We last updated this page on the 30 October 2020
For the Local Heroes service, the data controller is British Gas Services Limited, which is one of the companies in the Centrica group.
This is our privacy notice for Local Heroes. It explains your statutory rights and how we collect and use your personal data. It describes the processing activities that are carried out by British Gas Services Limited, the purposes for which these activities are performed and the legal bases that British Gas Services Limited relies upon to justify these processing activities. We may vary this notice from time to time and the most up to date version will be available on our website.
You can contact Centrica’s data protection officer by writing to:
The Data Protection Officer,
Centrica Plc,
Millstream,
Maidenhead Road,
Windsor,
Berkshire,
SL4 5GD.
You can also contact our data protection officer at privacy@centrica.com.
You can let us know at any time that you do not wish to receive marketing messages by emailing us at privacy@localheroes.com
We process the following types of personal data:
Your contact details: information that allows us to contact you directly such as your name, email address, telephone number and addresses associated with your account or order.
Job details: information about the service that you need such as the job identification number, household details, property type, marketing preferences, complaint details, guarantee claims history, appointment details, payment details.
Records of your discussions with us and other companies in the Centrica group, including our customer support teams: when you share comments and opinions with us, ask us questions or make a complaint we will keep a record of this. This includes when you send us emails, phone our support team or contact us through social media such as through Twitter or on Facebook.
Conversations you have on our Messaging feature: when you message your Hero via a job that you’ve raised on our site, we will store these conversations on a third party site (TalkJS) which we can access in case we need to resolve any queries between you and your Hero.
Conversations you have on our Communities @ Local Heroes messaging feature: when you message other people about a task that you’ve raised on our site, or one you have helped with, we will store these conversations on a third party site (TalkJS) which we can access in case we need to resolve any queries between you and anyone else.
How you use mobile applications and websites: when you use our applications or websites, as well as our pages and profiles on social media sites, and we collect information about the pages you look at and how you use them, this includes the use of cookies and pixels.
Location information: your smartphone or computer’s IP address may tell us an approximate location when you connect to our websites, but this will be no more precise than the city, state or country you are using your device in.
Device and machine information: information about the computer hardware and software on your computers and smartphones that is used to connect or communicate with us.
Advertising and direct marketing: information about how you respond, or interact with, any direct marketing or advertising communications directed to you, including any requests for these communications to stop.
Exercising your rights: if you exercise any of your statutory rights under data protection law, we will keep a record of this and how we respond.
You are not required to provide to us any of the personal data described above, however, if you do not do so, you may not be able to purchase our services or the functionality of our products may be reduced.
Where we process your personal data because of our contract
We process these items of your personal data to enter or fulfil the contract between us, including to:
| Reason or purpose | Personal data used |
| Provide our services to you |
* Contact details * Job details |
Where we process your personal data because we’re legally obliged to
We process these items of your personal data because we have a legal obligation to, including:
| Reason or purpose | Personal data used |
| Assist law enforcement agencies, and other public authorities | The personal data processed for this purpose would depend on the scope of the enquiry, and will be limited to what is necessary to achieve the purpose of the request. |
| To protect your account from fraud and other illegal activities | Your personal data to maintain, update and safeguard your account. |
Where we process your personal data because we have a legitimate interest to
We process these items of your personal data because we have a legitimate interest to do so.
We process the following categories of personal data, including:
| Reason or purpose | Personal data used |
| Validating referral scheme applications | Contact details |
| Maintain and improve our and other Centrica group companies' products and services, e.g. optimise business processes, quality assurance purposes, support efficient management of our staff, analyse where sales leads have come from, analyse performance of webpages and provide relevant content to you | All the personal information we collect. |
| Assess which of the products and services offered by Centrica group companies may be of interest to you. This includes matching your data with data we obtain from other companies, for example so that we do not advertise to you about a third-party product or service that you already have | All the personal information we collect. |
| Staff training | All the personal information we collect. |
| Develop new products and services | All the personal information we collect. |
| Investigating misuse of the service, fraud and debt collection | All the personal information we collect. |
| For the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims | All the personal information we collect. |
| Maintain accuracy and relevance of your data | All the personal data listed in Section 2. |
| Assist law enforcement agencies, and other public authorities | The personal data processed for this purpose would depend on the scope of the enquiry and will be limited to what is necessary to achieve the purpose of the request. |
| Ombudsman services | If you raise a dispute or complaint and are eligible for review by an ombudsman service, like the Utilities ADR, we may share information such as your contact details, meter readings, equipment, and payments. |
| We'll monitor your browsing and usage activity with us to quickly identify and resolve any problems and protect the integrity of our website and our account | All the personal information we collect. |
| Direct marketing. If you have not specifically consented to receive direct marketing, we will only send you direct marketing materials where we are allowed to because of law. However, we will never send you direct marketing where you have opted out of receiving direct marketing communications. | All the personal information we collect. |
| Transfer to a potential purchaser or acquirer of all or part of our business or operations, including due diligence before purchase / acquisition | This will depend on the nature of the transaction, but potentially all personal information we collect as listed in Section 2. |
Where we process your personal data because you have allowed us to
We process these items of your personal data because you have provided your consent to the processing. You may revoke your consent at any point, however this may affect our ability to provide our products and services to you:
| Reason or purpose | Personal data used |
| Direct marketing | Contact Details Marketing preferences Job details Products and services that we have determined may be of interest to you |
Where we process your personal data so you can’t be identified any more
We may anonymise and aggregate any of the personal data we hold (so that it does not identify you). We may use anonymised and aggregated information for purposes that include testing our IT systems, research, data analysis, improving our site, apps and developing new products and services.
We will collect personal data from a number of sources. These include:
Directly from you: when you get an estimate or book a job with us, or request or answer a task in our Communities @ Local Heroes, you provide us with information about you, and the job you want doing. If you submit information via our websites or apps, complete forms we provide to you, enter our competitions and promotions, make a claim, make a complaint, exercise your statutory rights, contact us by phone, email or communicate with us.
Our website and apps: we collect information about how you use them.
Other companies in the Centrica group
Other companies we work with: provide us with information to help us deliver our products and services to you. These include:
Third party data and insight providers: companies which provide us with relevant information about you which we append to our existing records, to help us operate our business and deliver our services to you.
We share personal data with, and receive personal data from, other companies in the Centrica group. We do this so that we have a single, joined-up view of our customers, to offer you the best possible experience. In particular, we do this for the following purposes:
We share personal data with the following parties you:
| Who | Examples |
| Our network of local tradespeople | If you need a plumbing job doing, we will share your information with plumbers registered with us as Local Heroes, to find someone for your job |
| Other users of our website and services | If you request or answer a task in our Communities @ Local Heroes platform, we will share your information with other users of that platform to find someone to help |
| Companies we work with | If we complete a job as part of an insurance claim, we will confirm completion of the job and the claim number with the insurer so that they can validate and identify the claim. If we install electric vehicle charge points, we will share your personal data with the vehicle manufacturer and Distribution Network Operator in your area. |
| Advertising partners | Facebook, Twitter, Google, Bing, Flashtalking |
| Companies that support our IT infrastructure | Pega – To provide customer engagement and digital process automation for marketing; Zeta – To send you emails; and Loggly - To monitor errors on our platform Lithium - To assist with customer service |
| Other service providers and advisors | Companies which help us analyse the data we hold, prompt for reviews of our services, process payments, provide us with legal or financial advice and generally help us deliver our services to you. Companies that help us reward our customers for referring their friends and family. Companies that provide tools which enable you to message your Hero directly on our site. |
| The government or our regulators | Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) Where we apply for a grant to fund your electric vehicle charge point installation Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) |
| Data and insight providers | Experian |
| Law enforcement agencies and other public authorities | Police forces HMRC |
| A potential purchaser or acquirer of all or part of our business or operations |
Email and SMS: from time to time, we may contact you by email or SMS with information about products and services we believe you may be interested in.
We will only send marketing messages to you if you tell us you are happy to receive them.
You can unsubscribe from our marketing by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the marketing messages we send to you. You can also let us know at any time that you do not wish to receive marketing messages by sending an email to us at privacy@centrica.com.
We work with advertising partners, including social media sites and providers and addressable TV service providers, to show you advertising about our products and services, including those offered by group companies. This takes place on third-party websites, applications and services where we or our advertising partners have purchased advertising space.
Some of the techniques our advertising agencies use to determine what advertising to show you recognise the device you are using, and how that device interacts with social media content and ads, but are not aimed at you as a named individual. Typically, cookies and similar technologies such as device fingerprinting are used to target this type of advertising. You can find out more about these and how to manage their use by reading our cookie policy.
We also use third party advertising services to show you adverts which are tailored to you (for example, to show you tailored adverts on Facebook and Google services). To do this, we securely transfer a jumbled form of identifying information, such as a jumbled version of your email address or phone number, to the advertiser, who matches this with jumbled versions of the information they already hold. If there’s a match, the advertiser can show you adverts tailored to you – for example, we will try not to show you adverts for a service which you already have. If there is no match, the advertiser promises to delete the jumbled information we have transferred to them, and they don’t get to see your actual phone number or email address. We may also transfer a jumbled version of your email address or phone number so that we do not show you specific adverts.
The main third parties we work with are below.
| Site | How to stop seeing ads from partners like us | Privacy notice |
| https://www.facebook.com/help/568137493302217 | https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy | |
| https://support.google.com/ads/answer/2662922?hl=en-GB | https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en&gl=uk | |
| https://help.twitter.com/en/safety-and-security/privacy-controls-for-tailored-ads | https://twitter.com/en/privacy | |
| https://help.pinterest.com/en/article/personalization-and-data | https://policy.pinterest.com/en/privacy-policy |
British Gas is part of a global organisation and in common with other organisations, we use third parties located in other countries to help us run our business. As a result, personal data may be transferred outside the countries where we and our customers are located. This includes countries outside the European Economic Area and to countries that do not have laws that provide specific protection for personal data. We have taken steps to ensure all personal data is provided with adequate protection and that all transfers of personal data are done lawfully. Where we transfer personal data to a country not determined by the European Commission as providing an adequate level of protection for personal data, the transfers will be under an agreement which covers the requirements for the transfer of personal data, such as the European Commission approved standard contractual clauses.
We will keep your personal data for six years from the date of your last job.
You may have the following rights in relation to your personal data:
the right to be informed about the personal data we collect, how your personal data is being used, and from whom we collect your personal data when we obtain it from other sources;
the right to access the personal data we hold about you;
the right to request the correction of inaccurate personal data we hold about you;
the right to request the blocking or deletion of your personal data in some circumstances;
the right to request that we port elements of your data either to you or another service provider;
the right to object to us processing your personal data ((1) where we have a legitimate interest to do so, as listed in Section 3, but your rights override ours based on your particular situation (which you will need to explain to us), (2) where we are processing it for the purpose of direct marketing, or (3) because we are using automated means to make decisions that have a legal or similarly significant effect); and
the right to withdraw your consent to those processing activities which we carry out on the basis of consent, listed in Section 3.
You will only have the benefits of some of the above rights in limited circumstances, which depend on the legal reason why we collected your personal data.
To exercise any of the above rights, or if you have any questions relating to your rights, please contact us by using the details below.
If you have any privacy-related complaints, please contact Centrica’s data protection officer by writing to The Data Protection Officer, Centrica Plc, Millstream, Maidenhead Road, Windsor, Berkshire, SL4 5GD.
You can also contact our data protection officer at privacy@centrica.com. If you are unhappy with the way we are using your personal data you can also complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office or your local data protection regulator. We are here to help and encourage you to contact us to resolve your complaint first.
Boring legal stuff:
Local Heroes is the trading name of British Gas Services Limited. Registered in England & Wales (No. 03141243).
Registered office: Millstream, Maidenhead Road, Windsor, Berkshire SL4 5GD