Privacy notice for protection of personal data

The controller of your personal data is:

Financial Services Compensation Scheme Limited (FSCS)

10th Floor Beaufort House, 15 St Botolph Street, London, EC3A 7QU.

Company Number 03943048

https://www.fscs.org.uk/contact-us/

If you have any concerns or questions about our use of your personal data, you can contact our Data Privacy Office at DataProtection@fscs.org.uk or you can write to us at the above address.

We collect the following types of personal data:

(I)    Claimant data:

  1. contact details such as name, address, email address, phone numbers;
  2. data relevant to verification of your identity and fraud prevention such as passport number/scan, birth certificate/scan, national insurance number, driver's licence number/scan, utility bill, date of birth, mother's maiden name, challenge information;
  3. financial information relevant to the claim, such as bank account number and balance, investment data, wills, marital status, dependents;
  4. information on your claim and its progress and results/payments;
  5. other contents of our communications with you, by phone, email, letters, through our portal or other channels.

(ii)    Insolvency professionals' data: business contact data such as name, role, office address, business email address and phone numbers.

(iii)   Data on failed firms and individuals acting for failed firms:

  1. business contact data such as name, role, office address, business email address and phone numbers;
  2. information about their action relevant to the default or claims;
  3. financial information.

(iv)   Statistical data related to your use of our website.

(v)    Subscriber data where to subscribe to our publications: contact details such as name, email address.

(vi)    Contact data of persons with whom we do business – suppliers, journalists, advisers, etc. - or their representatives: name, role, office address, business email address and phone numbers.

(vii)    Special category data: we may receive health information from claimants or others when asking us to accommodate it in communications with us or dealing with a claim.

(viii)    Information related to criminal offences: we do not specifically collect this information but we may receive it from claimants, for example, if revealed as part of their address.

FSCS processes your personal data for the following purposes:

(I)  to consider and administer claims for compensation;

(ii)  to pursue recoveries;

(iii) to administer and impose the FSCS levy; and

(iv) to perform its other business and ancillary public functions such as: 

  1. operating our website. Information on our use of cookies may be found at https://www.fscs.org.uk/cookies-information/;
  2. communicating with you, including through our contact centre;
  3. sending you newsletters or other communications;
  4. informing the public about our services including through contact with news organisations;
  5. handling complaints;
  6. procurement and dealing with our suppliers;
  7. co-operation with government agencies and regulators related to their functions;
  8. co-operation with the police and agencies for the purposes of their investigations;
  9. surveys and customer feedback;
  10. physical and cyber security;
  11. compliance with our legal obligations, such as our duties under the Equality Act to assist those with legally protected characteristics, and those needing other special assistance;
  12. providing claimants with contact details where FSCS considers that the firm is able to meet claims against it.

In order to process personal data, FSCS must identify at least one legal basis on which to do so.  FSCS’ legal bases are:

(I)    For all personal data: compliance with a legal obligation and / or public interest or the exercise of official authority vested in us or legitimate interest where we have assessed that such interest is not overridden by your rights requiring the protection of your personal data.

(ii)     For special category data (e.g. health) and criminal offences data – to comply with legal obligations, such as under the Equality Act or you have provided your consent. We may also use your data in the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

We will collect your personal data from you and from any of the following to process your claim.

(i)           Claims Management Companies and legal representatives

(ii)          Product Providers

(iii)         Deposit Takers and FCA or PRA authorised firms

(iv)         Insolvency Practitioners

(v)          Advisers

We may disclose your personal data to our service providers who will use it to process your claim on our behalf, identify individuals and or perform technical operations, such as data storage, on our behalf. 

When we receive claims, we use third parties such as credit reference agencies, in order to verify the claimant's identity.  The credit reference agency or third party will keep a record of our request, but this information will not affect your credit rating. 

We may also disclose personal data as follows:

(i)           to regulatory or government authorities such as the HM Treasury, the Bank of England, the Prudential Regulation Authority, the Financial Conduct Authority, the Financial Ombudsman Service, overseas authorities, the Insolvency Service, the police, and the Serious Fraud Office, to comply with legal or regulatory requirements or perform our public function;

(ii)          to insolvency practitioners, the firm or product provider concerned by your claim, and other persons involved with your claim, in order to assess and administer the claim and/or to pursue recoveries;

(iii)         to Professional Indemnity insurers of regulated firms;

(iv)         to your representative when making your claim, if you authorise us to do so;

(v)          to our advisers such as auditors, insurers, lawyers, where reasonable to perform our function and ancillary activities;

(vi)         to claimants where this is necessary for them to exercise their legal rights.

FSCS may during its service delivery need to transfer your personal data to anywhere in the world depending on the location of the failed firm and the nature of any recoveries action that FSCS may need to pursue. Any such transfers are subject to compliance with internal procedures and data protection laws to ensure appropriate safeguards are in place. In general, we assess if your data will be adequately protected and we require the recipient to enter into a contract in the form of the Model Clauses approved by the European Commission and permitted under Article 46 of the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or under other relevant body. Please contact our Data Privacy Office for copies.

Your data will be stored for a maximum of 7 years, and except for the archiving of limited claims data for a reasonable period to comply with our statutory duty to ensure the efficient running of FSCS and to avoid making duplicate payments in respect of the same claim.

You have various rights regarding your personal data.  These are rights to a confirmation of whether we process your personal data and to receive a copy of the data we hold (subject access requests), rectification of inaccurate personal data, erasure (deletion) of personal data, restriction of processing, objection to processing and portability of data.  These rights do not apply in all circumstances. For example, we may refuse to erase your personal data where we use it to comply with a legal obligation or to establish, make or defend legal claims.  You may exercise your rights by contacting our Data Privacy Office.

Where our basis for using your personal data is your consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent to data processing at any time.  You may do this by contacting our Data Privacy Office or the means explained to you at the time you gave your consent.

You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners Office (ICO), the supervisory authority, if you are dissatisfied with our treatment of your personal data. They can be contacted on this website https://ico.org.uk, but we would welcome an opportunity to try to deal with your complaint first.

The provision of your personal data is required to process compensation claims. If you refuse to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to deliver the service requested (such as paying compensation).

When processing claims, for speed and efficiency, in some circumstances, the FSCS may make automated decisions as to whether the claim meets the applicable criteria or to calculate the amount of the compensation. These decisions will be based on an automated review of information for key indicators that you are entitled to compensation.  We may use an automated calculator to compute the amount of compensation from information supplied by you or from the insolvent firm relevant to your claim. If your claim has been decided based solely on automated processing, we will tell you when we inform you of the decision.  You will have the right to appeal the decision and ask for a decision that is not based solely on automated processing.

Version 2.2 – May, 2022