Which? privacy policy This policy explains how we use any personal information we collect about you.
Welcome to our privacy policy. Here at Which? we are committed to protecting your information when you use our services or buy our products. To find out more about Which? and who we are, please look at the 'About Us' section of our general terms.
This policy explains how we use any personal information we collect about you when you use our websites or get in contact with us. If you have any questions please call our customer services and we will be happy to help.
What information do we collect about you?
We, or companies who work for us, collect information about you when you register with us, place an order for our products and services, sign up to one of our newsletters or get involved in our campaigns or our blogs. We also collect information when you complete our surveys, provide feedback or reviews, send us enquiries or enter our competitions. This may cover anything from your contact and delivery details to payment information, or your responses to questionnaires we've sent you and feedback you've provided.
We also collect information about your use of our websites, and how you arrived at our website in the first place. This can include what links or adverts of ours you've viewed or clicked on to reach us, or any search terms you've used. We can also see which pages of our website have been viewed by you and for how long. All this information helps us tell what content is popular with our customers so we can prioritise it.
Online, we mostly use cookies to collect this information about you. Please see our cookie policy for further information.
How will we use this information about you?
We collect information about you to process your order, manage your account and, if you agree, to let you know about our products, services or campaigning work that we think may be of interest to you. If you use Which? Conversation, Which? Tech Daily or Which? Local, or wherever you add any comments or content onto our websites, we may email you if there is a problem.
We also use this information to decide what content you're interested in, measure the success of our marketing campaigns and to better understand our customers.
When you first become a member with us we will send you a confirmation/welcome email, detailing your new account details, and how best to utilise your membership.
One of your membership benefits will be our weekly members' newsletter. However, if you decide you would rather not receive these, you can opt out via the ‘unsubscribe’ link on the emails or contact us and we will be happy to take you off our distribution list.
We also offer the option of signing up to receive emails about our products and services which you may find of interest. These are available for members and visitors to our websites. Again, if you decide you no longer wish to receive these, the unsubscribe option is available.
Please click on the "Tailor my emails" link within your weekly member's newsletter which will take you to your preference centre. Here you can change your preferences to control the type content you see within your weekly member's newsletter.
Will we pass your information on to other companies?
We do use other companies to process your data on our behalf, to ensure that we can fulfil all our obligations to you. We only choose those companies who prioritise the protection of personal data and who pass the strict organisational and technical security standards that we set. These companies include those who do the mail-outs of our magazines or those who help us host our websites.
The only other time we will pass your details to anyone else would be where we have to for fraud or other legal purposes.
We do not pass your details (email, address, telephone, IP address, cookie details etc.) to third parties to use for their own marketing purposes.
How long will we keep this information about you?
We will only keep information about you for as long as we need to. We make sure that any companies which process your data on our behalf do the same. We have an internal retention policy where there are varying retention periods for different categories of information depending on our legal obligations and whether there is a commercial need, such as answering member account queries.
After a retention period has elapsed, the data is deleted.
How do we keep your information secure?
Which? takes the security of our customers’ data very seriously. We use multiple layers of firewalls to ensure user data is kept as secure as possible, specialist devices to detect and prevent intrusion attempts, and encryption systems to ensure data is scrambled while being transmitted from system to system. We employ equally rigorous physical security policies to prevent physical access to our data centres. We perform regular system patching, and employ an independent security company to perform penetration tests (authorised attempts to try to hack our systems to show any risks) annually and whenever we bring new systems online.
We ensure third parties employ the same rigour when handling data, ensuring they apply security far in excess of regulatory requirements.
Access to your information and correction
If you would like a copy of some or all of your personal information we hold about you, please write to us at CS Operations Management, Castlemead, Gascogne Way, Hertford, SG14 1LH.
We want to make sure that your personal information is accurate and up to date. Please always let us know if you think it is not.
Other websites
Our websites contain links to the websites of other organisations. This privacy policy only applies to our websites so when you link to other websites you should read their own privacy polices and terms and conditions. We cannot accept any responsibility for your use of these websites.
What if I’m aged 16 or under?
If this applies to you, please get your parent’s / guardian’s permission before you supply us with any personal information. Without this consent, please do not provide us with any personal information.
Changes to our privacy policy
We keep our privacy policy under regular review and we will place any updates on this webpage. If there is a material change which could have a detrimental effect on you, and you are a Which? member or we have your contact details, we will contact you to check whether you are happy with it.
How to contact us
If you would like further information on how your information is used, how we maintain the security of your information and your rights to access information we hold on you, please contact us:
- by email: editor@which.co.uk
- or by writing to us at: Dept. DNE, Which? Castlemead, Gascogne Way, Hertford, SG14 1LH.
