Privacy policy

About us

Wessex Water Services Limited is committed to respecting and protecting your privacy.

Wessex Water Services Limited is owned by Wessex Water Limited and is part of the YTL group of companies. Our company registered office is at the Operations Centre, Claverton Down Road, Claverton Down, Bath BA2 7WW and our registered company number is 2366648.

Wessex Water Services Limited, as the company responsible for your personal information, is the Data Controller. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office under registration Z7702288.

This Notice applies to customers, contractors, employees of contractors, prospective employees, referees and other people whose details you provide us with.

Why we need you to give us information about yourself

This Privacy Notice lets you know how and why we collect and use your personal information. This includes what you tell us about yourself and what we might learn about you from others. This Privacy Notice explains how we do this and tells you about your rights.

We are a company that is licensed to supply water and/or sewerage services to you and we need your information to provide these services to you and charge you for the water and services you use.

We explain how we use your information in more detail in the rest of this Notice which we hope you’ll read carefully.

Legal bases for our using your information

We will be processing your information for a variety of different reasons but mainly to:

provide water supply and/or sewerage services and send bills to you performing a public task as a water company;
provide additional help and discount schemes where you have given your consent for us to do so;
carry out market research or customer satisfaction surveys pursuing our legitimate interests; and
comply with our legal obligations such as maintaining the infrastructure of the water and sewerage networks.

What personal data do we collect about you?

We may collect and use your personal data in the following ways:

Information you give us. You can give us personal information by filling in forms on our website www.wessexwater.co.uk (our site) or by contacting us by phone, email or otherwise. This might be information you give us when you register to use our site, sign up as a customer, pay us (through our site or otherwise), sign-up to or use a service, get involved in discussion boards and other social media areas of our site or enter a competition, promotion or survey. We also have accounts on sites like Facebook and Twitter that you could use to give us personal information and through other on-line channels that become available to us. The information you give us may include your name, address, email address and phone number, date of birth, financial and payment card information and personal opinions. Sometimes, we’ll need to ask if we can collect and use information about your health or that of people living with you (including people who might be called ‘vulnerable’) if it makes a difference to what we charge you or so we can be better prepared to help you if there’s a problem when we’re supplying services. We can only do this by asking you to say that you’re happy for us do this. If you’re not happy then you can tell us and we’ll stop using the information for that reason. If you are applying for a job with us then we’ll ask you to give us your personal details so we can use them in the recruitment process. Please see further in our section ‘If you are applying for a job with us’.
Information we collect about you. As well as you giving us information, we may gather it when we are providing a service to you. This might be meter readings we collect or you give us so we know how much water you use. We will also collect information about connections to the mains water, sewers and drains. We might also receive information about you from other utility companies if you have registered for priority services with them and they have your consent to share it with us.
Information we collect about you when you use our website. Whenever you visit our site we may automatically collect the following information: technical information, including the internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the internet, your login information, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform; information about your visit, including the full uniform resource locators (URL) clickstream to, through and from our site (including date and time); products you viewed or searched for; page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), and methods used to browse away from the page and any phone number used to call our customer service number.
Information we receive from other sources. We work closely with a number of organisations we trust (including business partners, companies we use to provide technical, payment and delivery services, advertising networks, analytics providers, search information providers, credit reference agencies, debt recovery agencies) and may receive information about you from them. For instance, we use a different company to send our bills and handle billing enquiries. This company is called Bristol Wessex Billing Services Limited but they operate as ‘Pelican Business Services’. Pelican Business Services is jointly owned by us and Bristol Water plc and we will receive information from Pelican Business Services about you. We may also receive information about you from Save Water Save Money where we have an agreement with them to fulfil a contract made by you after you have selected a ‘free’ product to save water. Save Water Save Money may contact you about their own marketing activities to confirm your preferences.
Information we receive from other water companies. We may also receive limited information about you (your supply point information and contact telephone number) from other water companies selling water to non-household customers so you can be notified of service-related issues including unplanned interruptions to water supply and emergency events.

Cookies

Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a better experience when you browse our website and also helps us to improve our site.

You can decide to accept or reject our cookies by amending the cookies setting in your browser, but please be aware that doing this could hinder your user experience on our website.

For detailed information on the cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them see our cookie notice.

How do we use your personal data?

We’ll use your personal data in the following ways:

to process and respond to requests, enquiries and complaints we receive from you;
to provide products and services when you ask us to;
to manage and administer your account;
to carry out credit checks where appropriate (for more information please see the credit check section below);
to communicate with you about services provided to you;
to process payments;
to make sure our records are correct and up-to-date;to analyse trends and profiles;
to carry out market analysis (on a non-personal basis);
for audit purposes;
to carry out customer satisfaction and other market research;
to improve our products and services;
to stop someone committing fraud or to help authorities investigate fraud;
to comply with something the law says we must do;
where you have said that we may do so, to recommend products and services that we believe will be of interest to you or contact you about offers or other marketing promotions;
to contact you (including by SMS texts) about service related issues including interruptions to water supply, emergency events, water quality issues, planned maintenance, or major roadworks that could require road closures;
to send newsletters, invitiations and information to you if you are involved in our work in catchment management for the public water supply;
to help us establish or defend legal claims; and
to help third parties to carry out any of the purposes above on our behalf.

How do we share your personal data?

We will not share your personal data unless we have a legitimate interest or lawful reason to so. If we do have to share your information then we’ll keep it to a minimum to let the person or organisation do what we’ve asked or as the law requires. We may need to share your information with other organisations as follows.

We sometimes use agents and service providers to process personal information on our behalf. As mentioned above, we will share your information with Pelican Business Services to send out bills and handle billing enquiries. We also use other companies to send out letters, process payment card transactions, recover debts and to maintain our IT systems. Where we use other organisations to process your personal information, we will ensure that they have adequate security measures in place to safeguard it.
We may need to share your information with engineering contractors and consultants who carry out emergency or essential construction or repair work on our behalf that could affect you.
We will release your personal information when we’re required to do so for legal or regulatory purposes or as part of legal proceedings. This may include sharing your information with regulators such as the Environment Agency and the Drinking Water Inspectorate.
We may need to share it with Ofwat, our regulator, or the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the Consumer Council for Water and WATRS (the water industry ombudsman service).
We may be required under our licence to pass your contact information to a company selected by Ofwat to check on our customer service standards and you may be contacted to give your opinion.
We may share your personal information with organisations outside of Wessex Water including Local Authorities, Police, Fire and Ambulance services in the event of an emergency (this may include information about your health if we think it could be in danger).
When we carry out credit checks, we pass your information to credit reference agencies. This information may also be accessed by third parties who carry out credit checks on you. Please see the section below on credit checks for more information.
We pass your information to debt recovery companies for the collection of unpaid charges on our behalf and to benefit agencies where we seek a deduction from state benefits.
We will disclose your personal data if we’re under a duty to share your personal data in order to comply with any legal duty, or in order to enforce our rights and other agreements; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.
We may share your information with local authority Environmental Health Officers and the Environment Agency for enforcement purposes if you have not complied with notices we have issued to you under our legal obligations as a water supply and/or sewerage company.
We may share information with advertisers and advertising networks or other carefully selected partners that require the data to select and serve relevant adverts to you and others. We do not disclose information about identifiable individuals to our advertisers, but we may provide them with aggregate information about our users. We may also use such aggregate information to help advertisers reach the kind of audience they want to target. We may make use of the personal data we have collected from you to enable us to comply with our advertisers' wishes by displaying their advertisement to that target audience.
We share information with analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the making our site better and easier to find on the internet.
We may share information with Wessex Searches, part of Wessex Water Enterprises Limited, which provides information about residential and commercial water and drainage searches to professional service providers such as solicitors and licensed conveyancers.
We share information about the location of sewers, water pipes, etc. in relation to properties to assist with property sales, purchases and legal enquiries.
We may transfer or share your information with other companies in the Wessex Water group for the purposes we’ve explained but if we’re going to use it for something other than supplying products and/or services, billing or for a reason you wouldn’t normally expect then we will explain why by letting you know about the changes and, if we need your agreement, then we’ll check you are happy with this before we share it.
If we need to investigate or defend a claim you make against us or we need to bring a potential claim against you we may share your personal data with your representative(s), our legal advisors, our insurance company or other professional advisors.
We carry out customer satisfaction surveys and other market research through specialist companies which we ask to check what our customers think of the service we provide so we can act on the feedback to make our service better.
As a water company, we are required to deal with requests for information made under the Environmental Information Regulations. If your personal information forms part of the response to the request, we will treat it as exempt from disclosure and not provide it in a form from which you could be identified.

Credit checks

We share your personal information with credit reference agencies so we can keep your records up-to-date, check if debt risks apply to you and manage our debt collection process.

Information that we give to credit reference agencies includes information held in our records, such as your name, date of birth, address or other relevant information.

CCTV and capturing images

Our sites (including car parks) may be monitored by CCTV and your image may be recorded for security purposes if you visit any of our sites. We use signs to confirm where a CCTV system is used. Images are retained for 28 days and then deleted.

We may use cameras to monitor the environment and work we are carrying out within our sites. Notices are displayed at the entrance to our sites to confirm when this is happening. Our employees may also be equipped with and operate ‘body cameras’ so work can be recorded during visits to your property.

Use of our company drones

We operate unmanned aerial systems which involve the use of drones fitted with cameras that can be switched on remotely to record images of our sites for inspection, mapping and public relations purposes.

How long we retain the images captured is dependent on the purpose they are being recorded for but we may be required to keep records for inspections indefinitely

The drones are operated by a licenced and commercially qualified drone pilot. When a drone is in use at our sites it is always kept within the pilot’s visual line of sight and we display signs confirming it is in operation and identify its operator through wearing high visibility clothing. The drones are operated above land owned by YTL group or where we have obtained express permission from the landowner or relevant local authority and not within 50 metres of a member of the public.

If you have any concerns relating to privacy and the use of our drones, please contact the Data Protection Officer at ‘dpo@wessexwater.co.uk’.

Where we store your personal data

All the information you give us is stored on our secure servers and if you chose to pay us by payment card then the transactions are encrypted. If we have given you a password (or you have chosen one) then you need to keep this password confidential. Please don’t share your password with anyone.

To get the best value for money when we improve our computer systems and websites, we use part of Wessex Water Group’s IT development services which are based outside of the European Economic Area. Some development projects may involve them working with your information. If this happens, we will take proper steps to keep your information safe through European Union approved contracts and by making sure your information stays protected within our own UK security arrangements using high standards of encryption in any transfer.

Unfortunately, sending information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data sent to our site by email; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features designed to prevent someone who doesn’t have our authority to access it.

How long we need to keep your information

We will keep details about your use of our services for as long as you stay a customer of ours and then for 6 years after that as we may need to refer to it to sort out any differences or problems that arise after our relationship ends. We will need to keep anonymised information about water supply and/or sewerage at your property indefinitely due to our legal duty to keep these records.

If you are applying for a job with us

We will normally ask you to apply for a vacancy via our online recruitment system. During the recruitment process, the information you give us may include your name, age, contact details, details of your education, your employment history, emergency contact details, immigration status, financial information (if we need to carry out financial background checks), documentary evidence of your identity and national insurance number. You may decide to share other information with us if you think it is relevant to your application. Where appropriate and in accordance with UK laws, we may also collect information related to your health, diversity information or details of any criminal convictions which we will need your agreement to use.

If we ask to collect information which we need your consent to gather and use then we’ll tell you why we need this and ask for your agreement to use it and tell you about how you can withdraw your agreement but we’ll let you know more about this if we need to ask you to give us this information.

Information we collect about you. As well as you giving us information, we may gather it from other organisations connected with your previous employment which hold it.

Information we receive from other sources about you and which we may share with them. We may ask for a reference from a person you have given as a referee. We may obtain details about you from other third party sources like ‘Linked-In’ and other job-related websites. We also have accounts on sites like Facebook and Twitter that you could use to give us personal information and through other on-line channels that become available to us. We may also receive information about you from past employers, educational establishments, examining bodies and employment and recruitment consultants who contact us or we contact.

How we use your information

We will use your personal data:

to store your details to contact you to process applications for roles and positions we advertise as current vacancies;
to contact referees for references about you;
to process, with your agreement, information about your health or details about criminal convictions if they are required for the role you have applied for.

How long we will keep your information as a candidate. If you accept an offer of employment with us, we will keep your information for as long as you are employed by us and for six years after that. If your application is unsuccessful or you do not accept an offer of employment then we will keep only your application and assessment information. We will keep this for six months and will then destroy it.

If you are a referee or contact

How we use your information if you are a referee or contact. We will use your personal data:

to contact you if a candidate has given us your name as a referee so we can take up a reference; or
to contact you if we have been provided with your details by a candidate as a contact in the event of an accident or emergency affecting them.

Your rights

You have a series of rights to do with the information we hold about you. These are:

Your right to be informed – this Notice is an example of this. We may need to update this Notice if we need to do something different with your information and so we may change it on our site. We will also provide you with details about how we use your information when we collect it from you.

Your right to rectification - it is important that the information we are holding is accurate and up to date so if you think any of your information is incorrect or needs updating then let us know and we will update it as soon as we can.

Your right of ‘access’ - you have the right to request a copy of the personal information that we hold about you. We may ask for a copy of your passport or driving licence and for a copy of a document that shows your address so we can give your personal information out. Please email requests to dpo@wessexwater.co.uk or contact the Data Protection Officer whose details appear at the end of this Notice.

We have a calendar month to respond to your request for information. If we need more information to process your request, we will contact you to let you know.

Your right to erasure – customers who are individuals have the right to request that their personal information be deleted where there is no longer a legitimate purpose for it being processed.

Your right to information about automated decision making - if a human being isn’t involved in making a decision using your information and it’s done automatically, then you can ask us about how the decision is made. We don’t make decisions like this at the moment but if we start then we’ll let you know and tell you about why we’re doing it.

Your right to restrict processing – you have the right to ask us to restrict or suppress our use of your personal data. If we agree that we should stop processing it, we will still hold it but will not use it.

Your right to object – if you don’t want us to use your personal information any more then you can ask us to stop what we’re doing with it. Please bear in mind though that we need it to provide services to you and we may need to keep your data for a certain amount of time as we’ve explained above. You can also ask us not to use your personal data for marketing purposes. You can exercise this right at any time by contacting us at optout@wessexwater.co.uk or by contacting our Data Protection Officer whose details are at the end of this Notice. If you ask to stop using your personal information then we will contact you to confirm the position as there may be some circumstances where we will have to continue using it.

Links to other websites

Our site may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of our partner networks, advertisers and affiliates. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy notices or policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these notices. Please check these notices before you submit any personal data to these websites.

Changes to our privacy notice

We will update this privacy notice from time to time to keep you informed of any changes to the ways in which we use your personal data. Any changes we may make to our privacy notice in the future will be posted on our site and, where appropriate, notified to you by email. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy notice.

Complaints

If you’re not happy and have issues with the way we’ve dealt with your information or your rights then please let us know by contacting us as below. If you remain unhappy with our response then you can ask the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to look into what we’ve done. They can be reached at ico.org.uk, by phone on 0303 123 1113 or by writing to ICO, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

Call recording

Both Wessex Water and Pelican Business Services may monitor and record calls we make and receive in our contact centres for quality, security and training purposes. We may keep recordings for up to 5 years in case we need to resolve a dispute or difference between us.

Contact

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy notice are welcomed and should be emailed to dpo@wessexwater.co.uk, or please write to:

The Data Protection Officer
Wessex Water Operations Centre
Claverton Down Road
Claverton Down
Bath
BA2 7WW