Privacy Statement

Updated on 23 May 2018

Information covered by this statement

This Privacy Statement applies to the use and processing of personal information collected and used by members of Dowen Estate Agents. We are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. We use the personal information you share with us, to tailor our services to your requirements and to provide the best possible user experience, on our company website.

By using the Dowen Estate Agents website and associated mobile applications or otherwise providing your personal information to Dowen Estate Agents, you agree to the collection, use and sharing of your information in accordance with this statement. Please read this Privacy Statement carefully and contact us if you have any questions.

Personal information is information, or any combination of separate pieces of information, that could be used to identify you.

Should you have any queries in respect of this statement or our use of personal data, please contact the Dowen Data Protection Officer at d.dowen@dowen.co.uk

Information Dowen Estate Agents collects

We may collect information about you from a variety of sources. This includes information we collect directly from you; information we collect when you visit our websites, view our online content or use our mobile applications or other services and information we collect about you from other sources.

Information we collect directly from you

We collect information directly from you when you choose to participate in our offers and programs, create an account on our websites or in our mobile applications, call or email us, or otherwise provide information directly to us. The following are examples of information we may collect directly from you:

• Name
• Email address
• Postal address
• Username and password
• Telephone Number(s)
• Date of birth
• Demographic information
• Financial or employment information
• Payment information (such as a credit card) and bank account details
• Future communication preferences
• Telephone number and recordings when you call us

Information we collect when you visit our sites, view our online ads or promotions, or use our mobile applications or other services

We use cookies and other technologies to collect information when you visit our sites, view our online advertisements or promotions, or use our mobile applications or other services. The following are examples of information we may collect with these technologies:

• Information about your device browser and operating system.
• IP address
• Web pages you view
• Links you click
• Dowen Estate Agents emails you open

Information collected through Mobile Applications

When you download our mobile applications to your mobile device, we may also collect information that you provide. We also automatically collect information through our applications.

The following are examples of the types of information we may automatically collect through our applications: 

• Marketing ID or similar identifier
• Information about your devices’ operating system
• Information about the way you use the application

Your Choices about information collection through Mobile Applications

You can opt out of continued information collection by our mobile application by deleting the application from your device.

Precise Location Data

Our mobile applications may collect precise location information from your device if you consent to the collection of this information. We may use third-party service providers to provide location services using the location data you provide. You may opt out at any time to the continued collection of this information by adjusting the settings on your device. Information Dowen Estate Agents collects from other sources.

We may obtain information about you from other sources, including publicly available sources, such as the Land Registry, social media platforms or referral agents, etc. Examples of information we may collect from other sources are: 

• Name
• Postal address
• Email address
• Date of birth
• Financial information
• Publicly observed activities or information made available by you to the public, such as blogs, videos, internet postings, and user generated content

How Dowen Estate Agents uses this information

The personal information we collect when you first contact us will be used for identification and authentication purposes, in addition to creating a profile for you, with the information needed to provide you with our relevant products or services. We use and analyse this personal information where necessary for the following purposes detailed below:

Improving our products and services: we will use your personal information to build a profile on you in order to understand your requirements, to improve our Website, as well as to personalise the properties and services we offer you. We process your personal information in this way as it is necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests in providing better products and services for you and our other customers

Processing your transaction: we use relevant personal information described above (including your name, address and financial details) to enable us to complete a transaction with you, such as buying, selling, renting or letting a property through us. This information may require to be passed on to third parties, including solicitors, surveyors, financial advisors etc

Preventing fraud: we will also use your personal information to assess your creditworthiness (in the case of buying or renting a property) and to prevent fraud. For this purpose, we may need to share your personal information with our referencing providers, financial advisers and/or solicitors (see “how we share your personal information” below). This is necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests in ensuring we are not the victim of fraud and to protect our legal rights

To provide customer support: if you contact our team (or vice versa), we will use personal information such as your email address, phone number and residential address as well as your contact history to process your request and provide you with the best service possible. We will process your personal information in this way if it is necessary for the performance of a contract or if it is required for us to comply with any legal obligations. If it is not necessary to process your personal data for either of these reasons we will process it as it is necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests in ensuring we can provide the best possible service

Marketing: when you sign up to receive our newsletters, register as an applicant, enter into a transaction with us, provide feedback on our service online or use our website; we will use your personal information to create a profile based on the information we hold about you. This is necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests in ensuring we have accurate information about you in one place. We create your profile in accordance with your preferences in order to provide you with the best personalised experience, to send you personalised marketing messages and newsletters and for opinion research purposes. Below you can find a more detailed description of the ways in which we will use your personal information for these purposes

Dowen Estate Agents will only process your information in pursuance of our legitimate interest, if we receive any requests related to, for example, a product or service, a communication, or specific marketing materials then we will use your personal information to fulfil your request. Where we need to manage your account and protect you against or identify possible fraudulent transactions, we will do so in accordance with our legal obligation placed on us under law.

Information sharing

We do not sell your personal information to marketing specialists outside of Dowen Estate Agents. We share your personal information within Dowen Estate Agents and as described in this statement.

Co-promotions with Carefully Selected Business Partners

We from time to time may collect personal and other information for a co-promotion or joint program with a business partner and share your information with that business partner. For these programs we will make clear at the point of collection that the information, will be shared with Dowen Estate Agents and the participating business partner and ask for your consent as required by applicable laws.

Third-party service providers

We engage third-party service providers to perform a variety of business operations on our behalf. In so doing, we may share your personal information with them. We provide our service providers with only the personal information they need in order to perform the services we request, and we contractually require that they protect this information appropriately and not use it for any other purpose.

For example, we may rely on a 3rd party service provider to:

• Fulfil your service requests and answer your questions
• Host our sites and deliver our email or other communications
• Obtain references ie Referencing Agencies other Estate Agents and Landlords
• Deal with transactions and issues ie Solicitors/Conveyancers/ other Estate Agents/Contractors and Property Maintenance services
• Provide Financial Services products and to assess your ability to complete a proposed transaction
• Contact contest winners, manage payments or take other actions on our behalf
• Analyse our data, sometimes combined with data from other sources, to send you communications
• Conduct research and analyse data to improve our products, services and sites
• Perform other services that we request

Where permitted by law, we combine personal information about you that Dowen Estate Agents has collected with personal information about you, that a business partner has collected, so we can jointly send tailored promotional communications to you. In such instances, our business partner will not be permitted to use Dowen Estate Agents data or the combined data for its own, independent marketing purposes. Our service provider will only be allowed to use the combined set of information to send you joint communications, that we hope will be of interest to you. If you prefer not to receive these joint communications, you can always opt out by following the instructions provided in any such communication or through this Privacy Statement as indicated above.

Our software and system providers include but are not limited to Bondgate IT, bespoke Dowen developed data base software and IAM-SOLD Ltd

Other situations

We may transfer or otherwise process your personal information:

• As part of the sale of a Dowen Estate Agents brand to another company
• When we have received your instruction to pass the sale of your property to another agent
• To protect, defend or exercise the rights and property of Dowen Estate Agents (including enforcing our Terms and Conditions).
• When required by law and/or government authorities

Personal Information Retention Period

We will retain Personal Information for the period necessary to fulfil the purposes outlined in this Privacy Statement, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law.

Aggregated and non-personal information.

We share aggregated and/or anonymous information that does not identify you for Dowen Estate Agents business purposes. For example, we may disclose the number of visitors to Dowen Estate Agents sites or services. We may also share aggregated and/or anonymous information with our business partners for their own business purposes.

Your communication options

We give you choices about how we communicate with you.

Email Communications

You can stop receiving promotional email messages from Dowen Estate Agents by contacting the branch concerned

Postal Mail

You can stop receiving promotional postal mail from Dowen Estate Agents, by contacting the branch concerned

Telephone Marketing

You can stop receiving promotional text message from Dowen Estate Agents, by contacting the branch concerned

PLEASE NOTE: We will honour your request to stop receiving promotional email, phone, text and postal messages from Dowen Estate Agents, as far as is practicable. However, we may continue to send you service-related communications. We may keep information for record keeping to ensure that we fulfil your request not to send particular types of messages.

Data Deletion

You can delete your Dowen Estate Agents online account at any time. This will erase any personal information in your online account that we have about you. And it will mean any data about how you’ve used the online account will be made anonymous.

Deleting your online account, won’t delete any data you’ve shared with Dowen Estate Agents branches, for reasons that they aren’t connected with your online account. If you wish us to erase your data, which is unconnected with your online account, please contact us as described below and we will deal with your request as necessary under applicable law

Other rights

To the extent provided by applicable law, you have the right to request rectification of your personal data; to obtain restriction of the processing of personal data; to object to the processing of personal data (including direct marketing) and to data portability. To exercise any of these rights, please contact us as described below. You should be aware that we will need to see proof of identity before processing any such request (known as a ‘subject access request’) and may charge an administration fee of £15 to cover our costs in providing you with this information. If requested, Dowen Estate Agents will use reasonable efforts to supply, correct or delete information held about you.

Consent

Where you have provided consent for our processing of your personal data, you may withdraw that consent at any time by contacting us as described below. We will cease processing your personal data as soon as reasonably practicable following our receipt of your withdrawal.

Complaints

If you consider that we have processed personal data in violation of applicable law, please contact us as described below. If you consider that we have processed personal data in violation of applicable law and failed to remedy such violation to your reasonable satisfaction, you may also lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority (e.g. the Information Commissioner in the UK).

Cookies and Other Technologies

Dowen Estate Agents and our third-party service providers use a variety of technologies to assess how our sites or mobile applications are used, to personalise your experience and to deliver you marketing, including online content, tailored to your interests. Some technologies we may use include the following:

Cookies

A cookie is a small file placed on your device when you visit a site that can be understood by the site that issued the cookie. We use the information collected by cookies to remember who you are to log you in and your preferences, to provide you advertisements, offers or other content tailored to your interests and to assess how our sites are used. You can accept or decline cookies through your browser settings. To learn more, please look at the cookie settings available in your specific web browser(s). Please note, however, that without cookies you may not be able to use all of the features of our Sites or other websites and online services.

Other Technologies

In conjunction with gathering information through cookies, web beacons and Javascript, our web servers may log information such as your device type, operating system type, browser type, domain, and other system settings, as well as the language your system uses and the country and time zone where your device is located. We also may record information such as the address of the web page that referred you to our Sites and the IP address of the device you use to connect to our Sites. We may log information about your interaction with the Sites, such as which pages you visit. To control which web servers collect information by automated means, we may place tags on our web pages called “web beacons,” which are small files that link web pages to particular web servers and their cookies. We also may send instructions to your device using JavaScript or other computer languages to gather the sorts of information described above and other details about your interactions with our Sites.

We may use third-party web analytics services on our Sites, such as those of Google Analytics. These service providers help us analyse how visitors use the Sites. The information obtained for this purpose (including your IP address and other information collected by automated means) will be disclosed to or collected directly by these service providers

The providers of third-party plug-ins and widgets on our Sites, such as embedded videos and social media sharing tools, may use automated means to collect information regarding your use of the Sites and your interactions with the plug-ins and widgets. We may also receive information you have made available to those third party services, including the geographic location of your mobile device and other information about you (such as name, email address, gender, locale, time zone, languages, social media profile URL, personal website URL, biographical information, birthday, photo, list of devices, education history, work history, hometown, interests, current city, political views, favourite athlete and teams, relationship status and information, religion, name of significant other, and certain security settings information) and your contacts on those services. This information is subject to the privacy policies or notices of the third party providers of the plug-ins and widgets.

Internet-Based Marketing

You may receive interest-based marketing, offers or other content as you interact with websites or mobile applications. Interest-based Marketing is online Marketing from Dowen Estate Agents and/or from our carefully selected business partners that is tailored to your interests and sent to your device using a cookie or other identifier assigned to your device. These cookies or other identifiers are placed in general interest categories that we infer from information such as:

• The web pages you view and links you click on Dowen Estate Agents websites and other websites you visit
• Mobile applications you use
• The Dowen Estate Agents brand emails you view and links you click in the email
• Demographic data
• Offline and online purchase data

We have designed our interest-based marketing systems to deliver such ads to you based only on data that does not personally identify you.

Your choices regarding receipt of interest-based Marketing on websites

You can choose to opt out from receiving interest-based marketing, usually from within the marketing material by using the unsubscribe option. Andrew Craig will honour that choice.

Your choices regarding receipt of interest-based Marketing in mobile applications

Some newer mobile device operating systems allow you to limit the use of information to deliver interest-based marketing in mobile applications. You can check the settings on your device for such options in your devices’ operating system.

Links to Third Party Sites and Social Media

Dowen Estate Agents sites may include links to third-party sites. Dowen Estate Agents does not control these third-party sites, so we encourage you to read the privacy statement of every site you visit.

Social Networks and Third-Party Plug-ins

Our websites may include plugins from social networks or other third parties. An example of a plugin is the Facebook “Like” button. Where legally permitted, these plugins may communicate with and send information to the party that provided the plugin, even if you do not click on the plugin. This information may include your IP address, information about your browser and device, and the address of the web page you are visiting on our site. Loading, using or clicking the plugins may also place, read and transmit cookies. These cookies may contain a unique identifier the social network or third party assigns to you. The loading, functionality and your use of the plugins are governed by the privacy statement and terms of the party that provided the plugin.

Social Network and Third-Party Login

Our websites may allow you to log in using a social network or other third-party account. An example of a third-party login is “Log in with Facebook.” Logging into one of our sites with your social network or other third-party account may allow us to gather information that you give us permission to access from that social network or third party. The login feature may also transfer information to the social network or third party, such as your username and password, to authenticate you. The social network or third party may also automatically collect information such as your IP address, information about your browser and device, and the address of the web page you are visiting on our site. The login feature may also place and read cookies from that third party that may contain a unique identifier the social network or other third party assigns to you. The functionality of and your use of the login is governed by the privacy statement and terms of the party that provided the login functionality.

User Generated Content

Please remember that any information you submit or post as user-generated content to Social Media sites becomes public information. You should exercise caution when deciding to disclose your personal, financial or other information in such submissions or posts. Dowen Estate Agents cannot prevent others from using such information in a manner that may violate this Privacy Statement, the law, or your personal privacy and safety. Dowen Estate Agents is not responsible for the results of such postings.

Information Security

Andrew Craig is committed to keeping personal information secure. We have implemented technical, administrative and physical procedures designed to protect personal information from loss, misuse or alteration.

We limit access to personal information to those who have a business need. We keep personal information only for so long as deemed reasonably necessary

Data Transfers

We may transfer the personal information we collect about you to recipients in countries other than the country in which the information originally was collected. Those countries may not have the same data protection laws as the country in which you initially provided the information. When we transfer your information to recipients in other countries: (i) we will perform those transfers in accordance with the requirements of applicable law; and (ii) we will protect the transferred personal information in accordance with this Privacy Statement

Children’s privacy

Our Sites are not directed to children under the age of thirteen and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of thirteen on our Sites.

Links to other websites and apps

Our Sites may provide links to other websites and apps for your convenience and information. These websites and apps may operate independently from us. Linked sites and apps may have their own privacy notices or policies, which we strongly suggest you review. To the extent any linked websites or apps are not owned or controlled by us, we are not responsible for their content, any use of the websites or apps, or the privacy practices of the websites or apps.

Updates to our Privacy Statement

We will post changes to this Privacy Statement and indicate the effective date when this Privacy Statement is updated

Contact

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcomed and should be addressed to d.dowen@dowen.co.uk

Alternatively you can write to:

Dowen Estate Agents, Jubilee House, York Road, Hartlepool, TS26 9EN