Privacy Policy

As a customer of the Coventry Building Society, we take your right to privacy very seriously. We will not disclose information about you or your accounts to anyone, other than where we have your consent, or where we are compelled or allowed by law to do so.

For this reason, we believe you are entitled to know about the information we collect and what we plan to use it for. You can then decide if you are happy to provide us with this information.

If you decide to provide us with any information, then you expressly authorise us to use that information in accordance with this policy.

Why we collect information about you?

We collect data about you:

to confirm your identity
to set up and then administer your accounts
to let you know about other relevant products and services
to update our customer records
to carry out statistical analysis to enable us to improve our products and services
for crime prevention and for legal and regulatory compliance

In some instances, we will be unable to provide you with a product or service, if you do not provide us with the necessary information or give us your permission to process and store that information.

What do we do with your data?

Most of the information we hold is stored electronically on computer systems. However, some data, for example the details you handwrite on an application form are held as manual or paper copies. We are confident that our systems are secure, and that no one will be able to access your information unlawfully.

We occasionally use external suppliers to process data on our behalf, for example to print names and addresses on letters for large mailing campaigns. We only use reputable companies and always ensure that they meet our stringent security requirements. On occasion, we may transfer data outside this country or the European Economic Area, either for storage or to be processed.

From time to time we'll tell you about new accounts or services. You can choose not to receive this information when you open your account. You can change your instructions at any time, by writing to us with details of your savings and/or mortgage account number(s), to Mortgage and Investment Services, Coventry Building Society, PO Box 9, Coventry, CV1 5QN.

However, we will continue to send notice of General Meetings if you are eligible to vote, and where appropriate information about your account and interest rate changes.

Who we share your data with

Apart from using outside companies as described above there are some specific instances when we will have to pass your details on to third parties or receive information about you from third parties.

Confirming your identity

To meet our responsibilities for crime prevention and for legal and regulatory compliance, we need to confirm the identity of every applicant who applies for an account with the Society. Where possible we will try and do this electronically, using the services of a specialist external agency.

Credit referencing

If you apply for a mortgage we will perform a search with a licensed credit reference agency. The agency will keep a record of our enquiry and if the mortgage proceeds we will provide them with details of how you conduct your account. Other lenders may access this record if you apply to them for credit.

The credit reference agencies we normally use are:

Equifax PLC, Credit File Advice Centre, PO Box 1140, Bradford BD1 5US
Experian, Consumer Help Service, PO Box 8000, Nottingham NG1 5GX
Callcredit PLC, 1 Park Lane, Leeds LS3 1EP

If you would like to see the information that they hold about you, please contact them in writing, enclosing a cheque for £2.00 made payable to the agency. They will need details of your full name, address, postcode and any other addresses you have lived at over the past six years, in order to trace your record.

Fraud prevention and detection

We share personal data with a number of other financial service providers through schemes such as CIFAS, National Hunter, the Claims and Underwriting Exchange Register and a payment protection insurance anti-fraud register of claims. The main purpose of this is to protect us against any fraudulent or other criminal activity.

All financial institutions are required by Money Laundering legislation to collect and record personal data to confirm a customer's identity and to report any suspicious transactions to the Serious Organised Crime Agency.

Cookies

What are cookies?

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site.

How we use cookies?

We use cookies to support some of the security features of this site as well as to track visitors so we can improve our products and services. The cookies that we use may have already been set on your device, however, you can opt not to have these cookies on your machine by using the details and link below.

Please note: if you decide not to allow all of these cookies, certain parts of the site will not work.

Cookie	Name	Purpose
Essential secure browsing cookie	CBS login	This cookie is essential for all on site secure browsing. This includes Online Services and online applications. Please note: The cookie is set once you enter a secure area of the site. This cookie is a persistent cookie which means it will stay on your device until it is removed.
Referrer code cookie	CBSref	This cookie is used to track external advertising and understand where you have visited the site from. We only use this information for internal analysis. This cookie is set when you arrive on the site and is a session based cookie which means the cookie is deleted once you have left our site.
Web trends analytics	WT_FPC	These cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site and the pages they visited. This cookie is a persistent cookie and is set to expire 10 years after it is set when you first visit the site.
Tagman cookies	TMS (session) LGP (persistent) TMP (persistent)	These cookies are used to collect information about how you arrive at our site. We use this information to monitor the success of external advertising. This information is not shared with anyone other than the Coventry Group and Tagman our analytic service provider. TMS is a session cookie, created when you arrive at our site and is removed when the browser is closed. TMP and LGP are persistent cookies, set when the user first sees Coventry campaign material and are only removed if deleted manually from your device.
Google analytics cookie	_utma (persistent) _utmz (persistent) _utmb (session) _utmc (session)	These cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited. The first persistent cookie, _utma is set to expire 2 years after it is set or updated with each page view of the site. The second persistent cookie, _utmz is set to expire 6 months after it is set or updated with each page view of the site. Both session cookies are created when you arrive at our site and are removed when the browser is closed.

For more information about how to block cookies, delete cookies and more visit www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/

Telephone calls

We may record or monitor any telephone calls you make to us, to increase your security and for staff training purposes.

Emails

If you email us we will keep a record of your contact and your email address. In addition to specific services that you request, we may also email you with details of relevant products and services, as well as information about the Society. If you do not want us to do this please let us know.

For security we will not include any confidential information about you in any email we send to you, for example we will not quote account and balance information in an email to you. We would also suggest that you keep the amount of confidential information you send to us via email to a minimum.

If you have access to our Online Services we recommend that you always use the secure message service to contact us.

Data Protection legislation

The Data Protection legislation defines the legal responsibilities of data users such as ourselves. It covers the collection, storage, use, processing, disclosure and transfer of personal data. Examples of personal data are your name, postal address, email, age, sex etc.

For the purposes of the Data Protection Act 1998, the Data Controller in relation to any personal data you supply is Coventry Building Society.

You have a right of access under data protection legislation to your personal records held by the Society on payment of a £10 fee, payable to 'Coventry Building Society'. Please put your request in writing to Coventry Building Society, PO Box 9, High Street, Coventry, CV1 5QN.

Links to other sites

We may link our site to other relevant sites. Where this is the case our Privacy Policy will not apply once you enter the other site.

Changing your details

If you would like to change the details we hold about you, please get in touch.

We may require an original signature for identification purposes and cannot, therefore, accept any email instructions.

We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. Any changes will take effect once the revised Privacy Policy is available on our site and so we suggest you check Privacy Policy whenever you revisit the site.