Privacy Statement

The following statement explains our policy regarding the personal information we collect about you.

1. Statement of intent
From time to time, you will be asked to submit personal information about yourself (e.g. name and email address etc) in order to receive or use services on our website. Such services include newsletters, billing statements and email bulletins.

By entering your details in the fields requested, you enable Utilize and its service providers to provide you with the services you select. Whenever you provide such personal information, we will treat that information in accordance with this policy. Our services are designed to provide you with the information you wish to receive. Utilize will act in accordance with current legislation and aim to meet current Internet best practice.

2. Information on visitors
During the course of any visit to the Utilize website, the pages you see, along with something called a cookie, are downloaded to your computer (see point 3 for more on this). Most, if not all, websites do this, because cookies allow the website publisher to do useful things like find out whether the computer (and probably its user) has visited the site before. This check is performed on a repeat visit by searching for, and finding, the cookie left there on the previous visit.

Any information that is supplied by cookies can help us to provide you with a better service and assists us in analysing the profile of our visitors. For example: if on a previous visit you went to, say, the e-commerce shop pages, then we might deduce this from your cookie and highlight latest product information on a second visit.

Both the cookies and the embedded code provide non-personal statistical information about visits to pages on the site, the duration of individual page view, paths taken by visitors through the site, data on visitors' screen settings and other general information. Utilize uses this type of information, as with that obtained from other cookies used on the site, to help it improve the services to its users.

3. What is a cookie?
When you enter a site your computer will automatically be issued with a cookie. Cookies are text files that identify your computer to our server. Cookies in themselves do not identify the individual user, just the computer used. Many sites do this whenever a user visits in order to track traffic flows.

Cookies themselves only record those areas of the site that have been visited by the computer in question, and for how long. Users have the opportunity to set their computers to accept all cookies, to notify them when a cookie is issued, or not to receive cookies at any time. The last of these, of course, means that certain personalised services cannot then be provided to that user.

NB: Even if you haven't set your computer to reject cookies you can still browse our site anonymously until such time as you register for Utilize services.

4. Use and storage of your personal information
When you supply any personal information to Utilize (e.g. when ordering products or services) we have legal obligations towards you in the way we deal with that data. We must collect the information fairly and tell you if we want to pass the information on to anyone else. In general, any information you provide to Utilize will only be used within Utilize. It will never be supplied to anyone outside Utilize without first obtaining your consent, unless we are obliged or permitted by law to disclose it. Also, if you post or send offensive or inappropriate content anywhere on or to Utilize and this behaviour is considered to be serious and/or repeated, Utilize can use whatever information about you that is at its disposal to attempt to stop such behaviour. This may include informing relevant third parties such as your employer, school or e-mail provider about the content and your behaviour.

We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as you use the service you have requested, and remove it in the event that the purpose has been met, or, in the case of a personalised service, such as online billing, you no longer wish to continue your registration as a personalised user. Where personal information is held for people who are not yet registered but have taken part in other Utilize services (e.g. information requests), that information will be held only as long as necessary to ensure that the service is run smoothly. We will ensure that all personal information supplied is held securely, in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

5. Access to your personal information
You have the right to request a copy of the personal information Utilize holds about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected. (We charge £10 for information requests.) Please address your request to Utilize, Utilize plc, Scottish Mutual House, 27-29 North Street, Hornchurch, Essex, RM11 1RS.

6. Users 16 and under
If you are aged 16 or under, please get your parent/guardian's permission beforehand whenever you provide personal information to Utilize's website. Users without this consent are not allowed to provide us with personal information.