Privacy and Cookie policy

During the course of our relationship with you, we may need to collect and process data about you. The types of data that we will require will fall broadly into one of the categories below:

Type of Personal Information Description

We will collect this data during the course of business you, by one of the following methods:

• When you fill out forms on our sites or our partner’s sites that we provide services for (our websites are makeitcheaper.com and ukpower.co.uk, partner websites will inform you if they will pass your information to us)
• When we communicate with each other by post
• When we talk with each other by telephone
• When we communicate with each other by email
• When we communicate with each other by instant messaging
• When you visit our sites and navigate around the web pages (further detail on this below)
• From completed surveys we send you from time to time
• From subscribing to our newsletters, white papers or other such communications
• From your interaction with our social media accounts

In the cases where we are in the course of arranging a contract for you, or have arranged a contract for you in the past, we will also receive data about you via the following methods:

• Details about your insurance policies (including claims) from your insurer(s)
• Details about your energy supply from your energy supplier(s)
• Details about your telecommunications agreements from your telecommunications provider(s)
• Credit reference agencies (eg. Experian and Equifax) where required to arrange certain contracts with certain suppliers
• GB Group
• Fraud prevention agencies
• Publicly held information from Companies House or the Electoral Register
• Companies that introduce you to us

We are required to ensure that we are processing data under one of the following legal bases:

1. In order to fulfil a contractual requirement with you
2. We have a legitimate interest in processing your data, given due regard to your interests, rights and freedoms
3. You have provided us with consent to process your data
4. We are required to fulfil a legal obligation
5. We are required to process your data in order to protect yours or another person’s vital interests
6. Processing is necessary for the performance of a task in the public interest

Our primary purpose for using your data is to help you switch provider and get you a better contract for your essential services, so using that as an example, we will process your data in order to fulfil our contract we have agreed with you.

Below is a list of how we process personal data, why we do so and the legal basis under which we are operating:

How we use your personal information WhyLegal basis for processing:

*Each process will only operate under one of these legal bases, these are provided to show under what legal bases the various processes we have in our company could be operating under.

When you use our services, agree a contract with a supplier or talk to us about services we offer we may share your information with the third parties below. If you would like to know who your information has been shared with in the course of arranging your contracts, then you can request this information at any time.

The operating companies within the Group are Bionic Services Group Limited,  Bionic Services Limited, UK Power Limited, Bionic Financial Services Limited, Triple S Promotions Limited t/a Business Save International, SK Utilities Ltd and Think Business Finance Limited.

Additionally, the Group ownership structure includes Smile BidCo Limited, Smile MidCo1 Limited, Smile MidCo2 Limited and Smile TopCo Limited where personal information may be shared purely for administrative purposes. 

We may choose to sell any or all of the above companies to another company, or we may choose to merge or buy new businesses to add to our own. If this happens then the new corporate business will have the same right to use your data as set out in this privacy notice. 

When arranging your energy supply we will provide data to one or more energy suppliers (eg. British Gas, Scottish Power, Opus) in order to provide a quote and ultimately to arrange an energy contract for you.

When arranging your insurance policy, we may provide data to one or more insurers or underwriters (eg. LV, Ageas, Chapman & Stacey) in order to provide a quote, ensure that an insurance policy covers your needs and ultimately to arrange an insurance policy for you.

When arranging your telecommunications policy, we may provide data to one or more telecoms providers (eg. Daisy, Focus, BT) in order to provide a quote, confirm the technical aspects of your line set up and ultimately to arrange a telecoms contract for you.

We have agreements with a number of partners who can’t provide switching services for businesses and so will refer customer to us to complete customer’s requests. If you have been passed to us via a partner, we will share information about your sale back to the partner in order to pay their referral fee.

In order to provide our services, we will use the services of other third party companies in order to maximize the probability of your contract going live, or because we have a legal requirement to adhere to eg. sanctions searches and anti-money laundering legislation.

All of these third parties are strictly forbidden from using your data for any purpose other than those disclosed above, all third parties are rigorously checked out before sharing information with them and are held to the highest standards once they are working for us.

A list of the largest of these third parties is below, with a brief description of the purpose for sending them your information. If you would like to know who we have passed your information to in the course of arranging your contracts, then you can request this information at any time.

• Acturis – A software provider that allows us to access the various insurance markets to provide quotes and arrange policies
• Experian – verification of contact and credit searching for energy contracts
• GB Group – verification of meter and contact information for energy contracts
• Bonplan Oy t/a Taskeater – sub-processor that perform administration/back office tasks
• Professional Office Ltd – sanctions search provider
• Adobe Sign – software used to sign e-contracts for the agreements we arrange

Some of these third parties are not based in the UK or EU, where that is the case we have put in place contracts that ensure they protect your data to the same standards as the UK and EU.

We will keep your personal information for as long as you are a customer of Bionic Group Limited.

As your contract ends and you no longer wish to use Bionic Groups services, we may be required to keep your data for up to 10 years after you stop being a customer. During that time we could use your data for the following processes:

• To respond to a question or a complaint
• To prove that we have arranged valid agreements to our suppliers
• To analyze historical trends, perform internal research or develop our products and services
• To obey tax or anti-money laundering rules around keeping records
• To keep insurance data for employer’s liability claims

We commit to keeping your data safe and secure during this period and will ensure your privacy is protected.

Under the General Data Protection Legislation you have the following rights, this section explains what they mean and what you can request of us:

1. The right to be informed

We will always explain to you how we are going to use your personal information when you take a contract with us, this could be as part of your application process, or asking how you would like to be marketed to, but also will be set out in the terms and conditions of your agreements with us and within this privacy policy.

2. The right of access

You are entitled to request the personal information we hold on you and how we have processed that information. You can do this simply by contacting us via email, letter or phone and we will respond within 30 days.

Additionally you have the right to certain information in a digital format to use this yourself. Please let us know that you would like this option at the point of requesting your personal information.

3. The right to rectification

If you believe that any of the personal information we hold is incorrect or out of date, please contact us and we will resolve it for you.

4. The right to request we stop processing your information, object to us holding it or delete your information completely

You can ask us to delete, remove or stop using your personal information if there is no reason that we should be holding it or processing it. As stated above, there may be a contractual agreement in place, or we have a legal obligation to process or store your data, and in these circumstances we will explain whether we can delete your data or stop processing it, this will not be on all occasions.

Broadly speaking, where we have asked for your consent to process your data eg. Sending marketing emails, you can withdraw your consent at any time to that sort of processing; or where we are acting under legitimate interests, you will be able to request we stop that processing.

We will review any request under this rights and provide you with an answer either agreeing to your request, or explaining why we can’t.

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

Bionic Group Limited (Group) use cookies and other similar technologies in the operation of this website.

A cookie is a piece of information that a website puts on your computer so it can remember something about you or your device at a later date. We use cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website (including when you browse other third party websites). This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse this website. We also use cookies and similar technologies to show you more personalised advertising, including adverts on other websites. By using our website, you agree to our use of cookies. This policy explains what cookies, including third party cookies, we use on our website, and how you can refuse or withdraw your consent to cookies. You can find more information about cookies at www.allaboutcookies.org and www.youronlinechoices.eu.

Through our advertising platform we allow other third party advertising agencies and networks to serve advertising using cookies to our website.