Your privacy is important to us and we are committed to ensuring that information you provide via our site is kept secure and confidential at all times. The way we protect your personal information is no different via our website than if you had shared your data via the telephone or in person. We will not share or disclose your information to other organisations except when we have advised you at the time you have applied for a product or service.
THE PERSONAL DATA WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU
Personal data collected, used, stored and transferred by us may include:
• Identity Data including forenames, last name, maiden name, date of birth, gender, marital status, and username or similar identifier.
• Contact Data including home address, email address and telephone numbers.
• Financial Data including banks statements, payment card details, savings, debts such as loans and credit cards, income & expenditure, employer & pension benefits, and other assets.
Special Category Data medical history and trade union / political party membership costs.
• Transaction Data including payments made for products and services you have purchased from us.
• Profile and Usage Data including purchases made by you, feedback and survey responses, and how you use our website, products and services.
• Marketing and Communications Data including your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our business partners and your communication preferences.
HOW DO WE COLLECT YOUR PERSONAL DATA?
Personal data is collected by us using the following methods:
Direct interactions: with an adviser in person, by post, phone (including call recordings and voicemail), email, videoconferencing or otherwise when sourcing and applying for mortgage or protection products, processing Identity, Contact and Financial categories of personal data.
Automated technologies or technical interactions: with our website, via the customer portal, by using the web enquiry form, processing Identity, Contact, Financial and Technical categories of personal data.
Third parties or publicly available sources: processing Identity, Contact and Financial categories of personal data such as:
Estate agents: with whom you may be interacting, but only with your consent;
New home builders: as a legitimate interest of the builder in order to assess affordability for the property;
Enquiries: you may perform on third-party mortgage sourcing websites.
HOW DO WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA?
• To initially engage with you to discuss your requirements.
• To source products, provide indicative quotes, and process & deliver your application for a mortgage or protection product.
• To manage our client relationship with you which will include:
- Create and maintain access to your customer portal account
- Notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy policy
- Customer reviews / surveysRe-engagement when existing products nears expiry / review - protection needs.
• To respond to case enquiries and input to & defend against complaints.
• To perform an affordability check for a property on behalf of an Estate Agent or New Home Builder.
• To administer and protect our business and our website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data).
• To deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you.
• To use data analytics and other systems including AI and automated decision making to improve our website, products/services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences.
HOW LONG IS YOUR PERSONAL DATA RETAINED?
• Successful mortgage/protection applications - For the full mortgage or protection policy term plus a further 6 years, or for a period of 30 years for historical cases if the original term is not recorded.
• Withdrawn, stalled, incomplete and failed mortgage/protection applications - 2 years from the date the latest application was started, or 6 years from the application submitted date if application was submitted and subsequently rejected or from creation date if advice has been provided but not pursued.
• Client Portal accounts - 2 years from the date of last login if not proceeded to full application.
• Affordability assessments for new build property - 2 years from Decision In Principle if affordability check does not proceed to a full mortgage application.
• Enquiry data obtained from third parties that do not result in an application - 2 years from the date the lead was received from the Introducer.
After these retention periods if there is no other on-going client relationship your personal data will either be securely deleted or anonymised so that it can be used for statistical purposes but without any method of identifying you individually.
Use of Cookies.
Our website uses 'cookies', these are pieces of information which our computer stores on your device. They are used to remember your settings for the website so that you are saved entering your data again when you return to the site.
Cookies are used by many websites and do not cause any harm to your computer and do not contain any information which could be read or understood by others. The cookies we use on our website do not include your name or account numbers.
Our website uses a combination of first and third party cookies as well as temporary and permanent cookies. Cookies are used to collage general information which allows us to tailor the site for individual users and also to plan enhancements to our products and services. If you do not wish to use cookies when you visit our website you can opt-out when you first visit the site or configure your browser to not accept cookies.
See our cookies policy here.
Information Requests.
When you request information about our products or services we will only use the information you provide to process your enquiry. Information you provide will be used for the purposes described on the website at the time you submit your information. Further, details of how we use your data can be found in the applicable terms and conditions for associated products and services.
MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS
You will also have the choice to opt-in to receiving other related marketing information and related products and services. You can opt-out of receiving these types of communications at any time by contacting your adviser, by emailing hello@themortgagelodge.co.uk or by clicking on the relevant link in email communications you receive from us. However please note that your personal information will not be passed to any third-party organisation for marketing purposes.
DATA SECURITY
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. We also limit access to your personal data to only The Mortgage Lodge staff, appointed representatives, advisers, business partners and suppliers who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.
WEBSITE THIRD-PARTY LINKS
The Mortgage Lodge website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.
YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS REGARDING YOUR PERSONAL DATA
You have the right to:
Request
Request access to your personal data. This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
Request correction
Request correction of the personal data. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
Request erasure
Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You can also to ask us to delete your personal data where you have successfully objected to the processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to delete the data for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
Object to processing
Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
Request restriction of processing
Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
Request the transfer
Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
Withdraw consent at any time
Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.
QUESTIONS
If you have any questions or complaints relating to how we use your personal data, or if you wish to exercise any of your rights regarding your personal data, please contact the Information Security & Data Protection Manager by emailing us here. or by writing to us. We will respond to you as soon as is possible. The length of time will depend on the type and complexity of the request, but you will receive a response no later than one month from the initial request.
WHAT IF I AM STILL NOT SATISFIED?
If you are not satisfied with how the Mortgage Advice Bureau has responded to your enquiry, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), who is the regulator for data protection in the United Kingdom.
GDPR.
This piece of legislation comes in to force on the 25th May 2018. The GDPR regulates the processing of personal data, and protects the rights and privacy of all living individuals (including children), for example by giving all individuals who are the subject of personal data a general right of access to the personal data which relates to them. Individuals can exercise the right to gain access to their information by means of a ‘subject access request’. Personal data is information relating to an individual and may be in hard or soft copy (paper/manual files; electronic records; photographs; CCTV images), and may include facts or opinions about a person.
The Mortgage Lodge is committed to a policy of protecting the rights and privacy of individuals, clients, staff and others, in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) May 2018.
To comply with various legal obligations, including the obligations imposed on it by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) The Mortgage Lodge must ensure that all this information about individuals is collected and used fairly, stored safely and securely, and not disclosed to any third party unlawfully.
As a matter of best practice, other agencies and individuals working with The Mortgage Lodge and who have access to personal information, will be expected to read and comply with this policy. It is expected that departments who are responsible for dealing with external bodies will take the responsibility for ensuring that such bodies sign a contract which among other things will include an agreement to abide by this policy.
The Mortgage Lodge will be the ‘data controller’ under the terms of the legislation – this means it is ultimately responsible for controlling the use and processing of the personal data. We appoint a Data Protection Officer (DPO), currently the owner who is available to address any concerns regarding the data held by The Mortgage Lodge and how it is processed, held and used.
The Mortgage Lodge is a Limited company - Company Number: 12969851
