Who do we share your personal data with?

- Our parent company and other companies in the E.ON Group who may be involved in the provision of services to you

- Energy market administrators such as Xoserve for gas, ECOES for electricity and the Meter Point Administration Service, as we may need to check that your meter is correctly registered against your address

- Network operators, so they can keep you informed about reconnecting your energy supply if there's a loss of supply or an emergency

- Agents and sub-contractors appointed by us to facilitate our contract with you, such as Meter Operators and Data Collectors

- Smart DCC Ltd, who manage the data and communications network connecting smart meters to ourselves and other industry suppliers, to ensure consistency between suppliers

- Energy suppliers and other organisations to deal with a switch between suppliers

- Other energy suppliers, landlords or housing associations if we or another organisation suspect the property is connected with fraud or theft. We also contribute to the Theft Risk Assessment Service operated by Experian

- Agents appointed by Ofgem to test meters suspected of being faulty

- Other people you have authorised us to share data with, such as family members, energy brokers, solicitors and debt management companies, so we can fulfil your requirements

- Debt collection agencies and other organisations assisting us with debt recovery (for example, bailiffs, courts, private investigators and our solicitors)

- Social services, the Police, distribution services or other similar agencies if we think you need extra emergency help

- The administrators of our Energy Fund grants, if you apply to them for help payment your bills

- Organisations giving you a service (for instance Green Deal), helping you compare your energy use with similar households or offer you rewards to assist you

- Organisations which offer referral and reward schemes on our behalf

- Market regulators such as OFGEM and consumer protection organisations such as the Energy Ombudsman, where we are obliged to do so under regulations

- Law enforcement organisations working on the detection, investigation and prevention of crime and enforcement of legislation

- Commissioning and installation contractors for installations such as solar panels and insulation, and HIES, the consumer protection organisation covering the installation of renewable energy products

- Financial organisations for purposes such as payment processing, and refunds

- If you apply for Affordable Warmth-funded measures, the Energy Saving Trust and Department for Work and Pensions to confirm whether you're entitled to the assistance

- Finance providers if you require a loan to pay for energy saving measures

- Manufacturers and suppliers of energy efficiency measures who provide energy saving measures and are working for you

- If you want to register or transfer your Generation Unit(s) under either the FIT or SEG schemes, we will share your data with the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy, our regulator Ofgem and other FIT/SEG licensees

- We also share your data with service partners we engage to assist us with things like IT, telephony, bulk mailing, and mobile app platforms.

When you join us, buy an additional product or service or set up a direct debit for the first time, we’ll share your details with one or more CRAs to check your identity and see if you may have any problems paying your bills. This means that we’ll share your personal data with them and they’ll give us information about you so we can be sure about who we have a contract with and see if you might have problems paying your bills.

We may also tell CRAs how you're managing your account and whether you owe us any money. They might share this data with others to help them make informed lending decisions.

CRAs can also help us try to trace you if you have moved and we owe you money or you owe us money.

More information is set out in a Credit Reference Agency Information Notice which describes how the three main CRAs (Experian, Equifax and TransUnion) share and use personal data. This is available from all three CRAs and displayed on their websites.

Our website contains tracking code provided by Lead Forensics. This code enables Lead Forensics to track activity on the business section of our website and provide E.ON with information on the IP address of the requesting computer (this data is not anonymised), the date and duration of the user’s visit, and the web pages which the user visits. This data may be used by us to contact the business about their experience or for marketing purposes. We will not pass this data to third parties for any reason. More information can be found at www.leadforensics.com.

You can opt out of the collection, storage and processing of IP data at any time by clicking on this link: Opt out of Lead Forensics tracking

We use the Recaptcha service provided by Google to ensure that use of our website is by living humans, not automated spam scripts. For more information about Google reCAPTCHA and Google's privacy policy, please visit the following links: https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/ and https://www.google.com/recaptcha/intro/android.html

Most internet browsers, like Firefox, Safari or Google Chrome, let websites store simple text files called 'cookies' on your computer.

They let websites remember things like your username or password so you don't need to re-type them every time you visit. They also help websites see how you use them, and this can be used to improve how websites work.

We have a legal responsibility to tell you about the kind of cookies we use, what they're for and how to turn them off. We strongly suggest you accept our cookies though, to get the best possible service from our website.

There are quite a few myths about cookies out there, so to put your mind at rest, here's what cookies can't do:

- Read your hard disk

- Get your login email address or other personal info unless you provide it

- Create viruses or destructive programmes that could harm your computer

- Instantly fill up your hard drive

How you disable or delete cookies depends on which version of your internet browser you're using, for instance, Internet Explorer 9.

You should be able to check this by going to the About section in the Help or Tools section of your browser.

To find out more, we suggest you visit aboutcookies.org, where you'll find easy to follow instructions for both deleting or controlling cookies from your browser.

aboutcookies.org is a third party website, so we're not responsible for the information on it, but we're more than happy to recommend it.

Individuals can find out if we hold any personal data about them, and access that data, by making a ‘subject access request’ under the Data Protection Act 1998. If we do hold your personal data, we will provide you with a copy and information about what we do with it. Unless you ask us to provide it in a different way, we will email this to you where you have given us an email address.

You can request access to our data using any of the methods on our contact us page.

If you only want to see certain items and you agree, we will try to deal with your request informally, for example, by providing you with the specific information you need over the telephone.

If you’ve given us consent to process your personal data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time by contacting us. If you have an online account with us, you can also make changes to that preference in your account.

You can request that we correct any mistakes, restrict or stop processing your data, or delete it. It’s worth noting that in some cases if you do ask us to correct, delete or stop processing it, we won’t always be required to do so – for example we may need to continue in order to service your account in line with our contract. If this is the case, we'll explain why.

If we are making decisions about you based solely on automated processing, including profiling, then in certain circumstances (where we are processing on the basis of a legitimate interest and the decision has legal or similar effects on you), you have the right to have a person make the decision instead. Of course, if we are profiling you for marketing purposes, we will stop altogether.

In certain circumstances (where you provide your information to us (a) with consent to process it or (b) where the processing is necessary for the performance of our contract with you), you can require that we provide the data we hold about you either to you or a third party in a commonly used format. This is commonly called ‘portability’). This only applies if we are processing it using automation only. If you would like more information about this, let us know.

If you're unhappy with any aspect of how we handle your personal data you also have the right to contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the supervisory authority that regulates handling of personal information in the UK.

You can contact them by going to their website, phoning them on 0303 123 1113 or by post to:

Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, SK9 5AF.