Our Privacy Policy

Your privacy is extremely important to us. This policy explains what personal information we have, how we use it and how you can check and update any of your personal information. For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, “we” means Telefónica UK Limited and other companies in the same group. 

 

Why do we collect your personal information? 

We collect information to help manage your account:

• To deliver products and services relevant to you (whether we provide them or not).
• To improve our products and services and develop new ones.
• And to manage our network and help us run and grow our business.

We also collect information so we can tell you about our products and services, other companies' products and services or allow selected partners to tell you directly about their products or services.

The law also requires us to keep some information. Occasionally this information is anonymised so you can't be identified.

To find out more, click on any of the sections below.

• The type of Information we have
• Where do we get your information?
• How we use your information.
• How we share your information.
• Why we keep hold of your information.
• How to check and update your information.
• Product specific terms.
• Other important things to know. 

 

The type of Information we have

The information we have about you includes things like who you are, how you use your O2 products and services, where you use our network, and how you pay for your services.

Who you are includes:

• Your name, address, gender, age, interests, etc.
• Your debit or credit card details, bank details and other payment information.
• Your interests and preferences.

How you use your O2 products and services includes:

• Your call, text, surfing and billing records.
• Details about your usage of any other products we supply to you, such as our apps. This includes the date and time you use them, how long for, where you use them and how much it costs.
• We don't look at the content of your messages or listen to your calls (unless you are talking to one of our customer service advisors).

 

Where you use our network:

So we can connect you to our network, and for some of the purposes mentioned in this Privacy Policy, we need to know your location when you make or receive phone calls, messages or use the internet. We call this network location. It works by finding you through nearby phone masts, providing us with a rough location so we can put calls through or connect you to the internet.

If you don't want us to share your network location or some or all of your services, call us on 1300. It's free from your O2 mobile.

Your smartphone might also have a Global Positioning System (GPS) location, that's used by your phone and certain apps. It's more accurate than network location alone, because it uses satellites. If you're using some of our apps, like Priority, or apps connected to O2 Drive we, or our partners, might collect some of your GPS location information.

GPS location is different from network location. We don't control it, so there's no need to call 1300. GPS is based on satellites and is set up on the phone itself. Look at your phone's settings to configure it. Remember, if you choose not to share your location, you might not be able to use certain services that need to know where you are for those services to work.

 

What you do with your O2 account(s):

This includes things such as when and how much you top up and pay your bill, or how often and why you access your account with us.

 

Where do we get your information?

We collect information mainly when you sign up with us, contact us and when you use our products and services.

For example when you:

• Register as or enquire about becoming an O2 customer or take part in market research.
• Get in touch with us to ask something.
• Buy from us – whether it's in an O2 shop, online, over the phone or somewhere else.
• Enter any surveys, promotions, competitions or prize draws.
• Make changes to, or close your O2 account.
• Go to our website, or the sites of any other companies in the Telefónica Group, or Sites used for market research purposes.
• Submit content, including photographs, or comments to participate in discussion threads.
• Use any of our networks – mobile, wifi or other O2 products and services.
• Sign up for a service with us that means we need to check with credit reference and fraud prevention agencies.
• Sign up for an insurance product that means we need you to provide sensitive personal data, including any medical or criminal record information, about you or a third party.
• Apply for a job with us online.

We also collect information from other sources, including business directories and other commercially or publicly available sources. If we need to conduct a credit check, we will receive information from credit reference agencies. If you take part in market research for us we will also collect information from third party website or social media you access from our Sites, in accordance with the privacy policies of those respective websites and social media.

 

How we use your information

We use and analyse your information to keep in touch with you and to supply and improve our products and services. We will also use your information to tell you about products and services that we think may interest you.  Sometimes we'll combine and anonymise this information so you won't be identified.

In particular, this means using your information to:

• Manage your account and help you to manage your account.
• Sort out a payment, put your order through our system or send you an order.
• Get in touch with you (e.g. if we need to tell you about any problems with a service).
• Look at markets, write reports or carry out research and number crunching. And, if the law allows it, look at information about you (including the calls you make, your spending, what you use the internet for and where you are when you do it).
• Keep things secure and prevent crime and fraud.
• Manage our network and your use of our network.
• Look into any complaints or questions you may raise.
• Check whether you qualify for credit or other products, services and offers. We use automated systems to analyse your information to help us make fair and objective decisions about whether we can give you (and members of your household) credit, credit-related services, other similar facilities or insurance.  As part of this we may also need to check the financial status of people connected to you (e.g. your spouse or other family members).Trace and recover debts, manage credit, detect and prevent fraud and money laundering.
• Trace and recover debts, manage credit, detect and prevent fraud and money laundering
• Recover any money you might owe us.
• Assign your debt to permitted third parties and look after any credit you might have.

Or to:

• Tell you if we've changed the way a service works, or tell you about a new service that we think may interest you
• Check what you're interested in or eligible for, so we can offer (and develop) relevant products and services, and surveys.
• Improve our (and third party partner) products and services and develop new ones.
• Send you information about our products and services (or those from selected third parties we think you'd be interested in) by phone, post, email, text, picture message, online banner advertising, or other ways. For some of this marketing activity we need your consent and, in those circumstances, we will only send you messages if you have asked to receive them. You can check and update your current preferences at any time in My O2.
• Tell you about products and services from other companies we think you'd be interested in, or let selected third parties tell you directly about their products and services. Again, we will only send you marketing messages if you’ve previously given us your consent in your preferences in My O2.

We are allowed to use your information in these ways and share the information as described below because:

• We need to so that we can provide you with products and services and to manage your account with us.
• We need to use some of your information to comply with legal and regulatory obligations (such as legal obligations to keep details of calls made by customers for a certain period of time).
• Some of our use of your information is necessary for our legitimate business interests (such as conducting market research and minimising our credit and fraud risks).
• You have given your consent to us using your data in relation to some forms of use. For example, in relation to using your information to send you marketing messages. You can opt out of this at any time.
• You have obtained consent from any third parties whose personal or sensitive information you provided to us in your application for and / or performance of O2 products and services, (like O2’s insurance products), for us to be receive and process that information for those purposes.

 

How we share your information

In connection with the purposes described above, we may share your information (and the information of any third parties you have included in an application for and performance of an O2 insurance product or service) with others.

This might mean sharing that information with:

• Our partner companies or agencies and their sub-contractors or prospective partners who help us run our services, for example our billing or customer service centres.
• Other companies in the Telefónica Group. This includes, Telefonica Dynamic Insights and their respective partners, agents and sub-contractors.
• Insurance providers when you take out a policy through us.
• Third parties whose products and services we market to you (where you have given permission to receive such messages).
• Third parties whose offers you sign up to, for example through the Priority app..
• Credit reference and fraud prevention agencies. When we check your credit score with a credit reference agency, the information that we give them (including details of your credit application and financial details) as well as the fact that we have requested that search will be recorded by the credit reference agency.  We exchange information with credit reference agencies on payment performance and your financial situation on an ongoing basis and this information could be used by us and third parties to make future credit assessment decisions. Your data will also be linked to the data of your spouse, any joint applicants or other financial associate.
• Other communications companies.
• New or prospective owners of Telefónica UK Limited.

We might also share your information:

• With any public authority or law enforcement agency (if they ask for it).
• To comply with law or regulations, or for possible legal proceedings.
• If you give us personal information that's wrong or we find out (or think) you're responsible for fraud. In these circumstances we might share your information with third parties such as law enforcement agencies, credit reference agencies and other affected third parties.
• If one of our partners who are processing information for us are compelled to do so by law.
• If there's an emergency and we think you or other people are at risk.

 

Why we keep hold of your information

There are certain reasons we have to keep hold of your information.

We keep information while you're our customer or after you've left us, but only as long as we need it for the purposes described above. How long we keep it depends very much on the type of information and purpose. 

For example, we might need to sort out disagreements, stop fraud and abuse, prove that you had an account with us or follow our legal obligations. Or the police may need it as evidence. We may also keep information about how you use our products or services. 

In each case, the length of time that we, or credit reference of fraud prevention agencies, need to keep the information may be different, but we will only keep the information for as long as we need it.

Your rights

You have a number of legal rights in relation to the information that we hold about you, including:

• The right to request details of the information we have about you. There are a couple of ways to do this and some requests have to be writing for legal reasons. Details on how to do this can be found here.
• The right to withdraw your consent to the use of your information where we are relying on that consent (for example, you can opt out of receiving marketing messages from us). Please note that we may still be entitled to process your information if we have another legitimate reason (other than consent) for doing so.
• In some circumstances, you have the right to receive some of your information in a usable format and/or request we transmit that data to a third party where this is technically feasible. Please note that this right only applies to information which you have provided to us.
• The right to ask that we update your information if it is inaccurate or incomplete.
• The right to ask that we erase your information in certain circumstances. Please note that there may be circumstances where you ask us to erase your information but we are legally entitled to retain it.
• The right to request that we restrict the processing of your information in certain circumstances. Again, there may be circumstances where you ask us to restrict the processing of your information, but we are legally entitled to refuse that request.
• The right to make a complaint with the Information Commissioner www.ico.org.uk if you think that any of your rights have been infringed by us. 

You can exercise your rights by contacting us using the details set out in the “Contact us" section below. 

 
How to check and update your information

Go to o2.co.uk and sign in to My O2 to look at your personal information.  You can change how we get in touch with you – and your account details – whenever you like.

Marketing communications

If you don't want us or our partner companies to send you relevant offers or marketing information, you can opt out anytime via My O2, on your mobile, computer or the My O2 app, and clicking on the Contact Preferences link in the My Mobile section.

Product Specific Terms

This Privacy Policy applies to how we use your information in relation to our products and services generally.  There may be some additional things about how we use your information in relation to particular services. We will tell you about those when you sign up for the service.

O2 Drive

If you obtain an O2 Drive quote and / or become an O2 Drive customer, we use information about your use of your services and your location to help provide a better insurance quote. You can manage your O2 Drive information by logging in to your O2 Drive account.

Priority

If you sign up to Priority we use information about your location so you can enjoy offers that are near you. You can manage your Priority marketing preferences in your account in the Priority App.

Trailblazers

If you participate in market research for us, including using the Trailblazers sites and Apps (‘Sites”), we may also gather information from other sources. The type of information we have will also include information like user ID, your birthday, shopping habits, household income, family composition; online user activity, lifestyle preferences and information, photographs, profile pictures, your “likes” and your social media content you post, as well as the results of any surveys in which you take part on personality, values, attitudes and lifestyle. We will also collect publically available information such as user-generated content, blogs and postings.

When you visit the Trailblazers Sites, we may also collect:

• information about the type of browser and operating system you use;
• details of the web pages and advertisements you have viewed and the other apps you use on your mobile device; your IP address & log on time;
• your physical location via geolocation techniques;
• your mobile device category and operating system;
• the hyperlinks you have clicked;
• the times you started and ended your participation in a specific survey;
• details from social networking sites (where you have linked your social networking site to your Trail Blazers account); and
• the websites you visited before arriving at our site.

 

 Information gathered for Trail Blazers is kept for 12 months following the end of your membership of Trail Blazers, unless you tell us you’d like us to remove it earlier.

If you’ve registered with TrailBlazers, the fastest way to change how we deal with your personal data is to log on and simply click on "My Preferences" in the App. 

Other Important things to know

Companies outside the European Economic Area (EEA): We might give your information to other companies based outside the EEA.  For example, like many companies, we may use cloud services from suppliers outside the EEA.

Where we transfer your information to companies outside the EEA, we will make sure it’s protected in a manner that is consistent with how your information will be protected by us. This can be done in a number of different ways for instance:

• The country that we send the data to might be approved by the European Commission.
• The recipient company might have signed up a contract obliging them to protect your information.
• The recipient is located in the US and is a certified member of the EU-US Privacy Shield scheme.

In other circumstances the law may permit us to otherwise transfer your information outside the EEA. In all cases however, we will ensure that any transfer of your information is compliant with data protection law.

You can obtain more details of the protection given to your information when it is transferred outside the EEA (including a sample copy of the contract used with some recipients of your information) by contacting us via the “Contact us” section below.

About cookies:

Like other sites, we use cookies. A cookie is like a tag that some sites put on your computer or phone when you visit them so they can recognise you next time. Find out more here: http://www.o2.co.uk/cookie-policy 

Communicating over the internet:

Please remember, any emails or other communications you send over the internet aren't safe unless they've been encrypted. They might go through a few countries before they get to your friend who lives around the corner. Unfortunately, that's the nature of the internet. If someone gets into your emails without your permission, or your personal information is shared publicly, we can't accept responsibility. It is out of our control.

Pages on o2.co.uk and other companies' sites:

On our website there are pages that are branded with both the O2 name and logo, as well as other companies' names and logos. We, and other companies working with us, look after these pages.

This Privacy Policy doesn't apply to other companies' sites that you get to through our website. So make sure you've read their Privacy Policy before putting your personal information on their site.

Companies outside the European Economic Area (EEA):

We might give your information to other companies based outside the EEA.  For example, like many companies, we may use cloud services from suppliers outside the EEA.

Where we transfer your information to companies outside the EEA, we will make sure it’s protected in a manner that is consistent with how your information will be protected by us. This can be done in a number of different ways for instance:

• The country that we send the data to might be approved by the European Commission.
• The recipient company might have signed up a contract obliging them to protect your information.
• The recipient is located in the US and is a certified member of the EU-US Privacy Shield scheme.

In other circumstances the law may permit us to otherwise transfer your information outside the EEA. In all cases however, we will ensure that any transfer of your information is compliant with data protection law.

You can obtain more details of the protection given to your information when it is transferred outside the EEA (including a sample copy of the contract used with some recipients of your information) by contacting us via the “Contact us” section below.

Other important information

Please note that if you're signing up for our products and services there might be extra terms and conditions to look at.

If you would like to know more about how credit reference and fraud prevention agencies use and share your personal information you can find that information at:

• www.callcredit.co.uk/crain
• www.equifax.co.uk/crain
• www.experian.co.uk/crain
• www.cifas.org.uk

Contact us 

If you want to know more about how we use your information or to raise any queries with us in relation to your information, you can Contact Us or visit our FAQs.