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Privacy
Protecting your personal information as carefully as we protect your money.
Understanding Privacy
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If asked for examples of our personal information many of us would offer name, address and phone number, perhaps an email address too. This is how people usually identify themselves and others as individuals. The laws on privacy classify all these as personal information, but a great deal more besides. In law, personal information is any information about specified individuals, or which identifies people as individuals, either directly or when added to other pieces of information.
This includes a lot of information given to organisations, as when you submit an email address to receive updates about offers or discounts, for example. But it also includes the technical data that is collected when you go online with a laptop or mobile, or when you browse websites or make purchases.
Lloyds Banking Group collects the first sort of information when a customer completes a form to apply for a credit card, for example. It collects the second sort when recording the date, time and location of a purchase made with one of its credit cards. This is done partly to make sure that top quality services are offered to all customers, but also to comply with regulations that apply to all banks.
When put together all this information can add up to a detailed picture of a person's life and behaviour. A benefit for customers is that this helps banks to spot unauthorised activity in an account and tackle fraud more effectively. It also makes it important that Lloyds Banking Group explains to customers what personal information it holds, when it's collected and why.
For more detail, see our Privacy notice - it's worth a read.
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The security of your personal information is something we take very seriously. We keep a constant check on our systems and investigate carefully anything unusual in order to understand any impact on our customers. If we don't do things correctly, it's a serious matter, punishable with stiff penalties. It's worth emphasising that we put a lot of effort into protecting your personal information as well as your money. Our methods go beyond industry standards.
If you're unhappy about the way we've used your personal information please let us know. You can do this using the details you'll find in the How to contact us section of our Privacy notice.
If you're still unhappy after our response, you can also contact the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) yourself. The ICO is independent and can look into complaints on your behalf. Find out more on the ICO website about how to raise a concern.
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Machines carry out many tasks that were once the responsibility of people. Advances in technology mean they help us with complex tasks such as processing a lot of information quickly and making decisions. We know that a customer's time is valuable so we try to make applying for a new product or service as quick and efficient as possible. This can be done by using machines to run eligibility checks or credit checks, for example.
These are important decisions and we put a number of checks in place to make sure our machines get them right. If you think such a decision made by a machine is wrong, and want the decision to be reviewed by a human, you have that right.
For more details and guidance on how to do this see the how we use your information to make automated decisions section of our Data Protection Notice.
Your right to fair treatment includes the accuracy of details we hold about you. If we've got it wrong please let us know. We'll correct the mistake.
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Marketing offers and sales promos seem to be everywhere, delivered to us online, by phone, or in the post. Privacy laws make it a requirement that companies wanting to send us this kind of material must have our agreement first. This seems straightforward in theory but in practice people aren't always certain about what they've agreed to.
The new privacy rules require that it should be easier to see what marketing material you've agreed to receive from organisations. They must also make it clearer when you've agreed to receive it. They must make it easy for you to change your mind and opt out if you wish to.
One of the consequences may be that you have more choices to make about your personal settings. Even if you think you've done it all before it's worth taking a moment to check your settings if asked to do so. That way, you should only get material that's likely to be of interest to you.
We'll always send you important service messages about changes to interest rates, how to keep your account safe and the benefits linked to your account. But you can choose not to receive our marketing material. You can also see how we decide what may be relevant to you in the Marketing section of our Privacy notice.
Agreeing to receive marketing material is an example of 'giving your consent'. It's worth remembering that the new privacy laws cover other types of consent, such as agreeing to have your credit status checked. There are details in our Privacy Notice of how the regulations apply to our services and how the law protects you.
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Your 'right to be forgotten' and how it applies to banks.
The key idea in what some call the 'right to be forgotten' is the recognition that personal information should not be kept for longer than needed. It also recognises that an individual has the right to request that their personal information is erased. The holder must then either erase it or provide a good reason why this won't happen.
What counts as a good enough reason? One example is that the information is needed to supply a service that a customer still wants or needs. It's not possible to provide a banking service for a person, but also to erase all their personal information from the bank's systems, for example. Another is that the holder is required by laws or regulations to keep personal information for a set period before it's erased. In fact this is the case for banks - there are strict rules about the records banks must keep.
For example, banks are required to hold financial records to help fight crimes such as fraud, money laundering, or terrorism. In relation to banks it's misleading to think of a simple 'right to be forgotten'. You have a right to request personal information to be erased, and for this to be carried out, or to be given a satisfactory reason why it can't be.
See more about how long we keep your personal information, in the Privacy notice.