Privacy policy

We collect personal information about you (i.e. information which may identify you in some way, such as your name, address, age, other contact details such as telephone number, email address etc. and passwords) through this website only when you voluntarily submit it. This may be when you register on the website, request information, submit comments or participate in some game, promotion, survey or other feature of the website.

A) Nature of Information Collected

Two types of information may be collected through this Site.

1. Where you use the Site’s online payment facility you submit your credit/debit card details to WorldPay Limited (“WorldPay”) which provides secure, online, real-time payment services to Business Stream. WorldPay is part of The Royal Bank of Scotland banking group. WorldPay – and not Business Stream – is the data controller of this information. Further information about WorldPay and its privacy policy can be found in Section B below and at www.worldpay.com/shopper.
2. Where you submit any information to this Site other than when using the online payment facility, Business Steam is the data controller of that information. Further information about the information we process and what purposes we may use that information for is set out in Sections C to I of this Policy.

B) WorldPay – Automated Payment Process – Credit and Debit Card Information

You may wish to pay an account using your credit or debit card through the Site’s online payments facility. To facilitate this, Business Stream has secured the services of WorldPay, a secure, online, real-time payment service provider, which supports all major credit and debit cards.

WorldPay is bound by the provisions of the UK Data Protection Act 1998. If you have any queries regarding WorldPay's data protection policy, WorldPay can be contacted at www.worldpay.com/shopper.

WorldPay state:
"We (WorldPay Limited) are committed to protecting your privacy. We recognise our responsibility to keep confidential at all times any information about you which we acquire in connection with your application. WorldPay Limited is owned by The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc. We protect your personal information to an equivalent high standard to that which you would experience through any other channels of the bank, such as bank branches, cash machines or on the telephone."

If you would like a copy of the information WorldPay hold about you, please write to: The Royal Bank of Scotland plc, 36 St Andrew Square, Edinburgh, EH2 2YB. A fee may be payable.

Business Stream will ask you to supply your customer reference, name, amount to pay, supply address and email address. This information may be kept for a period of up to six years for accounting purposes by Business Stream. You will then be transferred to a secure payment area maintained by WorldPay, where you will be prompted for your credit/debit card details to complete the transaction.

WorldPay processes your payment and provides Business Stream with confirmation and details of your payment. These details include your IP address. This information is retained for six years as part of Business Stream's accounting records.

Business Stream does not store, hold use or process your Credit/Debit card details at any time.

C) Other personal information

We collect personal information about you (i.e. information which may identify you in some way, such as your name, address, age, other contact details such as telephone number, email address etc. and passwords) through this website only when you voluntarily submit it. This may be when you register on the website, request information, submit comments or participate in some game, promotion, survey or other feature of the website. Providing personal information is up to you. If you do not want your personal information collected, please do not submit it.

If you wish to use our online meter reading facility, Business Stream will ask you to provide your name, customer reference number and your e-mail address together with the meter readings. This information is required so that we can match your readings with your account. Information received is retained as long as may be necessary for billing, accounting and audit purposes and to enable us to contact you if there are any queries in relation to your reading or your account.

The security and protection of our customers' personal information is paramount. We will only use the information you give us to process your enquiry or provide you with information about new products or services that may be of interest to you in future. If you do not wish to be automatically put on our mailing list please notify us and we will remove your details.

D) Use of Your Personal Information

We may use your personal information as follows:

• To respond to your questions and requests, to provide you with access to certain areas and features and to communicate with you about your activities on this website.
• To share it with our agents or contractors as required to perform functions on our behalf in connection with the Site (such as delivery of merchandise, administration of the website or promotions or other features on it, marketing, data analysis or customer services). To do so, it may be necessary for us to transmit your personal information and you agree to this transfer. Further use or disclosure of the information by them for other purposes is not permitted.
• To provide you with product information or promotional and other offers from us or selected third parties who we think their products and services may be of interest to you.
• For other purposes set out when your information is collected or in any additional terms and conditions applicable to the particular feature of the Site.
• For disclosure to any regulatory body (such as the Water Industry Commission for Scotland) or anyone engaged on behalf of such a body.
• For disclosures required by law, regulation or court order.
• For the purpose of or in connection with legal proceedings or where necessary for establishing, defending or exercising legal rights.
• In an emergency to protect the health or safety of Site users or the general public or in the interests of national security.

Except as provided in herein, we will not provide any of your personal information to any third parties without your specific consent.

E) Sharing

Personal Information is not shared with any other entities without your express permission. Our site includes links to other sites. If you decide to follow these links, we are not responsible for the privacy policies and content of these sites. Generally, we will inform you of these links.

F) Your Consent

By using our Site, you consent to the usage and collection of the above information. If we decide to alter our privacy policy, these changes will be posted on this page so that you will always be informed about what information is collected, how it is used and under what circumstances it will be disclosed.

G) Site Usage Information

1. Additional Information Collected – Occasionally, we may collect technical information automatically when you connect to our Site, which is not personally identifiable. An example of this would include the type of Internet Browser or the type of computer you are using, or the domain name of website from which you linked to our site. We also track the total number of visitors to our site in an aggregate form to allow us to update and improve our Site; personally identifiable information is not extracted in this process.
2. Cookies – Many web sites use "cookies" to help you personalise your online experience. One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. Cookies are pieces of data created when you visit a site, and contain a unique, anonymous number. They are stored in the cookie directory of your hard drive, and do not expire at the end of your session. The cookies this Site uses do not contain any personal information about you and cannot be used to identify an individual user. If you choose not to accept the cookie, this will not affect your access to the majority of facilities available on our Site. Our cookies cannot run programs or bring viruses to your computer. We use cookies in order to improve your experience when visiting our Site, to prepare statistics of users' preferences and to help you navigate the Site. Although your browser may be set up to allow the creation of cookies, you can specify that you be prompted before a site puts a cookie on your hard disk, so that you can decide whether to allow or disallow the cookie. Alternatively, you can set your computer not to accept any cookies. If you turn cookies off, you may not have access to some features that make your Site experience more efficient and some of our services may not function properly.
3. Log files – Log files allow us to record visitors' use of the site. Business Stream puts together log file information from all our visitors which we use to make improvements to the layout of the site and to the information in it, based on the way that visitors move around it. Log files do not contain any personal information about you.
4. Third Party Data Processing – On occasion we use administrators and/or other third party processors to process personal data on our behalf.

H) Linking to Another Site from The Business Stream Website

Our web site may contain links to other web sites which are outside our control and are not covered by our privacy statement. If you access other sites using the links provided, the operators of these sites may collect information from you which will be used by them in accordance with their privacy policy, which may differ from ours. Business Stream is not responsible for the privacy practices within any of these other sites. You should be aware of this when you leave the Business Stream Site and we encourage you to read the privacy statements on other websites you visit. Downloading material from certain sites may risk infringing intellectual property rights or introducing viruses into your system. You should be aware of this when you leave this Site and read the privacy policies and terms of these other sites. You should also independently assess the authenticity of any website which appears or claims that it is one of our sites (including those linked to through an email).

I) Updating Your personal Information

If you wish to update any of your personal information collected through this website, you can do so by visiting updating billing details and following the on-screen instructions. If you wish to verify any of your personal information collected through this website, you can do so by contacting us via the Contact us page.