PrivACY POLICY

Who We Are

The Powerline Advisory Group gathers and processes your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy and applicable data protection laws. This policy provides information about your rights and our obligations and explains how, why and when we process your personal data.

The Powerline Advisory Group Limited is registered in England and Wales under company number 12441440. Our registered office is Corby Enterprise Centre, London Road, Priors Hall, Corby, Northamptonshire, NN17 5EU. We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) under registration number A8576840 and act as the data controller when processing your personal data. Our designated Compliance Officer is Andrew McQuade, who can be contacted at our registered office address or by email by clicking here.

Information That We Collect 

The Powerline Advisory Group processes personal information where necessary to provide our services, meet our legal, statutory and contractual obligations, and for the other purposes explained in this Privacy Policy. We only collect and process information that is relevant and necessary for these purposes.

The personal data and other information that we may collect includes, but is not limited to:

• Name
• Date of birth
• Home and correspondence address
• Personal and/or business email address
• Home and/or mobile telephone number
• Property ownership and title information
• Information relating to electrical apparatus situated on, over or under a property
• Photographs of electrical apparatus and/or the exterior of a property
• Information required to facilitate the instruction of a solicitor

Where you instruct us, you may voluntarily provide photographs of electrical equipment and/or the exterior of your property to assist us in identifying the apparatus and progressing your claim. Where appropriate, we may also collect information required by a solicitor in connection with the proposed legal agreement. This may include information required to complete the solicitor's terms of engagement or other onboarding documentation, which we may provide to the solicitor on your behalf.

We collect information in the below ways: 

We may obtain information directly from you or from other sources.
We may obtain information directly from you when you contact us by telephone, email, post, through a contact form on our website, or when you provide information to us during the course of our appointment.

We may also obtain information from publicly available sources, including HM Land Registry, and from information relating to electricity distribution networks. We may cross-reference this information to identify properties which appear to be affected by electrical apparatus and to contact the homeowner at the property address regarding our services and any potential entitlement to compensation.

We may also obtain personal information from third parties during the course of providing our services, including electricity Distribution Network Operators, solicitors and other professional advisers or organisations involved in a matter.

How We Use Your Personal Data 

The Powerline Advisory Group takes your privacy seriously. We only process your personal information where we have a lawful basis to do so and only for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy. We do not sell your personal information.

We retain personal information only for as long as necessary for the purposes for which it was collected and to meet our legal, regulatory and contractual obligations.
The purposes for which we may process your personal information include:

• To identify properties which may be affected by electrical apparatus and contact homeowners about our services and any potential entitlement to compensation. We may cross-reference property information with electricity distribution network information for this purpose. We rely on our legitimate interests as the lawful basis for this processing.
• To respond to enquiries and take steps at your request before you instruct us, including assessing the electrical apparatus affecting your property and providing information about our services.
• To provide our services and progress your claim once instructed, including communicating and negotiating with the relevant Distribution Network Operator on your behalf. We rely primarily on the performance of our contract with you for this processing.
• To facilitate the legal completion of an agreement, including providing relevant information to a solicitor where you have instructed them in connection with your claim.
• To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, including business accounting, taxation and record-keeping requirements.
• To operate our website and respond to online enquiries, including information submitted through our website contact forms. Where cookies or similar technologies require consent, we will obtain this through our cookie management system.
• To administer applications for employment and our relationship with employees, where applicable, in accordance with our contractual and legal obligations.
Where we rely on consent for a particular type of processing, you may withdraw that consent at any time. This will not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before consent was withdrawn.

You have the right to object at any time to the use of your information for direct marketing.

Your Rights

You have a number of rights under data protection law in relation to your personal information. These include the right to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you and obtain information about how we process it, including the purposes of processing, the categories of information concerned, who it has been or may be disclosed to, how long we intend to retain it and, where the information was not obtained directly from you, information about its source.
• Rectification – ask us to correct personal information that you believe is inaccurate or complete information that you believe is incomplete.
• Erasure – ask us to delete your personal information in certain circumstances.
• Restriction of processing – ask us to restrict the way in which we process your personal information in certain circumstances.
• Object to processing – object to processing which is based on our legitimate interests in certain circumstances.
• Object to direct marketing – you have the right to object to the use of your information for direct marketing at any time.
• Data portability – where applicable, request that personal information you have provided to us is transferred to you or another organisation in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format.
• Automated decision-making – where applicable, have rights in relation to decisions based solely on automated processing which produce legal or similarly significant effects.

Where we rely on your consent to process personal information, you also have the right to withdraw that consent at any time.
Some of these rights only apply in certain circumstances and may be subject to exemptions under data protection law. If we are unable to comply with a request, we will explain the reason where required to do so. We may need to verify your identity before acting upon a request to ensure that personal information is protected and kept secure.
If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact our Compliance Officer using the contact details provided in this Privacy Policy.

Sharing and Disclosing Your Personal Information

We do not sell your personal information. We only share or disclose personal information where necessary to provide our services, operate our business, comply with our legal or regulatory obligations, or for the other purposes described in this Privacy Policy.

Where you instruct us, we may share relevant information with the electricity Distribution Network Operator and its representatives in order to investigate, negotiate and progress your claim. Where a solicitor is instructed to complete a legal agreement, we may also provide relevant information to that solicitor to facilitate their instruction and the completion of the agreement.

We also use third-party service providers to support our business and enable us to provide our services. These may include providers of CRM and business management systems, email and communications services, document and electronic signature services, IT and infrastructure support, website services, accounting services and other professional services.

Where a third party processes personal information on our behalf, we require them to process that information appropriately, securely and in accordance with applicable data protection law. Where required, appropriate contractual arrangements are put in place governing that processing.
We may also disclose personal information where required by law, regulation, a court or other competent authority.

Safeguarding Measures 

The Powerline Advisory Group takes the security of personal information seriously and implements appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal information against unauthorised or unlawful access, alteration, disclosure, loss or destruction. These measures include, where appropriate, encryption, secure communications, access controls, user authentication, firewalls, anti-virus and malware protection, secure IT systems and restrictions on access to personal information based on business requirements. We regularly review our security measures and the systems we use to ensure that personal information remains appropriately protected

Consequences of Not Providing Your Data

You are not required to provide personal information to The Powerline Advisory Group. However, where you choose to instruct us, certain information is necessary for us to provide our services, investigate and progress your claim, communicate with the relevant Distribution Network Operator and, where applicable, facilitate the legal completion of an agreement.

If you do not provide information that is necessary for these purposes, we may be unable to provide some or all of our services or progress your claim.

How Long We Keep Your Data

The Powerline Advisory Group retains personal information only for as long as is necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, including to provide our services and to meet our legal, regulatory, accounting and business requirements.

Certain records will normally be retained for a minimum of six years following completion or closure of a matter to meet our legal, accounting and record-keeping requirements.
We may retain certain information for longer where there is a legitimate business need to do so. In particular, information relating to completed claims, electrical apparatus, property characteristics, negotiations and compensation may be retained for the purpose of maintaining comparable evidence to assist with the assessment and negotiation of other claims. Where information is retained for this purpose, we will only retain information that is relevant and necessary and will periodically review whether its continued retention is required.

Retention periods may therefore vary depending on the nature of the information, the purpose for which it is held and any applicable legal or regulatory requirements.
Where information is no longer required, it will be securely deleted or anonymised.

Lodging a Complaint

The Powerline Advisory Group processes personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy and applicable data protection laws.
If you have any concerns about how we have collected, used or handled your personal information, please contact our Compliance Officer in the first instance and we will investigate your concerns.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK's supervisory authority for data protection.

The Powerline Advisory Group

Compliance Officer: Andrew McQuade

Corby Enterprise Centre
London Road
Priors Hall
Corby
Northamptonshire
NN17 5EU

Tel: 07956640322 

Send an email to the Compliance Officer.

Information Commissioner’s Office Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF

 Tel: 0303 123 1113