does not include messages which you have requested to receive or receive as part of the service that we provide to you.
- To enable the delivery of other forms of digital advertising to you via third parties (e.g., Facebook, Google and Amazon).
Lawful basis for processing this information
You will be asked for your consent to receive marketing communications from us via various contact methods, including post, telephone call, email, SMS or other available instant messaging platforms.
Details of how you can opt-out are in the ‘information about your rights and how you can exercise them’ section below.
Legitimate interests, it is also in our interests to be able to deliver more personalised messages advertising to you across social media and other paid advertising platforms.
2.9 Customer profiles
Which are profiles made up of various information relating to you, including your Quotation Information, information about the policies or contracts you have taken out and your usage of our Platform.
Source(s) of information
- From you directly
- From our insurance partners
- From our comparison service partners
- From your use of our Platform
- From third party data providers or from open sources of data
Why we use it
- We create these profiles in various ways, the profile may be created by an algorithm, or a model created by various algorithms.
- The models and algorithms that create customer profiles enable us to analyse or predict what products or services you may be interested in, where you may be able to make savings and may enable us to deal with any queries you have in a quicker way. If we change the way we use these models and algorithms in the future, we will update this Privacy Policy to let you know.
Lawful basis for processing this information
Legitimate interests, as it is in our interests as a business to provide you with more relevant products and services and ensure that your use of our Platform is as simple as possible.
2.10 Information used for analytics purposes
Which includes a unique ID for your mobile device and a hashed version of your email address. A “hashing process” is done to ensure that your data is secure, and those third parties can only identify you if they already hold information about you. Hashing is where we scramble the plain text of your personal information to create a unique message, hashing algorithms are one-way programs, so the text cannot be unscrambled by these third parties. The providers also delete this hashed data once they no longer need it for these purposes. It also includes information about what pages (and variants of pages) you visit, how long you are on our website, how you were directed to our website and what products and services you interact with.
Source(s) of information
- From your use of our Platform
- From our insurance partners
- From our comparison service partners
- From Google Analytics
- From Adobe Target
Why we use it
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We use Google’s and other analytic providers services and features to monitor how you use and interact with our platform, we do this to improve the products and services we offer to you. For example, we monitor how you interact with questions to see if you are experiencing any difficulty with answering these so we can look to improve these products and services. Monitoring the interactions also allows us to see how our products and services, including marketing, perform. The features that we use include Google Display Network Impression Reporting, Google Analytics Demographics and Interest Reporting and integrated services that require Google Analytics to collect data for advertising purposes including the collection of the data via advertising cookies and identifiers.
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Adobe Target is used to provide customers with more relevant and personalised experiences, as well as testing variants on our websites to see how you interact with these so we can make an informed decision about future changes we may want to make to our platform.
Lawful basis for processing this information
Legitimate interests, as it is in our legitimate business interests to monitor and analyse how you use our products and services to ensure that they are working correctly and gain insight as to how we can improve them.
2.11 Information used for marketing purposes
Which includes postal addresses, email addresses, phone number, other customer data (at an aggregate level for analysis), device information through cookies, IP address, customer profiles), information inputted during the quotation process (e.g., options selected), information about the policies or contracts taken out and your usage and activities on our Platform.
Source(s) of information
- From you directly
- From our insurance partners
- From our comparison service partners
- From your use of our Platform
- From your use of our Rewards
- From our social media partners
- From Google Analytics
- From Adobe Target
- From Microsoft
- From third party data providers or from open sources of data
Why we use it
- To create marketing content, refine our marketing strategies and personalise the marketing communications you receive from us, or a third party platform. This means that we are more likely to notify you of products, services and offers that may be of interest to you.
- To personalise the marketing content we send to you where we have permission to do so. This includes using information we know about products and services you have engaged with to personalise the content we send you, for example, if we know your previous contract was 18 months long we will contact you with similar offers shortly before the end of that contract, or if we know you are interested in specific products and services because of your previous interactions with these we will promote those products and services in the communications we send to you.
- To aggregate your personal data with other customer data for analysis, this analysis helps us refine our market strategies, for example, to understand which customers may be interested in using our services.
- To use your customer profile for marketing purposes.
- To make model-driven predictions about likely characteristics of individuals, households and locations in the UK.
- To carry out various research and analysis activities to help us regularly review and improve the products we or our partners provide.
- To track the performance of our marketing, i.e., analyse marketing content or methods that have led to sales.
- To develop our marketing strategies and improve the marketing material you receive from us.
- Microsoft collects and receives information used for marketing purposes from users of our Platform when providing their advertising services, as well as assisting us with tracking the performance of advertising we do via Microsoft’s services (Bing etc.). More information on how Microsoft use this information can be found here.
- To improve the competitiveness of the quotes offered on our Platform.
- To sometimes prevent the delivery of marketing by suppressing or removing communications that are not deemed relevant to you.
Lawful basis for processing this information
Legitimate interests, as it is in our interests as a business to market to our customers in the most appropriate and effective way, as well as promoting and improving our business.
2.12 Information relating to how you use our Platform
Which is technical information (e.g., mouse clicks/taps, mouse movements, page scrolling, text entered into forms) and records of your conversations with us via phone or webchat.
Source(s) of information
- From you directly
- From your use of our Platform
Why we use it
- To help us monitor the services we provide to you and ensure that quality standards are met.
- To help train our support staff and ensure that we have an accurate record of your conversations with us to ensure we can best assist you with any queries you may have.
- To design improvements to our products and services and make changes to our website and/or App.
Lawful basis for processing this information
Legitimate interests, as it is in our legitimate business interest to ensure that you receive a high quality service and to improve the products that we provide to you.
You will be asked for consent to allow us to analyse your use of our platform via cookies and similar technologies, please see here for how this is performed and how to manage your consent preferences.
2.13 Segment and insight information
Which includes email address, post code, IP address, information about which products you may be interested in (e.g., which pages of our website or app you have visited or what emails you have engaged with), purchase information, insight information, relevant Quotation Information (I.e., specific to the segment being analysed, type of vehicle etc.) and whether you have claimed a reward.
Insight information will not relate to you directly, for example, this information relates to how certain products are performing (“market segments”). Your request may fall into one of these market segments.
Source(s) of information
- From you directly
- From your use of our Platform
- From third party data providers or from open sources of data
Why we use it
- To help us tailor advertising that is more relevant to you with support from our marketing third party platform providers before sending it to you.
- We use insight information to help us frequently identify whether some market segments are receiving more attractive quotes than others or are underperforming. For example, how insurance quotes for 2-bedroom houses compare with quotes for 3-bedroom houses. We call these 'market segments'. The reason we perform this analysis on market segments is to frequently identify insurance products for market segments where we would like to help improve quotes. We do not link this market segment information to our existing customers or their accounts. However, where you are applying for a relevant product this insight information may be considered when you request a quote.
Lawful basis for processing this information
Legitimate interests, as it is in our legitimate business interest to promote our services to you through advertisements and your use of our Platform.
2.14 Market research and survey information
Which is: email address and/or phone number, and any information that you provide in response to our surveys or queries.
Source(s) of information
- From you directly
Why we use it
- We may contact you to assist with our research by asking you a few questions about the service you received, or by asking if you would like to complete a review of our products and services. This is to assist us with assessing and improving the quality of the services that we provide to you.
- We may combine the data that we hold about you with information you provide to us as part of this research, as well as the insight information for some of the other ways we use your data as described in this policy.
Lawful basis for processing this information
Legitimate interests, as it is in our legitimate business interests to improve and collect feedback on our services.
2.15 Competition information
Which is: information that will vary depending on the competition, this may include your contact details, answers to questions relating to the competition and your address to fulfil any prizes etc.
Source(s) of information
- From you directly
Why we use it
- We process this data (and share it with any third parties we use) to help us manage any competitions, events, or other similar initiatives we may run from time to time. For example, we will need to use your data to process your entry, select a winner(s) and allocate and fulfil any prize(s). When running competitions, you can usually find specific information about the processing required for that competition in relevant terms and conditions.
Lawful basis for processing this information
Legitimate interests, as it is in our legitimate business interests to promote our business using competitions, events and other similar initiatives.
Contractual necessity, where you have requested to be involved in a competition, we may need to fulfil our obligations contained within any terms relating to the competition.
2.16 How we collect your information
How we collect your information can change depending on how you use our services. Where you provide information to us directly this is largely done as a result of you using our products and services, e.g., generating quotes, creating an account with us, providing us with feedback or market research or entering into our competitions etc.
You will sometimes need to provide us with data about other people, for example where you request a quote for a policy that includes another person as a joint policyholder or named driver. You may also obtain quotes on behalf of your family or friends. Where you give us data about someone else, you must make sure that you have made that person aware of this Privacy Policy and that they are happy for you to provide their data to us. Where this Privacy Policy refers to "your data", this also includes data about anyone else named on the policy or whose data you provide to us.
Your use of our Platform may also provide us with information about you, this includes information collected by cookies. Where permitted to do so, we use third party products and services that include Google Analytics, Microsoft and Adobe Target to collect this information, please see our Cookies Policy for further information on how we use cookies and other similar technologies. Also, when you contact us electronically, we may collect electronic identifiers (i.e., IP address, device ID or telephone numbers) that are supplied to us by your service provider, device, or web browser.
Information that we receive from our insurance and comparison service partners is provided through Sales information and other ad hoc information provided to us, e.g., information relating to any complaints you may have.
When you participate in our Rewards scheme, we receive information relating to your use of those Rewards, i.e., which Rewards you are using and how often you use them.
We are also provided with information about you from third party data providers or from open sources of data. We may combine information from these sources with information you provide directly to us. In some circumstances these third party data providers or open sources are also responsible for informing you about how they use your information.
Finally, our social media partners may provide us with information about how you have interacted with our advertising displayed on their platforms.
2.17 Other information
Details of some mortgages, current accounts and savings accounts displayed on our Platform may be viewed without you providing us with your personal data. If you do decide to click through to any of these products, any personal data you provide will be subject to that lender or provider’s privacy policy. Our partners for these services include:
Mortgage Power Limited (trading as Koodoo) – for products that can be compared and applied for directly with lenders via our online mortgage comparison service.
London & Country Mortgages Limited – for the mortgage products available through the mortgage broker service accessible via our Platform.
Experian Limited – for current accounts and savings accounts products.
4. What our insurance partners and comparison service partners may do with your data
Our insurance and comparison service providers process your information as a data controller. This means that they are solely responsible for the personal data that they hold about you. You can find out further information about what they do with your data in their privacy policies. This section 4 sets out what they may do with your personal data and where they might get it from.
4.1 Where our insurance partners and comparison service partners collect data from
You may choose to contact our insurance and comparison service partners directly and provide them with your personal data. This may happen, for example, when you use a telephone helpline that is not managed by us, request a call back or when you are re-directed to their website and provide additional personal details there.
To provide you with a comparison or quote, our insurance and/or comparison service partners will exchange information about you with other companies and/or carry out checks with various databases. These checks are standard practice in the insurance and financial services industries. We have set out below some of the common databases that they may check.
4.2 Checks against existing records
Some of our insurance partners may carry out checks against data they already hold about you or data that is held by the company whose brand they administer the product for (some companies administer multiple insurance brands), or members of their group of companies such as data from existing products and accounts or loyalty scheme data. They may use this data to help them assess your application for a quote and determine your price. They may also pass this data to their insurance underwriters (the people largely responsible for determining insurance prices and whether they are willing to provide insurance cover to you) for these purposes where applicable.
4.3 DVLA and Motor Insurers Bureau (“MIB”)
Where you provide your, or any named driver's, driving licence number, we will pass this to our insurance partners who may pass this to the DVLA or the MIB for a search to be carried out to confirm your (or any named driver's) licence details, whether you can drive manual, automatic or different type of vehicles and endorsement/conviction data. The MIB access information about your licence from the DVLA.
Undertaking searches using your driving licence number helps insurers check information to prevent fraud and ensure policy premiums are true. A search with the DVLA will not show on your (or your named driver's) driving licence record(s).
For details relating to information held about you by the DVLA, please visit www.dvla.gov.uk and for details relating to information held about you by the MID, please visit www.mib.org.uk.
4.4 Credit searches
Many of our insurance, credit card, secured and unsecured loan partners will carry out soft credit checks with Credit Reference Agencies when they generate a quote. Soft credit checks leave no mark on your credit report. Every insurer or partner could undertake a search and there is no limit to how many soft checks you can have, but they will never affect your credit score.
A soft credit check is an initial look at certain information on your credit report. Insurers do this to determine your affordability without doing a full search of your credit history. These checks include searches against publicly available, including the Electoral Register, County Court Judgments, bankruptcy or repossession information.
Credit Reference Agencies share information with other organisations, enabling applications for financial products to be assessed or to assist in the tracing of debtors, or to prevent fraud. Credit scoring uses several factors to work out risks involved in any application. The name of the company that carried out the search will be stated on your credit search and if you have any queries regarding any search that has been carried out you will need to contact the company directly. If you want to check the information the Credit Reference Agencies hold about you, then please contact them directly. The main Credit Reference Agencies are TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax.
4.5 Claims and Underwriting Exchange and Other Registers and Databases
These databases are checked to detect and prevent crime or fraud, and to obtain information about your claims history. These may include the Claims and Underwriting Exchange Register, Anti-Fraud and Theft Registers, No Claims History Databases and any other relevant industry databases or registers. Some insurance providers who offer products designed for students or graduates may also undertake additional checks against higher education sources to verify your student or graduate status.
5. Data retention periods and deletion policies
5.1 Quotation information and Special category and criminal offence information
- 5 years from when the original quote was requested from us, or, if later, the last activity on your Compare the Market account (unless there is a requirement for us to keep the data for longer, for example if there are any ongoing queries or claims relating to your quotes or transactions following your use of our Platform).
- As soon as possible having received your request to delete your data (e.g., if you choose to close your account with us) and in any event within a month of your request, unless there is a requirement for us to keep the data for longer, for example, if there are any ongoing queries or claims relating to your quotes, you have any outstanding complaints, for fraud purposes or in order to comply with any other legal or regulatory requirements.
5.2 Rewards information, App information, Fraud prevention information and Support and service information
- This information is stored 5 years from the date of our last significant engagement with you (for example, the last time you requested a quote from us, or used our App).
5.3 Marketing communications information, information used for marketing purposes, market research and survey information and segment information
- Where we share this information with our partners and comparison services providers for research and analysis activities, we require them to delete the data as soon as the relevant research and analysis activity has concluded. Otherwise, this information is usually stored for 5 years from the date of our last significant engagement with you, unless there is a requirement for us, or one of our Processors to keep the data for longer.
- We will retain your marketing preferences for a period of 3 years from the date of our last significant engagement with you. You can update these contact preferences at any time in your account and details of how you can opt-out are also within the ‘information about your rights and how to can exercise them’ section below.
5.4 Data shared with third parties
- Where your personal data is shared with a third party as a data controller (as noted in the ‘who do we share your information with, why and where do they process it’ section above), that third party will determine its own retention periods and you should check that third party’s privacy policy for more information.
- Where your personal data is shared with a third party as a data processor, those third parties are required under the terms of their agreement with us to return or delete that personal data when they no longer provide us services, or when we instruct them to delete your information unless they are required to retain it to comply with any legal or regulatory requirements.
5.5 Competition information
- We will retain this information for as long as we need it for the purposes of running the relevant competition, event, or similar initiative that you have chosen to participate in, after which your data will be securely deleted.
6. International transfers of personal data outside of the UK and what is in place to protect you when we make those transfers
How we protect your information that is processed:
- Standard contractual clauses: When we are required to do so we put in place legally approved contractual clauses which govern the transfer of your personal data to all third party suppliers who are located in countries that require these clauses to be put in place. We do this to protect your personal data when it is transferred to those countries. Before making these transfers, we ensure that the data protection laws in those countries are sufficient to protect your data.
- Adequacy: The government, with support from The Information Commissioner’s Office in the UK have decided that certain countries provide an ‘essentially same’ level of protection for your personal data. We rely on these decisions to transfer your personal data to these jurisdictions.
- Binding Corporate Rules: Data protection laws allow companies to propose a set of rules that they will apply when transferring your data to certain countries, these rules are required to be approved by the Information Commissioner’s Office if the company is based in the UK, or by other relevant regulators depending on that companies’ location. This approval will mean that the rules used will be sufficient to protect your data when transferred to companies in other countries that agreed to be subject to the rules.
If you have any questions about the above, please contact us for more information.
7. Automated decision making, including profiling
We do not undertake any solely automated decisions that may have a legal or similarly significant effect on you. Please see paragraph 8.7 for more information on your rights relating to automated decisions that our insurance or comparison service partners may make.
We do undertake some profiling. Profiling is a form of automated processing of your personal data that evaluates certain aspects, this may include your interests or what products we may think are relevant for you, including the creation of customer profiles. Our current use of profiling is unlikely to have a legal or similarly significant effect on you. If this is to change in the future, we will either contact you directly or provide updated information within this Privacy Policy.
8. Information about your rights and how you can exercise them
Data protection law gives you various rights in relation to your personal data. All the rights set out below can be exercised by contacting us using the contact details set out under the "Contacting us" section. Please note that we can only deal with requests to exercise these rights where they relate to personal data that we process as data controller. If you send us a request which relates to personal data processed by one or more of our partners or comparison service providers as data controllers, you will need to contact the appropriate data controller.
8.1 Right to access your information
You have the right to ask us to provide a copy of the personal data that we hold about you. This is called a Data Subject Access Request or "DSAR". You can access information about your quotes by logging into your account. If you want to receive other personal data that we hold then you can make a DSAR. When contacting us please describe the information you require and make sure that you tell us any email addresses you or anyone else have used to obtain quotes with us as this allows us to trace all relevant information. Please also include the following: your full name, your date of birth and your full address, which we ask for to ensure we are talking to and disclosing the correct information to individuals. For security purposes we can only deal with requests where the contact details you provide match the details we have on file, if necessary, we may need to ask you for further information to verify your identity. We might also need to ask you for additional information to help us clarify your request or locate the data that you are looking for. Once we have all the information that we need to process your DSAR, we will respond within one month unless your DSAR is very large or complex, in which case we may need to extend this period. If we need to do this, we will let you know as soon as possible.
8.2 Right to have your information deleted
You have the right to ask us to delete the personal data we hold about you. If you would like to exercise this right, please contact us. This right will not always be available as there are some circumstances, for example where we have a legal or regulatory reason to retain a record of your personal data, where we will not delete your information. If this right does not apply, we will let you know.
8.3 Right to restrict our processing of your data
You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of personal data that we are processing about you. This may apply, for example, if you believe that the data we hold about you is inaccurate or unlawfully processed. If you would like to exercise this right, please contact us setting out the reasons for your request and we will respond to you as soon as we can. In some circumstances you may be able to restrict this yourself by not using certain parts of our platform.
8.4 Right to correct inaccurate data
You have the right to ask us to correct inaccurate personal data that we hold about you. If you think any of your personal data is inaccurate, please contact us and, provided we can verify your identity and are satisfied as to the accuracy of the correction requested, we will correct the relevant personal data as soon as we can. You can also amend inaccurate data in your account.
8.5 Right to move your data to another data controller
You have the right to request that we provide a copy of your personal data in a machine-readable format or to ask us to send your personal data to another company. This applies to personal data that you have provided to us, which we have processed electronically, such as personal data you entered on our Platform when you obtained a quote.
8.6 Right to object to how we are processing your data
You have the right to object to us processing certain personal data about you. However, where we need to continue to process the personal data, for example for fraud prevention purposes, we are not obliged to stop processing it.
8.7 Right to have decisions made about you by wholly automated means reviewed
You have the right to ask for significant decisions that have been made about you wholly by automated means to be reviewed. We do not make any legal or other significant decisions about you wholly by automated means. However, the nature of the quotes provided by our insurance partners means that they must use this kind of automated decision making to assess your quotes. If you want any wholly automated decisions in relation to your quotes to be reviewed, you will need to contact the partner who has produced the relevant quote.
8.8 Your rights in relation to marketing and withdrawing consent
- Where we rely on your consent to process your personal data, including for the purposes of direct marketing, you can withdraw this consent at any time by emailing [email protected] or by changing your preferences within your account. You can also unsubscribe from marketing emails by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the emails that we send you, updating your preferences in your account or by unsubscribing on our website. Withdrawing your consent for this purpose will not stop us contacting you to provide our services to you.
8.9 Other opt-out rights
- If you have downloaded the Meerkat App and agreed to share your location data with us, you can change your mind at any time using the settings on your device. You will also have the opportunity within your device settings to prevent us receiving identifiers that enable us to deliver advertising to you.
- You can also object to being contacted for market research purposes by emailing [email protected].
- You can turn our automatic energy-saving service information off at any time in your settings under ‘Contact Preferences’ in your comparethemarket.com account, or by following the links in your energy-saving emails if you do not have an account. If you wish to amend your energy-saving service preference levels, you will need to have a comparethemarket.com account. Please click here to create one.
- You can turn our Renewal Quote service off at any time in your settings under ‘Contact Preferences’ in your comparethemarket.com account, or by following the links in the emails or messages we send you in relation to this service.
- If you are using our App and have enabled push notifications on your device, we may send you marketing messages by way of push notifications. You can turn this off at any time by adjusting the push notification settings on your device.
9. Contacting us
If you would like to contact us about one of your data rights set out under "Your Rights" above, then please contact [email protected] or write to Data Requests – Pegasus House, Southgate Park, Bakewell Road, Orton Southgate, Peterborough, PE2 6YS.
If you would like to contact any of our comparison service providers about data that they hold, please contact them directly, their contact details can be found within their privacy policies. Links to these have been provided in section 3 above.
If you would like to contact any insurance partner about the data that they hold, please visit that insurance partner’s website and view their privacy policy for details of how to contact them about data matters. A list of our partners can be found here.
If you have any other queries or concerns about this Privacy Policy, or if you would like to contact our Data Protection Officer, you can email [email protected] or write to the Data Protection Officer at Compare the Market Limited, Pegasus House, Bakewell Road, Orton Southgate, Peterborough, PE2 6YS.
When contacting us, please describe the information you require and make sure that you tell us any email addresses you or anyone else have used to obtain quotes with us, as this allows us to trace all relevant information. Please also include: your full name, your date of birth and your full address.
10. Your right to complain
If you have a complaint regarding how your personal data has been processed by us, then please contact us first using the complaints procedure set out here. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office, which regulates data protection compliance in the UK. You can find more information on their website www.ico.org.uk.