This privacy policy outlines the procedures East Coast Main Line Company Limited has in place regarding the collection and use of any personal information (i.e. information from which you can be identified) that you give us or we collect when you use this website and/or the on-board Wi-Fi and Hotspot Wi-Fi service (Wi-Fi access at East Coast stations) or SMS feedback service. We respect your privacy and take care in the storage and use of your personal information. If you have any questions or queries regarding this policy, please contact our Customer Relations Team at customers@eastcoast.co.uk.
We may change this policy from time to time by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure you are happy with any changes. This policy is effective from November 14 2009.
We consider as private any of your personal information supplied by you or given to us while you use eastcoast.co.uk, on-board and Hotspot Wi-Fi, or the SMS feedback service and will hold it and process it in accordance with this Privacy Policy and all applicable Data Protection legislation currently in force.
Information we may collect, may include, by way of example, the following examples:
- your name and contact information, including email address and company details;
- your billing information, transaction and credit card information;
- information regarding your personal or professional interests, demographics, experiences with our products and contact preferences in order to provide you with further correspondence about our products and services.
What do we do with the information we collect?
We will hold and use your personal information on our computer systems and we may pass this personal information to third party service providers for the explicit purposes set out below.
We will use this information for the following reasons:
- to reply to feedback via the SMS feedback service;
- to process transactions and fulfil tickets;
- internal record keeping and maintenance;
- to improve our products and services;
- to personalise your online experience;
- to track usage of particular websites through the on-board and Hotspot W-Fi Hotspot;
- to follow up if you have purchased goods or services from our website;
- to follow up as part of our customer care procedures; and/or
- to contact you for market research purposes (see the section under “Marketing” below).
Marketing
We may use your personal information to contact you with offers, promotions and communications in line with the consent you have provided.
In relation to email (as opposed to post or fax), if you are a customer or have previously asked us for information on our products or services, we may send you information on our range of products and services by email, unless you have asked us not to do so. We may also email you information if you have asked us to send you marketing emails unless you ask us not to in the future. In relation to receiving marketing and other information from us, you may change your mind at any time by accessing Your Account on the East Coast Main Line Company Limited website or by emailing customers@eastcoast.co.uk.
Who do we share this information with?
We respect your privacy and will not sell or lease your personal information. We may pass this personal information to third party service providers to facilitate the activities listed at “What do we do with the information we collect?”. These third party companies will be required to use your personal information in accordance with applicable Data Protection legislation currently in force.
We may transfer your personal information to any company who takes over the East Coast Main Line Company Limited, trading as East Coast franchise to enable them to use that information in line with the consent you have provided, or where lawfully requested or required to do so by legal or regulatory authorities.
This process may include sending personal information to other countries, whose data protection laws may not be as extensive as in the European Economic Area. However, we have taken appropriate steps to ensure the same level of protection for the processing carried out in these countries as within the European Economic Area
How to get copies of or amend the information we have collected?
You may request a copy of the personal information that we hold about you under the Data Protection Act 1998. A small fee may be payable. If you would like details of the personal information we store about you, please write to:
East Coast Customer Relations
Freepost RRZG-ZZZX-LKXK
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 5DN
If you think any information we have about you is incorrect or incomplete, please write or email us as soon as possible at customers@eastcoast.co.uk.
Security
We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect on line. We use encryption when collecting or transferring sensitive data such as credit card information.
Linking
We may link to other websites which are not within our control. Once you have left our website, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.
Use of “cookies” and internet tags
We may collect and process anonymous information about your visit to this website, such as some of the pages you visit and some of the searches you perform. Such anonymous information is used by us for purposes which may include, for example, to help improve the contents of the site and to compile, for internal market research purposes, aggregate statistics about individuals using it. In doing this we may install “cookies” that collect the email address of the user and the date and time of access.
A cookie is a file that is stored on your computer’s hard drive or browser that means that our website can recognise that you have visited our website before. They make it easier for you to maintain your preferences on the website, and by seeing how you use the website, we can tailor the website around your preferences and measure usability of the website. Cookies do not damage your computer and you can set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie, which in turn will enable you to decide whether or not you want to accept it or not. You can, should you choose, disable the cookies from your browser and delete all cookies currently stored on your computer. For further information about cookies, please visit www.allaboutcookies.org.
We may also use Internet tags in combination with cookies at this site and may deploy these tags through a third-party advertising partner. These tags are placed on both on-line advertisements that bring users to the site and on different pages of the site. We use this technology to measure visitor response to our sites and the effectiveness of our advertising campaigns (for example, look at how many times a page is opened and which information is consulted). The third-party partner may be able to collect anonymous aggregated data about visitors to other sites because of these Internet tags and cookies.