Website Privacy policy

The effective date for this policy was the 1st June 2018.

This privacy policy is for this website; www.essutility.co.uk and is served by ESS Utility Consultants Ltd., governing the privacy of its users who choose to use it. It explains how we comply with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), the DPA (Data Protection Act), and the PECR (Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations).

This policy sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it. By visiting: essutility.co.uk you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this policy. For the purpose of the Data Protection Act 2018, the data controller is ESS Utility Consultants Ltd of Monarch House, 7-9 Stafford Road, Wallington, Surrey SM6 9AN and governs the privacy of its users who choose to use it. It also explains how we comply with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), the DPA (Data Protection Act) [pre GDPR enforcement] and the PECR (Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations) are adhered to.

Additionally, it will explain the use of cookies or software, advertising or commercial sponsorship from third parties and the download of any documents, files or software made available to you (if any) on this website. Further explanations may be provided for specific pages or features of this website in order to help you understand how we, this website and its third parties (if any) interact with you and your computer/device in order to serve it to you. Our contact information is provided if you have any questions.

This policy will explain areas of this website that may affect your privacy and personal details, how we process, collect, manage and store those details and how your rights under the GDPR, DPA & PECR are adhered to. Additionally, it will explain the use of cookies or software, advertising or commercial sponsorship from third parties, and the download of any documents, files or software made available to you on this website. Further explanations may be provided for specific pages or features of this website in order to help you understand how we, this website, and its third parties interact with you and your computer/device in order to serve it to you. Our contact information is provided if you have any questions.

Introduction & General Terms

This policy not only relates to any personal information you provide to our website; it also relates to our use of any personal information you provide to us via phone or text, by email, in letters, our social media or other correspondence.

ESS Utility Consultants Ltd is committed to safeguarding your personal information. Whenever you provide such information, we are legally obliged to use your information in line with all laws concerning the protection of personal information, including the Data Protection Act 2018 (these laws are referred to collectively in this policy as the “data protection laws”).

Our website may, from time to time, contain hyperlinks to and from websites owned and operated by third parties. These third party websites have their own privacy policies, and are also likely to use cookies, and we, therefore, urge you to review their website privacy policies too before you submit any personal data to these websites. They will govern the use of personal information you submit, which may also be collected by cookies whilst visiting these websites. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the privacy practices of such third party websites, and your use of such websites is entirely at your own risk.

Who are we?

ESS Utility Consultants Ltd is an energy management and consultancy company. We are primarily located in the UK. When we refer to “we”, “us” or “our”, we are referring to ESS Utility Consultants Ltd.

3. What personal data will ESS Utility Consultants Ltd collect and why we collect it?

Here at ESS, we take your privacy seriously. We collect and use personal data mainly to perform contractual obligations, energy procurement, supplier management, energy bureau services, customer service, direct sales and direct marketing. We also collect data about suppliers, partners and persons seeking a job (we collect the data you provide during the application process) or working in our company. We will do this on either the basis of consent or legitimate interest. Where we use legitimate interest, we will carefully weigh your rights against our legitimate business interests before we contact you. You will be able to opt out of communication from us at any time.

We collect data when:

You are using our services.
You interact with us in person, through correspondence, by phone, by post, by social media, or through our websites and landing pages.
Through other legitimate sources, such as ESS partners, public sources or social networks. We ensure that this is done in compliance with all relevant data protection legislation.
We may occasionally contact you on behalf of external business partners about an offering that may be of interest to you. In those cases, we do not transfer your personal information to the third party.

Where we process personal information for purposes which are not directly to comply with our contractual or legal obligations we do so for certain legitimate business purposes. Whenever we process data for these purposes we will always ensure that we give your personal data rights due consideration and hold them in the highest regard.

ESS does not collect or process any special categories of personal data, such as public unique identifiers or sensitive personal data. You will be able to opt out of communication from us at any time.

We will never pass your information on to anyone outside of ESS unless the law requires us to do.

What information collect about me?

Information you give us. You may give us personal information when you access or sign up to any of our products, services, visit our website and/or complete any of our online forms, or by corresponding with us by phone, email or otherwise. This can consist of information such as your name, email address, postal address, landline telephone or mobile number. Information we collect about you. With regard to each of your visits to our website we may automatically collect the following data about you:

technical information, including Internet Protocol (IP) addresses (an IP address is a number that can uniquely identify a specific computer or other network device on the internet and is used to connect your computer to the Internet) from visitors to our website, 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 website (including date and time); information 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.
Information we receive from other sources. We may receive information about you if you use any of the other services we provide. We are also working closely with third parties (including, for example, business partners, sub-contractors, advertising networks, analytics providers, and search information providers) and may receive information about you from them.
Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our website. For detailed information about the cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them, please read our Cookie Policy.

How will ESS Utility Consultants Ltd use the information it collects about me?

We will use your personal information for a number of purposes including the following:

To provide our products, services arising from any engagements entered into between you and us, or online content and to deal with your requests and enquiries.
For “service administration purposes”, which means that we may contact you for reasons related to the service or online content you have signed up for, as set out in section 6 below.
To contact you about a submission you have made, including any content you provide.
To provide you with information about our services, activities or online content that you request from us and to provide you with information about other services we offer that are similar to those that you have already purchased or enquired about.
To provide you with information about products or services we feel may interest you. If you are an existing client, we will only contact you by electronic means (e-mail or SMS) with information about products and services similar to those which were the subject of a previous instruction or engagement or negotiations of such to you. If you are not an existing client, and where we permit selected third parties to use your data, we (or they) will contact you by electronic means only if you have consented to this.
To use IP addresses to identify the location of users, to block disruptive use, to establish the number of visits and generally to administer our website including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing and research.
To analyse and improve the services offered on our website and to notify you of changes.
To provide you with the most user-friendly navigation experience. We may also use and disclose information in aggregate (so that no individuals are identified) for marketing and strategic development purposes.
To ensure that content from our website is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer.
Where we propose using your personal information for any other uses, we will ensure that we notify you first. You will also be given the opportunity to withhold or withdraw your consent for the use of your personal information for purposes other than those listed above.

When will ESS Utility Consultants Ltd contact me?

We may contact you:

in relation to any service, activity or online content you have signed up for in order to ensure that we can deliver the services to you;
in relation to any correspondence we receive from you or any comment or complaint you make about our products or services;
in relation to any contribution you have submitted to us, e.g. on our contact forms or by email or post;
to invite you to participate in surveys about our services (participation is always voluntary); and for marketing purposes, as explained in section 4

Will ESS Utility Consultants Ltd share my personal information with anyone else?

We will keep your information confidential except where disclosure is required or permitted by law (for example to government bodies and law enforcement agencies) or as described in this section.

We may share your personal information with other members of our group, which means our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company and its subsidiaries, as defined in section 1159 of the Companies Act 2006.

In addition, sometimes we share your information with selected third parties as follows:

to process your information on our behalf. ESS Utility Consultants Ltd requires these third parties to comply strictly with its instructions and we require that they do not use your personal information for their own business purposes;
with business partners, suppliers, government organisations and sub-contractors for the performance of any engagement we enter into with them or you;
advertisers and advertising networks that require the data to select and serve relevant adverts to you and others; and
analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of our website.

We may disclose your personal information to third parties:

in the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we may disclose your personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets;
if our shareholders sell their shares in us to, or we sell substantially all of our assets to, a third party, in which case personal data held by it about our clients will be one of the transferred assets;
if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use and other agreements; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of our company, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

Offensive or inappropriate content on the ESS Utility Consultants Ltd website

If you post or send offensive, inappropriate or objectionable content anywhere on or to our website or otherwise engage in any disruptive behaviour with regards to any of our services, we may use your personal information to stop such behaviour.

Where ESS Utility Consultants Ltd reasonably believes that you are or may be in breach of any applicable laws (e.g. because content you have posted may be defamatory), we may use your personal information to inform relevant third parties such as your employer, school, email/internet provider, or law enforcement agencies about the content and your behaviour.

Where we store your personal data

The data that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”), such as cloud based storage. By submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this policy, though we must state that, unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet can never be guaranteed as being completely secure. Therefore, although we will always do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our website; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

10. What rights you have over your data?

Under new data protection regulations, individuals (you) have enhanced rights:

Individuals have the right to be informed as to what information we collect and how we use it.
The right to have information we hold about you rectified.
The right to deletion/erasure of the information we hold.
The right of access to the information we hold. Please contact us (see details below) for a copy of the data we hold on you.
The right to complain about any use of your personal data which you consider to be unlawful. We invite you to get in touch with us in the first instance but our supervisory authority is the UK Information Commissioners Office (ICO) and they can be contacted via their website at ico.org.uk.
The right to restrict processing, the right to decide how we use your personal data and to change the permissions for our use of your personal information e.g. withdraw the right to send you marketing information. You have the right to object to this processing, and if you wish to unsubscribe, you can do so by contacting us.
The right to data portability – we will send any data which you have supplied to us and which we hold to another supplier if you ask.

11. How long we retain your data?

We store personal data for as long as we find it necessary to fulfil the purpose for which the personal data was collected, while also considering our need to answer your queries or resolve possible problems, to comply with legal requirements under applicable laws, to attend to any legal claims/complaints, and for safeguarding purposes.

What if I am a user aged 16 or under?

If you are aged 16 or under, please get your parent/guardian’s permission before you provide any personal information to us. Users of this nature and without this consent are not allowed to provide us with personal information.

Can I find out what personal information ESS Utility Consultants Ltd holds about me?

Under the Data Protection Act 2018, you have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected. We charge £10 for information requests and require you to prove your identity with two pieces of approved identification. We will use reasonable efforts to supply, correct or delete personal information about you on our files.

THE DPA & GDPR MAY 2018

We and this website complies to the DPA (Data Protection Act 1998) and already complies to the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) which comes into effect from May 2018. We will update this policy accordingly after the completion of the UK’s exit from the European Union (i.e. post Brexit as required).

Use of Cookies

This website uses cookies to better the users experience while visiting the website. As required by legislation, where applicable this website uses a cookie control system, allowing the user to give explicit permission or to deny the use of /saving of cookies on their computer/device.

For further information on this please see our Cookie Policy page.

Website Visitor Tracking

We use cookies on our website to track user interaction and to help us tailor the website to your personal needs by saving a cookie to your computer’s hard drive in order to track and monitor your engagement and usage of the website, but will not store, save or collect personal information.. Cookies are used to collect standard information from your web browsers, such as browser type and browser language; your Internet Protocol (“IP”) address; and the actions you take on the company’s websites, such as the web pages viewed, and the links clicked.

Cookies do not collect personal data (such as names and email addresses) but we do store other information necessary to ensure data security and good functioning. We will ask you to consent to our use of cookies when you first visit our website.

Adverts and Sponsored Links

This website may contain sponsored links and adverts. These will typically be served through our advertising partners, who may have detailed privacy policies relating directly to the adverts they serve.

Clicking on any such adverts will send you to the advertiser’s website through a referral program that may use cookies and will track the number of referrals sent from this website. This may include the use of cookies which may, in turn, be saved on your computer’s hard drive. Users should therefore note they click on sponsored external links at their own risk and we cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned.

Downloads & Media Files

Any downloadable documents, files or media made available on this website are provided to users at their own risk. While all precautions have been undertaken to ensure only genuine downloads are available users are advised to verify their authenticity using third party anti-virus software or similar applications.

We accept no responsibility for third party downloads and downloads provided by external third party websites and advise users to verify their authenticity using third party anti-virus software or similar applications.

Contact & Communication with us

Users contacting us through this website do so at their own discretion and provide any such personal details requested at their own risk. Your personal information is kept private and stored securely until a time it is no longer required or has no use.

Where we have clearly stated and made you aware of the fact, and where you have given your express permission, we may use your details to send you products/services information through a mailing list system. This is done in accordance with the regulations named in ‘The policy’ above.

Email Mailing List & Marketing Messages

We may operate an email mailing list program, used to inform subscribers about products, services and/or news we supply/publish. Users can subscribe through an online automated process where they have given their explicit permission. Subscriber personal details are collected, processed, managed and stored in accordance with the regulations named in ‘The policy’ above. Subscribers can unsubscribe at any time through an automated online service, or if not available, other means as detailed in the footer of sent marketing messages (or unsubscribe from all Mailchimp lists). The type and content of marketing messages subscribers receive, and if it may contain third party content, is clearly outlined at the point of subscription.

Email marketing messages may contain tracking beacons / tracked clickable links or similar server technologies in order to track subscriber activity within email marketing messages. Where used, such marketing messages may record a range of subscriber data relating to engagement, geographic, demographics and already stored subscriber data.

We do not use an EMS (email marketing service) at this time, if we do at any point then this information will be added to this policy.

External Website Links & Third Parties

Although we only look to include quality, safe and relevant external links and embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.), users are advised to adopt a policy of caution before clicking any external web links mentioned throughout this website. (External links are clickable text / banner / image links to other websites, similar to; the BBC News Homepage.

Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Shortened URL’s; URL shortening is a technique used on the web to shorten URL’s (Uniform Resource Locators) to something substantially shorter. This technique is especially used in social media and looks similar to this (example: http://bit.ly/zyVUBo). Users should take caution before clicking on shortened URL links and verify their authenticity before proceeding.

We cannot guarantee or verify the contents of any externally linked website despite our best efforts. Users should therefore note they click on external links at their own risk and we cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned.

Social Media Policy & Usage

We adopt a Social Media Policy to ensure our business and our staff conduct themselves accordingly online. While we may have official profiles on social media platforms users are advised to verify authenticity of such profiles before engaging with, or sharing information with such profiles. We will never ask for user passwords or personal details on social media platforms. Users are advised to conduct themselves appropriately when engaging with us on social media.

There may be instances where our website features social sharing buttons, which help share web content directly from web pages to the respective social media platforms. You use social sharing buttons at your own discretion and accept that doing so may publish content to your social media profile feed or page. You can find further information about some social media privacy and usage policies in the resources section below.

Resources & Further Information

Changes to our privacy policy

This privacy policy may change from time to time in line with legislation or industry developments. We will not explicitly inform our clients or website users of these changes. Instead, we recommend that you check this page occasionally for any policy changes.

ESS Limited is a data controller and our Data Protection Lead can be contacted by email.

Please address requests and questions about this or any other question about this policy to the Data Protection Officer, ESS Utility Consultants Ltd, Monarch House, 7-9 Stafford Road, Wallington, Surrey SM6 9AN or email us.