Privacy policy

We take our data protection obligations very seriously and it is important to us that you understand how we use your personal data. This Privacy Policy sets out in detail the purposes for which we process your personal data, who we share it with, what rights you have in relation to that data and everything else that we think it is important for you to know.

The main purpose for which we process your personal data is to provide you with services that you request from us through www.comparethemarket.com and www.meerkatyourlife.comparethemarket.com (the Websites) or through our App (where available). Together, the Websites and the App are referred to as the “Platform” in this Privacy Policy and the meaning of “Platform” will depend on whether you are using the Website or the App. We may need some information from you about health or criminal convictions to do this. We cannot display quotes for certain types of insurance (such as life insurance or vehicle insurance) without this data. We will also process personal data for other purposes, such as marketing, market research and fraud prevention. We will only ever keep your personal data for as long as is necessary for the purpose for which we need personal data.

We will need to share some of your personal data with some third parties, for example our partners and suppliers, or any third parties that provide a service that you sign up for through the Platform. Partners who provide quotes to you through our Platform will make checks against various databases to assess your eligibility for a quote and will make decisions about you by wholly automated means. Those partners are responsible for how they process your personal data. You can view a list of the partners that we work with by clicking here.

You have various rights in relation to your personal data which can be exercised by contacting us using the details set out in this Privacy Policy.

We are Compare the Market Limited and we 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.

Compare the Market Limited is part of the BGL Group of Companies and provides products and services under various brands. If you want to know more about the BGL Group of Companies and its brands, you can find out more at www.bglgroup.co.uk.

Vehicle, home and pet insurance

In order to display insurance quotes on the Platform, we need to send your personal data to the panel of insurance partners that provide quotes on our Platform. This is so that they can generate a quote for us to display to you on the Platform. When those insurance partners use your personal data to generate a quote, each of them will be acting as a data controller of that personal data. This means that the insurance partners are in charge of how they handle your data and we are not responsible for this. If you provide them with any additional data on their website or if you decide to take out a policy with an insurance partner the use of your data will be subject to that insurance partner's own privacy policy which you should find on their website.

You can see a list of our insurance partners here.

Life, health and income protection Insurance

Lifesearch Limited:

Our life and critical illness insurance comparison service is provided by our comparison service partner Lifesearch Limited who will also be a data controller in relation to any data you provide in relation to a quote or application for life insurance.

They will share your personal data with any insurance providers they work with in order to provide your quote. The insurance providers will also become data controllers of the data you provide and arrange your cover.

If you use the talk to us service to talk to Lifesearch then any data that you provide to them directly will be subject to their privacy policy.

Assured Futures Limited

Our over 50's life, health and income protection insurance comparison service is provided by our comparison service partner Assured Futures Limited who will also be a data controller in relation to any data you provide in relation to a quote.

They will share your personal data with any insurance providers they work with in order to provide you a quote.

If you provide your telephone number to confirm that you would like Assured Futures Limited to contact you, Assured Futures will use your data to contact you and provide assistance to you regarding your quote.

You can find further information about Assured Futures including contact information for their Data Protection Officer in Assured Future's privacy policy on their website available at https://www.assuredfutures.co.uk/common-page/privacy-policy/.

Travel Insurance

Our travel insurance comparison service is provided by our comparison service provider Investment Discounts On-Line Limited (Theidol.com) who will also be a data controller in relation to any data you provide in relation to a quote for travel insurance.

They will share your personal data with any insurance providers they work with in order to provide your quote.

https://www.comparecover.com/about-us/privacy-policy/

Before you click through to a provider we'll ask you if you want to enter your email address so you can claim a reward at a later date. This is optional to provide and will only be used to administer our rewards scheme.

Breakdown Insurance

Our breakdown insurance comparison service is provided by our comparison service provider Comparison Creator who will also be a data controller in relation to any data you provide in relation to a quote for breakdown insurance.

They will share your personal data with any insurance providers they work with in order to provide your quote.

Business insurance

Our business insurance comparison service is provided by our comparison service provider Simply Business is a trading name of Xbridge Limited who will also be a data controller in relation to any data you provide in relation to a quote for business insurance.

They will share your personal data with any insurance providers they work with in order to provide your quote.

If you use the telephone helpline to call Simply Business they will be the data controller of any data that you provide directly to them which will be subject to their own privacy policy.

Credit cards and loans

If you use either our credit card, unsecured loans, or car finance loans eligibility service, the personal data you provide will be processed by Experian Limited and its group of companies (Experian) or directly by our credit card and unsecured loan partners who will in turn partner with Experian or another Credit Reference Agency.

As part of the eligibility checking service, Experian will need to retrieve and use data they hold in their capacity as a Credit Reference Agency (CRA) about you, and anyone with a financial association to you (A Financial association is a link that's created when you apply for a financial agreement with someone else); they may also collect this information from the other two main Credit Reference Agencies (CRAs), or our credit card and unsecured loan partner will partner with Experian or another Credit Reference Agency to retrieve and use this information, in order to assist in providing your eligibility results for credit cards, unsecured and car finance loans. The data accessed contains publicly held data including the electoral roll, and shared credit performance data. This data is not shared with Compare the Market.

A Credit Reference Agency (CRA) is a company that collects personal information from various sources and provides that personal information for variety of uses (including to prospective lenders for the purposes of making credit decisions).

Data may also be shared directly with providers or lenders to:

• Assess your eligibility for their products, which may include carrying out credit scoring and affordability assessments to assess your creditworthiness and affordability for the product applied for. If you do not agree with any automated decision made, you have the right to appeal to the provider or lender. Please refer to the provider or lender’s privacy policy. This is not the responsibility of Compare the Market.
• Validate if you are an existing customer (which may impact whether you can be accepted for one of their products);
• Assist you in completing your application to the lender (which may include pre-populating the application form on their website);
• Enable them to contact you if this is necessary in relation to your application (or if you give them permission to contact you);
• Allow Experian to maintain their eligibility tools, and provide accurate and up to date eligibility results to users of the tools;
• Complying with any contractual, legal and/or regulatory obligations;
• Enable the lender to carry out any necessary data checks and research in accordance with the lender’s terms and conditions and/or its privacy policy relevant to the product you are searching for (for example to check and improve the eligibility assessment or to investigate any complaints or queries);
• For fraud prevention purposes.

For further information on how your personal data is used by our credit card and unsecured loan partners, please see their own privacy policy. A list of our providers and links to their privacy policies can be found here.

When the CRA receives a search as a result of you using these services, they will place a soft quotation search footprint on your credit report, regardless of whether you progress any application. This search will not affect your or their ability to gain credit.

The data provided to CRAs about you may be supplied by them to other organisations such as Fraud Prevention Agencies and used by those organisations for purposes of checking identity, preventing fraud, tracing, and collection of debt. The CRA may also use the data to undertake statistical analysis.

If you choose to pursue an application, any data that you provide to that lender to progress your application will be subject to that lender's own privacy policy. The lender will undertake a hard credit search and provide you with the terms and conditions for the product you apply for.

Experian will retain the data related to your eligibility check for up to 2 years to enable disputes to resolved over any data they hold. Data will be retained by our providers or lenders as set out in their own privacy policies.

More information about each CRA and what it does with personal data is available at the following locations:

• TransUnion:
  www.transunion.co.uk/crain
• Equifax:
  www.equifax.co.uk/crain
• Experian:
  www.experian.co.uk/legal/crain

You can contact any of the CRA's if you wish to obtain a copy of your credit report.

Experian, Consumer Help Service, PO Box 8000, Nottingham NG80 7WF or call 0344 481 0800 or 0800 013 8888 or log on to www.experian.co.uk

TransUnion, One Park Lane, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS3 1EP or call 0330 024 7574 or visit www.transunionstatreport.co.uk

Equifax Ltd, Customer Service, Centre,PO Box 10036, Leicester, LE3 4FS. or call 0333 321 4043 or 0800 014 82955 or log on to www.myequifax.co.uk

Mortgages

You do not need to provide us with any personal data to view the details of Mortgages displayed on our Website. Information on Mortgage Products is provided by Mortgage Power Limited, trading as Koodoo.

Mortgage broker service 

The mortgage broker service on our Platform is run by London & Country Mortgages Ltd. If you decide to contact them or request them to contact you they will be the data controller in respect of any personal data that they process about you and this will be subject to their own privacy policy.
You do not need to provide us with any personal data to view the details of mortgages or credit cards displayed on our Platform. 

If you decide to click through to a credit card provider, any personal data you provide will be subject to the credit card provider's privacy policy and they will be the data controller.

Loans, credit cards, current accounts and savings accounts

You do not need to provide us with any personal data to view the details of loans, credit cards, current accounts and savings accounts displayed on our Platform. (unless you use any of our eligibility services, please see above).

If you decide to click through to any provider, any personal data you provide will be subject to the provider's privacy policy.

Homeowner loan broker service

The homeowner loan broker service on our Platform is run by Experian Limited. If you decide to contact Experian Limited or request it to contact you, it will be the data controller in respect of any personal data that they process about you. This will be subject to its own privacy policy. If you request to be contacted, we will pass it your personal data to facilitate this.

Before you click through to a loan provider we'll ask you if you want to enter your email address so you can claim a reward at a later date. This is optional to provide and will only be used to administer our rewards scheme.

Energy

Energy comparison service

We use your personal information to provide the Energy Comparison service (the "Service"). The Service enables you to find out information about your historic and current energy usage and carbon footprint. We are a controller of this data. 

We share your information with UK-based third parties that help us to provide the Service. These third parties provide us with energy and address database information; analytics services; or IT processing and data storage services. Our main service provider is Perse Technology Limited ("Perse"). Perse is a data processor that helps us to operate the site through which you access the Service and provide the Service to you. Perse also uses analytics data for its own purposes as a data controller to help its clients understand what will be of interest to their customers and how they can operate more efficiently. Perse helps us to anonymise and aggregate this data as described above (after which point, we can no longer identify you from the data). You can read Perse's privacy notice here: Privacy Policy — Perse. 

Business energy comparison service

The business energy comparison service on our Platform is provided by Bionic Services Limited who are a data controller in respect of any personal data you input for the purposes of using the business energy comparison, including direct debit details which are collected directly by Bionic. When you select to switch providers, Bionic will pass any personal data including your direct debit details to the energy provider to allow them to process your switch. Any use of your personal data when you switch will be subject to the energy provider’s privacy policy which we are not responsible for.

As the data collector, any data you input will be subject to Bionic’s privacy policy.

Broadband, phone, TV and mobile

Our Platform also lets you compare broadband, phone, TV and mobile deals. This service is provided by Stickee Technology Limited. You can view deals available and click through to the suppliers without providing us with any personal data. You can choose to enter your postcode in order to view details of deals that are more relevant to you (for example: Stickee Technology Limited can use your postcode to perform an availability check for suppliers in your area).

If you decide to click through to a supplier or telephone a supplier, any personal data you provide will be subject to that supplier's privacy policy. If you place an order with a supplier by telephone, Stickee Technology Limited will collect your telephone number to track the progress of the order you have placed.

Stickee Technology Limited will be a data controller in relation to any personal data they collect when you use the broadband, TV or mobile comparison service, and will be subject to their privacy policy. 

Before you click through to a provider we'll ask you if you want to enter your email address so you can claim a reward later and to send you information about the last deal you have viewed. This is optional to provide and will only be used to administer our rewards scheme and trigger one single email about the last deal you view. If you choose to opt in for marketing or to participate in our rewards scheme, we will be the data controller of that data and we will process it for the purposes set out in this policy.

Business Broadband and Landline

Our Business Broadband and/or Business Landline comparison service is provided by Bionic Services Limited who will also be a data controller in relation to any data you provide in relation to an application for Business Broadband and/or Business Landline. They will also be a data controller of any data you provide if you utilise their callback service.

Caravan, Motorhome and Taxi Insurance

Our caravan, motorhome and taxi insurance comparison service is provided by our comparison service partner i-Wonder Aggregator Services Limited who will be the data controller in relation to any data you provide to them on the Platform.

Compare the Market Limited will be the data controller of any data we receive back from i-Wonder Aggregator Services Limited to confirm sales or deal with any complaints or queries and will be processed in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

For more information on how i-Wonder Aggregator Services Limited process your data please view their Privacy Policy.

Competitions, events and other similar initiatives

We share your information with third parties we use to help us manage any competitions, events or other similar initiatives that we may run from time to time.

From you

Most of the data that we process will be data that we collect from you directly when you request a quote. We will ask you various questions to collect the data we need for the purpose of providing quotes and comparison information. We will not be able to provide a quote unless you answer the mandatory questions. Where questions are optional, we will explain what we need the data for.

We will process the information you submit to us where you choose to participate in a competition, event or similar initiative that we run from time to time in order to process your entry, select a winner(s) and allocate any prize(s).

From our insurance partners

We will also obtain certain personal data about you from the insurance partners on our panel if you take out an insurance policy with them through our Platform. This will include information about whether or not you took out a policy with the insurance partner and the type of policy. We use this information to track sales as well as improve our Platform, our services and our customer journey. If there are any complaints or queries about your quote or your policy, we and the relevant insurance provider(s) will also exchange information about the complaint or query to ensure it is appropriately investigated and dealt with.

If you make a claim for one of our rewards the insurance partner may also provide us with information including how you purchased your policy and which policy you purchased to help us to verify your claim.

From our comparison service partners

We will also obtain some personal data about you from the comparison service partners listed above in relation to the service they provide. For example, they will give us information about what policy or product you purchased and when.

From your use of the Platform and our services

We also collect data about you based on your actions, for example we collect data about how and when you use our Platform or our services so that we can build up a picture of you as a customer. This can include information such as how many quotes you have obtained for insurance, mouse clicks/taps, mouse movements, page scrolling and text entered into forms which we collect through software which monitors how customer use our Platform. This helps us to monitor the service we provide to you, to design improvements to our products and services (including changes to our Platform), to personalise our marketing communications as further explained at Part 4 and to help us to prevent and detect fraud.

If you use our webchat service we will keep a record of the conversation. We do this so that we have an accurate record of your conversation with us. We also use this data for monitoring and quality control purposes and may use it for training purposes.

Where available, if you use the option to sign into your comparethemarket.com account by using an existing social media log in (such as your Facebook log in details), we will receive your name and email address as part of the sign in process.

We, and our partners collect some of this data by using cookies, web beacons and pixel tags. A cookie is a small file that is placed on your device, which enables a server to identify that device and allows us to offer the best services possible by allowing us to recognise you as a unique user and provide us with information about how you use our Website. Cookies are commonly used on the Internet and do not harm your computer system. Web beacons and pixel tags are similar to cookies and allow us to collect information about how you use our Website and help us to offer you the best service.

You can read our cookie policy here for more information.

We may use web beacons and pixel tags alongside cookies both on our Website and in any emails we sent to you. Information collected may include items such as the IP address of your computer, the time you visited our Website and what links you clicked on or when you opened our emails. We may also use information from cookies or tags when you click through from comparethemarket.com to our partners' websites to help us understand which quotes you have progressed and if you have completed your purchase. Further information about cookies, web beacons and pixel tags can be found at http://www.allaboutcookies.org.

Our Website also uses Google Analytics to allow us to monitor how users use our Website. We use services provided by Google to do this including Google's Remarketing and Advertising Reporting Features. 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. As part of this activity, if you have a Google account and have allowed Google to associate your web and app browsing history so that you may receive personalised ads then Google may collect a Google identifier which allows them to identify your Google account when you are using this Website (including where you use different devices to access this website). Google use this data alongside other data they may collect about you, which may include your location, search history, YouTube history and data from other sites that partner with Google, to provide us with aggregated and anonymised information which assists us in understanding how individuals are using our Website. Alongside Google Analytics, our Website uses Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), this is a service provided by Google which allows webpages to load more quickly on a mobile device by allocating a Client ID to your mobile device if you have loaded the web page before. Please refer to our cookie policy for details of the cookies that are used in relation to Google Analytics activity. If you require further information or wish to opt out of Google Analytics Remarketing and Advertising Reporting Features then please visit Google's currently available opt-outs.

If you contact us electronically, we may collect your electronic identifier e.g. Internet Protocol (IP) address, or device ID or telephone number supplied by your service provider. This information may be used by us and/or shared with and used by our partners to aid in the detection of fraud. Where such data is used by a partner, this will be subject to the partner's own privacy policy.

Our suppliers

We will sometimes use third parties to process personal information on our behalf. Our partners may do the same when they are processing your personal information for the purposes of providing a quote for comparison. Where third parties process your personal information on our behalf, we will have a contract in place with them placing obligations on them to keep your data secure and only use it for the purposes that we authorise. The third parties that we use may include, for example, IT service providers and market research agencies.

Where our insurance partners and comparison service partners collect data from

In order to provide you with a quote for comparison, our insurance partners 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. Each of our insurance partners or comparison service partner is a data controller in respect of these checks and we are not responsible for those checks. We have set out below some of the common databases that they may check.

Checks against existing records

Some of our insurance partners may carry out checks against data they already hold about you (or is held by the company whose brand they administer the product for, or members of their group of companies such as data from existing products, account data or loyalty scheme data). They may use this data to help them assess and rate your application for a quote and determine your premiums. They may also pass this data to their insurance underwriters for these purposes where applicable.

DVLA

Where we ask you for your, or any named driver's, driving licence number, we will pass this to our insurance partners who may pass this to the DVLA in order for a search to be carried out to confirm your (or any named driver's) licence status, entitlement and relevant restriction information and endorsement/conviction data.

Undertaking searches using your driving licence number helps insurers check information to prevent fraud and ensure policy premiums are fair. A search with the DVLA will not show on your (or your named driver's) driving licence record.

Where you set up a reminder to inform you when your tax, MOT or vehicle insurance is due, as part of our reminder service we will use your registration number to check the information made available to us by the DVLA and will use the data provided to set your reminder date and to form the description of your vehicle.

For details relating to information held about you by the DVLA, please visit www.dvla.gov.uk.

Credit searches

Many of our insurance partners will carry out checks with credit reference agencies when they generate a quote for comparison. These checks may include-

checks against publicly available information such as the Electoral Register, County Court Judgments, bankruptcy or repossession information;
checks against data relating to your credit history. Credit Reference Agencies share information with other organisations, enabling applications for financial products to be assessed or to assist the tracing of debtors, or to prevent fraud. Our insurance partners may ask Credit Reference Agencies to provide a credit scoring computation. Credit scoring uses a number of factors to work out risks involved in any application. A score is given to each factor and a total score obtained and this together with other factors will be used to assess your application for a quote.
The Credit Reference Agencies will keep a record of the search and you may see this recorded on your credit file. 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 that the Credit Reference Agencies hold about you then you can contact them directly. The main credit reference agencies are TransUnion, Experian and Equifax.

Claims and Underwriting Exchange and Other Registers and Databases

Our insurance partners will exchange information with various databases and registers to help them to check information provided, to detect and prevent crime or fraud and to obtain information about your no claims history. These may include the Claims and Underwriting Exchange Register, the Hunter Database, the Motor Insurance Anti-Fraud and Theft Register, the No Claims History Database 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.

Adobe Analytics and Adobe Target

We use Adobe Analytics and Adobe Target to collect information about how our customers use our Website. We do this to make sure it is meeting our customers’ needs and to understand how we could do things better and to provide customers with more relevant and personalised experiences.

Adobe Analytics and Adobe Target store information about what pages you visit, how long you are on the site, how you got here and what you interact with, as well as storing which page variant you saw to deliver consistent experiences.

For more information please see:

GDPR: https://www.adobe.com/privacy/general-data-protection-regulation.html

Privacy: https://www.adobe.com/uk/privacy.html

Opt-Out: https://bglgrouplimited.d3.sc.omtrdc.net/optout.html

Data Providers and Publicly available sources of data

We use data that we receive from third party data providers or from open sources of data which are not personal data (such as information about particular geographic areas). We combine this with the personal data that we hold about you (such as your own address). For example, if you request a home insurance or energy quote, we might pre-populate information about your house value from publicly available sources, or your gas and electricity supplier from energy industry sources. We may also share your address details with third party data providers so they can provide us with additional data about your house type and geographical location. We use this additional data to provide the best service we can to you by pre-filling some of the information in your quote. We will make it clear where we do this and you must check the information to make sure it is correct. This information will be passed to our insurance partners in order to assess insurance risk and provide you with an accurate quote.

We may also receive market insight information from third party providers (including Consumer Intelligence). We use these insights to help us identify each month whether some market segments are receiving more attractive quotes than others. For example how do 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 so that each month we can identify insurance products for market segments where we would like to help improve quotes (i.e. lower them). To achieve this we partner each month with the relevant insurance provider(s) to achieve this for the chosen product and market segment. We do not link this market segment information to existing CTM customers or accounts. However, when you request a quote through our website we will check which of our market segments your quote falls in. If it matches a market segment where we are partnering with an insurance provider at the time of the quote we can then display the improved quote to you.

Providing data about other people

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. Where this Privacy Policy refers to "your data" this also includes data about anyone else named on the policy or whose data you provide us with.

The data that we hold is used for the following purposes:-

Part 1 - Providing you with our services

The personal data that we use for the purposes set out in this Part includes: your name, contact details, date of birth, address history, telephone number (but only if you have signed up for our multi factor authentication service), driving history, claims history, any previous convictions, medical 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) and your no claims history. It also includes data (if any) that we receive about you from third parties, as described under “Where do we get the data from?” above.

Providing you with a service and administering your account.

We use the data set out above to:

• provide you with the insurance, utilities and financial products comparison services you request from us (which includes both sharing information with our product providers and our comparison service partners who collect and share your information as set out under "Who is processing your data" above);
• creating customer insights and analytics for the purposes of working with insurance providers to offer more competitive quotes for our customers. This involves checking whether your quote falls within a market segment and is of a product type where we are partnering with relevant insurance providers. For more information on how we identify these market segments and work with insurance providers to offer more competitive quotes please see under the heading "Data Providers and Publicly available sources of data";
• where you have an account with us and where possible, help you complete quotes quickly by pre-populating some of our on-line forms with information we already know about you and by storing information of any individuals associated with your accounts for example, a family member or a friend. Where we do this, we may also prepopulate data concerning health and/or relating to criminal offences. You can update your data at any time on your My CtM account or by contacting us. . Where we prepopulate your data, do this you must check that the information in the form is accurate and up to date before clicking on Go to Quotes. If you wish to do so, you can choose to obtain a new quote and input all your data on our site;
• where you choose to apply for a product, we may pass your information to our product provider to pre-populate fields on their website to save you having to input your information again. Our product partner is the data controller for the use of this information;
• send you any reminders that you have set up
• automatically send you any energy-saving service information to see if you could save money on your bills. You can turn this 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.
• automatically check your most relevant quote with some of our insurance providers to see what your price could be for future renewals. We’ll use the data you have previously provided from within your latest quote. As part of assessing your quote, our partners may carry a soft credit search which does not impact your credit score. Checking for better insurance deals before you need to renew is included automatically as part of the service we provide (typically based on your most recent quote, which you can update in your comparethemarket.com account). You can turn the service off at any time by adjusting the settings under ‘Contact Preferences’ in your comparethemarket.com account;
• communicate with you about our services, for example send you confirmation emails regarding your quotes or your account details. When you obtain a quote with us, you will automatically be sent confirmation of your quote by email or SMS so that you have a record of your quote and can easily retrieve your quote in the future, we’ll also send you a notification to let you know when you’ve been pre-approved for a reward following a purchase;
• if you are using our App and you have enabled push notifications on your device, we will use your data to send you push notifications with information about the services you are using;
• manage, run and administer your account if you choose to set up an account with our Platform;
• Provide additional security on your account where you have opted into our Multi Factor Authentication service.
• help us build up a picture of you as a customer to ensure that we provide you with more relevant information, such as showing you the right content at the right time and sending you personalised communications; and
• provide you with an indication of what your quote may be when using external websites such as Autotrader.
• To process the information you submit to us when you choose to participate in a competition, event or similar initiative that we run from time to time in order to process your entry, to communicate with you should you win and to manage the allocation of any prize(s).

Our partners will use this data to generate a quote to be displayed to you on the Platform and they will be data controllers in relation to their use of the data for this purpose. If you would like information about how our partners process data we recommend that you visit their websites to read their privacy policy. Our comparison service partners will use this data to provide the relevant comparison services as set out under "Who is processing your data" above and they will be data controllers in relation to their use of the data for this purpose. This will only use your personal data for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy.

For some products we will give you the option to have two of our insurance partners who provide you with the two lowest prices to contact you to discuss your quote and where you consent, the insurance partners will use your data to contact you regarding your quote. By lowest price, we mean the lowest annual amount you’d pay if you choose to pay in a single payment.

Data protection law says that we have to tell you the legal basis on which we process your personal data. In relation to personal data used for providing you with a service and managing your account, we process this data because it is necessary to perform the contract that we have in place with you to provide you with our services.

Where you have opted into our Multi Factor Authentication service, we process this data as it is in our legitimate interests to do so in order that we can enhance the security on your Account.

Part 2 – Fraud Prevention

In order to prevent and detect fraud we and/or our partners, promotional and cashback providers and comparison service partners may use the personal data set out above at any time to:

1. Check and/or share your details with fraud prevention and detection agencies; and
2. Share information about you with other organisations including the police, where necessary and proportionate; and
3. Carry out analysis on data that is held in order to assist the identification of Fraud.

If false or inaccurate information is provided and fraud is identified, details will be passed to fraud prevention agencies. Law enforcement agencies may access and use this information.

In relation to the personal data processed for fraud prevention, we process this on the basis that we have a legitimate business interest in carrying out these activities to help minimise the risk of fraud or crime occurring and in its detection.

Part 3 – Our Reward Schemes

The personal data that we use for the purposes set out in this Part includes: your name, contact details (including your address), details about any policies you take out with any of our insurance partners or other products you buy through our Platform and any other information you provide to us, for example as part of any complaints or queries regarding our reward schemes.

We run certain rewards schemes to reward our customers for buying policies and other products through the Platform. Please see here for more information about our rewards schemes. We will use the data set out above to validate your eligibility to participate in our reward schemes and to administer the schemes.

We will also use this data to contact you in relation to our reward schemes and to deal with any complaints or queries you have in relation to the rewards schemes. We will exchange data with our partners and third parties where necessary for the administration of any rewards schemes or to deal with any complaints. We process this data because we have a legitimate interest in processing the data in order toto effectively administer our reward scheme and provide you with the reward scheme you have requested.

Part 4 – Other Uses of Data

Marketing

The personal data we use for the purposes set out in this Part includes: the information you provide when you use our services as described above at “Part 1 - Providing you with our services”, any data that we receive about you from third parties, as described under “Where do we get the data from?” above, and information about how you use our services as described above “From your use of the Platform and our services”.

We will use your personal data for marketing purposes in the following ways: 

• to send you marketing communications
• to create marketing content, refine our marketing strategies and personalise the marketing communications you receive; and  
• to enable the delivery of other forms of digital advertising to you via third parties such as Facebook including their Messenger platform, Google and Amazon.

Sending you marketing communications 

When you provide your details you will be given an opportunity to confirm whether you are happy to receive marketing material from us. If you confirm you are happy to receive this material, we will use your postal address, email address and telephone number to send you marketing materials by post, email, telephone call or SMS. We do not pass your data to other companies for their own marketing purposes.

Your marketing preferences will not impact any communications that we need to send you for the purpose of your quote, for example confirmation of your quote or your account details, notifications we need to send you regarding any rewards you have claimed or communications necessary for any other services we provide to you such as alerts or notifications when your new quotes are available.

You can change your mind at any time by logging into your account and updating your marketing preferences. You can also unsubscribe from emails by clicking on the unsubscribe link on any marketing emails that we send you, updating your preferences in your account or by unsubscribing on our website. 

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.

To create marketing content, refine our marketing strategies and personalise the marketing communications you receive

We will use your personal data together with other customer data at an aggregate level for analysis purposes (e.g. to understand which customers might be interested in using our services) and to help us refine our market strategies. Where we can we will anonymise the data to do this.

We will use your personal data to personalise the marketing communications we send to you. This means we are more likely to notify you of products, services and offers that may be of interest or benefit to you.

To help us do these marketing activities, we will run your personal data, including information we gain about your use of our Platform and services through cookies we deploy (depending on your preferences) through an algorithm (also known as a model) to create profiles of our customers, this helps us to predict what products and services may be of interest or benefit to our customers. We use data from third parties to enhance these models although this data is not about you but rather a modelled prediction about likely characteristics of individuals, households and locations in the UK.

To understand how well our digital advertising has performed and enable this advertising to reach a wider or more relevant audience, we may share some of your personal data, such as your email address, (using the “hashing” process described below) your behaviour on our website or predicted behaviour, which includes an indication of how likely you’re to buy a product through our Platform (predicted behaviour is generated by analysing data you have shared with us through your use of our website, including information accessed cookies where you have accepted them) with the relevant third party platform providers (such as Facebook and Google). The sharing of this personal data is processed to help us analyse and measure the performance of our ads, we have provided some examples of how we use your data in relation to digital advertising below:

• To understand which of our social media ad placements have generated sales or led to quotes/comparisons being generated on our Platform;
• To share more relevant advertising with you via these third party platforms;
• To prevent you seeing certain types of adverts on these third party platforms, including ones that you have seen before; and
• To enable us to display our digital advertising to other individuals that use the third party platforms who share similar characteristics and interests as you. 

We process this information because we have a legitimate business interest in carrying out these activities to market to our customers and to promote and improve our business. 

You can opt out of your personal data being used by CTM for the purposes of marketing, by emailing [email protected] (further information provided in the "Your Rights" section below)

Delivery of digital advertising and ensuring it is more relevant

To help us promote our services, where you have agreed to it in your cookies preference settings on our Platform, we will use data about you to help us optimise the adverts we display online on third party websites and social media platforms. We use tools provided by social media platforms, advertising networks and search engines, including Google, Amazon and Facebook (including its Messenger application), to optimise our advertising on their websites. As a result, you may receive advertising based on information about you that we have provided to them such as which pages you have visited on our Platform, whether you have generated a quote or a comparison on our Platform and whether or not you took out a policy with one of our insurance partners. When we share your data with these third party providers we use a number of techniques including “hashing” (where we scramble the plain text of your personal information to create a unique and irreversible message) to make sure that your data is secure and that third parties can only identify you if they already hold information about you which can be matched to the data we provide.

You can opt out of your personal data being used by CTM for the purposes of digital advertising, by emailing [email protected].Your personal data will also be used to assist us and our approved advertising providers with our advertising activities, as set out in more detail in our Cookies Policy. Targeting cookies do not collect information that is directly identifiable to you, such as your name, email address and information you enter into forms on our Website. They collect information about your browsing activity and your device to enable our providers to serve our advertising to you. Most of these cookies are set by our providers who will be responsible for how the cookies (and information collected by them) are used.

However, we also use the personal data that we hold about you to put you into "segments" based on your interests and needs so that we can ensure the advertising you see is relevant to you, this is separate to the profiling we undertake, more information on profiling can be found above. To do this effectively, we need to share some of your information with some of our providers or suppliers so that they can combine it with the information collected by their cookies or already held by them and serve advertising to audiences that we select. The information shared is limited to information such as your email address, post code, IP address, information about which products you may be interested in such as which pages of our website or app you have visited or which of our emails you have clicked on and whether/when you have purchased a policy/product or claimed a reward with us. Information is always shared in an encrypted form (using the “Hashing” process described above where appropriate). Where we do this, we will be jointly responsible with the relevant provider for how that personal data is used. More information about our providers and the cookies used, including how to opt out, is set out in our Cookies Policy.

Market Research

From time to time we may want to use your postal address, email address and/or telephone number to contact you to assist us with our research by asking you a few questions about the service you have received or by asking if you would like to complete a review of our services. We may sometimes ask market research companies to contact you on our behalf.

If you would prefer us not to contact you for market research purposes then you can let us know by contacting us at [email protected] or by updating your preferences in your account.

Research and Analysis Activities

We and our partners use data relating to your quotes, including the personal data you inputted when you requested your quotes, the options you selected during the quote, the quote returned by the partner and information about the policies or contracts you have taken out, to carry out various research and analysis activities to help us to regularly review and improve the products and services we or our partners provide, carry out research and improve the competitiveness of the quotes offered. We also share this data with our insurance providers and comparison service providers to enable them to use this data for these purposes. Where possible, data will be shared on an anonymised basis. We require our partners and comparison service providers to delete the data as soon as the relevant research and analysis activity is concluded.

We also use the data that we collect about you through your Platform usage to carry out research and analysis into usage and activities on our Platform to enable us to continue to improve our Platform and our products and services.

We will also undertake research and analysis using your personal data to develop our marketing strategies, to improve the marketing material you receive from us and to analyse products and services you may be interested in to ensure that we are delivering you relevant marketing material. This activity involves analysing and profiling the personal data we process about you as a result of using our Platform alongside pseudonymous data that other companies hold on you to gain insight into other products you hold as well as your interests.

In relation to personal data used for the purposes described in this Part 4, we process this data because we have a legitimate business interest in carrying out these activities to promote and improve our business. We have ensured appropriate safeguards to protect your rights when processing this data for these purposes.

Part 5 – Special Categories of Personal Data and Criminal Convictions

In order to provide your quotes we may ask you to provide data which data protection law classifies as "special personal data". This includes information about your health (such as any medical conditions). We may also need you to provide information relating to criminal convictions or alleged or actual criminal offences, for example traffic offences, in order to provide your quotes. We will also need to share this data with our insurance partners to enable them to generate their quotes for you.

Where we collect special personal data and criminal conviction or offence data for the purposes above, we process this data for purposes of arranging and/or advising on contracts of insurance and (as far as special personal data is concerned) because it is in the substantial public interest to do so.

It may also be necessary for us to retain a copy of any special personal data and criminal conviction or offence data for the purpose of making or defending claims or preventing or detecting crime, including fraud.

The personal data that we use for the purposes set out in this Part includes: your name, contact details (including your address), details about any policies you take out with any of our insurance partners or other products you buy through our Platform and any other information you provide to us, for example as part of any complaints or queries regarding our reward schemes.

We run certain rewards schemes to reward our customers for buying policies and other products through the Platform. Please see here for more information about our rewards schemes.

We process this data because we have a legitimate interest in processing the data in order to effectively administer our reward scheme provide you with the rewards. 

Please see the section below headed "Meerkat Movies and Meerkat Meals" for information about how personal data is collected and used by our Meerkat app.

If you use your Meerkat Movies or Meerkat Meals membership (referred to in this section as “Rewards” and downloaded the Meerkat app (the App), we will use the App to collect and process certain personal data as set out in this section. 

What personal data do we use?

We collect and use the following information through the App:

• your name, email address and password. This information is collected when you set up an account with comparethemarket.com and is used to log you into the App;
• information about your location, where you have agreed on the App that we can do so (you can change your mind about this at any time using your device's settings). This involves obtaining location data from your device;
• information about your use of the App, such as whether you have used your 2 for 1 codes, what movie trailers you have watched on the App, and which restaurants or outlets you have ordered from and what was the contents of that order or movies you have searched for; and information about your device, such as your IP address, device profile and device settings (for example, whether you have switched push messaging on or off in your device settings).
• We will use the data set out above to validate your eligibility to participate in our reward schemes and to administer the schemes. We will also use this data to contact you in relation to our reward schemes and to deal with any complaints or queries you have in relation to the rewards schemes. We will exchange data with our partners where necessary for the administration of any rewards schemes. We will also receive some data from the app about how you have use the reward scheme, for example if you use Meerkat Meals, we will receive information about your use your reward such as when and where you have used your reward and the number of people you used the reward for. This allows us to monitor how customers are using the rewards and to help us make any changes/improvements to our rewards schemes.

How do we use your personal data?

We use your personal data in the following ways and for the following purposes:

• Your name, email and password are used to log you into the App and to link you to your comparethemarket.com account to check your eligibility for Rewards and that your membership is valid and has not expired.
• Your name is also used to personalise any messages that we send to you through the App.
• The personal data that we receive through your use of App such as restaurants you ordered from or movie trailers you expressed an interest in to carry out various research and analysis activities to help us to regularly review and improve the our Meerkat Meals and Meerkat Movies rewards as well as carry out research relating to your use of these rewards.
• If you have agreed to receive messages from us, we will either use your device information to send you push messages (where you have opted in specifically to receiving push messages), or we will send in-app messages to you, for example to ask you to review the App.
• If you have agreed to receive marketing from us we will use your device information to notify you of information, products or services that we think may be of interest to you based on your previous use of the App, such as the release of a new film or a change in the participating restaurants for Meerkat Meals.
• We will use information about your account to send you service messages relating to your account, for example to let you know if your Rewards are about to expire.

When you first log into the App, you will be asked if you are happy to allow location services. This means that we are sent information by your device about your location. You can turn this setting on and off any time using your device's settings. If you have consented to the use of location services, we will use your location to show you information about which restaurants or cinemas are nearby. We will also use this information to identify when you enter a particular location. For example, we will use this location information to identify when you enter a cinema or restaurant. We’ll use this information to give us insight as to how you use your Rewards and may also use this information to send you more tailored messages for example reminding you to use your voucher code.

We use your personal data in the following ways and for the following purposes:

• Your name, email and password are used to log you into the Meerkat App and to link you to your comparethemarket.com account to check your eligibility for Rewards and that your membership is valid and has not expired.

• Your name is also used to personalise any messages that we send to you through the Meerkat App.

• If you have agreed to receive messages from us, we will either use your device information to send you push messages (where you have opted in specifically to receiving push messages), or we will send in-app messages to you, for example to ask you to review the Meerkat App.

• If you have agreed to receive marketing from us we will use your device information to notify you of information, products or services that we think may be of interest to you based on your previous use of the Meerkat App, such as the release of a new film or a change in the participating restaurants for Meerkat Meals.

• We will use information about your account to send you service messages relating to your account, for example to let you know if your Rewards are about to expire.

When you first log into the Meerkat App, you will be asked if you are happy to allow location services. This means that we are sent information by your device about your location. You can turn this setting on and off any time using your device's settings. If you have consented to the use of location services, we will use your location to show you information about which restaurants or cinemas are nearby. We will also use this information to identify when you enter a particular location. For example, we will use this location information to identify when you enter a cinema or restaurant.  We’ll use this information to give us insight as to how you use your Rewards and may also use this information to send you more tailored messages for example reminding you to use your voucher code.

If you have agreed to our Multi Factor Authentication service, we will process your telephone number to send SMS messages to you with your One Time Passcode which you will need to access your Account.

We will use your information for the purposes of running any competition, event or similar initiative you have chosen to participate in, to review your entry, to select a winner(s) and to manage the allocation of any prize(s).

We'll only keep your personal data as long as we need it and ensure it is securely destroyed when it is no longer required. We do however need to keep certain data after we have provided you with your quotes for certain periods as detailed below.

Generally, you can expect us to keep your data for a period of 5 years from when you obtain your quote. If you have an account with us we will keep your data while your account with us is active and then if you stop using your account or choose to close your account with us by changing your settings in Your account, we will generally retain your data for a period of 5 years from that point (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).

If however, you choose to close your account with us by changing your settings in Your account, we will delete your data as soon as possible having received your request and in any event within 28 days, 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.

We keep data for these periods as it plays an important part in allowing us to undertake fraud detection and prevention activities, allows us to deal with any queries or complaints that may arise regarding quotes that have been provided and allow us to carry out research and analysis to help us improve our products and services (as described in the section headed "What do we use your data for?" above).

Any of our partners who process your data to provide a quote should only keep the data for as long as is necessary in relation to the quote they have provided. If you take out a policy with one of our insurance partners, that partner will keep your personal data in line with its own retention periods and you should check that insurance partner's privacy policy for further information.

If you used the 'Your Documents' facility before September 7th 2018 we will keep your documents for a period of 5 years from the date you last used the account as described above.

If you create a reminder or upload documents from September 26th 2018 and have not obtained a quote within the last 5 years your reminder, documents and account will be securely deleted.

If you have chosen to participate in any competition, event or similar initiative being run by us, we will retain your information for the purposes of reviewing your entry, selecting a winner(s) and managing the allocation of any prize(s), after which your data will be securely deleted.

We use third party suppliers to process limited personal data about you. Some of these suppliers may be located in countries outside the UK which may not have equivalent laws in place to protect your personal data. For example, we use third party software suppliers such as Microsoft to process data such as your IP address and email address, which Microsoft stores in the USA.

Whenever we do use third party suppliers to process personal data about you outside the UK, we will ensure that your personal data is kept securely, is only used for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy and is afforded equivalent protection as it would be if it were processed in the UK. We do this through various mechanisms, for example making sure that European Commission approved contractual clauses are in place with the supplier. If you are concerned about our use of third party suppliers to process personal data outside the UK, or if you would like any further information about any of these suppliers, please contact us using the details set out under "Contacting us" below.

Our insurance providers and comparison service providers may also process personal data in countries outside the UK which may not have equivalent laws in place to protect your personal data. Our insurance partners and comparison service partners are the data controllers in respect of any such processing and such processing will be subject to their own privacy policies.  We do not have any control over whether our partners or comparison service partners process personal data outside the UK but if this do this they must do it in accordance with data protection legislation.

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 below. 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, we will direct you to the appropriate insurance partner(s) or comparison service provider(s).

Your rights include:-

• 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. For security purposes we can only deal with requests where the contact details you provide match the details we have on file and we may need to ask you for further information to verify your identity. If you have changed your contact details or you require information sending to different contact details please include a copy of your passport or driving licence and proof of address such as a recent utility bill to assist us in verifying your identity. We might also need to ask you for additional information to help us 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. If you want to make a DSAR in relation to personal data that is held by any of our insurance partners then you will need to contact them directly. You can find our list of insurance partners here.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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 have to 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.

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 – Saxon House, Bakewell Road, Orton Southgate, PE2 6YS.

If you would like to contact any of our comparison service providers about data that they hold then please contact or visit:-

Lifesearch - [email protected]

Assured Futures - https://www.assuredfutures.co.uk/common-page/privacy-policy/ 

Perse Technology Limited - [email protected]​
18 Soho Square, London, England, W1D 3QL.​

Bionic Services Limited - [email protected] 

The Idol - [email protected]

Comparison Creator – [email protected]

Decision Technologies – [email protected]

Simply Business -  [email protected]

i-Wonder Aggregator Services Limited - [email protected]

If you would like to contact any insurance partner about the data that they hold then please visit that insurance partner’s website and view their privacy policy for details of how to contact them about data matters. A full 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 the following: your full name, your date of birth and your full address.

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. You can find more information by visiting their website www.ico.org.uk.