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 of that product.
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.
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 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.
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.
What we use your personal information for
| Purpose | Personal information used | Legal basis for processing |
|---|---|---|
| Provide our services to you and maintain your account | All the personal information we collect | Necessary for the performance of a contract, except where we specifically ask for your consent as in the case of smart meter data |
| Take payment for our products and services | Transaction and payment information | Necessary for the performance of a contract |
| Deliver products to you | Delivery information | Necessary for the performance of a contract |
| Installation, servicing, product support and repairs | Installation and service history How you use Hive products |
Necessary for the performance of a contract |
| Answer your queries or complaints | All the personal information we collect | Necessary for the performance of a contract |
| Maintain and improve our and other Centrica group companies’ products and services, including market research activity | All the personal information we collect | For the legitimate interest of creating the best products and services that we can |
| Data analytics and statistical research to help us and other Centrica group companies better understand how our products are used, and make suggestions and recommendations to you about the use of our products | Contact details How you use Hive products How you use the Hive app and website Device information Transaction information Installation and service history Records of your discussions with our customer support teams |
For the legitimate interest of creating the best products and services that we can |
| Staff training | All the personal information we collect | Necessary for the performance of a contract |
| Develop new products and services | All the personal information we collect | For the legitimate interest of improving our range of products and services |
| Determine which products and services from us and other Centrica group companies may be of interest to you | All personal information we collect (but not your payment information) | For the legitimate interest of improving the relevance of communications |
| Direct marketing by electronic messaging (such as email) | Contact details Products and services that we have determined may be of interest to you How you use the Hive app and our website Lifestyle and demographic insight information |
Consent |
| Direct marketing by post or on online services | Contact details Products and services that we have determined may be of interest to you How you use the Hive app and our website Lifestyle and demographic insight information |
For the legitimate interest of marketing to you about our products and services, and products and services of other companies in the Centrica group |
| Validating referral scheme applications | Contact details | Necessary for the performance of a contract |
| Investigating misuse of your account, fraud and debt collection | All the personal information we collect | Necessary for the performance of a contract and for the legitimate interest of operating our business |
| For the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims | All the personal information we collect | For the legitimate interest of operating our business |
| Notifying your selected family and friends of any activity detected in your home and allowing them and selected guests to interact with your Hive HomeShield service | How you use Hive products | Necessary for the performance of a contract |
| Transfer to a potential purchaser or acquirer of all or part of our business or operations, including due diligence before purchase / acquisition | This will depend on the nature of the transaction, but potentially all personal information we collect as listed in section ‘Personal information we process’ | For the legitimate interest of selling our business |
Please note that where you have given your consent for us to process your personal data, you have a right to withdraw your consent at any time. This right applies only to processing activities which are carried out on the basis of consent.
We may anonymise and aggregate any of the personal information we hold (so that it does not directly identify you). We may use anonymised and aggregated information for purposes that include testing our IT systems, research, data analysis, improving our site, apps and products and developing new products and services.
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.
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.
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.
Who we share your personal information with outside the Centrica group
We share personal information with the following parties:
Other companies’ apps and products: for the purpose of helping you use apps and products you connect to Hive products. For example, if you have Philips’ Hue products and want to integrate those with Hive, you will be sharing data with Philips — see their privacy notice here.
Installers and service engineers: so that they can book appointments with you and provide installation and product maintenance services.
Delivery companies: to deliver products that you have ordered from us.
Other service providers and advisors: such as companies that support our IT and website, help us analyse the data we hold, process payments, send communications to our customers, operate call centres, provide us with legal or financial advice and generally help us deliver our services to you. We use GoCardless to process your Direct Debit payments. More information on how GoCardless processes your personal data and your data protection rights, including your right to object, is available here.
Advertising parties: companies which providing advertising services, including Facebook.
Companies involved in providing you with insurance: if you have bought or been given Hive devices alongside a home insurance policy, whether from British Gas or another third party insurance provider, companies involved in providing you with insurance, or giving you quotes for insurance, may use the fact that you have these Hive devices, along with information about your usage of those devices, in assessing their pricing and policy terms, and to assess your eligibility to claim under your insurance policy. Your usage of such Hive devices such as Hive Leak Sensor may also be used to develop and extend insurance products and services.
Market research: occasionally we may ask our market research partners to contact our customers to help us find out how to improve our products and services.
Anyone to whom you give access to your devices: if you give someone else access to your devices, they will be able to access information about you. If, for example, you give someone access to your Hive cameras, they will be able to see and control them. If you have Hive HomeShield, this includes any family, friends or guests you grant access to.
Purchasers of our business: buyers or perspective buyers who we sell or negotiate to sell all or part of our business or operations to.
The Government or our regulators: where we are required to do so by law or to assist with their investigations or initiatives for the energy industry.
Police and law enforcement: to assist with the investigation and prevention of crime.
Some of our devices can trigger recordings or actions when certain audio or visual events are detected. If you tell us that the software has mis-identified an audio event, we will give a copy of that audio recording, without any accompanying information about you, to our software provider, Audio Analytic, to help improve their detection system. If you choose to take part in product improvement, we will give all audio recordings to Audio Analytic to improve their detection system, again without any accompanying information about you.
We do not disclose personal information to anyone else except as set out above. We may provide third parties with aggregate statistical information and analytics about users of our products and services, but we will make sure no one can be identified from this information before we disclose it.
Direct marketing
In accordance with the marketing preferences you set when creating your account or that you set with us a later date, we may contact you by email, push notification, text, mail or phone with information about products and services we believe you may be interested in.
If you do not tell us to contact you by email, push notification, text, mail or phone we won’t contact you in that way.
You can let us know at any time that you do not wish to receive marketing messages by contacting the customer service team by phone or by webchat.
You can also unsubscribe from our marketing emails by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the emails we send to you.
Advertising on other websites and apps
We work with our advertising agencies to show you advertising about our products and services on websites or apps that you visit, at a time and in manner that we feel is relevant to you. To do this, our advertising agencies use anonymised information about the websites, apps, social media content and ads you interact with or view when connected to the Internet, to make sure the advertising you see is more relevant to you.
Some of the techniques our advertising agencies use to determine what advertising to show you recognise the device you are using, and how that device interacts with social media content and ads, but are not aimed at you as a named individual. Typically, cookies and similar technologies such as device fingerprinting are used to target this type of advertising. You can find out more about these and how to manage their use by reading our cookie policy: hivehome.com/ie/cookies
We also use third party advertising services to show you adverts which are tailored to you (for example, to show you tailored adverts on Facebook and Google services). To do this, we securely transfer a jumbled form of identifying information, such as a jumbled version of your email address or phone number, to the advertiser, who matches this with jumbled versions of the information they already hold. If there’s a match, the advertiser can show you adverts tailored to you – for example, we will try not to show you adverts for a service which you already have. If there is no match, the advertiser promises to delete the jumbled information we have transferred to them, and they don’t get to see your actual phone number or email address. We may also transfer a jumbled version of your email address or phone number so that we do not show you specific adverts.
The main third parties we work with are below.
| Site | How to stop seeing ads from partners like us | Privacy notice |
|---|---|---|
| https://www.facebook.com/help/568137493302217 | https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy | |
| https://support.google.com/ads/answer/2662922?hl=en-GB | https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en&gl=uk | |
| https://help.twitter.com/en/safety-and-security/privacy-controls-for-tailored-ads | https://twitter.com/en/privacy | |
| https://help.pinterest.com/en/article/personalization-and-data | https://policy.pinterest.com/en/privacy-policy |
Service notifications
The Hive app will send service notifications directly to your smartphone or device through the app when we have something important or interesting to make you aware of or you have asked to be notified about certain events relating to your Hive products, e.g. to remind you that your heating is on or when movement is detected in an area of your home.
Depending on the service you choose, you may also receive these notifications by text message or email depending on your preferences.
You can turn off service notifications at any time through the app, your smartphone system settings or your online account.
Cookies
If you use our website or app, we will collect information about how you interact with us online. We use cookies and other similar technologies to help us do this. You can find out more about cookies and how to manage their use by reading our cookie policy: hivehome.com/ie/cookies.
Transferring your personal information internationally
The personal information we collect may be transferred to and stored in countries outside of the European Union. Some of these jurisdictions require different levels of protection in respect of personal information and, in certain instances, the laws in those countries may be less protective than the jurisdiction you are typically resident in. We will take all reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is only used in accordance with this privacy policy and applicable European data protection laws and is respected and kept secure. Transfers will be under an agreement which covers the requirements for the transfer of personal data outside the EEA, such as the European Commission approved standard contractual clauses.
How long we keep personal information
We will keep your personal information for as long as you have an account with us. After you close your account with us we will keep your personal information for a reasonable period to maintain our records and legal obligations to you.
For audio and video recordings, we will keep your recordings for the period of time set out in your service plan with us. We will delete your recordings promptly after this period ends.
Your rights in relation to your personal information
You have the following rights in relation to your personal information:
the right to be informed about how your personal information is being used (which we fulfil by providing this notice);
the right to access the personal information we hold about you;
the right to opt-out of receiving direct marketing messages; and
the right to request the correction of inaccurate personal information we hold about you.
In some situations, you also have:
the right to blocking or erasure;
the right to restriction of processing;
the right to data portability; and
the right to object, and to object to automated decision-making which produces legal effects concerning you or which similarly significantly affects you.
To exercise any of the above rights, or if you have any questions relating to your rights, please contact us by using the details set out in the Contacting us section below.
If you are unhappy with the way we are using your personal information you can also complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office or your local data protection regulator. We are here to help and encourage you to contact us to resolve your complaint first.
Changes to this notice
We may update this privacy notice from time to time. When we change this notice in a material way, we will update the version date at the bottom of this page. For significant changes to this notice we will try to give you reasonable notice unless we are prevented from doing so. Where required by law we will seek your consent to changes in the way we use your personal information.
Contacting us
In the event of any query or complaint in connection with the information we hold about you, please contact our customer service team by phone or by webchat.
You can also contact our data protection officer by emailing privacy@centrica.com.
Version 2.1 – October 2020
