Who are we and what does this notice deal with?

Gas Fast Limited, currently trading as “Wickes Solar” and referred to in this Wickes Solar Customer Privacy Notice as “Wickes Solar”, “we” or “us”, forms part of the Wickes Group but is separately registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office as a data controller.

Wickes Solar is responsible for the use of personal information described in this notice. This notice explains how Wickes Solar uses your personal information (sometimes referred to as "personal data") in various scenarios including when you visit this website ((https://www.wickes.co.uk/wickes-solar) "the Website"). This notice is broken down into separate sections to give some specific detail about how we use your personal information in each scenario.

Our contact details can be found at the end of this notice.

What is personal information?

Personal information is any information relating to an individual who can be identified directly or indirectly, often by name, account number, location, an online identifier or other factors specific to their identity. It is referred to as "personal data" in data protection law.

Personal information may include “special category data” relating to racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, membership of a trade union, physical or mental health. Personal information can also include criminal records and allegations of crime.

As a rule, we do not collect “special category data” about visitors to our website or our customers or suppliers. The exception is where we identify suspected criminal activity such as fraudulent claims or the use of stolen payment card details. In this case we will record details of the suspected criminal activity and may take appropriate action, including refusing to accept orders, make payments or give refunds. We may also report the incident to the relevant bank or payment card issuer or to the police or other appropriate authorities.

See below for details of how we may use your personal information.

Website Visitors: The personal information we collect about you and how we use it

You can visit and browse the Website without providing your name or contact details.

Like many websites, our server logs capture details of your operating system, browser software, IP (Internet Protocol) address and Uniform Resource Locator (URL), including the date and time of your visit.

When you use our website, either browsing or to enquire about a purchase, we collect some Personal Data through cookies and similar technologies.

We use cookies to help give you the best experience on our websites and to allow us and third parties to tailor ads you see on ours and other websites. For more information please see our full Cookie policy below.

You may choose to provide your contact details (name, address, business, job title, email address, telephone number) if you do any of these things:

• Register your interest with us online;

• Enter one of our competitions;

• Subscribe to newsletters or marketing information; or

• Contact us via social media or through our sales, marketing and customer service departments.

When you enter a competition or promotional feature we may also ask for details such as your name, address, email address and telephone number so we can administer the competition and notify winners.

Separate terms and conditions may apply when you sign up to an account with us or if you decide to participate in a competition so please make sure that you read them at the relevant time.

We collect this information for the purposes of our legitimate interests for:-

• maintaining and managing the Website;

• keeping you informed of goods and services we think you would be interested in (provided we have not received an opt out for marketing from you);

• tailoring the Website for your needs; and

• to ensure the Website is kept secure.

We will not use personal information about you in a way which conflicts negatively with your rights and freedoms, and will monitor this from time to time.

Customers: The personal information we collect about you when interacting with us online

If you purchase from us from our Website, we may use your personal information (which includes your contact details such as your name, address, email address and mobile number) in the following ways.

Enquiries and Information:

• to answer your questions or provide you with information you have requested

• to keep track of sales and enquiries

• to arrange an appointment to discuss and consider your needs

• to notify you about important changes or developments to our site or services

Orders and Account Management:

• to place and process your order

• to help with any questions if you have started an order but not completed it

• to arrange visits to your home (e.g. to carry out a survey or installation)

• to check in on the progress of an order, including the installer's work

• to manage your account, including carrying out identity checks (if applicable)

• to manage your credit account (if applicable) including carrying out credit checks and progressing finance agreements for orders

Customer Relationship

• to monitor how our customers transact with us online (for more information see Understanding Our Customers below)

• to contact you (under Legitimate Interests) for your views on our products and services

• to publish trends and/or to improve usefulness and content of our website

• to track activity on our site to provide a more personalised online experience and to send you the most relevant information about our products and services

• to link with social media sites and services, for example, for advertising purposes for market research purposes, by tracking activity on our site (on an anonymous basis) to identify trends and/or to improve usefulness and content

• to measure the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns using email analytics to track emails sent, how many were opened and whether links were followed

You can unsubscribe from marketing messages at any time as explained below at Marketing – Right to Opt Out.

Other:

• for product liability purposes

• to deal with enquiries and complaints

• for claims management and insurance purposes

• for general record keeping purposes.

We process this information for the purposes of:-

• performance of a contract with you (e.g. to provide you with the goods and services you have requested);

• performance of a legal obligation (e.g. to comply with statutory obligations owed to our customers); and

• where we have a legitimate interest to use your information, provided such interest does not impact your rights and freedoms (e.g. to monitor use of the website connected to your sale and to protect and defend our rights).

Marketing and keeping you up to date

We will send marketing to you from time to time where we have a legitimate interest to do so, or where we have your consent. The marketing we undertake varies based on how you interact with us and whether we have consent or not. If you sign up to receive updates or have bought or enquired about our products or services, we may use the information we collect to let you know about our other products and services which may be of interest to you and to keep you updated with information about promotional offers and what is coming soon.

To inform our marketing to you, we may analyse your use of our website and the searches you make on this and other websites. We use this information to tailor the marketing you receive from us so it is as relevant as possible. This may include serving you with adverts on social media and other third party websites. If you agree, we may pass your information to suppliers and manufacturers who are interested in getting in touch with you about their products and services, including other companies in our group.

You can opt out of receiving marketing communications from us at any time. See Your Rights below to understand how to opt out from our marketing.

Please note that we may send you service messages relating to your purchases which do not need your consent to marketing to you. This may include messages to check whether you need help with your order or messages asking you to review any products that you have purchased.

Our lawful basis for undertaking this activity is that we have a legitimate interest to provide you with information about us and the goods and services that we sell. We are of the view that this does not infringe your rights and freedoms on the basis that you are always given the chance to opt out of such marketing as explained below at "Your rights and how to contact us."

Understanding our customers and providing a better service

So that we can provide a better service, we want to understand the shopping patterns of our customers, how customers select the products and services they ultimately buy, which apps and technology customers prefer to use, and how successful our advertising and promotional campaigns have been. We may use a number of different techniques to do this which includes some of the activities outlined above, but in particular:

• We also use cookies to track online activity. You can find out more about this in our Cookies Policy https://www.wickes.co.uk/cookies. The information collected by cookies does not in itself identify a visitor to our site but if you are a customer or account holder we may be able to identify you from both sets of information combined. You can manage your preferences to consent to what cookies you want to be placed and we rely on consent as our lawful basis.

• To provide you with the best possible service, and to improve our products and marketing, we analyse your interactions with us. This analysis may involve the use of profiling techniques, using data gathered from your purchases, website usage, and interactions with our marketing materials. We do not use these techniques for automated decision making that significantly affects you. You have the right to object to this profiling, and you can contact us to exercise this right.

Unless specifically mentioned above, we use your information for the purposes of our legitimate interests for:-

• helping improve our offerings and to understand future needs and demands of our customer base;

• keeping you informed of goods and services we think you would be interested in (provided we have not received an opt out for marketing from you) through different channels such as social media and email;

• tailoring advertisements for your needs; and

• checking whether our marketing is effective.

We will not use personal information about you in a way which conflicts negatively with your rights and freedoms, and will monitor this from time to time.

Call Recording

Some telephone calls may be recorded or monitored, for example calls to our customer services teams. Call recording and monitoring may be carried out for the following purposes:

• Training and quality control

• As evidence of conversations

• For the prevention or detection of crime (e.g. fraudulent claims)

We undertake this monitoring where we have a legal obligation to do so and a legitimate interest. This is for the prevention and detection of crime, and protection of persons and property, and also to protect and defend our rights.

Retention

We will retain your personal information for as long as needed for the legitimate business purposes described above.

If you are a visitor to the website, we will retain your information for a limited period in order to respond to your query, provide you with the information you require or to send you updates on our products and services for as long as you indicate that you are happy for us to do so. We may retain your contact details if you opt out for marketing to ensure we do not market to you again, e.g. in a suppression list.

Call recordings will be retained for up to 90 days for training and quality monitoring purposes, with call summaries being retained for as long as needed for the legitimate business purposes described above.

Your information may be retained for longer than this if there are valid legal grounds for us to do so, for example if required by law or court order, or as needed to defend or pursue legal claims.

Working with Service Providers

Like most organisations, we engage service providers to run our website and IT systems, to help us administer accounts, to conduct credit checks and fraud screening, and to handle marketing campaigns. We also work with a number of suppliers who provide products and delivery services to us.

We will only provide these companies with the information they need to deliver the service we have engaged them for and they are prohibited from using that information for any other purpose. Whenever we share personal information about our customers or visitors to our website with our service providers, we will put in place contracts which require the service provider to protect the information and keep it secure. See also Transferring information to other countries below.

AI Agents

In addition to our sales, customer service, and marketing teams, we may also use AI-powered booking assistants to contact you about your enquiry. Where this is the case:

• You will always be informed at the start of a call if you are speaking with an AI assistant.

• You can request to speak to a human at any time, and your call will be transferred or ended.

• You may opt out of AI contact completely by telling us during a call or by emailing marketing@wickessolar.co.uk. Once opted out, your record will be flagged in our management system to prevent future AI contact where possible.

• AI assistants are used only for enquiry follow-up and booking consultations. They will not discuss pricing, finance, or handle complaints.

Other Disclosures

Your personal data may be disclosed to the following third parties for the purposes described above:

• tax, customs and excise authorities

• regulators, courts and the police

• fraud screening agencies

• central and local government

• insurance companies

• other professional advisors

We may also disclose your personal information if we believe that the disclosure is necessary to enforce or apply our terms and conditions or otherwise protect and defend our rights, property or the safety of our customers and other users of the website.

We may disclose and/or transfer your personal information in connection with a reorganisation of all or part of our business, if the majority of our shares are bought by another company or if we transfer all or some of our assets to another company.

Transferring information to other countries

Some of the companies who provide services to us may be located outside the United Kingdom. We use IT service providers who are located in the US, for example. As a result, your personal information may be transferred outside the UK. We will ensure that those service providers comply with any legal requirements that apply to the transfer of personal information outside the UK, including, where appropriate, requiring the service provider to enter into legal safeguards for transfers of data.

Security

We are committed to safeguarding the personal information you provide to us. We use appropriate measures to protect the information that you submit through our website and the information we collect and store about our customers. Internally, we restrict access to personal information. Only employees who need the information in order to do their jobs have access to it.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of information you submit via our website and any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will take appropriate technical and organisational measures to safeguard your personal data against loss, theft and unauthorised use, access or modification.

If you have created an account or registered to use any online services, your account details may be password protected. It is your responsibility to keep your password confidential and to sign out once you have finished browsing.

Links to other websites

Links may be provided on our website to other websites that are not operated by us. If you use these links, you will leave our website. You should note that we are not responsible for the contents of any third party website. External sites will have their own privacy policies which you should read carefully.

Your rights and how to contact us

Marketing – Right to Opt Out

You can opt out of all or some marketing that you receive from us:-

• You can opt out of receiving marketing by contacting our customer service team via marketing@wickessolar.co.uk or by clicking the ‘Unsubscribe’ link which can be found on all marketing emails.

Access and Correction

If you would like to correct or update any of your other personal information, or if you would like a copy of the personal information we hold, please contact us at the address below. We may need to ask for proof of your identity before we can respond to your request.

We are committed to ensuring that all customers can exercise their rights of access without barriers. Therefore if you require any reasonable adjustments to be made in order to access and/or receive your personal data in a way which meets your individual needs, please inform us either in an email or over the phone and we will work with you to carry out your request in the most suitable way possible.

Other Rights

You may also have the following rights in relation to your personal information:

• in certain circumstances, the right to restrict or object to the processing of your personal information (including profiling), or request that your personal information is deleted

• where you have provided personal information voluntarily, or otherwise consented to its use, the right to withdraw your consent

• in certain circumstances, the right to receive a copy of the personal information which you have provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format or to request that we transfer that information to another party (known as “data portability”)

• the right to complain to a Data Protection Authority (see further below).

Keeping in touch and making complaints

We are committed to ensuring that all customers can exercise their rights of access without barriers. Therefore, if you require any reasonable adjustments to be made in order to access and/or receive your personal data in a way which meets your individual needs, please inform us either in an email or over the phone and we will work with you to carry out your request in the most suitable way possible.

If you have a query about this privacy policy or wish to exercise your rights, please contact our Data Protection Officer by writing to them via:

Wickes Group Data Protection Officer, Vision House, 19 Colonial Way, Watford, WD24 4JL

Or emailing them at:

GDPR@wickes.co.uk (marking emails for the attention of the Data Protection Officer)

Please note that you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you believe we are not handling your data in accordance with the UK GDPR.

You can contact the ICO via their web-form at ICO.org.uk/concerns/ or call the ICO helpline on +44 (0)303 123 1113, postal address:

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

For your information: Wickes Solar is currently a trading style of Gas Fast Limited (part of the Wickes Group).

Complaints Department contact details

Telephone: 0330 818 3116

E-mail: complaints@wickessolar.co.uk

Our Procedures

Any complaint verbal or written will be referred to our complaint’s manager at the earliest opportunity or to a member of the senior management if the complaints manager is unavailable. We will also:

• Acknowledge the complaint in writing promptly;

• Record details on our system;

• Make contact to seek clarification on any points where necessary;

• Fully investigate the complaint;

• Keep you informed of our progress;

• Discuss with you our findings and proposed response;

• Ensure that our partners have a compliant complaints procedure and are communicating with their customer using this; and

• Provide clear deadlines to respond.

You will receive contact from us advising on progress if we cannot respond immediately. We will let you have our final response as soon as possible and not later than eight weeks.

You may express dissatisfaction to us about our products and services. We will need to establish whether or not the complaint relates to the information given or the service and installation. If unclear, this must not delay investigation and we will proceed with our own investigation. The complaints manager will review this matter and present the complaint and we will investigate and provide a written explanation and any supporting information. This may include photos, checklists or remedial satisfaction notes.

Investigation

The complaints manager will establish the nature and scope of the complaint, ensuring they deal with all complaints promptly and fairly and giving complainants clear replies and, where appropriate, fair redress.

Eligible Complainants

It is our policy to treat all complainants the same, however, eligible complainants are legally defined and have additional rights in law that we must acknowledge and adhere to.

The Financial Conduct Authority complaints rules apply to complaints:

• Made by, or on behalf of an eligible complainant.

• Relating to regulated activity.

• Involving an allegation that the complainant has suffered, or may suffer, financial loss, material distress or material inconvenience.

Final response

This will set out clearly our decision and the reasons for it. If any compensation is offered a clear method of calculation will be shown.

We will include details of the Financial Ombudsman Service in the final response if dealing with an eligible complainant and a regulated activity, we will:

• Explain that the complainant must refer the matter to the ombudsman within six months of the date of this letter or the right to use this service is lost

• Indicate whether or not we consent to waive the relevant time limits.

Complaints Settled within 3 business days

Complaints that can be settled to the customer’s satisfaction within 3 business days can be recorded and communicated differently.

Where we consider a complaint to be resolved to the customer’s satisfaction under this section, we will promptly send a ‘Summary Resolution Communication’, being a written communication from them which:

• refers to the fact that the customer has made a complaint and informs them that they now consider the complaint to have been resolved to the customers satisfaction.

• We will tell the customer that if they subsequently decide that they are dissatisfied with the resolution of the complaint they may be able to refer the complaint back to us for further consideration or alternatively refer the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service;

• Provide the website address of the Financial Ombudsman Service; and

• Refer to the availability of further information on the website of the Financial Ombudsman Service.

In addition to sending you a Summary Resolution Communication, we may also use other methods to communicate the information where:

• We consider that doing so may better meet the customer’s needs; or

• They have already been using another method to communicate about the complaint. This may include recorded calls, emails or text messages.

Closing a complaint

We will consider a complaint closed when we have made our final response to the customer. This does not prevent a customer from exercising any rights they may have to refer the matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Financial Ombudsman Service

We will co-operate fully with the Ombudsman in resolving any complaints made against us and agree to be bound by any awards made by the Ombudsman. We undertake to pay promptly any fees levied by the Ombudsman.

Contact:

• The Financial Ombudsman Service, Exchange Tower, London E14 9SR

• Tel: 0800 023 4567 (free for most people ringing from a fixed line) or 0300 123 9123 (cheaper for those calling using a mobile) or 020 7964 0500 (if calling from abroad)

• Email: complaint.info@financial-ombudsman.org.uk

• Website: www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk