How we use your personal information (Privacy Policy)

We are committed to keeping any personal and financial information you provide us with secure and only using it for specific purposes. Here we explain what information we gather and what it is used for.

Your personal information

1.1  By ‘your information’ we mean personal and financial information about you we collect, use, share and store. This includes information we:

1. obtain from you or from third parties, such as employers, joint account holders, credit reference agencies (who may search the Electoral Register and any other public or private database they have access to), fraud prevention agencies or other organisations when you apply for an account (or any other product or service) or which you or they give us at any other time, through any type of communication or means; verbal, written or electronic, including through letters, calls, emails, websites (e.g. internet protocol (IP) address, cookies), applications, telephone systems (we may capture automatically and use any telephone number you may call us from), registrations, researches, promotions and competitions or through accounts or products you have or previously had with us;
2. learn from the way you use and manage your account(s), from the transactions you make such as the date, amount, currency and the name and type of supplier (e.g. travel services, supermarket services, medical services, retail services) you use, from the purchases you make and from the payments which are made to your account.

1.2  When you give us someone else’s personal information in connection with any credit, credit related or other, products and services, on behalf of someone else (such as an additional cardholder), you confirm that you have obtained his or her consent for his or her information to be disclosed to us and other companies in the Barclays Group or others as described below, and used as described in this privacy statement. Any information you give us and/or other companies of the Barclays Group about someone else, or someone else discloses a link with you, may be recorded and considered with your information.

How we use your personal information

1.3  We and other companies in the Barclays Group and/or other organisations as described below may collect, use, share and store your information:

1. to check your eligibility when you apply for any credit and credit-related or other products, check your details and verify your identity and the details and identities of your spouse, partner or other directors/partners if you are an owner, director or partner in a small business, which means, an organisation which might be a sole trader, partnership or a limited company that has three or less partners or directors;
2. to check your personal accounts, your financial associate’s personal accounts if you have one, and may also check on your business accounts if you are an owner, director or partner in a small business. A “financial associate” is someone living at the same address as you with whom you have a personal relationship and manage your finances jointly in a similar way to a spouse or life partner. This does not include temporary arrangements such as students or flatmates or business relationships, but will include joint account holders, anyone you have told us is a financial associate of yours, and anyone identified by the credit reference agencies’ records as your financial associate (you can apply to the credit reference agencies to ask them to de-link someone who is one of your financial associates).
3. to administer and manage your application, account(s), and any payments you make using your card , give you statements and provide you with products and services, inform you about changes to the features of those products or services or their operation;
4. for assessment, testing (including systems tests) and analysis, including credit and/or behaviour scoring, statistical, market and product analysis;
5. to prevent, detect and prosecute money laundering, fraud and other crimes;
6. to improve the accuracy of our records;
7. to develop and improve our services to you and other customers;
8. to respond to your inquiries or complaints;
9. to carry out regulatory checks or other work to meet our obligations to any regulatory authority;
10. to protect our interests, including locate you and recover any debts you owe, cross-check details on proposals or claims for all types of insurance, to process and collect charges;
11. to identify and inform you by letter, telephone (including automated dialling, digital television),text messages or electronically about products and services (including those of others) which may be of interest to you, unless you tell us not to contact you about these or other available promotions;
12. to manage and provide any rewards and offers and administer any promotions and competitions; and
13. in any other ways described below and in the Barclaycard Conditions.

1.4  We will keep information about you and how you manage your account(s) private and confidential, but may share it as follows:

1. with credit reference agencies and fraud prevention agencies in the ways described below;
2. with other companies within the Barclays Group;
3. with people who provide a service to you (when you use your card to make payments), with people who provide a service to us, or who are acting as our agents, on the understanding that they will keep the information confidential;
4. with any company that we are providing products or services in conjunction with;
5. with anyone whose name or logo appears on the card issued to you;
6. with anyone to whom we transfer or may transfer our rights and duties under this agreement;
7. with any third party as a result of any restructure, sale, merger or acquisition of any company within the Barclays Group, provided that any recipient uses your information for the same purposes as it was originally supplied to us and/or used by us;
8. if you have consented;
9. if we have a duty to do so or if the law, public interest, or this agreement allows us to do so.

1.5  We may use automated processes when we use your information for any of the purposes listed in How We Use Your Information and/or elsewhere in the Barclaycard Conditions.

1.6  You must write to us at, PO Box 9131, 51 Saffron Road, Leicester LE18 9DE or call us on 0844 811 9111 if you don’t want us to tell you or allow other members of the Barclays Group to tell you about other products and services. In order for us to ensure that we note this in all our records, it would help us if you give us your bank details and the numbers of any Barclays Group cards, insurance, unit trust and other accounts or policies. When we send you marketing communications by e-mail or SMS, you will always be given the opportunity to “unsubscribe” or “stop”.

You can also manage your marketing preferences by logging on to your Barclaycard online account at www.barclaycard.co.uk and selecting “Your Details”.

1.7  If you are not eligible for a Barclaycard at this time, unless you write to the address above you agree that we may use your information to send you details of alternative products (including those of other companies).

1.8  We will retain information about you after the closure of your account for as long as permitted for legal, regulatory, fraud prevention and legitimate business purposes.

1.9  We may give you further details, from time to time, about how we may use your personal information. You can always find the most up-to-date Privacy Policy at www.barclaycard.co.uk

Credit reference and fraud prevention agencies

1.10  We use credit reference agencies and fraud prevention agencies:

1. to help us make decisions when you apply for and after you have obtained any credit and credit related or other products, make enquires, check your details, check your credit history, verify your identity or to assist us in managing your account(s), for example if we wish to consider changing your credit limit, or offering you other products, now or in the future, or trace your whereabouts, recover debts you owe or as otherwise described above in How We Use Your Information and in the Barclaycard Conditions;
2. to share information about you and how you manage your account(s) and
3. if you give us false or inaccurate information or we suspect or identify fraud, money laundering and/or other crimes.

1.11  When making enquiries we may search at:

1. Credit reference agencies records for information on:
1. previous applications and the conduct of the accounts in your and your associate(s) name, public available information such as County Court Judgments (CCJs) and bankruptcies, Electoral Register information and fraud prevention information;
2. if you are making a joint application now or have ever previously made joint applications, have joint accounts or are financially linked or tell us that you have a spouse or financial associate, we will link your records together and we will check your financial associates’ personal accounts as well. So you must be sure that you have their agreement to disclose information about them. Credit reference agencies also link your records together and these links will remain on your and their files until such time as you or your partner successfully files for a disassociation with the credit reference agencies to break that link.
2. Fraud prevention agencies for information on you and any addresses at which you have lived and on your business (if you have one).

1.12  Any enquiry we make at a credit reference agency may be assessed with reference to any ‘financially associated’ records.

1.13  Credit reference agencies will not use information about you to create a blacklist or make a decision.

1.14  Credit reference agencies keep a record of our enquiries/searches (“footprint”) and may record, use and give out information we give them to other lenders, insurers and other organisations, including any previous and subsequent names that have been used by the accountholders and how you/they manage it/them, even if your application does not proceed or is unsuccessful. This also applies to fraud prevention agencies and other organisations involved in crime and fraud prevention.

1.15  If the search was for a credit application, the record of that search (but not the name of the organisation that carried it out) may be seen by other organisations when you apply for credit in the future.

1.16  Credit reference agencies record the amount of any outstanding debts we (or others) inform them about, if you have borrowed from us (or them) and not repaid in full and on time. Records shared with credit reference agencies remain on file for 6 years after they are closed, whether settled by you or defaulted.

1.17  The information recorded by credit reference agencies and fraud prevention agencies may be used by us and other organisations to make assessments for credit from you and your financial associates and to help make decisions about you and your financial associates on credit and credit related services, motor, household, life, and other insurance facilities (including handling claims), trace your whereabouts, recover debts that you owe, prevent crime, fraud and money laundering, verify your identity and manage your accounts or insurance policies including to update and maintain the accuracy of your records.

1.18  The information recorded by fraud prevention agencies may be accessed and used by us and other organisations in the UK and in other countries.

International Transfers

1.19  If we transfer your information to a person, office, branch, organisation, service provider or agent in another country, we will make sure that they agree to apply the same levels of protection as we are required to apply to information held in the UK and to use your information only for the purposes that we have permitted.

1.20  In order to make or receive some payments, the details of the payment (including information relating to those involved in the payment) may be received from or sent abroad, where it could be accessible by overseas regulators and authorities in connection with their legitimate duties (e.g. the prevention of crime). By using your card to make payments you agree to this on behalf of yourselves and others involved in your payments.

Further information

1.21  You can ask us for a copy of the information we keep about you. A fee will be charged for this service.

1.22  If you believe that any information we hold about you is incorrect or incomplete, you should write to us immediately. If we find that any information is incorrect or incomplete we will correct it promptly.

1.23  For information about the data the credit reference agencies hold about you, you can contact the credit reference agencies directly. The information they each hold about you may not be the same, so you should consider contacting them all. They will charge you a fee for this service.

1. Call Credit, Consumer Services Team, PO Box 491, Leeds, LS3 1WZ or call 0870 0601414 (Personal credit data only) or log on to www.callcredit.co.uk
2. Equifax PLC, Credit File Advice Centre, PO Box 1140, Bradford, BD1 5US or call 08443 350 550 or log on to www.myequifax.co.uk
3. Experian, Consumer Help Service, PO Box 8000, Nottingham NG80 7WF or call 0844 481 8000 or log on to www.experian.co.uk.

1.24  Please contact us if you want to receive details of the fraud prevention agencies.

1.25  You agree that calls between us may be recorded and/or monitored in the interest of security, for quality control and to ensure better customer servicing, staff training and account operation.