Privacy Policy

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Learn how we collect, use and protect your personal data.

Privacy Policy

Last Updated: 24-Mar-2022

We are ADVICI LTD trading as ADVICIFAS, the data controller. You can contact our Data Protection Officer (DPO) at ADVICIFAS, 124 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX if you have any questions.

This is our Privacy Policy which explains how we obtain, use, and keep your personal data safe in relation to the ADVICIFAS website (advicifas.org) and any other websites operated by ADVICIFAS.

Your personal data is data which by itself or with other data available to us can be used to identify you.

We’re committed to keeping your personal information safe in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

The types of personal data we collect and use

The types of personal data we capture and use will depend on what you are doing on the website. We’ll use your personal data for some of all the reasons set out in this Privacy Policy. If you become a client we’ll also use it to manage your service(s) or a service you’ve applied for and we’ll provide you with a separate data protection statement specifically in relation to that as part of the online application journey. Some of the information relevant to that is included in this Privacy Policy for consistency. Examples of the personal data we collect and use in relation to our website may include:

Full name and personal details including contact information (e.g. home address and address history, email address, home and mobile telephone numbers);
Date of birth and / or age (e.g. to make sure that you are eligible to apply for a product or service);
Financial details (e.g. salary and details of other income);
Records of products and services you’ve obtained or applied for, how you use them and the relevant technology to access or manage them (e.g. mobile phone location data, IP address, MAC address);
Family, lifestyle or social circumstances if relevant to the product or service you apply for (e.g. the number of dependants you have);
Education and employment details / employment status for credit and fraud prevention purposes if you apply for a product or service with us; and
Personal data about other named individuals as required. Where you provide the personal data of others, you must have their authority to provide their personal data to us and share this Privacy Policy and any related data protection statement with them beforehand together with details of what you’ve agreed on their behalf.

Providing your personal data

We’ll tell you if providing some personal data is optional, including if we need to ask for your consent to process it. In all other cases, if you fail to provide the requested personal data, we may be unable to process or respond to your application, query, or service request. We’ll collect this personal data directly from you when you use this website. Where you go through an application process with us, we may collect some of your personal data indirectly, from other sources. We will tell you about the sources of the personal data in the data protection statement relevant to the specific product and / or service. If you provide personal data about another individual, you must have their authority to provide their personal data to us and you must share this Privacy Policy and any related data protection statement with them beforehand together with details of what you’ve agreed on their behalf.

Monitoring of communications

Subject to applicable laws, we’ll monitor and record your calls, emails, text messages, social media messages, and other communications about your dealings with us. We’ll do this for regulatory compliance, self-regulatory practices (incl. risk management and applicable operations), crime prevention and detection, to protect the security of our communications systems and procedures, to check for obscene or profane content, for quality control and staff training, and when we need to see a record of what’s been said. If you take out a product or service with us, we may also monitor activities in your product or service where necessary for these reasons and this is justified by our legitimate interests or our legal obligations.

Using your personal data: the legal basis and purposes

We’ll process your personal data:

1. As necessary to perform our contract with you for the relevant product and / or service:

a) To take steps at your request prior to entering into it;

b) To decide whether to enter into it;

c) To manage and perform that contract;

d) To update our records; and

e) To trace your whereabouts to contact you about your product and / or service.

2. As necessary for our own legitimate interests or those of other persons and organisations:

a) For good governance, accounting, and managing and auditing our business operations;

b) To monitor emails, calls, other communications, and activities in your service;

c) For market research, analysis and developing statistics;

d) To trace your whereabouts to contact you about your product and / or service, and to recover debt you owe us;

e) For establishment and defence of legal rights; and

f) For the prevention, detection and investigation of financial crime, including fraud, money laundering, and terrorism financing.

3. As necessary to comply with a legal obligation:

a) When you exercise your rights under data protection law and make requests;

b) For compliance with legal and regulatory requirements and related disclosures;

c) For establishment and defence of legal rights;

d) For activities relating to the prevention, detection and investigation of crime;

e) To verify your identify; and

f) To monitor emails, calls, other communications, and activities on your account.

4. Based on your consent:

a) When you request us to disclose your personal data to other people or organisations such as a company handling a claim on your behalf, or otherwise agree to disclosures;

b) When we process any special categories of personal data about you at your request (e.g. your racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, genetic data, biometric data, data concerning your health, sex life or sexual orientation); and

c) To send you marketing communications where we’re required to ask for your consent to do so.

You’re free at any time to change your mind and withdraw your consent. The consequence might be that we can’t do certain things for you. To the extent that action has already been taken based on your consent, withdrawal of your consent will not apply to the processing of your personal data that has already occurred, based on your consent.

Sharing of your personal data

Subject to applicable data protection law, we may share your personal data:

With the ADVICI group of companies* and associated companies in which we have shareholdings;
With sub-contractors and other persons who help us provide our products and services;
With companies and other persons providing services to us;
With our legal and other professional advisors, including our auditors;
With credit reference agencies and debt collection agencies only if you owe us money;
With other organisations who use shared databases to do income verification and affordability checks and to manage / collection arrears only if you owe us money;
With law enforcement agencies where you attempt to defraud us / do defraud us and / or pose any further unacceptable risk that we believe to hold criminal intent;
With courts, to comply with legal requirements, and for the administration of justice;
In an emergency or to otherwise protect your vital interests;
To protect the security or integrity of our business operations;
With other parties connected with your service (e.g. other named applicant(s); joint holders will see servicing correspondence;
When we restructure or sell our business or its assets or have a merger or re-organisation;
With market research organisations who help to improve our products or services;
With anyone else where we have your consent or where we have another lawful basis for doing so.

International transfers

In some instances your personal data may be transferred outside the UK and the European Economic Area. While some countries have adequate protections for personal data under applicable laws, in other countries additional steps will be necessary to ensure appropriate safeguards are in place to protect your personal data. These include imposing contractual obligations to ensure these safeguards are put in place or requiring the recepient to or be certified with an ‘international framework’ for the protection of personal data. More information is available in ‘TERMS-CONDITIONS-ADV-21-24.pdf’ document (PDF)

Online applications

The data protection statement includes details of the uses we may make of your data, the legal bases we are relying upon to carry out that processing, and who we may share your personal data with.

We may occasionally send you information about products and services which we think would be of interest to you but only where we have your consent or if this is within our legitimate interests (see above for more details about lawful bases). You can choose to stop receiving information at any time by contacting us.

Contacting us by email or by our website

When you contact us, we may need to collect some personal details like your name, address and phone numbers. Emails are stored on our standard internal contact systems which are secure and can’t be accessed by external parties. We store this information to identify trends, and for the purposes set out in the monitoring of communications section, as necessary to comply with any legal obligations and for our legitimate interests. For more information on the criteria we use to determine our retention periods, see below.

Using your personal information for direct marketing

We’ll tell you if we intent to use your information for marketing purposes and we’ll give you the opportunity to opt out if you want to (unless we need a consent to use your information for marketing purposes – if we do we’ll seek one). If you receive marketing emails and don’t want to in future, please use the unsubscribe link within the email and we’ll remove you from future campaigns. Ways to opt out of marketing communications that we send you via other channels can be founded in ‘TERMS-CONDITIONS-ADV-21-24.pdf’ document (PDF)

Surverys and competitions

We’ll treat any survey or competition information you provide with the same high standard of care as we do all other client information, using any details provided strictly within the terms of the competition and this Privacy Policy.

Cookies

Cookies are small text files placed on your computer, smartphone or other device and are commonly used on the internet. We use cookies and similar technologies to:

Collect information that will help us understand visitors’ browsing habits on our website;
Compile statistical reports on website activity, e.g. number of visitors and the pages they visit;
Temporarily store any information which you may enter in tools, such as calculators or demonstrations on our website; and
In some cases, remember information about you when you visit our site. We may need to do this to provide some of our services e.g. if you use the ‘Remember me’ tool when requesting an update.

We use cookies to enable us to perform our contract with you (e.g. if you apply for a service online) and for our legitimate interests (e.g. to help us improve our service). We’ll also ask your consent for non-essential cookies.

Criteria used to determine retention periods (whether or not you become a customer)

The following criteria are used to determine data retention periods for your personal data:

Retention in case of queries. We’ll retain your personal data as long as necessary to deal with your queries (e.g. if your application is unsuccessful) or for a sensible period in order for us to reply to your online query and then deal with queries you raise upon receipt);
Retention in case of claims. We’ll retain your personal data for as long as legal claims can be brought and defended;
Retention in accordance with legal and regulatory requirements. We’ll retain your personal data after your product and / or service has completed or has otherwise come to an end based on our legal and regulatory requirements.

Your rights under applicable data protection law

Your rights are as follows (noting that these rights don’t apply in all circumstances):

The right to be informed about our processing of your personal data;
The right to have your personal data corrected if it’s inaccurate and to have incomplete personal data completed;
The right to object to processing of your personal data;
The right to restrict processing of your personal data;
The right to have your personal data erased (the “right to be forgotten”);
The right to request access to your personal data and information about how we process it;
The right to move, copy or transfer your personal data (“data portability”); and
Rights in relation to automated decision making including profiling.

You have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office. It has enforcement powers and can investigate compliance with data protection law: ico.org.uk.

Data anonymisation and aggregation

Your personal data may be converted into statistical or aggregated data, which can’t be used to identify you. We may share and sell such anonymised data including in an aggregated format, within and outside the ADVICI group of companies, for statistical analysis, research and other business purposes. For example, sharing information about new scam techniques in the UK to assist in research. The law says this is not considered to be personal information after it has been anonymised and / or aggregated.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We’ll notify you if there are any material changes to this Privacy Policy if required by applicable law or where we intent to process your personal data for a new purposes before we start that new processing activity.

Legal statement about this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy is not designed to form a legally binding contract between ADVICIFAS and users of our website.

Links to other websites

Certain hypertext links in this website may lead you to websites which are not under the control of ADVICI LTD and / or ADVICIFAS. When you activate these, you may leave the advicifas.org website. These links are provided solely for convenience and do not represent any endorsement, connection or recommendation by ADVICI LTD and / or ADVICIFAS.

We accept no responsibility or liability for the contents of any website to which a hypertext link exists and gives no representation or warranty as to the information on such websites. We accept no responsibility or liability for any loss arising from any contract entered into with any website to which a hypertext link exists.

No liability for unavailability

We accept no liability for any loss that may arise if the goods or services advertised within this website become unavailable.

Contacting us about our Privacy Policy

Client responsibility

It is your responsibility to ensure that your computer is virus protection. We accept no responsibility for any loss you may suffer as a result of accessing and downloading information from this site.

Secure online services

You can easily identify secure websites by looking at the address in the top of your browser which will begin with https:// rather than http://.

All information passed between you and ADVICIFAS when using our online services is sent using secure industry standard encryption.

Website Legal

PLEASE READ THESE TERMS & CONDITIONS CAREFULLY BEFORE USING THIS SITE

Who we are and how to contact us

ADVICI LTD trading as ADVICIFAS. Registered Office: ADVICIFAS, 124 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX, United Kingdom. Registered Number: 14713745. Registered in England and Wales. www.advicifas.org is a site operated by ADVICI LTD trading as ADVICIFAS. Telephone 0207 0 888 169. Calls may be recorded or monitored. Unrelated by the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority. ADVICIFAS and its logo are registered trademarks.

By using our site you accept these terms

By using our site, you confirm that you accept these terms of use and that you agree to comply with them.

If you do not agree to these terms, you must not use our site.

We recommend that you print a copy of these terms for future reference.

There are other terms that apply to you

These terms of use refer to the following additional terms, which also apply to your use of our site:

Our Privacy Policy which can be found at: https://www.advicifas.org/privacy-policy. See further under the paragraph headed “How we may use your personal information” below.

If you purchase goods and / or services from us, our terms & conditions applicable to such goods and / or services will apply as detailed on our site.

We may make changes to these terms

We amend these terms from time to time. Every time you wish to use our site, please check these terms to ensure you understand the terms that apply at that time. These terms were most recently updated on 03 October 2024.

We may make changes to our site

We may update and change our site from time to time to reflect changes to our products and / or services, our regulatory requirements, our users’ needs and our business priorities. We do not need to give you notice of this.

We may suspend or withdraw our site.

Our site is made available free of charge.

We do not guarantee that our site, or any content on it, will always be available or be uninterrupted. We may suspend or withdraw or restrict the availability of all or any part of our site for business and operational reasons. We will try to give you reasonable notice of any suspension or withdrawal.

You are also responsible for ensuring that all persons who access our site through your internet connection are aware of these terms of use and other applicable terms & conditions, and that they comply with them.

We may transfer this agreement to someone else

We may transfer our rights and obligations under these terms to another organisation.

Our site is only for users in UK

Our site is directed to people residing in the UK. Products and / or services advertised on these pages are intended for sale to UK residents. We do not represent that content available on or through our site is appropriate for use or available in other locations.

How you may use material on our site

We are the owner or the licensee of all intellectual property rights in our site, and in the material published on it. Those works are protected by copyright laws and treaties around the world. All such rights are reserved.

You may print off one copy, and may download extracts, of any pages from our site for your personal use and you may draw the attention of others within your organisation to content posted on our site.

You must not modify the paper or digital copies of any materials you have printed off or downloaded in any way, and you must not use any illustrations, photographs, video or audio sequences or any graphics separately from any accompanying text.

Our status (and that of any identified contributors) as the authors of the content on our site must always be acknowledged (expect where the content is user-generated).

You must not use any part of the content on our site for commercial purposes without obtaining a licence to do so from us or our licensors.

If you print off, copy, download, share or repost any part of our site in breach of these terms of use, your right to use our site will cease immediately and you must, at our option, return or destroy any copies of the materials you have made.

No text or data mining, or web scraping

You shall not conduct, facilitate, authorise or permit any text or data mining or web scraping in relation to our site or any services provided via, or in relation to, our site. This includes using (or permitting, authorising or attempting the use of):

Any “robot”, “bot”, “spider”, “scraper” or other automated device, program, tool, algorithm, code, process or methodology to access, obtain, copy, monitor or republish any portion of the site or any data, content, information or services accessed via the same.
Any automated analytical technique aimed at analysing text and data in digital form to generate information which includes but is not limited to patterns, trends and correlations.

The provisions in this clause should be treated as an express reservation of our rights in this regard, including the purposes of The Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988.

This clause shall not apply insofar as (but only to the extent that) we are unable to exclude or limit text or data mining or web scraping activity by contract under the laws which are applicable to us.

We are not responsible for websites we link to

Where our site contains links to other sites and resources provided by Third Parties, these links are provided for your information only. Such links should not be interpreted as approval by us of those linked websites or information you may obtain from them.

We have no control over the contents of those sites or resources.

We might need to share data with Third Parties. If we need to, we’ll do so using the appropriate legal basis. We may need your consent for this. Please see our Privacy Policy for details.

We provide links to third-party websites to make services easy to use. We have no control over those sites. We don’t control any content, products or services available on Third Party sites. We don’t guarantee that the sites or services will be available.

Third Party sites might have different privacy, security and access standards. When you visit a Third Party site, we suggest that you check their terms & conditions, Privacy Policy and security policy.

We’re not liable for services, or parts of the services, provided by Third Parties or parties they work with.

We’re not responsible for any financial products and / or services shown to you by any Third Party.

“Third Party” or “Third Parties” means the third parties we work with to provide services.

Our responsibility for loss or damage suffered by you

Whether you are a consumer or a business user:

We do not exclude or limit in any way our liability to you where it would be unlawful to do so. This includes liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence or the negligence of our employees, agents, or subtractors and for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation.
Different limitations and exclusions of liability will apply to liability arising as a result of the supply of any products and / or services to you, which will be set out in our terms & conditions of supply as available on our website.

If you are a business user:

We exclude all implied conditions, warranties, representations or other terms that may apply to our site or any content on it.
We will not be liable to you for any loss or damage, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, even if foreseeable, arising under or in connection with:
- loss of profits, sales, business, or revenue;
- business interruption;
- loss of anticipated savings;
- loss of business opportunity, goodwill or reputation; or
- any indirect or consequential loss or damage.

If you are a consumer user:

Please note that we only provide our site for domestic and private use. You agree not to use our site for any commercial or business purposes, and we have no liability to you for any loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity.
We will not be liable for damage that you could have avoided by following our advice to apply an update offered to you free of charge or for damage that was caused by you failing to correctly follow installation instructions or to have in place the minimum system requirements advised by us.

How we may use your personal information

We will only use your personal information as set out in our Privacy Policy which can be found at: https://www.advicifas.org/privacy-policy.

Users' responsibility for information security

We do not guarantee that our site will be secure or free from bugs or viruses.

You are responsible for updating and securing your technology systems, software and platforms from which you access our sites and applications. You should use your own fully updated anti-virus software to protect you from any potential threat.

You must not misuse our site by knowingly introducing any malicious or technologically harmful pieces of code or software. You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to our site, the server on which our site is stored or any server, computer or database connected to our site. You must not attach our site via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of-service attach. By breaching this provision, you would commit a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. We will report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities and will co-operate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, your right to use our website will cease immediately.

Rules about linking to our site

You may link to our home page, provided you do so in a way that complies with the following conditions and is fair and legal and does not damage our reputation or take advantage of it.

You must not establish a link in such a way as to suggest any form of associated, approval or endorsement on our part where none exists.

You must not misrepresent your relationship with us nor present any other false information about us.

You must not establish a link to our site in any website that is not owned by you.

Our site must not be framed on any other site, nor may you create a link to any part of our site other than the home page.

You must not remove, distort, or otherwise alter the size or appearance of any images or logos.

You must not use any trademarks displayed on the site without our express written permission.

You must not have any content on your website that is distasteful, defamatory, offensive or controversial, infringes any intellectual property rights or other rights of any other person or otherwise does not comply with all applicable laws and regulations.

Which country's law apply to any disputes?

These terms of use, their subject matter and their formation, are governed by the laws of England and Wales. You and we both agree that the courts of England and Wales will have exclusive jurisdiction in respect of any dispute arising hereunder except that if you are a resident or incorporated in Northern Ireland, proceedings may also be brought in Northern Ireland, and if you are risident or incorporated in Scotland, proceedings may also be brought in Scotland.

Get in touch

If you need help understanding the information supplied, get in touch.