Direct Mobiles Privacy Policy

For more information on what personal data we collect, why and how we use it, and the steps we take to protect your privacy and the security of your personal information, please read our Privacy Policy below.

In this article

1. Summary
2. About us
3. The information we collect and how we collect it:
4. How we use your information:
5. Who we share your information with:
6. Where we transfer your information
7. How we keep your information safe
8. Automated decision making, including profiling
9. How to change your preferences
10. How to get your information corrected or request we stop using it
11. How to find out what information we hold:
12. Changes to this privacy notice:
13. How to contact us or make a complaint:

This privacy notice explains how we collect; use; share; transfer; store; and protect your personal information. It also explains how to contact us to find out what personal information of yours we hold; what we use it for; how you can correct any inaccuracies; and how you can request that we stop using it.

Please read this privacy notice carefully since once you use this website you will be regarded as having read and accepted its terms.

Summary:

Below is a summary of some of the main terms of this privacy notice:

• Use of our website is strictly subject to this privacy notice. If you do not agree to its terms you must not use this website
• We may collect different types of personal information about you when you use our website and services including your name, email address and postcode
• We will also collect information about how you use our website
• The section How we use your information details all the ways we use your personal information, which includes:
  • To improve our services and to conduct research
  • To process an order for a product you place through our website
  • To tell you about our other products and special offers
  • To show you relevant advertising
• We will share your information with other companies in our group, our suppliers and as required by law
• Some of your personal information will be stored outside Europe
• You can ask us any questions about your personal information at any time by emailing info@directmobiles.co.uk

About us

directmobiles.co.uk .com (the “website”) is owned by Worldwide Media Direct Limited (“we”, “us”, “our”, or “WWML”).

Our registered address is:

Reefcom Limited
5 North Street
Hailsham
East Sussex
BN27 1DQ

Our company number is 07523135

We take your privacy and the security of your personal information very seriously. We comply with the data protection laws and we are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

If after reading this privacy notice you still have any questions about how we use your personal information, please email our Data Protection Officer at customerservice@directmobiles.co.uk or write to our Data Protection Officer at our registered address, above

The information we collect and how we collect it:

When you use our website or any of our other services we may collect personal information about you. The type of personal information we collect will vary depending on the services you are using.

In many instances, we ask for your consent to process this information (for example, when you register to receive our email newsletters); in other instances the lawful basis under which we collect and use your personal information may be that it is necessary for the performance of a contract or pre-contractual steps. In all other instances the legal basis under which we collect and use your personal information is that it is necessary for our legitimate business interests (for example, for monitoring and improving our services or to make sure that our marketing communications are relevant to you).

You can find out more about our legitimate business interests and the legal basis under which we collect and use your personal information here.

You have a right to object to this processing and the section How to get your information corrected or request we stop using it explains how you can do this.

We may collect:

• your postcode to perform an coverage check for mobile phone networks in your area;
• your phone number if you call a supplier’s call centre to place an order;
• your email address if you want to save your comparison results to your email inbox;
• your email address, current mobile phone supplier and postcode if you use our upgrade checker;
• your email address if you register to receive our email newsletters;
• your name, address, email address and other personal information if you enter a prize draw or competition;
• your name, email address, phone number and other personal information if you apply for a reward or special offer;
• your email address, name, phone number and other personal information if you call or email our customer services team; and
• details of your visits to our website and how you use our services through the use of cookies. Please see our cookie policy for more information.

In all instances where we collect your personal information, we act as a data controller.

The next section explains how we use your personal information.

How we use your information:

To analyse and improve our services

We will use information of your visits to our website and how you use our services so that we can devise ways of improving the layout of the website and create new services to make the experience more enjoyable and the website easier to use. This information also allows us to understand the demand for our services at different times of the day and to make sure it always performs quickly. Additionally, if you have provided your consent for us to do so, we may contact you by email, online, or via the phone to ask you for your direct feedback on your experience of using our website and services.

We keep this information for a maximum of 3 years

To carry out research

• We will use information of your visits to our website and your postcode (if you provide it) to perform research to help us better understand the geographic coverage and use of mobile phone services in the UK.
• We keep this information for a maximum of 3 years

To provide a mobile phone coverage check

• If you carry out an coverage check on our website, we will use your postcode to carry out that check. Different suppliers provide their services to different parts of the country and this is determined by postcode. The postcode check is essential to show you the suppliers that are available where you live.
• We keep this information for a maximum of 3 years

To fulfil an order you have placed

• If you place an order with a supplier on our website (for example a mobile phone contract order with EE), we will collect your personal information and provide this to the supplier so they can process your order. We will also use your personal information to track the progress of a telephone order you have placed.
• We keep this information for a maximum of 12 months

To send you your comparison results

• If you ask us to email you your mobile phone  comparison results, we will use your email address to send them to you and we will keep a record of those results.
• We keep this information for a maximum of 24 months

To fulfil a prize draw or competition entry

• If you enter one of our prize draws or competitions, we will use your email address (or postal address) to notify you if you win. We may republish your name and town of residence if you win but we will not disclose your email address or any level of personal information that would enable any third party to contact or identify you (for example a full name and full area of residence).
• We keep this information for a maximum of 12 months

To fulfil a reward or special offer

• If you place an order for a product that qualifies for a reward or special offer, we will use your personal information so that you can redeem that reward or special offer.
• We keep this information for a maximum of 12 months

To help you with an enquiry

• If you contact our team by phone or email, we will use your personal information to communicate with you and help sort out your enquiry.
• We keep this information for a maximum of 3 years

To tell you about our products and any special offers that may be of interest

• When you provide us with your personal information we may ask your consent (or give you an opportunity to tell us you do not consent) to use it to send you emails on other products and special offers from our group that we think will be of interest. Unless you tell us otherwise, you are agreeing that we can use it for these purposes.
• We keep this information for a maximum of 3 years.
• We may obtain additional personal information from other companies to enable us to improve the relevance of our communications to you. This is explained in more detail in the next section. You can easily unsubscribe from our emails or change your preferences at any time. Please see the How to change your preferences section, below.

To show you advertising

• We may use some of your personal information (for example what articles you have viewed or products you have clicked on our website) to show you advertising we think is relevant to your interests, both on our website and elsewhere on the Internet. This may include using your personal information to identify if you are a registered Facebook user to show you advertising that is relevant to your interests through Facebook. We may also use your personal information with information you have shared with Google or if you are signed into your Google account to show you advertising that is relevant to you.
• You can find out more about this, as well as information on how to turn off cookies, or change the cookie settings on your browser, by reading our full cookie policy. You can stop receiving these ads at any time by emailing us at customerservice@directmobiles.co.uk.

Who we share your information with:

When you use our website and services you are consenting to us sharing your information for the following purposes:

Switching mobile phone supplier

If you place an order with a supplier through our website we will share your personal information only with that specific supplier.

These suppliers are called Mobile Phone Retailers and include companies such as Mobile Phones Direct, EE, Buymobiles.net, Vodafone, Carphone Warehouse and Mobiles.co.uk. These companies retail or supply broadband, phone, mobile and TV services to customers throughout the UK. These companies are based in the UK.

The supplier will collect additional personal information from you. Please note that you will be entering a contract directly with that supplier and we advise you to carefully read their privacy policy and their terms and conditions. We cannot be held responsible for the uses to which a supplier puts your personal information once you have left our website.

Phone order tracking

We use a company called Responsetap to help us track phone orders placed with suppliers.

ResponseTap is a call tracking company based in the UK.

If you phone a supplier’s call centre to place an order, we will share your phone number with ResponseTap solely to monitor the progress of your order. They will not share this information with any other company or use it for any other purpose.

Email communications

We use a company called Constant Contact to help us manage our email communications. If you provide us with your personal information to send you additional information on other products and special offers, or if you ask us to email you your comparison or speed test results, we will share this information with these companies solely to provide this service.

Constant Contact provides email delivery and analytics services. Both companies are based in the UK.

These companies will not share your information with any other company or use it for any other purpose.

Customer services

In some instances we may contact you to help you with an enquiry because one of our business partners has asked us to provide assistance. In this situation the business partner is the data controller with respect to your personal information and we will only use your information to solve your enquiry.

To solve some enquiries, we will need to share your personal information with the relevant Mobile Phone retailer or  Service Provider.

Service analysis and improvement – we use a number of companies to help us monitor the use of our website so we can improve it. We will share the information we collect with these companies only to provide the following services:

• Service monitoring – we use external companies to monitor the performance of our website so that we can ensure we keep it working as fast as possible and that we are alerted if there are any problems with it. These companies are based in the US
• Usability testing – we use a company called Optimizely to allow us to simultaneously test different versions of the website. Optimizely makes customer experience optimization software that allows us to continuously improve the user experience of the website and introduce new and better features. This company is based in the US.
• Reports and analysis – we use an analytics service provided by Google to help us collate and analyse all the data that we collect through our website and we use a company called Tableau to help us create internal reports to that we can better review and understand the analysis. Both these companies are based in the US.
• Customer surveys – we use a company called HotJar to help us conduct customer surveys and better understand how people use our website. If you agree to take part in one of our surveys and provide feedback about our website then we will share this information with HotJar. HotJar is based in the EU.

These companies will not share your information with any other company or use it for any other purpose.

Prize draws, competitions, special offers and rewards

Sometimes we use other companies to help us manage prize draws and competitions and to fulfil special offers or rewards. In those circumstances, we will make this clear to you and will provide a link to that company’s privacy policy, which we advise you to read.

Website hosting

Our website is hosted by WPEngine. The company will not share your information with any other company or use it for any other purpose.

Other members of our group

We will share your personal information with other companies within our group, if you have given your consent for us to do so. For example, if you have bought a mobile phone or taken out a new mobile contract then we may send you information on how to get money by recycling your old handset or how to save money by buying a refurbished handset.

We link to other companies’ websites from our website. We try to only include quality, safe and relevant links but we cannot guarantee or verify the content of any externally linked website. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that they should have their own privacy policies and we have not endorsed or approved those policies. We cannot be held responsible (and do not accept any responsibility or liability) for the uses to which any other company puts your personal information once you have left our website.

Where permitted by law, we may also disclose your personal information:

• if we sell the group or any company or part of the group;
• to comply with any legal obligation, or to enforce or apply our rights and other agreements; and
• to protect the rights, property, or safety of us, our group; our customers, or others.

We may also exchange your personal information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

Where we transfer your information

Some of the personal information we collect may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the European Union (EU). It may also be processed by staff operating outside the EU who work for us or for one of our suppliers.

The only country outside the EU to which we transfer your personal information is the United Sates (US). When your personal information is transferred to the US we take steps to ensure that it is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy notice and appropriate legal and regulatory requirements. Many of the companies we use are certified by the Privacy Shield framework, which ensures an adequate level of protection for your personal information and respect for your rights. If US companies are not part of the Privacy Shield framework, then we engage with them using Model Contract Clauses approved by the European Commission. These contracts ensure those companies provide you with appropriate safeguards and enforceable legal rights.

Additionally, we have written agreements with all the companies based in the US to ensure they cannot process your personal information for any other purposes or share it with any other companies without our express permission.

By submitting your personal information to us, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing.

How we keep your information safe

Keeping your personal information secure is very important to us. Once we have received your personal information, we will use strict procedures and security measures to protect it. Our website is certified secure and we use a secure protocol (https://) to encrypt your information between your computer’s browser and our website. We protect our network with the latest firewall technology and we securely store personal information and encrypt it where necessary. We restrict the number of our staff that have access to any personal information and we have secure backup systems to ensure that any personal information cannot be lost or deleted. We train all our staff so that they understand the importance of keeping our customers’ personal information safe.

Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our website, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone and to choose a strong password (which should contain a mixture of letters and numbers).

Please bear in mind that no information sent over the Internet can be guaranteed to be totally secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any personal information that you send to our website and it is sent at your own risk.

Automated decision making, including profiling

Our service does not make any decisions based on solely automated processing, including profiling that would produce any legal effects of similarly affect you. If we introduce this technology in the future, we will notify you of this and update this privacy notice accordingly.

How to change your preferences

Our group will only send you emails or marketing communications if you have agreed to this but you can ask us to stop at any time.

If you no longer wish to be contacted by us, then you can let us know by emailing our customer services team (customerservices@directmobiles.co.uk) or by writing to us at the address below.

All group marketing emails have a clear unsubscribe link and if you click it then we will automatically unsubscribe you and you will not receive any further marketing emails.

In addition, all group marketing emails have a clear preferences link and if you click it then you can update your marketing preferences and your personal details.

How to get your information corrected or request we stop using it

If you have any concerns about the accuracy of your personal information then you can contact us in writing by post or email (details below) and we will correct it.

If you want us to stop using your personal information then please contact us in writing by post or email (details below) explaining why you object to its use and what you want us to do. We will then respond appropriately to your request.

Please note that if you do not provide us with your personal information or object to us using it then this may prevent us from fulfilling certain requests (for example we cannot provide accurate information on the broadband services where you live without your postcode and we cannot help you with certain enquiries without your contact details).

How to find out what information we hold:

You have the right to get a copy of the information we hold about you. This is known as a subject access request.

If you wish to make a subject access request then please contact us in writing by post or email (details below). You must provide your full name, address and a contact telephone number.

If we hold information about you we will:

• give you a description of it;
• tell you the legal basis for us holding it;
• tell you what we are using it for;
• tell you who it could be disclosed to;
• tell you how long we keep it; and
• let you have a printed copy of the information or, if you prefer, provide it to you in a commonly used electronic format.

We will do this free of charge and we will respond to you within one month or your request.

If you identify any inaccuracies in the information we send you then we will correct it.

Changes to this privacy notice:

We update our privacy notice from time to time so we suggest you review it each time you provide any personal information. Any changes we may make in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified elsewhere on the website.

How to contact us or make a complaint:

If you have any questions or comments about this privacy notice then please write to:

The Data Protection Officer
Reefcom Limited
5 North Street
Hailsham
East Sussex
BN27 1DQ

Our company number is 07409301

Or email: customerservice@directmobiles.co.uk

If you are concerned about the way we may be handling your personal information, then you can raise your concern with a supervisory authority in the EU member state where you reside. In the UK this is the Information Commissioner’s Office.

This privacy notice was last updated: May 1 2023