About our Privacy Policy

Confidentiality
We will treat all your personal information as completely private and confidential, and will not give any details about you or your accounts with us to anyone else unless we have your consent, or in exceptional circumstances where the law compels or allows us to do so. We may therefore share your information with third parties to protect both ourselves and our customers against theft and fraud, and to prevent money laundering.

By providing us with information, you are expressly authorising us to use it in accordance with this policy.

Where information is stored
The information which you provide or which we obtain through our dealings with you or in connection with your account will be held on the Society's computers and in other records.

Your right to see your information
Under the Data Protection Act 1998 you have a right to see and receive a copy of information held about you on our records (on payment of a fee) and to ask for any inaccurate details to be amended. For the purposes of the Data Protection Act 1998, the Data Controller in relation to any personal data you supply is Kent Reliance Building Society. If you have any questions about the Data Protection Act or your rights under it please write to the Society's Secretary, Kent Reliance Building Society, Sun Pier, Chatham, Kent ME4 4ET.

How your personal information is used
The information which we ask you to provide is used to open, administer, and manage your accounts, and to deal with your enquiries. We will make it clear why we need the information and how we will use it, and we may obtain it from you directly, from a third party you authorise to act on your behalf, or from other organisations such as credit reference agencies.

Information about you and your accounts will be shared within Kent Reliance to enable us to make lending decisions, recover debts, verify your identity, to detect and prevent fraud and money laundering, or for marketing purposes. This may mean passing your details on to third parties or receiving information about you from third parties.

Sharing information with other organisations -

	Lending decisions - credit reference agencies If you apply for a mortgage we will use a licensed credit reference agency to perform a search of the information they hold about you and the conduct of your financial affairs. This enquiry will be recorded by the agency. If the mortgage proceeds, we will provide details of your agreement with us, your payments, and any default or failure to keep to its terms to the credit reference agencies. These records will be accessed by other organisations to assist them in their lending decisions. By carrying out a credit reference search, we will also access the CML Possessions Register which records all properties taken into possession. The credit reference agencies may use your information for statistical purposes.
	Debt recovery - Debt collection agencies, solicitors and tracing agencies If you default on a loan agreement with us, we will give you 28 days' notice before asking credit reference agencies to record the default, which will remain on their records for 6 years. We may also authorise a third party, such as a Debt Collection Agency or solicitor, to act on our behalf to recover the debt. We will let you know in writing before passing on your details. If we cannot trace you, we may pass your details to a Tracing Agency.
	Fraud prevention To protect us against fraud and other criminal activity we may check your details against and share information with a variety of fraud prevention agencies. In addition, Money Laundering legislation requires all financial institutions to collect and record personal information to confirm a customer's identity, and to report any transactions arousing suspicion to the National Criminal Intelligence Service.
	Marketing As part of our service we may use your details to keep you informed about products, services and offers (including those of other selected organisations) that we consider you may be interested in, either by letter, telephone, or e-mail. We may also invite you to take part in market research. When you open an account or apply for a mortgage or other product or service with us, we will give you the opportunity to tell us if you do not wish your information to be used for these purposes by ticking the relevant opt-out box on the application form. You can also write to us at any time to ask to have your name removed from our mailing list. We do not give to or share any information with external companies for their own marketing purposes. Where we provide products or services through another company we will clearly identify them and explain how your information will be used by us and them. Occasionally we use external companies to carry out work on our behalf - for example the addressing of letters for large mailings. When we do so, we only use reputable companies with robust processes and stringent security, and our contract with them will not allow them to use your information for anything else.

Telephone calls
For various security and staff training purposes we may record or monitor calls you make to us.

E-mails
If you contact us by e-mail we will record your e-mail address and, in addition to the specific services that you request, we may also contact you by e-mail with details of other products and services offered by the Society, which we believe may be relevant or of interest to you. If you do not want us to do this, please tick the appropriate box on the 'e-mail form' page.

For your own security you are advised to keep any confidential information you send to us by e-mail to a minimum, and we will not include any confidential information about you or your account details in any e-mail that we send to you.

Cookies
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Other linked websites
Where there is a link from this website to another relevant site, this privacy policy will not apply once you enter the other site.