Archives: Faq

This Privacy Notice may be updated from time to time. This means we may send you an updated copy (depending on whether we are required to do that or not) or notify you of the changes.

We may use automated decision making using your personal information.

We use automated decision making to check that we can enter into an agreement with you, and also carry out our legal and regulatory obligations (e.g. when complying with UK money laundering regulations).

You have certain rights over your personal information when using automated decision making. If you would like more information on this, please see the “Lawful basis and data protection rights” section above.

There may be some circumstances where we use your personal information for profiling, this where we look at your personal data to evaluate certain things about you.

For example, to help us provide a consistent service and give people the best products and advice at the right times.

We’ll always make sure the way we process your information is safe and not unfair to you.

Where possible, we’ll keep your details anonymous and use your information only to produce statistical reports, so you won’t be identified from the data.

You have the right to object to us using your personal information for profiling activities. Please refer to the “Lawful basis and data protection rights” section for more information.

Use of Anonymised Data for Analytics and Marketing

We may use anonymised and aggregated data derived from your personal information for statistical, research, or marketing purposes. For example, we may analyse anonymised data to better understand how people interact with our services or to improve the relevance of our advertising on platforms such as Google Ads. This may include the creation of anonymised audience segments for use in digital advertising campaigns (e.g. Google audiences), but this data does not identify you as an individual.

Anonymisation is the process of removing or modifying personal identifiers so that individuals can no longer be identified. Where we anonymise data, we follow the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) guidelines to ensure the data cannot reasonably be re-identified, either on its own or when combined with other information.

We do not use identifiable personal data for digital advertising without your explicit consent.

We also use cookies and similar technologies to collect data about how our website is used. For more information, please refer to our Cookies Policy.

We may use your home or correspondence address, phone numbers and email address to contact you about new products and services.

We may also use other platforms (e.g. Facebook and Google) to contact you according to your online preferences such as your cookie settings.

You can request we stop our direct marketing at any time by emailing [email protected] or by writing to Ecology Building Society, Ellis House, 7 Belton Road, Silsden, Keighley, West Yorkshire BD20 0EE or by following the instructions on how to unsubscribe within each marketing email.

While we hold your data we will take reasonable steps to keep it safe and secure, and we will regularly review the rules around how long we keep it for.
A copy of our retention schedule can be found here.

We need to keep your personal data up to date. You should tell us without delay if your details change (for example, if you move address) so that we can update our records.

In order to process your application, we will perform credit and identity checks on you with one or more credit reference agencies (CRAs). To do this, we will supply your personal information to CRAs and they will give us information about you. This will include information from your credit application and about your financial situation and financial history. CRAs will supply to us both public (including the electoral register) and shared credit, financial situation and financial history information and fraud prevention information.

We will use this information to:

• assess your creditworthiness and whether you can afford to take the product
• verify the accuracy of the data you have provided to us
• prevent criminal activity, fraud and money laundering
• manage your account(s)
• trace and recover debts
• ensure any offers provided to you are appropriate to your circumstances

We will continue to exchange information about you with CRAs while you have a relationship with us. We will also inform the CRAs about your settled accounts. If you borrow and do not repay in full and on time, CRAs will record the outstanding debt. This information may be supplied to other organisations by CRAs.

When CRAs receive a search from us they will place a search footprint on your credit file that may be seen by other lenders.

If you are making a joint application, or tell us that you have a spouse or financial associate, we will link your records together, so you should make sure you discuss this with them, and share with them this information, before lodging the application. CRAs will also link your records together and these links will remain on your and their files until such time as you or your partner successfully files with the CRAs for a disassociation to break that link.

Further information about the processing that CRAs perform can be found in their Credit Reference Agency Information Notice (CRAIN)