Your personal information
The protection of your personal information is important to us. We respect your privacy and want you to understand what we do with the information we hold about you.
This privacy policy explains how we (Centrica Hive Limited, a company, incorporated under English law under the number 5782908, whose registered office is Millstream, Maidenhead Road, Windsor, Berkshire SL4 5GD) collect, share and use your personal information.
Centrica Hive Limited is one of the companies in the Centrica group.
You can contact Centrica’s data protection officer by writing to The Data Protection Officer, Centrica Plc, Millstream, Maidenhead Road, Windsor, Berkshire SL4 5GD.
You can also contact our data protection officer at privacy@centrica.com.
Personal information we process
We may process the following types of personal information:
• Contact details: information that allows us to contact you directly such as your name, email address, telephone number and addresses associated with your account or order.
• Hive account details: when you download and use the Hive app, you will be asked to register with us and create an account. Your account details include your user name, password and your contact details, such as your name, address and email address.
• Transaction information: records of the products and services you purchase from us and other companies in the Centrica group such as Hive Active Heating, Hive Plugs, Hive Lights, Hive Sensors, Hive View and our service plans.
• Payment information: credit/debit card details and bank account details you provide to make payment for the products and services you purchase from us.
• Delivery information: information relating to the delivery of our products to you.
• Installation and service history: records relating to the installation of our products at your home or property and information relating to the servicing and repair of that product, including installation certificates and photos.
• Device information: information about the smartphones, mobiles, computers or other electronic devices you connect to our products, website or Hive app, such as details about the type of device (which can include unique device identifying numbers), its operating system, the browser you use and applications on the device that connect to our products and services. It can also include details of your internet service provider, mobile network and your IP address.
• Smart meter data: meter readings showing us your historic energy consumption and current use data at intervals of 30 minutes or less, together with device and associated tariff information.
• Responses to surveys, competitions and promotions: we keep records of any surveys you respond to or your entry into any competition or promotion run by us or other companies in the Centrica group.
• Records of your discussions with us and other companies in the Centrica group, including customer support teams (such as call recordings, webchat and emails: when you share comments and opinions with us, ask us questions or make a complaint we will keep a record of this. This includes when you send us emails, phone our customer service team, use any in-app messaging feature, post or comment on our Hive Community webpages or contact us through social media such as through Twitter or our Facebook page. We may also monitor and record our phone calls with you to make sure we are living up to the standards we want, as well as relevant laws and regulations.
• How you use Hive products: we will collect information about how you and, where you share access, others are using Hive products and services in your home and their performance, what devices are connected to them and how those devices are being used with the Hive products. For example, this includes information that smart devices you connect to your Hive Hub collect about rooms’ temperatures, temperature settings, heating schedules, lighting use and schedules, when contact sensors show doors or windows are open or closed, when motion sensors detect movement, water flow events and water temperature, when smartplugs are on or off, energy usage and information collected from our EV chargers, and video and audio recordings from your monitoring devices.
• How you use the Hive app and our website: when you and, where you share access, others use the Hive app or our website, we collect information about the pages you look at and how you use them.
• Home profile data: we will collect information regarding the type and size of home you live in, and if you have smart meters, the data from them.
• Location information: we will collect information about your exact location when you choose to share that with us and motion information from the motion sensors in your Hive products that detect movement in your home. For example, you may set up your Hive app to send you a reminder to turn off your heating when you are out of the house, to do this you will need to share the location of your mobile device with us.
• Lifestyle and demographic insight information: how you use our services, services of other companies in the Centrica group, and other information about your demography.
Even when you don’t actively share your location with us, your smartphone or computer's IP address may tell us an approximate location when you connect to our website or products, but this will be no more precise than the city, county or country you are using your device in.
You are not required to provide any of the personal information described above to us, however, if you do not do so, you may not be able to use our products and services, or the functionality of our products may be reduced.
Sources we collect your personal information from
We will collect personal information from a number of sources. These include the following:
• Directly from you: for example, when you create your Hive account with us, connect your smartphone or computer to the Hive hub or other Hive products, purchase products and services from us, complete forms we provide to you, enter our competitions and promotions, contact us by phone, email or communicate with us directly in some other way.
• Our website, app and Hive products: provide us with information about how you use them and the devices in your home that you connect to them.
• Licensed energy industry operators: for example the Data Communications Company which manages smart meter data.
• Other companies in the Centrica group
• Other companies we work with: provide us with information to help us deliver our products and services to you, to understand you better and to market to you. These include: Installers and service engineers: who will provide us with information about the installation and maintenance of Hive products in your home. Referrers: may give us your details in order we can supply or install products on your behalf, for example, where a charge point is bein provided via a vehicle leasing company.Debt collection agencies.
• The government, ombudsman services, and regulators: for example, information about the complaints they receive.
• Social media: information you submit to our social media accounts.
• Other companies’ apps and products: provide us with information when you connect them to Hive products and approve their sharing of personal data with us. For example, when you connect to Amazon Alexa, Google Home or the IFTTT app, we will receive your information about how you use those apps with our Hive products.
Data sharing within the Centrica group
We share personal data with, and receive personal data from, other companies in the Centrica group. We do this so that we have a single, joined-up view of our customers, to offer you the best possible experience. In particular, we do this for the following purposes:
• Understanding your use of products and services from across the Centrica group;
• Improving Centrica group companies’ products and services (including market research), and customer relationship management strategy;
• Product development; and
• Marketing products and services that you might be interested in.
Information about how British Gas processes your personal data in connection with the supply of energy is available here.