Privacy Policy

Your privacy is important to us, and it is paramount that we protect it. This Privacy Policy applies to the collection of personal information via products, websites and competitions operated by WhatHouse Digital Ltd ("WhatHouse Digital Ltd /we/our/us").

Our websites may contain links to sites maintained by others, or by other parts of WhatHouse Digital Ltd. This Privacy Policy does not reflect the privacy practices of those sites.

Highlights

Information that we collect and how we use it

• We collect information about individuals and users in a number of different ways including but not limited to: direct from individuals (for example, when you register an account, when you use one of our products, or when you sign up for a newsletter), publicly available information, and through cookies, and/or similar technology.
• We primarily use the information to provide you with a more personalised experience that delivers the information, resources, and services that are most relevant and helpful to you.
• We will only share information that you provide to us with others if you provide explicit consent, or when we believe in good faith that the law requires it.

How we protect your personal information

• We maintain technical and administrative safeguards to protect the information that you provide to us against loss, misuse or unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration or destruction.
• WhatHouse Digital Ltd complies with all Data Protection/Privacy regulations, laws and industry best practices in respect of the security around your personal information.

Who has access to your personal information

• We will not sell, rent, or lease your information to others without your express consent, and we will not make your personal information available to any unaffiliated parties, except our approved agents, suppliers and contractors, or as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy.  Agents, suppliers and contractors may use your information to provide guidance to WhatHouse Digital Ltd to enable it to improve the performance of its Website, provide new content to its Website and/or to develop new products and services which may benefit visitors to the Website.
• We will not disclose any personal information or information about your usage of our products, websites or mobile applications to unaffiliated third parties, except as necessary to significantly improve the product experience, to enforce the terms of use, to meet our obligations to content and technology providers, or as required by law.

How you can correct, amend, or delete your personal information

• You may amend update or delete your information at any time by contacting us by visiting the My Account section of the Website.

How to opt-out

• If you have submitted your Personal Data and later decide that you would like us to discontinue processing your Personal Data as set out in this Policy and you do not wish to receive information of products and services which may be of interest to you from us or carefully selected third parties, you may opt-out by sending us an email to us at [email protected]. Please specify the activities set out in this Policy that you would like us to refrain from. Upon receipt of a written opt-out request, we shall discontinue processing your Personal Data as requested. Prior to opting out of receiving information from WhatHouse Digital Ltd or carefully selected partners, we recommend that you visit the My Account section of this Website to amend your preferences.

Full Privacy Policy

Introduction

The Website (“www.whathouse.com”), is operated by What House Digital Ltd (trading as WhatHouse Digital Ltd) ("WhatHouse Digital Ltd/we/our/us"), a company incorporated in England (Company Number 08159289) with its registered address at What House Digital Limited, Fifth Floor, 291-299 Borough High Street, London, SE1 1JG, United Kingdom.

As user of the Website (referred to as “you/your”) you acknowledge that any use of this Website (including any data which you provide to us) is subject to this Privacy Policy together with our Terms and Conditions.

The purpose of this statement is to set out the purposes for which, and the manner in which, we may collect and use personal information that we may obtain about you.

For the purpose of the Data Protection Act 1998, the data controller is  What House Digital Ltd (trading as “WhatHouse Digital Ltd”).  All details supplied to WhatHouse Digital Ltd will be safeguarded both by this Policy and also by the Data Protection Act 1998.

When you use WhatHouse Digital Ltd services, you trust us with your information. This Privacy Policy is meant to help you understand what data we collect, why we collect it and what we do with it. This is important; we hope you will take time to read it carefully.

Information that we collect and how we use it

We collect information to provide better services to all of our users – from establishing which browser you are using, to useful things like help to buy guides and helping you with the moving process.

We collect information in the following ways:

• Information you give us. For example, some of our services require you to register an account. When you do, we’ll ask for personal information, like your name and email address to store with your account. Personal Data may be requested by us or voluntarily forwarded by you through one of the electronic mail hypertext links present in the body of the Website. When you provide such personal information, you accept that we may retain your personal information and that it may be held by us or any third party that processes it on our behalf for the purposes of providing the information, goods or services which you have requested. Any third parties who process personal information on our behalf are required to maintain the confidentiality and privacy of the personal information that they process for us. If you want to take full advantage of the services we offer, we might also ask you to opt-in to receive emails, texts, post and/or telephone calls from WhatHouse Digital Ltd, related property partners and other companies who offer services that we think will be relevant to you before, during and after you move home. If you do opt-in to receive relevant information from us or our related property partners or other companies, you may opt-out by contacting us directly to amend your information. Details of how to do this can be found at the end of this Policy. If you do contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence.
• Sensitive data. We shall not request, collect or process any Personal Data of a sensitive nature from you without first obtaining your express consent.
• Information we get from your use of our services. We collect information about the services that you use and how you use them, like when you search for a property or download our Help-to-Buy Guide. We may collect information about your computer, including, where available, your IP address, operating system and browser type, for system administration and to report aggregate information to our advertisers. This is statistical data about our users' browsing actions and patterns, and does not identify any individual.
• Information we get when cookies are enabled on your browser. We use various technologies to collect and store information when you visit our Website, and this may include using cookies to identify the technology that you use to connect to our Website such as your device or browser. We use these technologies to collect and store information when you interact with our services. Cookies are small text files that store basic information that a website can use to track on-line traffic flows, recognise repeat site visits and record information about your on-line preferences. They often include an anonymous unique identifier that is sent to your browser from our Website which is then stored on your computer's hard drive. Cookies do not attach to your system and damage your files but observe user behaviour and compile aggregate data that we then use in order to improve the Website. We also use cookies to measure the effectiveness of advertising.  Information we collect when you are signed in to WhatHouse Digital Ltd, in addition to information we obtain about you from partners, may be associated with your cookie. When information is associated with your cookie, we treat it as personal information.

We may use information you give us or which we obtain for the following purposes:

• to register you with our Website and to manage any account you hold with us.
• to facilitate your browsing experience with us.
• we may use your information to make decisions about you using computerised technology, for example automatically recommending products and/or services which we think will interest you from the information we have.
• to administer any prize draws or competitions you may enter.
• subject to your consent, to give to companies and organisations whose products we think may be relevant to you. We will always notify you when you provide your information to us if your information will be shared with other companies or organisations. Your express consent will be obtained and you shall retain the right to opt-out by contacting us as outlined at the end of this Policy.

Crime prevention

Without limitation to the foregoing we may disclose any information and data relating to you to the police or any regulatory or government authority including but not limited to law enforcement agencies in response to a request in connection with the investigation of any suspected illegal activities.

Telephone calls

Calls may be recorded to verify content and may be used together with other customer records for regulatory compliance, quality control and staff training, preventing or detecting criminal activity and for complaint resolution.  

Disclosure of your information

We may give information about you to the following companies and organisations, who may use it for the same purposes as set out above:

• to other companies in the Group (WhatHouse? Digital Limited, Globespan Media Limited)
• to employees and agents of the Group and other approved third parties to administer any accounts, products and services provided to you by the Group now or in the future
• where you have agreed that we may do so, we may keep you informed of products and services. We will only contact you if you have specifically consented to electronic mail or you are an existing customer who has bought (or negotiated to buy) a product or service from WhatHouse? Digital Limited in the past, so as long as you consented to receive communication from WhatHouse? Digital Limited via the communicated channel.  These products and services may include products and services of other companies and organisations and including special offers, discounts, offers, competitions and so on) which we consider may be of interest to you by any of the following methods:
  • agents who (on our behalf) profile your data so that we may tailor the goods/services we offer to your specific needs
  • to other organisations for the administration of prize draws or competitions
  • to anyone to whom we transfer or may transfer our rights and duties under our agreement with you
  • In the event of a merger or sale of all or part of our business whereby personal information may be transferred as an asset of the business.
  • if we have a duty to do so or if the law allows us to do so

Third parties

We use third parties to serve advertisements on our website and these third parties may use parties or other means to help measure the effectiveness of their advertisements. Our website may also include links to other unrelated websites and/or contact forms to other unrelated parties which may collect personal information. Our privacy policy does not extend to these third parties or other websites and we recommend that users refer directly to these parties regarding their privacy policies before supplying personal details to these companies.

Security of personal information

We take the security and disclosure of personal information very seriously and as such we will not sell, trade, rent or otherwise provide personal information sent to us via our site to any third parties save as set out above.

We are mindful of the importance of upholding the security of information under our control. All data collected through our site that is stored electronically, is stored on secure servers, and we have stringent security and confidentiality procedures covering the storage and disclosure of such information, in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998. We endeavour to take all reasonable steps to protect the privacy of your personal information. However, we cannot guarantee the security of any personal information you disclose on-line. You accept the inherent security risks of providing information and transacting over the Internet, and will not hold us responsible for any breach of security, unless this is due to our negligence or wilful default.

Consent

By using our Website you consent to the collection and use of your personal information as stated above.  Our Privacy Policy may change from time to time. We will not reduce your rights under this Privacy Policy without your explicit consent. We will post any privacy policy changes on this page and, if the changes are significant, we will provide a more prominent notice.

Some websites that have links to and from our site from time to time may collect personal information about you when you access or utilise those links. We do not control the collection or use of such information, and the practices of those websites are not covered by this privacy policy. Some websites that have links to and from our site from time to time may also use their own cookies. We have no access to, or control over these cookies, and you are advised to check the cookie policies on such other websites or to amend your site browser's settings with respect to cookies accordingly.

Your rights to see your personal data

You have the right to see the personal data (as defined in the Data Protection Act 1998) that we keep about you, on receipt of a written request, verification of your identity, and payment of a £10 fee. If you wish to see the personal data that we hold on you or to object to the use we have made of your personal data, please contact us at the following address:

Subject Access Request

What House Digital Limited
128 City Road
London 
EC1V 2NX
United Kingdom