We take your privacy very seriously. Please read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on who we are and how and why we collect, store, use and share your personal information. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal information and how to contact us or supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.
We collect, use and are responsible for certain personal information about you. When we do so we are subject to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which applies across the European Union (including in the United Kingdom) and we are responsible as ‘controller’ of that personal information for the purposes of those laws.
Key Terms
It would be helpful to start by explaining some key terms used in this policy:
| We, us, our | DEXTERS LONDON LIMITED trading as Dexters, Dexters Estate Agents. |
| Team responsible for data protection compliance (we have no 'DPO' within the meaning of GDPR) | Data Compliance Team, 3 Park Road, Teddington, TW11 0AP |
| Personal information | Any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual |
Personal information we collect about you
We may collect and use the following personal information about you:
- Your name and contact information, including email address and telephone number and company details if applicable
- Information to enable us to check and verify your identity, e.g. your date of birth
- Your gender information, if you choose to give this to us
- Your billing information, transaction and payment card information
- Your professional or personal online presence, e.g. LinkedIn profile, if you share it with us
- Your contact history, transaction and instruction history with us
- Your nationality and immigration status and information from related documents, such as your passport or other identification, and immigration information, e.g. if you are a potential tenant applying for a tenancy
- Information to enable us to undertake Anti Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing electronic checks on you
- Information about how you use our website, IT, communication and other systems
- Your responses to surveys, competitions and promotions
This personal information is required to provide our services to you. If you do not provide personal information we ask for, it may delay or prevent us from providing services to you.
How your personal information is collected
We collect most of this personal information directly from you — in person, by telephone, text or email and/or via our website. However, we may on rare occasions also collect information from publicly accessible sources, e.g. Companies House or HM Land Registry.
We may also collect information from other publicly accessible sources such as:
- directly from a third party, e.g.:
- sanctions screening providers;
- credit reference agencies;
- customer due diligence providers;
- from cookies on our website — for more information on our use of cookies, please see our cookies policy
How and why we use your personal information
Under data protection law, we can only use your personal information if we have a proper reason for doing so, e.g.:
- To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
- For the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract;
- For our legitimate interests or those of a third party; or
- Where you have given consent
We use your personal information under the legitimate interest basis for using and processing. Legitimate Interest may be used as a basis for processing when we have a business or commercial reason to process your information, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests.
When we use and process your personal information for our legitimate interest, we will consider and balance any potential impact on you and your rights under data protection and any other relevant laws. Our legitimate business interests do not automatically override your interests – we will not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your valid consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law).
The table below explains what we use (process) your personal information for and our reasons for doing so:
| What we use personal information for | Our reasons |
| To provide services to you | For the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract |
| To prevent and detect fraud against you or Dexters | For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to minimise fraud that could be damaging for us and for you |
| Conducting checks to identify our customers and verify their identity. Screening for financial and other sanctions or embargoes. Other processing necessary to comply with professional, legal and regulatory obligations that apply to our business, e.g. under health and safety regulation or rules issued by our professional regulator | To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
| Gathering and providing information required by or relating to audits, enquiries or investigations by regulatory bodies | To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
| Ensuring business policies are adhered to, e.g. policies covering security and internet use | For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to make sure we are following our own internal procedures so we can deliver the best service to you |
| Operational reasons, such as improving efficiency, training and quality control | For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service for you at the best price |
| Ensuring the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information | For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to protect trade secrets and other commercially valuable information. To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
| Statistical analysis to help us manage our business, e.g. in relation to our financial performance, customer base, range of services or other efficiency measures | For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service for you |
| Preventing unauthorised access and modifications to systems | For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for us and for you. To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
| Updating and enhancing customer records | For the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract. To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, e.g. making sure that we can keep in touch with our customers about existing orders and new products |
| Statutory returns | To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
| Ensuring safe working practices, staff administration and assessments | To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, e.g. to make sure we are following our own internal procedures and working efficiently so we can deliver the best service to you |
| Marketing our services to: — existing and former customers; — third parties who have previously registered with us or expressed an interest in our services; — third parties with whom we have had no previous dealings |
For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to promote our business to existing and former customers and contacts. For our legitimate interests, when such information is in the public domain |
| Credit reference checks via external credit reference agencies | For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to ensure our customers are likely to be able to pay for our products and services |
| External audits and quality checks, e.g. for ISO or Investors in People accreditation and the audit of our accounts | For our legitimate interests or a those of a third party, i.e. to maintain our accreditations so we can demonstrate we operate at the highest standards. To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
We do not collect, use or process special category personal information, such as racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, trade union membership, genetic and biometric data, data concerning health, sex life or sexual orientation.
Marketing communications
We may use your personal information to send you updates (by email, telephone calls, SMS or post) about our services, including exclusive offers (mainly for free market appraisals of your property), or highlighting of current market trends and properties on the market that may be of interest to you.
We have a legitimate interest in processing your personal information for marketing purposes (see above ‘How and why we use your personal information’). This means we do not usually need your consent to send you marketing communications. However, where consent is needed, we will ask for this consent separately and clearly.
We will always treat your personal information with the utmost respect and never sell or share it with other organisations for marketing purposes.
You have the right to opt out of receiving promotional communications at any time by:
- Contacting us by post at 3 Park Road, Teddington, TW11 0AP (Att: Data Compliance Team) or by telephone at 020 8614 1230
- Using the ‘unsubscribe’ link in marketing emails: this will unsubscribe you from all marketing communications but you will still be able to receive property details if you are an applicant buyer or tenant (subject to a separate unsubscribe option)
Who we share your personal information with
We routinely share personal information with:
- Third parties we use to help deliver our services to you, e.g. payment service providers, tenants’ vetting companies, electronic search providers, maintenance contractors, inventory companies etc;
- Other third parties we use to help us run our business, e.g. website suppliers, case management system providers etc;
- Third parties approved by you, e.g. social media sites you choose to link your account to or third party payment providers;
- Credit reference agencies;
- Our banks;
- Other companies within our group, to provide you with the same or closely related services;
We only allow our service providers to handle your personal information if we are satisfied they take appropriate measures to protect your personal information. We also impose contractual obligations on service providers (where possible) to ensure they can only use your personal information to provide services to us and to you.
We may disclose and exchange information with law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.
We may also need to share some personal information with other parties, such as potential buyers of some or all of our business or during a re-structuring. The recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations.
Where your personal information is held
Information may be held at our offices and those of our third party agencies, service providers, representatives and agents as described above (see above: ‘Who we share your personal information with’).
How long your personal information will be kept
We will keep your personal information while you have an active matter with us or we are providing services to you. We will keep your personal information, as a minimum, for as long as necessary:
- To respond to any questions, complaints or claims made by you or on your behalf;
- To show that we treated you fairly;
- To keep records required by law.
and thereafter
- 5 years from any last communication with you for marketing of our services to you as detailed above under ‘How and why we use your personal information’ and under ‘Marketing communications’.
We will not retain your personal information for longer than necessary for the purposes set out in this policy.
Transferring your personal information out of the European Economic Area
We do not transfer your personal information out of the EEA.
Your rights
You have the following rights, which you can exercise free of charge:
| Access | The right to be provided with a copy of your personal information (the right of access) |
| Rectification | The right to require us to correct any mistakes in your personal information |
| To be forgotten | The right to require us to delete your personal information — in certain situations |
| Restriction of processing | The right to require us to restrict processing of your personal information — in certain circumstances, e.g. if you contest the accuracy of the data |
| Data portability | The right to receive the personal information you provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and/or transmit that data to a third party — in certain situations |
| To object | The right to object: — at any time to your personal information being processed for direct marketing; — in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal information, e.g. processing carried out for the purpose of our legitimate interests |
| Not to be subject to automated individual decision-making | The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (including profiling) that produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you |
For further information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, please contact us or see the Guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on individuals’ rights under the General Data Protection Regulation.
If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please:
- Email, call or write to us — see below: ‘How to contact us’; and
- let us have enough information to identify you;
- let us have proof of your identity and address (a copy of your driving licence or passport and a recent utility or credit card bill); and
- let us know what right you want to exercise and the information to which your request relates
Keeping your personal information secure
We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed unlawfully. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to access it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.
If you want detailed information from Get Safe Online on how to protect your information and your computers and devices against fraud, identity theft, viruses and many other online problems, please visit www.getsafeonline.org. Get Safe Online is supported by HM Government and leading businesses.
How to complain
We hope that we can resolve any query or concern you may raise about our use of your information.
The General Data Protection Regulation also gives you right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, in particular in the European Union (or European Economic Area) state where you work, normally live or where any alleged infringement of data protection laws occurred. The supervisory authority in the UK is the Information Commissioner who may be contacted at https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/ or telephone: 0303 123 1113.
Changes to this privacy policy
This privacy policy was published on 25 May 2018 and last updated on 25 May 2018.
We may change this privacy policy from time to time —when we do we will inform you via email and/or via our website at www.dexters.co.uk
How to contact us
Please contact us by post, email or telephone if you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you.
Our contact details are shown below:
3 Park Road, Teddington, TW11 0AP
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020 8614 1230
To download a copy of our privacy policy, click here.