What is this privacy policy for?

Smart Homes (JHS Ltd T/As Smart Homes) (Registered office: 316 Stratford Road, Shirley, Solihull, B90 3DN, Registration Number: 3591917) is committed to protecting your personal information, being transparent about what data we hold and giving you control over how we use it.

The purpose of this privacy policy is to give you a clear explanation about how Smart Homes use personal and behavioural information we collect from you when you use our websites and mobile sites such as smart-homes.co.uk – collectively called our “Digital Channels”.

It is important for you to read this policy in full to understand what information we hold about you, how we may use it and how you can access, update and delete your personal information. By accessing and using our Digital Channels, you are agreeing, or have agreed to, be bound by the Website Terms and Privacy Policy, and you consent to Smart Homes holding, processing and transferring any personal information that you provide Smart Homes, as set out in this Privacy Policy.

If you don’t have time to read the whole policy now, here are the main reasons we collect different types of information about our users:

• To help us monitor and improve our Digital Channels
• To provide you with a more personalised experience, such as making property suggestions that are relevant to your search criteria
• To send you details about our services, where you have signed up to receive such marketing communications
• Keep the Digital Channels secure and prevent fraud

What are Smart Homes’ privacy principles?

Smart Homes’ privacy principles, in respect of how it collects, uses and manages your personal information, are summarised as follows:

When we ask for data it’s to give something back.

Registering for an account on our Digital Channels gives you access to a growing number of benefits, such as being able to save and compare properties that are of interest. Asking for your name means we know how to talk to you. Knowing your address and property status helps us to allocate the most appropriate member of our team to help you with your property needs and your contact details enables us to contact you regarding our services.

We are clear on what data we hold and what we do with it.

In collecting and using your personal information, we will be clear about what we are doing and make sure that you understand the way in which we are using it. Also, we won’t sell your information to anyone.

You control the data we hold on you.

If requested, we will delete your personal information securely and swiftly and all the information we hold on your activity on our Digital Channels will be anonymised, so we won’t know it’s yours.

We will have in place appropriate security measures to protect your information from unauthorised access and will only work with third parties necessary to the completion of any services you requested from us. 

Compliance with laws and your rights

There are various laws and regulations which apply to data protection and data privacy including the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 and 2011 (as may be updated or amended from time to time).

At Smart Homes, we make sure we stick to these data protection and e-privacy laws. As mentioned above, information about the laws, and your rights, can be found on the ICO’s website – www.ico.gov.uk. 

What information will Smart Homes collect about me?

Smart Homes may collect and hold the following information about you:

• Information you provide to us such as when you complete a digital service enquiry form, or register for an account, email notifications and/or newsletters (e.g. registering on smart-homes.co.uk to access the account area and/or subscribing to property alerts). On registration with smart-homes.co.uk, we currently ask for your first and surname, your email address, telephone, house number and postcode and your property status. We ask you for this information so we can offer you relevant local content, information or services. We will always be clear about how this information will be used.
• Information we collect using cookies or similar technologies stored on your device are about how you use our Digital Channels. Cookies are very useful and do lots of different jobs which help to make your experience on our Digital Channels as smooth as possible. For example, they let you move between web pages efficiently, remembering your preferences, and generally improve your user experience. We provide much more information about how we use cookies and other similar technologies in our Cookies Policy.
• Any other information that you choose to send to us.

Information from our web servers’ logs, such as IP addresses

This is used by us (Smart Homes referred to as ‘us’ and ‘our’) to analyse activity on all our Digital Channels. For example, this helps us to look at the number of visits to specific pages to evaluate if we have sufficient infrastructure to support and maintain a great experience for our visitors. We may also collect, store and use the following kinds of information: Information about your computer, your visits to and use of this website (including but not limiting to your IP address, browser type and version, operating system, referral source, length of visit, page views).

Information from social networking sites (such as Facebook and Twitter)

We collect information from social media activity, including likes, shares and tweets on our Digital Channels and about our content on social networking sites. Where you sign in to your account on Romans using social network credentials, such as a Facebook log-in, you grant permission to the social network to share your user details. Depending on the network this will include basic account information such as name, email address, property status and any other details you choose to share according to your Facebook account settings. We may from time to time, on different apps and services, request more than just basic account information from you. We will always be clear about this up front but you should also check what permissions we are asking for before you connect with these apps and services.

Transfers of Information Outside the European Economic Area

Your use of our Digital Channels may result in the transfer of personal information provided by you across national boundaries. By visiting our Digital Channels and communicating with Smart Homes electronically, you consent to the transfer of your Personal Information outside the European Economic Area.

Personal information of others

Before you disclose to us the personal information of another person, you must obtain that person’s consent to both the disclosure and the processing of that personal information in accordance with the terms of this privacy policy.

How will we use this information?

Smart Homes will use the information we collect about you in the following ways:

• To help us to monitor, analyse and improve our Digital Channels. This information helps us to understand which Smart Homes’ content and services are most interesting, helpful to our users and if they are shared via social networks. The information also helps us to identify when errors occur within our Digital Channels and test different versions of a page or feature to see which one works best. All of which helps us improve our Digital Channels for our users.
• To provide you with a more personalised experience. By looking at the information we have about you, we can create a more tailored experience. For example, we will do this by making property suggestions.
• To inform the way we commission future content at Smart Homes. We will use aggregated and anonymous user data to help our Digital Marketing team understand what type of content our users like so that they can make more in the future.
• To market services to you. We will send you information about our Digital Channels and Services or other marketing activities but only where you have agreed to receive these from us and for the purposes stated at the collection point. We will email you or send you other marketing communications relating to Smart Homes’ services which we think may be of interest to you, by post or, where you have specifically agreed to this, by email or similar technology. You can inform us at any time if you no longer require marketing communications. For instance, to provide you with password reminders or to contact you about services you have submitted to us via our Digital Channels so that we are able to deliver these services to you.
• We may also invite you to participate in surveys from time to time to help us understand what you think about our programmes, products and services, and in turn make them better.

Does Smart Homes’ privacy policy apply to third party websites or social networking sites?

This policy only applies to our use of your information via Smart Homes Digital Channels. Therefore, it does not apply to third party websites to which Smart Homes might provide links or on which Romans content is embedded. Smart Homes is not responsible for the privacy practice or content of such websites.

Equally, it is important to note that when you access Smart Homes Digital Channels via a social networking site, such as Facebook, that site may also collect and use your information. So, we would advise you to check the privacy policies for those social networking sites and applications to see how your information is being used. 

How can I manage cookies?

We provide more information about cookies and similar technologies used on our Digital Channels in our Cookies Policy – COOKIES. This also tells you how to control and manage cookies in your browser and how to opt-out of certain types of cookies.

What about spam?

We will only send targeted messages that we feel are relevant and are of interest to you.
Marketing emails you have signed up to will also tell you how you can unsubscribe should you decide that you no longer wish to receive them.

Please note that active clients may receive important information about Smart Homes’ services that they have requested from us (such as changes to the Services themselves or other service administration matters). As an active user, this is not spam.

Will Smart Homes share my information with anyone else?

Smart Homes commits to keeping your personal information confidential and safe:

• We won’t sell your data to any third party.
• Other than is required by law or as set out in this Privacy Policy, Smart Homes will not disclose, rent or sell the Personal Information to any third party that is not required to fulfil the services requested, without your permission.
• We may disclose your personal information to the purchaser (or prospective purchaser) of any business or asset that we are (or are contemplating) selling.
• Employees, contractors and agents of Smart Homes may be given access to any personal information which Smart Homes collect but their use shall be limited to performance of their duties in relation to the services provided by Smart Homes. Smart Homes will take reasonable precautions to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your Personal Information. Those who have access to your personal information are required to keep that information confidential and are not permitted to use it for any purposed other than that to the services and products offered by the Company or the use of our Digital Channels.
• Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.
• Unfortunately, the sending of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our utmost to protect your information, we cannot guarantee the security of your data sent to our Digital Channels; any sending of information is therefore at your own risk.

How long does Smart Homes keep my personal information?

We will keep your information only for as long as it is relevant and useful for the purpose for which it was originally collected. Smart Homes will remove the personal information when requested by you.

When using our Digital Channels anonymised data will be collected to help you navigate the website, we won’t be able to recognise that data as yours or contact you about it will be collated. Please note if you don’t want to continue to receive relevant targeted advertising from our Digital Channels after you have left the Digital Channels, we recommend that you delete any cookies set on your device. If you want more information on how to manage your cookies, our Cookies Policy can help.

Where we hold other information (resulting from, for example, submitted competition answers) we will keep this for the minimum amount of time necessary for the purposes of running the competition or other relevant purpose.

Please note that if your account appears to have not been used for 2 years, we may try and contact you to check whether it is still in use and/or we may delete it.

Data Controller

The data controller responsible in respect of the information collected on these Digital Channels is Smart Homes (JHS Ltd T/As Smart Homes, Registration Number: 3591917. Registered Address: 316 Stratford Road, Shirley, Solihull, B90 3DN)

How can I access and update my personal information?

You can update some of your personal information by contacting Smart Homes from the Contact Us page and we will be able to update your records on our data management systems – please let us know if the personal information which we hold about you needs to be corrected or updated.

Access to your information

If you would like to know what personal information Smart Homes holds about you, you may make a request to Smart Homes for copies of this information. 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 up to £10 (plus VAT) to cover our costs in providing you with this information. If requested, Smart Homes will use reasonable efforts to supply, correct or delete information about you on file.

All subject access requests should be made in writing and addressed to Smart Homes, 316 Stratford Road, Shirley, Solihull, B90 3DN.

Changes to this policy

Our privacy policy may change, update or be altered from time to time. Any changes we may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page. You should check this page occasionally to ensure you are happy with any changes. We may also notify you of changes to our privacy policy by email.

How do I contact Smart Homes if have a question about privacy issues?

If you have any questions or concerns about privacy issues, you can contact Smart Homes via email at shirley@smart-homes.co.uk alternatively send your enquiry to: Smart Homes, 316 Stratford Road, Shirley, Solihull, B90 3DN.