Privacy Policy

1. About us and other important information

Angel Advance Limited (“we”, “us”, “our”) is a private limited company registered in England and Wales with company number 08080440, and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. We are the controller and responsible for your personal data and are registered as a data controller with the Information Commissioner’s Office (registration number Z3461818).

If you have any questions or concerns about how we use your personal information you can contact us in the following ways:

  • By telephone on 01925 599400
  • By email at info@angeladvance.co.uk and addressing your email to the Data Protection Officer
  • By post at Angel Advance, St Andrews House, The Links, Kelvin Close, Birchwood, Warrington, Cheshire WA3 7PB, and addressing your letter to the Data Protection Officer – Bethan Banks.

Please note that you have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

2. Changes to this policy and your duty to inform us of changes

We keep this privacy policy under regular review and will post any updated versions on this website. This version was last updated on 19 May 2021. Please check regularly for any updates to this policy.

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes or you find that any of the personal data which we hold about you is incorrect or incomplete.

3. What is this privacy policy for?

This policy explains how we collect and process your personal data through your use of this website and our services, including any data that you may provide to us. It will also explain how the information is stored and used when you access our services.

It is important that you read this privacy policy so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data.

4. Third party links

This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.

5. Why we need to process your data

We need to have a proper reason to process your data. These reasons are:

  • Where you have given us consent
  • Where we need to in order to comply with the law
  • Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests
  • Where we need to perform the contract into which we are about to enter or have entered into with you

We require certain information in order for us to provide our services to you. If you are unwilling or unable to provide us with this information, then we will not be able to provide those services to you.

We will only collect as much information as we need for the purpose we have collected it. We have listed those reasons in section 6.

Different parts of this policy will apply depending on whether you make an online enquiry or enter into a solution with us, and also on the solution you choose to enter.

6. Information we collect and how we use it

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

We do not always rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data although we will get your consent before sending third party direct marketing communications to you via email or text message. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting us.

We may also process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground on which we are relying to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.

The types of personal information that we collect about you and our reasons for collecting it are as follows:

Category Data collected Reason Basis for Processing
Identity
  • Name
  • Date of birth
To identify you
  1. Performance of a contract with you
  2. Necessary to comply with a legal obligation
Contact
  • Address
  • Email address
  • Telephone numbers
To contact you and send you necessary correspondence
  1. Performance of a contract with you
Household/personal
  • Residential status
  • Marital/relationship status
  • Dependents/ other people in your household (including children)
  • Employment status
To understand your circumstances and tailor our advice to your situation.
Understanding the number of dependants that are living in your household and that you have responsibility for, will help us in providing solutions for you.
  1. Performance of a contract with you
Financial
  • Income and outgoings
  • Debts (including the names of your lenders/creditors, the balances owed and unique references)
  • Bank account details
  • Card details
  • Assets
To build a budget and work out what you can afford to pay towards your debts
To offer you suitable and tailored debt advice
To contact /negotiate with your creditors
To take payments from you
  1. Performance of a contract with you
Documentary Documents that include data about you such:

  • Bank Statements
  • Identification
  • Creditor Letters
  • Letter of authority
To verify information that you’ve provided
  1. Performance of a contract with you
Public Information Information from publicly available sources such as:

  • Insolvency Register
  • Electoral Register
  • Internet
To verify information that you’ve provided
  1. Performance of a contract
Consents
  • Permissions that we have from you
  • Preferences
To make sure that our communications with you are lawful and appropriate (including receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences)
  1. Performance of a contract with you
  2. Necessary to comply with a legal obligation
  3. Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and to study how customers use our products/services)
Technical
  • Information about how you use our site and services
  • Browser type, version and device used.
To analyse usage of our site and performance, and make improvements
  1. Necessary to comply with a legal obligation
  2. Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and to study how customers use our products/services)

If you provide information about another person/s, you must have their consent and/or the right to provide this information, before doing so. Where this relates to a child, then you must either give consent as the parent or legal guardian, or ensure that the parent/legal guardian has given their consent before providing the information. 

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. 

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.  

Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law. 

We also collect, use, and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose.  Aggregated Data could be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data will not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this privacy policy. 

 7. Special categories of data

There are some types of data which we may collect which are considered to be special categories of personal data. These data relate to: 

  • Health and disability 
  • Race or ethnicity 
  • Religious or philosophical beliefs 
  • Sexual orientation and sex life 
  • Trade union memberships 
  • Political opinions 
  • Criminal convictions and offences 

We only collect this information if it is lawful and appropriate for us to do so. If we have to collect any information of this nature, we will ask for your permission to store it and let you know what we intend to use it for. We will not share it with anyone else unless you give us permission to do so. 

8. How we obtain your data

  • We use different methods to collect data from and about you including: 
  • When you apply for our products and services 
  • When we communicate with you by email, phone, letter or online (e.g. webchat) 
  • When you use our website and online services (including from analytics providers such as Google, based outside the EU) 
  • During our financial review of your circumstances 
  • When we communicate with your creditors 
  • When we communicate with your bank or credit reference agencies 
  • From public sources such as the Electoral Register or Insolvency Register 
  • Third parties that introduce us to you 
  • Where you give us feedback or contact us. 
  • From social media sources, such as Facebook, Instagram, twitter and LinkedIn 

9. Cookies

Cookies are small text files which are placed on your device (e.g. computer, smartphone or other electronic device) when you use our website. We use cookies to enhance our online debt advice tools; user experience; offer web chat services; personalise content and advertisements; provide social media features; and to analyse traffic to our site. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners who may combine it with other information that you have provided to them or that they have collected from your use of their services. For further information about cookies visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org. You can set your browser not to accept cookies and the above websites tell you how to remove cookies from your browser. However, in a few cases some of our website features may not function if you remove cookies from your browser. 

Where stated, we will ask for your permission (“Consent”) to place cookies or other similar technologies on your device, except where they are essential for us to provide you with a service that you have requested. You can withdraw any Consent to the use of cookies or manage any other cookie preferences in accordance with the above paragraph.

The types of cookies we use are listed in the table below.   

Cookie Name  Description and purpose  Whether cookie is essential for us to provide you with a service that you have requested and whether we will seek your consent before we place the cookie 
whoson  This cookie is issued by the WhosOn live chat application. It is used to link a visitor to a ‘visitorrecord’ which stores your IP address and an identifier for you.  Yes, essential. We will therefore not request your consent before placing this cookie 
_fbp; fr; and tr  Used by Facebook to deliver a series of advertisement products.  No, we will therefore request your consent before placing this cookie 
IDE  Used by Google DoubleClick to register and report the web site user’s actions after viewing or clicking on the advertiser’s ads with the purpose of measuring the efficacy of an advertisement and to present targeted advertisements to the user.  No, we will therefore request your consent before placing this cookie 
Bing.com  Used by Microsoft to register and report the website user’s actions after viewing or clicking on the advertiser’s advertisements with the purpose of measuring the efficacy of advertisements and to present targeted advertisements to the user.  No, we will therefore request your consent before placing this cookie 
.AspNetCore.Identity.Application  Stores your logged-in username so we can retrieve your information.  Yes, essential. We will therefore not request your consent before placing this cookie 
Universal Analytics (Google)  This is a web analytics service provided by Google Inc which uses cookies to show us how visitors found and explored our site, and how we can enhance their experience. It provides us with information about the behaviour of our visitors (e.g. how long they stayed on the site, the average number of pages viewed) and also tells us how many visitors we have had  No, we will therefore request your consent before placing this cookie 

10. Who we share your data with 

We may have to share data with the following third parties.  

Third Party  Third Party Reason 
Experian  To obtain a copy of your credit report  
Creditsafe  To verify your identity 
Your creditors or people working on their behalf to collect your debt e.g. debt collectors or solicitors.  To obtain information about your debts and to negotiate with your creditors 
Our regulators such as the Financial Conduct Authority or Information Commissioners Office.   If they request data from us which includes your data 

 

We share data with third party data processors which help us to supply our services e.g. IT services, software, payment services or outsourced administrative services. They only process your data in the way that we permit them to  

We may share data with firms who refer you to us for debt advice.  In these cases, we will notify the referrer if you enter a debt solution with us, but we don’t provide any further information to them. If we refer you on to another provider that is better placed to help you, we will pass your information to them, but we will seek your consent before we do this.  

We may also share data with third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy policy.  

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions. We will usually ask you for permission before we share your data with any third parties however, there are some circumstances whereby we do not need to ask your permission, for example, if it is required by our regulator. 

 11. Automated decision making 

There will be some automatic processing of your data. We will use the information you provide to us in order to:  

  • Verify your identity  
  • Create a budget for you and calculate what you can afford to pay towards your debts  
  • Make a recommendation about how to deal with your debts  

However, we will not make a decision based solely on automated processing, and the final decision about entering into any debt solution will always be made by you. Should you be unhappy with any decision made by us, then please let us know and we will carry out a review of that decision.

12. How long do we keep your personal data? 

If you apply for, or enter into a solution with Angel Advance, we will keep your personal data for 6 years after you stop being a customer of ours. This is to enable us to:  

  • Investigate and respond to any future enquiries or complaints  
  • For our internal research and statistical purposes  
  • To comply with our legal obligations.  

If you do not apply for, or enter into a solution with Angel Advance, we will delete any personal information no later than 18 months after your last interaction with us. We will retain only anonymised data which will be used for analysis and profiling purposes. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you. 

13. Accessing your information 

You can obtain a copy of the information we hold about you, and details of how it is processed, by calling us on 01925 599400, by email at info@angeladvance.co.uk, or by writing to us at:  

Data Protection Officer Angel Advance St Andrews House, The Links, Kelvin Close Birchwood Warrington WA3 7PB  

If you need the information digitally, so you can share it with other companies, please specify this when making your request.  

14. Objecting to processing 

You can object to us processing your data unless we can demonstrate that we have legitimate grounds for processing your data, or that our processing is in defence of a legal claim. You can object to the use of your data for direct marketing purposes. 

15. Withdrawing your consent 

If you decide that you no longer want us to process your information, you can withdraw your consent. You can do this at any time by calling us on 01925 599400. If you do, we will not be able to continue offering you our services. Withdrawing your consent will not affect the lawfulness of our processing prior to the date you withdraw your consent. 

16. Marketing 

We may contact you about products or services that we believe will be of interest to you from ourselves and third parties. We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any third party for marketing purposes and you can opt out of such communications at any time.

17. Social media 

We use social media platforms to promote our services and to share updates. These platforms are public therefore, you should not share any of your personal information in areas where it can be accessed by the public. If you wish to contact us via social media, you should do so via private message. If you choose to use social media to communicate with us, you will need to read their own privacy policies to ensure you understand how they will process your information.  

18. Security 

We take the protection of personal information very seriously and we adopt measures to ensure that your data is safeguarded. We have appropriate procedures in place to prevent the loss, alteration, or unauthorised access or use of your data. Our staff receive training on how to protect your data, and your data will only be accessed by people that need to see it. Third parties with whom we share your data will only process your data in ways in which we have agreed with them, and they will implement appropriate safeguards. We will process your data within the UK wherever possible. If we need to transfer it outside of the UK, we will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data. Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data out of the UK.