Privacy-policy

This Privacy Statement has been written to cover PEC Trust, Plymouth Energy Community Ltd (PEC), PEC Renewables Ltd and their wholly owned subsidiaries. All of these organisations are covered in this document under a common term Plymouth Energy Community.

Plymouth Energy Community exists to create a fair, affordable, low cost carbon energy system with local people at its heart. We are run for, and by, the community of Plymouth and its wider surrounds. Our community trust us to use any personal information they give us responsibly and keep it safe.

This privacy statement lets you know what to expect from PEC, PEC Trust, PEC Renewables, and their wholly owned subsidiaries, in how we use and store your information, what other organisations may be able to access your information and how we may contact you in the future.

The Data Protection Act and General Data Protection Regulation identify a set of principles which form the basis of how Plymouth Energy Community will use your information. These are:

• process all personal information lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner,
• collect personal information for a specified, explicit and legitimate purpose,
• ensure that the personal information processed is adequate, relevant and limited to the purposes for which it was collected,
• ensure the personal information is accurate and up to date,
• keep your personal information for no longer than is necessary for the purpose(s) for which it was collected,
• keep your personal information securely using appropriate technical or organisational measures.

Plymouth Energy Community is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office and we take our obligations under data protection regulation, and our obligation to protect the data of the people we are here to help, seriously.

We welcome any questions about how we process and safeguard your data and will be happy to respond to any requests or concerns regarding your data rights. Please contact us:

Email: support@plymouthenergycommunity.com or
Post: Plymouth Energy Community
C/o Low Carbon Team
Ballard House
Plymouth
PL1 3BJ

How do we use information?

We use personal information to deliver our services and in the day to day running of the organisation. Specifically we collect and use personal data from the following groups:

• Service users – If you have accessed PEC’s Energy Team services and have received support from us, your details will be recorded on PEC’s database and other systems. This means that we can provide advice and support, identify other services that could help and evaluate the support we provide. We may contact you for these purposes.
• PEC Trust Supporters – If you are a PEC Trust Supporter, we will hold your information and use it to update you on our activities. Some organisations choose to become PEC Trust supporters, where this happens we will also hold information of representatives of that organisation.
• PEC Trust Members (post-January 2019) – If you are a PEC Trust Member, we will use your information to communicate the Cooperative and Governance opportunities available to you listed in the Membership Policy. We will also keep you updated on our activities through our newsletter to ensure that you have adequate information to participate in those Cooperative and Governance opportunities offered. Some organisations choose to become PEC Trust members, where this happens we will also hold information of representatives of that organisation.
• PEC Members (pre-January 2019) – If you are a PEC Member (pre-January 2019), we will hold your information and use it to administer the governance of PEC. You will have the option to sign up to our newsletter to hear more about what we do. Some organisations choose to become PEC members, where this happens we will also hold information of representatives of that organisation.
• PEC Renewables Members – If you have purchased community shares in PEC Renewables, your information will be held by PEC Renewables and by our share registrars so that we can administer your shares and the governance of PEC Renewables. You will also have the option to sign up to receive newsletters about what we are doing.
• Directors – Directors of Plymouth Energy Community (PEC), PEC Trust and PEC Renewables and their wholly owned subsidiaries provide information that is legally required to be shared through company registration. Other information recorded by PEC in the course of board meetings, emails and information submitted through director registration may be used by PEC for legitimate business interests.
• Partners – Plymouth Energy Community works closely with other organisations to deliver our work or to refer service users to access further support. Personal details of representatives of these organisations, including records of their correspondence with us and attendance at events, is recorded on our systems so that we can administer our business.
• Staff – Personal information about our staff will be recorded and used to manage their work and to represent and protect the organisation. As a community focused organisation it is important that names, job titles and contact details of our staff are publically available. Plymouth Energy Community will share information about staff with Plymouth City Council, as they are their direct employer.
• PEC Pals – If you are a PEC Pal, we will use your information to support you as a volunteer. We will also use it to evaluate and report on the success of the programme and may contact you for these reasons.
• Renewable energy production – PEC Renewables supplies electricity generated by its renewable installations to other organisations and works with external companies to manage the operations, maintenance and financial administration of these installations. When we communicate with individuals from these companies, their information will be used to help PEC Renewables to administer these contracts, set up new contacts and keep a record for financial and legal purposes.
• Website users – Like many websites, Plymouth Energy Community uses cookies in order to provide you with a more personalised web service, see our section on cookies for further information.

In some cases, Plymouth Energy Community may provide further information in an additional privacy notice. We will always let you know how you, or your children’s, information will be used and shared. If recording and using your information is vital to the service we are offering you, we will record your information without requesting your consent. We do ask for your consent though if we want to use your information in a way that is not essential. An example of this would be if we wanted to record and use sensitive information about your health to help us advise you about what help and support is available.

Your information will not be used or passed on to other organisations for promotional or marketing information by Plymouth Energy Community. The only exception is if you are a member or supporter and you have consented to be sent our newsletter or other information about offers available to you.

What data is recorded?

Plymouth Energy Community will record information that is relevant to the reason you have accessed our service, this may include:

• contact details and other personal details
• information about your family
• information about your lifestyle and social circumstances
• information about your membership
• information about goods and services you have been provided with
• information about your finances
• information about your education and employment
• images of you accessing our services or at events
  We also process sensitive classes of information that may include:
• information about physical or mental health of you or your family
• racial or ethnic origin
• religious or other beliefs of a similar nature

Plymouth Energy Community will only record personal details regarding children where a parent or legal guardian of that child has supplied them and provided consent for their use.

How we store your data

The information we record about people will, in most cases, be removed from our systems within seven years after contact. Records may be reviewed at the end of seven years and held further at PEC’s discretion if there is a good reason for doing so. We will look to reduce the amount of data we hold as far as reasonably possible, particularly where the data is sensitive personal information.

If you are a PEC Trust member or supporter, we will remove your details from our system within a year of you resigning your membership, unless it is being held for other purposes. If you would like to resign your membership please write to the company secretary as specified in the membership rules.

If you are a PEC Renewables member, information about your investment is held after your community shares have been withdrawn to meet financial record keeping requirements. Typically this will be for seven years, but it may be longer at PEC Renewables’ discretion if there is a good reason for doing so.

Data sharing

Plymouth Energy Community uses other companies to help us operate and deliver the services we provide. This includes software providers, where data is held on a third party server and local companies that we contract to install heating controls or other items. PEC, PEC Trust and PEC Renewables will be responsible for your information that is shared with these companies. We will ensure the right contracts are in place, that these companies will only use your information to do what we ask them to do and that they will comply with regulations regarding how they keep your information secure.

Plymouth Energy Community operates from Plymouth City Council offices and all activity is delivered by staff employed by Plymouth City Council, contracted to work on Plymouth Energy Community business activities. Business support and ICT support is also delivered by the council. This means that the information we record will be visible or accessible to Plymouth City Council staff and systems, this cannot be avoided and is essential to our day-to-day administration. We will ensure, as far as we can, that access to the information we record by council services is restricted.

Sometimes Plymouth Energy Community will send personal information to another organisation that will use that information to provide an independent service. In this case, we will not have control over this organisation and how your information is managed. For example, if we find out that you have a condition which means that you are vulnerable when you have a power cut, we could share this information with your energy supplier and distributor to allow you to access priority services. Whenever we do this, we will always name the organisation(s) we will share your information with and we will ask your permission. The organisation(s) should provide further guidance about how they use your information. If you would rather approach that organisation directly, we will be happy to provide their details to you.

In some cases, Plymouth Energy Community uses companies to support our services that are based outside the European Economic Area. We require these companies to operate with high security standards and will ensure that, where the data shared is significant in scale or sensitivity, the organisation is signed up to the EU – US Privacy Shield or similar regulation.

Information held by Plymouth City Council may be shared for law enforcement or to meet other legal obligations.

Website and cookies

Like many websites, Plymouth Energy Community uses technologies, such as cookies, in order to provide you with a more personalised web service, to customise our advertising and to analyse traffic to the website. When visiting our website you will be informed of this. In summary, a cookie is a small piece of information sent from our website to your computer to help us to identify you quickly.

We share information, through technologies such as cookies, about your use of our site with our trusted social media, advertising and analytics partners. Specifically, Facebook use ‘Pixel’ to collect information about visitors accessing our website to provide advertising services to Plymouth Energy Community and as outlined in their privacy policy below. Plymouth Energy Community also uses Google Analytics collect information on how our website is used so that we can improve our website, Google’s privacy policy is also linked below.

Facebook Privacy Policy
Google Privacy Policy

Most web browsers automatically accept cookies. If you prefer, you should be able to change your browser to prevent this. Be aware, you may not be able to take full advantage of a website if you do so. Cookies are specific to the server that created them and cannot be accessed by other servers, which means they cannot be used to track your movements around the web. Further information about cookies can be found on the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s website www.allaboutcookies.org.

Your rights

The EU General Data Protection Regulations and the Data Protection Act grants a number of rights that PEC upholds. These are:

• The right to be informed via Privacy Notices such as this.
• The right of access to any personal information PEC holds about yourself.
• The right to correct inaccurate or incomplete data (we must do this for you within a month)
• The right to have your personal data erased and to prevent us from using it unless we have a legal obligation to.
• The right to control how you use your information and restrict what purposes we use it for.
• The right to request a copy of the information we hold in a transferable format.
• The right to object. You can object to your personal data being used for profiling, direct marketing or research purposes.
• You have rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling, to reduce the risk that a potentially damaging decision is taken without human intervention.

For a copy of the information about you held by Plymouth Energy Community, please contact us using the details given previously. We will not charge for providing these and you will receive a response within 30 calendar days of receipt of your request.

Changes to this policy

If this privacy notice changes in any way, we will place an updated version on this page. By regularly reviewing this page, you can ensure that you are aware of the information that we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances, if any, we share it with others.

Updated 14 January 2019