Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) Privacy Notice

Energy Ombudsman is the controller responsible for your personal data.

This AI Privacy Notice is in addition to our General Privacy Notice which contains more detailed information about our data processing (including about data security, data retention and lawful processing bases) and you should read that in conjunction with this AI Privacy Notice. Alternatively, if you do not have access to the internet, you can ask us to send you a hard copy by contacting the Data Protection Officer below.

The data we collect about you

Personal data means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified.

As part of the process of you registering with us to use our services, you will be invited to use our case management system and input full details of your complaint. Such details of your complaint inputted by you (“Your Complaint”) may include various categories of personal data (including special categories of personal data (see “Special Category Data” below)) relating to you and or third parties as determined by you. Please note that we have no control over the content of Your Complaint which is completed and submitted by you or on your behalf.

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data set out in our Privacy Policy. For the purposes of using personal data in conjunction with AI Tools (including in relation to Your Complaint), we may collect, use, store and transfer the following kinds of personal data included within the content of Your Complaint:

• Identity Data includes first name, last name, username or similar identifier (e.g. complaint reference), title, date of birth, gender, deceased or living status.
• Contact Data includes postal address, email address and telephone numbers.
• Account Data includes energy supplier, service type, data cut date, consumer type, complaint date, account number.
• Special Category Data includes health or medical information, race and or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, criminal convictions or allegations of criminal offences.
• Financial Data includes salary, benefits, bank account details, bank account statements, debit/credit card details and any other financial data inputted by you within Your Complaint.
• Communications Data includes your communication preferences.

We use different methods to collect data about you, which are explained in our Privacy Policy. Specifically in relation to using personal data in conjunction with AI Tools (including in relation to Your Complaint):

Your interactions with us

You may give us your personal data by filling in online forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you provide information and or any documents to us about Your Complaint which includes details of the issue against your provider or supplier provided by you that you wish for us to review.

In the event that personal data is used in this manner, it is usual that we are the controller responsible for your personal data and the provider of the relevant AI tools will be the processor. If this is the case, we will assess the relevant AI tools provider in relation to its data protection compliance and we will enter into a written agreement with the relevant AI tools provider to protect the personal data (including compliance with relevant laws and policies).

We will only use your personal data for the purpose for which we collected it, which includes using AI tools to improve our services and or consumer relationships (including the efficiency, quality and accuracy of our services) particularly in relation to certain services which have been carried out manually (for example to improve the handling of Your Complaint and the provision of our services to you, we may use AI tools to summarise your Complaint in order that your case handler is provided with a summarised overview of the Your Complaint and relevant issues, prior to their detailed investigations), to register your complaint as a case with us and to manage your relationship with us.

How we use your personal data

The law requires us to have a legal basis for collecting and using your personal data. For the purposes of the use of personal data in conjunction with AI tools (for example the case summary created in relation to Your Complaint), we rely on one or more of the following legal bases:

• Legitimate interests: We may use your personal data where it is necessary to conduct our business and pursue our legitimate interests, for example to prevent fraud and enable us to give you the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you and your rights (both positive and negative) before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law).
• Comply with a legal obligation means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation that we are subject to.

We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use the various categories of your personal data in conjunction with AI tools, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.

We will only use your personal data for the purpose for which we collected it, which includes the following in relation to personal data used in conjunction with our AI tools to process your case (including summarising Your Complaint).

How long will we use your personal data for?

We will only keep your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of our legal and regulatory requirements and our reporting obligations. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

Details of retention periods for different aspects of your personal data are available in our retention policy set out in our Privacy Policy.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see Your Legal Rights below for further information.

How we share your personal data

We may share your personal data used in conjunction with AI tools within the Trust Alliance Group (including group companies) and with external third parties, including:

Service providers acting as processors or controllers (based in the United Kingdom) who provide IT, technical, data and system administration services (including [TAG Support Services Limited (based in the United Kingdom) [and Lumin Tech Limited (based in the United Kingdom)]).

MicrosoftMicrosoft Corporation acting as a processor (based in [United States of America) who provide AI tools (including [Production Azure OpenAI Resource for CMS)). [For privacy information relating [Production Azure OpenAI Resource for CMS] see [Data, privacy, and security for Azure Direct Models in Microsoft Foundry - Microsoft Foundry | Microsoft Learn]].

Professional advisers acting as processors or joint controllers including lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers based in the United Kingdom who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services. More detail in relation to how we use personal data can be found in our Privacy Policy.

International transfers

Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the UK to countries which have laws that do not provide the same level of data protection as the UK law, we always ensure that a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring that the following safeguards are implemented:

Many of our external third parties are based outside the UK so their processing of your personal data will involve a transfer of data outside the UK. We may transfer your personal data to service providers that carry out certain functions on our behalf. This may involve transferring personal data outside the UK to countries which have laws that do not provide the same level of data protection as the UK law (see Microsoft Corporation above).

Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the UK to service providers, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring that the following safeguards are in place:

• We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed by the UK to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data. For further details, contact our DPO; or
• Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific standard contractual terms approved for use in the UK which give the transferred personal data the same protection as it has in the UK, including an International Data Transfer Agreement. To obtain details of these safeguards, please contact our DPO.

Your legal rights

You have a number of rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data.

You have the right to:

• Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
• Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
• Request erasure of your personal data in certain circumstances. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
• Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) as the legal basis for that particular use of your data (including carrying out profiling based on our legitimate interests). In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your right to object.
• You also have the absolute right to object any time to the processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes (see Privacy Policy for details of how to object to receiving direct marketing communications).
• Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
• In the event that we are relying on consent to process your personal data (see above for details of when we rely on your consent as the legal basis for using your data) you may withdraw consent at any time. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent. Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in one of the following scenarios:
• If you want us to establish the data's accuracy;
• Where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it;
• Where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or
• You have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact data protection officer (DPO).

No fee usually required

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

Complaints

You have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK regulator for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). However, before doing so please make sure you have first made your complaint to us or asked us for clarification if there is something you do not understand.

Contact details

We have appointed a data protection officer. If you have any questions about this privacy notice or our data protection practices please contact the Data Protection Officer.

Changes to this AI Privacy Notice and your duty to inform us of changes

We keep this AI Privacy Notice under regular review.

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us, for example a new address or email address.