Privacy policy

At the Environment Centre (tEC) we collect and use your personal information to help solve your problems, improve our services and tackle wider energy and affordable warmth issues that affect people’s lives.

We only ask for the information we need. We always let you decide what you’re comfortable telling us, and we explain why we need it. We always treat your information as confidential.

Sometimes, our funders require us to share some information with them about how the projects they fund are going. Please see the tabs below for further information.

When we record and use your personal information, we:

  • Only access it when we have good reason
  • Only share what is necessary and relevant
  • Don’t sell it to commercial organisations

We handle and store your personal information in line with the law and the individual privacy policy of the project you are connected with.

Please use the tabs below to explore our different projects and their individual privacy policies.

When you get advice from an adviser, we’ll ask you to either:

  • Give agreement over the phone
  • Give agreement by email
  • Sign a paper consent form
  • Tick a box online

Before we ask for your permission, we’ll always explain how we use your information.

We’ll only ask for information that’s relevant to your problem. This might include:

  • Your name and contact details, so we can keep in touch with you about your case
  • Personal information, for example about family, work, financial circumstances or health conditions, so we can work out the best options available to you and get you the help you need
  • Details about services you get that are causing you problems, such as an energy supplier
  • Details of items or services you’ve bought and traders you’ve dealt with
  • Information such as your gender, disability or ethnicity for project monitoring and reports to funders.

If you don’t want to give us certain information, you don’t have to. For example, if you want to stay anonymous we’ll only record information about your problem and make sure you’re not identified.

If you’re using our advice line or support services and you’ve been referred to us from another advice charity, they’ll send us your information using a referral form or via our advice line. They’ll get your permission before sending us your information.

The main reason we ask for your information is to help solve your problem.

We only access your information for other reasons if we really need to, for example:

  • For training and quality purposes
  • To investigate complaints
  • To get feedback from you about our services
  • To help us improve our services

All advisers and staff accessing data have had data protection training to make sure your information is handled sensitively and securely.

In addition, we use some information to create statistics about who we’re helping and what problems are the most common. This information is always anonymised – you can’t be identified.

We share these with funders, regulators, government departments and publicly on our blogs, reports, social media and press releases.

The statistics also inform our policy research or media work.

If we think it would help you to share your data with another organisation or person we’ll ask your permission to do so. We’ll only do this for the purposes of giving you the support you want.

There are some situations in which we might be able to offer you more support if we share your data with other organisations, for example:

  • Other support or advice organisations such as Citizens Advice, debt advice charities, health charities, council support services.
  • Energy efficiency installers – if you’re eligible for free or discounted energy efficiency improvements in your home we may pass on your details to installers to get quotes or to arrange for installation with your agreement.
  • Utilities suppliers or network operators– in some cases it might be necessary to pass on information about you to your energy supplier.

Again, we will only do this with your permission.

If something you’ve told us makes us think you or someone you know might be at serious risk of harm, we could tell the police or social services, for example if we think you might hurt yourself or someone else. Organisations we share your data with must store and use your data in line with data protection law.

At times we might use or share your information without your permission. If we do, we’ll always make sure there’s a legal basis for it. This could include situations where we have to use or share your information:

  • To comply with the law, called ‘legal obligation’, for example, if a court orders us to share information
  • To protect someone’s life, called ‘vital interests’, for example, sharing information with a paramedic if a client was unwell at our office
  • To carry out our aims and goals as an organisation, called ‘legitimate interests’ – for example, to create anonymous case studies and statistics for our research
  • To carry out a contract we have with you, called ‘contract’ – for example, if you’re an employee we might need to store your bank details so we can pay you
  • To defend our legal rights – for example, to resolve a complaint where we gave the wrong advice.

Whether you get advice face to face, over the phone, by email or web chat, our adviser will log all your information, correspondence, and notes about your problem into our secure client management system run by Microsoft.

Some of your information might also be kept within our secure email and IT systems.

We keep your information for 6 years and then anonymise it. This means that you can no longer be identified from it. If your case has been subject to a serious complaint, insurance claim or other dispute we keep the data for 16 years.

Our customer database system is hosted within the EEA and wherever possible, the UK.

To the best of our knowledge our trusted partners store their data securely within the European Economic Area (EEA) in line with data protection law.

You can contact us at any time and ask us:

  • What information we’ve stored about you
  • To change or update your details
  • To delete your details from our records

Please contact us via email.

The Environment Centre (tEC) and its partners, Energy Alton, Petersfield Climate Action Network and Winchester Action on the Climate Crisis will ask you for information to provide tailored information, advice and support in relation to your use of the My Home Made Better service.   

If we identify other organisations, services or schemes that could benefit you, and you provide consent, we will pass on your contact details on to those organisations to provide assistance which falls outside the remit of the My Home Made Better service. We’ll only do this for the purposes of giving you the support you want.

Details of these organisations and how they could help will be discussed during the visit, appointment or call. Please note that access to services or schemes outside the remit of the My Home Made Better service are outside of the control of the Environment Centre (tEC) and its partners.

The Environment Centre (tEC) complies with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and is a registered Data Controller (Reg. No Z7631847). Further information on the Environment Centre’s data protection policies can be found in the overview tab above.

We will need to ask for information about your circumstances depending on the nature of your enquiry. This could include questions about:

  • Your name, address and contact details so we can keep in touch with you about your case
  • Personal information about yourself and members of your household e.g. age, financial circumstances and any health conditions exacerbated by the cold. This will help us to identify any grants or support schemes that you can access.

We will explain exactly why the information is being asked during your visit, appointment or call. You do not have to answer these questions. After speaking to the advisor if you still do not wish to give the information, we will then discuss what aspects of the service we can offer you based on the information you have given.

The legal basis for our use of this information is your consent.

  • To provide information, advice and support tailored to your circumstances including identifying other organisations, services or schemes who could provide additional advice, support and grant funding in relation to your enquiries.
  • To securely pass your enquiry to the appropriate My Home Made Better partner to provide advice and support. Partners are Energy Alton, Petersfield Climate Action Network and Winchester Action on the Climate Crisis.
  • If you give consent we will share your information with other organisations, services or schemes to provide additional advice, support and potential grant funding in relation to your enquiries.
  • To provide aggregated anonymous data to Energy Savings Trust, who administer the Energy Industry Voluntary Redress scheme, which is funding this service. Additional information may be shared in accordance with our grant agreement obligations.
  • We may use the information to support the planning or assess the performance of the My Home Made Better service with our partners Energy Alton, Petersfield Climate Action Network, Winchester Action on the Climate Crisis; and to develop anonymous case studies.
  • If needed, to help us investigate any queries, concerns or complaints you have about the service.

In line with our funder’s requirements we will keep your personal data for 7 years from the end of service unless you request that we delete it earlier. 

You can change or withdraw your consent for us to hold or use your personal data for the My Home Made Better service at any time by writing to My Home Made Better, the Environment Centre (tEC), 14-15 Brunswick Place, Southampton, Hampshire, SO15 2AQ

You can also phone 0800 804 8601 or email enquiries@environmentcentre.com.

Withdrawing your consent may affect the service we can provide if you withdraw consent while still wanting to use the service.

Energy Alton complies with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and is a registered Data Controller (Reg. No ZB636371). Further information on Energy Alton’s data protection policy can be found here.

Petersfield Climate Action Network complies with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and is a registered Data Controller (Reg. No ZB866191). Further information on PeCAN’s data protection policy can be found here.

Winchester Action on the Climate Crisis complies with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and is a registered Data Controller (Reg. No ZB865843). Further information on WinACC’s data protection policy can be found here.

The above information is the specific privacy notice for this service. For more information about your rights in relation to your personal data, the Environment Centre’s privacy policy. You can contact the Environment Centre (tEC) at enquiries@environmentcentre.com.

If you have a concern about the way we are collecting or using your personal data, you should raise your concern with us in the first instance or directly with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

In addition to the overview information above, if you’re a Southampton resident receiving help through the Southampton Healthy Homes project, we will share some anonymous data to our funders, Southampton City Council, as part of our regular reporting. This information includes:

Your demographic information, such as:

• the number of adults, children and people of a pensionable age living in your home

• your ethnicity

• your gender

• whether anyone in your home is disabled or lives with a long term health condition, including conditions made worse by a cold home

• Why you’re eligible for support e.g. receive welfare benefits, have a low income

• Your housing status (tenure)

• What kind of advice you received and the outcome

• If you were referred to another organisation.

If you’re being supported to access grants for free or discounted energy efficiency improvements under the ECO scheme we will also:

  • Share relevant information including your address and eligibility route with Southampton City Council if we identify that you may be able to access funding under the flexible eligibility criteria for the Energy Company Obligation (ECO4) and Great British Insulation schemes, with your consent.

    In addition, we will send Southampton City Council the evidence of your eligibility, a scheme requirement. This may include financial information, health information, or information on your entitlement to certain benefits. Southampton City Council will review the information provided and may sign a flexible eligibility declaration form. If deemed eligible, Southampton City Council will need to send a return to Ofgem outlining your address and under what route they are declaring your eligibility for funding.

  • Share your contact details and information about why you may be eligible, including a signed ECO/GBIS declaration form and the works you’re interested in with an energy supplier(s) or their agents/installers so they can arrange quotes, confirm whether you can access any grants and complete work with your agreement.

In addition, we may provide evidence of eligibility to Ofgem and supplier(s) to ensure compliance with the requirements of the Energy Company Obligation (ECO4) scheme. See Ofgem ECO privacy notice.

This information applies if you’re a Hampshire resident receiving help through the Hitting the Cold Spots project.

In addition to the overview information above, if you’re being supported to access grants for free or discounted energy efficiency improvements under the ECO scheme, we will:

  • Share relevant information including your address and eligibility route with Hampshire County Council if we identify that you may be able to access funding under the flexible eligibility criteria for the Energy Company Obligation (ECO4) scheme, with your consent.In addition, we will send Hampshire County Council the evidence of your eligibility, a scheme requirement. This may include financial information, health information, or information on your entitlement to certain benefits.Hampshire County Council will review the information provided and may sign a flexible eligibility declaration form, if eligible. If deemed eligible, Hampshire County Council will share a signed declaration form with tEC for processing and will need to send a return to Ofgem outlining your address and under what route they are declaring your eligibility for funding.

    For further details, please see Hampshire County Council’s Hitting the Cold Spots privacy policy.

  • Share your contact details, information about why you may be eligible (including a signed ECO declaration form) and the works you’re interested in with an energy supplier(s) or their agents/installers so they can arrange quotes, confirm whether you can access any grants and complete work with your agreement.

In addition, we may provide evidence of eligibility to Ofgem and supplier(s) to ensure compliance with the requirements of the Energy Company Obligation (ECO4) scheme. See Ofgem ECO privacy notice.

This information applies if you’re a Portsmouth resident receiving help through the Switched on Portsmouth project.

In addition to the overview information above, we share some aggregated data with our funders, Portsmouth City Council, as part of our regular reporting. This information includes:

  • why you’re eligible for support
  • what kind of advice you received and the outcome
  • if you were referred to another organisation.

If you’re being supported to access grants for free or discounted energy efficiency improvements under the ECO scheme, we will also:

  • Share relevant information, including your address, with Portsmouth City Council if we identify that you may be able to access funding under the flexible eligibility strand of ECO. Portsmouth City Council will review the information provided and may sign a flexible eligibility declaration form.
  • Share your contact details, information about why you may be eligible (including a signed ECO declaration form) and the works you’re interested in with an energy supplier(s) or their agents/installers so they can arrange quotes, confirm whether you can access any grants and complete work with your agreement. See also: Portsmouth City Council’s Switched On Portsmouth Privacy Policy.

If you’re being supported to access measures under the GHG LAD scheme, we will process your personal data to identify whether you could receive support from the scheme and refer you for support. The GHG LAD scheme is operated by the West of England Combined Authority and City Energy Group in partnership with South West Energy Hub.

Relevant information shared with City Energy, if you ask us to make a referral, will include:

  • Your name (and details of any other household members)
  • Your address and postcode
  • Details of measures requested
  • Scheme eligibility information including household income
  • Contact details (including email, phone)
  • Contact address (if not the property receiving the measures)

City Energy will then contact you so they can arrange surveys, confirm whether you qualify for the scheme and complete work with your agreement.

Delivery and administration of the Scheme may require linking of your data to other datasets held by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). For further information please read City Energy’s Privacy Statement.

If you’re a referral agent, you can make a referral over the phone or by email with our referral form. We will use your email address to acknowledge receipt of the referral.

In the referral form or over the phone, we ask for your contact details including name, email and phone number. We use these contact details to let you know we’ve made contact with the client or if we’ve been unable to make contact with the client. With the client’s permission we may use your contact details to update you on the help and support they are receiving from us. We may also use your contact details if there are safeguarding concerns. We don’t share your personal information.

If you contact us requesting a talk, training or more information about our services we will use your name, email address or phone number to arrange this and provide any information. We’ll ask your permission to add you to our contacts list for future updates and events relevant to the service you’re interested in. We don’t share your personal information.

If you complete a service feedback survey, powered by Survey Monkey, we ask for your contact details including name and email. We’d use your contact details to get in touch about your feedback if we need to. It’s optional – you can leave feedback anonymously if you want to. We’ll get your permission to collect your information by asking you to tick a box on our survey form. We don’t share your personal information.

Storing your information

Your information is stored securely on our own internal systems. All volunteers and staff who access your data have had data protection training to make sure your information is handled sensitively and securely.

We keep your data for 6 years and it’s then deleted.

The feedback form itself is provided by our trusted research partner, Survey Monkey. They keep your details securely on their system.

This privacy policy only covers this website environmentcentre.com and its subdomains. Other websites linked from this website are not covered by this policy. Once you have accessed another website via one of our links, you will be subject to the security and privacy policy of that site.

If you email us for advice, your email will be stored in our email system run by Microsoft, and saved on our secure client management system run by Microsoft.

Emails between you and your adviser are stored within the Environment Centre’s office email system.

If you contact us for advice via web chat, your personal details will be stored and processed by our web chat provider, LiveChat, Inc in the EEA. Please view the LiveChat privacy policy for more information about the data processing by LiveChat, Inc.

Details of your conversation with an adviser will also be stored on our secured client management system run by Microsoft.

We use Jotform to help us provide an easy way for you to contact us online. Jotform’s Privacy Policy can be found here.

When you use our website, we collect your information in a number of ways.

We use data called ‘cookies’ to get information about how you’re using our website – for example, what pages you click on. Find out more how we collect and use cookies when you browse our website in the section below.

How we use cookies

When you browse our website, we collect ‘cookies’ to help us understand more about how our site is used by visitors, and to develop and enhance our services to you.

A ‘cookie’ is a bit of information kept on your computer. It tells us things like what device you’re using and what pages you click on.

We use cookies to:

Track aspects of user visits, including the length of a user’s visit, their browser, geographic location and the use of the search facility on this website.

Remember users selected contrast and/or text resizing style preferences for this website.

First party cookies used on the Environment Centre’s website

The table below lists the cookies that this website may issue:

Cookie

What it is used for

Expires

_ga

These cookies are used for Google Analytics to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier.

2 years

_gid

This cookie is used for Google Analytics to store and update a unique value for each page visited.

1 day

1p_JAR

This cookie is used for Google Analytics to store and update a unique value for each page visited.

7 days

Size, contrast

If you choose to resize the text or enhance the colour contrast on our website, these cookies are used to remember your preferred settings. They allow you to look around our website without having to reset the text size or contrast on each new page you visit. They are session cookies, which means they are removed from your device when you close your browser window.

ident

If you decide to register or login on our website, we will issue this cookie to keep you logged in as you navigate from page to page.

identu

This cookie makes it easier for you to login on return visits to our website. Your username will automatically appear in the login box and you just need to enter your password to login.

nf_htmlonly

This cookie simply stores that a user has given implied consent for the use of cookies and prevents the cookie pop-up message from reappearing.

Cookies for measuring use for our website

Cookie

Originator

What it is used for

Expires

_utma

Google-analytics.com

This cookie keeps track of the number of times a visitor has been to the website, when their first visit was, and when their last visit occurred.

2 years from set/update

_utmb

The B and C cookies work together to calculate how long a visit takes. __utmb takes a timestamp of the exact moment in time when a visitor enters a site, while  __utmc takes a timestamp of the exact moment in time when a visitor leaves a site

30 minutes from set/update

_utmc

When the user exits the browser

_utmv

This cookie is used when site owners create custom visitor-level variables for customising what can be measured. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics.

0 days

_utmz

This cookie identifies the source of traffic to the site – so Google Analytics can tell site owners where visitors came from when arriving on the site. The cookie has a life span of 6 months and is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics. Find out more about Google’s privacy policy

180 days months from set/update

Cookies set by a third party

To improve user experience, we allow you to share pages of our website via social networking sites such as Facebook. We may also display content from other websites, such as YouTube or Google maps, on our web pages. Please note that you may be sent cookies from these other websites. We do not control these cookies and advise you to check the relevant third-party privacy policies to find out more about the cookies they use and how to manage them.

The table below lists the third party cookies (issued by other websites) which appear on the Environment Centre’s website.

Cookie

Originator

What the cookie is used for (where known)

Expires

APISID, HSID, NID, SID, SIDCC, PREF

.Google.com

These cookies are various unique identifiers, except for PREF which stores your options such as preferred zoom level.

A unique reference is given to each computer to allow analysis of requests to Google Maps. Data is only used for overall visitor analysis.

730 days

IDE

Doubleclick.net

Used by Google DoubleClick to register and report the website user’s actions after viewing or clicking one of the advertiser’s ads with the purpose of measuring the efficacy of an ad and to present targeted ads to the user.

1 year

test_cookie

Used by Google DoubleClick to check if the user’s browser supports cookies.

End of session

VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE, LOGIN_INFO, HSID, APISID, SIG, PREF

YouTube.com

This cookie is used as a unique identifier to track viewing of videos. There are some third party cookies associated with the Youtube videos which we embed in our site. These cookies are used to remember your previous selections or preferred settings made when looking at information or using a service. Google use information collected from cookies to improve your user experience and the overall quality of their services. For example, by saving your language preferences, Google will be able to provide you with their services in your preferred language.

Read more on YouTube privacy policy – http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/policies/privacy/

6 months to 10 years

SERVERID, _cookie_id, qca

Slideshare.net

We use slideshare to share presentations from our events; Slideshare uses the listed session ID cookies to enable certain features of the site, to better understand how you interact with the site and to monitor aggregate usage by visitors and web traffic routing on the site.

Read more on Slideshare privacy policy: http://www.slideshare.net/privacy

At end of session

_twitter_sess

.Twitter.com, twitter.com

Twitter does not currently provide information on the use of specific cookies.

Read more on Twitter’s privacy policy: http://twitter.com/privacy

0 days

personalization_id

2 years

k

7 days

eu_cn

1 year

External_referer

7 days

guest_id

331 days

remember_checked

3254 days

remember_checked_on

3254 days

secure_session

6906 days

twll

3254 days

auth_token

6906 days

tfw_exp

14 days

pid

547 days

lang

0 days

datr, locale, reg_fb_gate, reg_fb_ref

Facebook.com

Facebook uses these cookies to enable certain features, and study how visitors use their services.

Up to 2 years

_livechat which includes the following parameters lc_all_invitation lc_auto_invites_shown lc_chat_number lc_client_version lc_goals_achieved lc_integration_params lc_lang lc_last_chat_start_time lc_last_conference_id lc_last_operator_id lc_last_operator_key lc_last_operator_key_per_skill lc_last_operator_per_skill lc_last_visit1574079500 lc_nick lc_ok_invitation lc_page_view lc_sessionS1574079500.f400b8ee04 lc_visit_number0 mcid mcid_done

Livechat.com

The cookie and its parameters) are responsible for a number of things. Including: tracking Greetings displayed, number of chats, version of LiveChat, localization, last operator the visitor chatted with, name of the visitor, session ID, number of visited pages. This cookie is required for the Chat Widget to work properly on visitor side.

3 years

How to control and delete cookies

If you don’t want to receive cookies, you can change settings in your web browser so that your browser tells you when cookies are sent to it or you can refuse cookies altogether. You can also delete cookies that have already been set.
If you wish to restrict or block web browser cookies, the Help function within your browser should tell you how. Alternatively, these sites can provide more information on how to do this:

www.allaboutcookies.org

www.aboutcookies.org

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