Privacy: Home Broadband and Phone

This privacy supplement gives some general information around the processing conducted for home phone services and broadband internet services, to provide further context to our main privacy policy. If you’re using Home Broadband and Phone together with another service, you should read the privacy information for the other service too.

If you have any queries in any aspect of this privacy supplement, please use our privacy query form and a member of our dedicated team will respond to you.

Home Phone

In order for you to make phone calls, we need to process data. For example, we’ll process both the initiating and receiving phone number and data such as the time and date of the call for billing purposes.

When you sign up to Home Phone, we’ll ask if you want your details in the Phone Book or other directories.

If you say ‘no’, your number will be ex-directory and not included – otherwise your details are published and information is shared with the providers of those directory services.

Home Broadband and Wi-Fi

Vodafone Home Broadband provides your hardware with connectivity in the home. In order for you to be able to access the internet, we process data such as the kind of device you are browsing on (for example, each device will have a media access control (MAC) address), your browsing speeds, and the amount of data you’re using (for example, streaming videos will use up more data than email, although we don’t see what it is you’re doing).

When you are browsing the internet, your data will be processed by the devices you're browsing the internet on (for example, remembering your browsing history). Also, websites you visit will process your information either through your interaction with the site and information you provide to them, or through the use of cookies.

To understand how to manage your cookie preferences, you can visit allaboutcookies.org

For providing end user support and optimising your WiFi experience we are collecting information about connected devices (MAC address, Serial Number, user given host names and WiFi connection quality) as well as information about the WiFi networks (MAC addresses and identifiers, radio statistics).

Personal information we collect about you

Information we collect about you

Information about the Wi-Fi network of your home may be collected and sent to the Vodafone platform.

This platform is facilitated by a third party provider called Airties A.S. Through this platform, this information may be accessed by the Customer Service Department in the event that the user calls us to report any type of problem with their Wifi or may be treated by your Network Maintenance and Operations Service to Resolve any issues. This information will be obtained from the Wifi devices or those connected to it. 

For more information please see the data retention schedule

When we collect your personal information

We collect your personal information when:

• You sign up for the broadband services

• When using the broadband services including the Home Broadband App

Vodafone will process your personal data based on:

The performance of your contract or to enter into the contract and to take action on your requests. For example, so you can make calls and texts, and browse the internet on your phone, we process things like the numbers you dial, how much data you’re using and when you’re doing it so we can provide connectivity. This also enables us to generate your bill, based on your usage. We also need to conduct credit checks when you apply for a product or service.

Vodafone’s legitimate business interests, for example, fraud prevention, maintaining the security of our network and services, direct marketing, and the improvement of our services. Whenever we rely on this lawful basis to process your data, we assess our business interests to make sure they do not override your rights. Additionally, in some cases you have the right to object to this processing. For more information, visit the 'Your rights' section of this policy.

Compliance with a mandatory legal obligation, including for example accounting and tax requirements, which are subject to strict internal policies (such as retention periods), procedures, and your right to restrict usage of your data, which control the scope of legal assistance to be provided.

Consent you provide where Vodafone does not rely on another legal basis. Consent may be withdrawn at any time. When you give your consent, you will be given details on how to change your mind or visit the 'Your rights' section of this policy for more information.

How we use your personal information

To provide you with your service

Your personal information will be used to deliver you connectivity services and to provide end user support by being able to identify devices within your home that have a problem with WiFi. The information will be used to optimise the selection of channels being used in your WiFi and the frequency band which is used by our connected devices.

To improve our networks and services

We analyse the collected information to diagnose connectivity, coverage or connection quality problems, understand connectivity needs from the usage of mobile data, Wi-Fi and apps, and use such insights to make improvements to our network and services. 

Your choices

The Home Broadband App is one of the ways we put you in control as to how to manage your data sharing preferences. In your settings, you can choose what data you would like us to use to tailor these offers to you, including the data we collect through the Vodafone Broadband App, which you can also choose whether or not you want to share. You can choose to:

• Disable the sending of information about your use of the Vodafone Broadband App; or

• Disable push-notifications

Please note: If you disable push-notifications, we may still send you marketing via SMS or email or conduct telemarketing if we have your permission to do so. To opt out of marketing communications (such as email, SMS, phone or post) you can get in touch with our Customer Services team or use our privacy query form and a member of our dedicated team will respond to you.

How we share your personal information

Where applicable, we share information about you with:

• Companies in the Vodafone Group

• Partners, suppliers or agents involved in delivering the products and services you’ve ordered or used

• Companies who are engaged to perform services for, or on behalf of, Vodafone Limited, or Vodafone Group

• Credit reference, fraud-prevention or business-scoring agencies, or other credit scoring agencies

• Debt collection agencies or other debt-recovery organisations

• Law enforcement agencies, government bodies, regulatory organisations, courts or other public authorities if we have to, or are authorised to by law

• A third party or body where such disclosure is required to satisfy any applicable law, or other legal or regulatory requirement

• Emergency services (if you make an emergency call), including your approximate location

• Third parties for joint promotions with that third party. They’ll be responsible for their own compliance with applicable privacy laws

International data transfers

We do not make international transfers of personal data outside the European Union; All data is stored on a platform provided to Vodafone by its third party provider Airties A.S, hosted on Amazon servers in Ireland. Airties provides Vodafone with support services from the Airties location of field engineer/support.

How long we keep your personal information for

To provide the service, billing and for authentication purposes 

Personal data detailed in previous sections will be kept for the time necessary to provide the service to the user. They will be removed within 30 days after the date on which the user unsubscribes from the service.  The Gateway Serial Number and your broadband line ID will be kept for 180 days.

Providing the service

The data related to the operation data of the service or the network history described above will be kept for 30 days and then will be anonymized or deleted. Personal data related to the user and his network will be kept for the time in which the user has activated the service. They will be removed after 30 days after the user unsubscribes from the service. The Gateway Serial Number and your broadband line ID will be kept for 180 days.

Diagnostics services

We will collect data in order to enhance your services. The types of data sets and the retention related to these data types can be seen in “information we collect about you” section.

For more information please see the data retention schedule

Keeping your personal information secure

We have specialised security teams who constantly review and improve our measures to protect your personal information from unauthorised access, accidental loss, disclosure or destruction.

Communications over the internet (such as emails) aren’t secure unless they’ve been encrypted. Your communications may go through a number of countries before being delivered, as this is the nature of the internet.

We cannot accept responsibility for any unauthorised access or loss of personal information that's beyond our control.

We’ll never ask for your secure personal or account information by an unsolicited means of communication. You’re responsible for keeping your personal and account information secure and not sharing it with others.

Our website may provide links to third-party websites. We cannot be responsible for the security and content of such third-party websites. So make sure you read that company’s privacy and cookies policies before using or putting your personal information on their site.

The same applies to any third-party websites or content you connect to using our products and services.

You may choose to disclose your information in certain ways such as social plug-ins (including those offered by Google, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest) or using third-party services that allow you to post reviews or other information publicly, and a third party could use that information.

Social plug-ins and social applications are operated by the social network themselves and are subject to their own terms of use and privacy and cookies policies. You should make sure you’re familiar with these.

Your rights

Below we set out details on how you can exercise your rights.  If you have a question or cannot find the answer, please contact our Customer Services team.

Right to correct personal data

You have the right to correct information held about you if it’s not accurate. If the information we hold about you is inaccurate or needs to be updated, you can log in to My Vodafone to update it or you can contact our Customer Service team.

Right to access personal data

You have the right to make a request for a copy of the personal data that Vodafone holds about you. To make this request as an individual or an authorised third party, visit our Subject Access Request page which gives details on how to do this. Alternatively, you can contact our Customer Services team.

Right to data portability

You have the right to be able to take with you the personal data you provided to us in certain circumstances. Vodafone ensures that you can take your data with you by allowing you to download your monthly bills, at the click of a button. In order to do this, log in to My Vodafone and go to your billing area.

Right to object to use of personal data

You have the right, in certain circumstances, to object to Vodafone processing your personal information. For more information or to exercise this right, please contact our Customer Services team. If this relates to an automated decision performed on you (this means with no human involvement), please let us know and we will review your request.

How to lodge a complaint

If you want to contact us about any of your rights or complain about how we use your information, please use our privacy query form and a member of our dedicated team will respond to you. Alternatively, you can contact our Customer Services team – we’ll do our best to help but if you’re still unhappy, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Their website ico.org.uk has details on how to contact the ICO

Right to restrict use of your data

If you feel data we hold on you is inaccurate, or you believe we shouldn’t be processing your data, please contact our Customer Services team to discuss your rights. In certain circumstances, you have the right to ask us to restrict processing.

Right to erasure

Vodafone strives to only process and retain your data for as long as we need to. In certain circumstances you have the right to request that we erase personal data of yours that we hold. If you feel that we are retaining your data longer than we need, it is worth first checking that your contract with Vodafone has been terminated, which you can do with Customer Services. If your contract with Vodafone has been terminated, we may still have lawful grounds to process your personal data. For more information on retention periods, see the section in this privacy policy called ‘How long do we keep your personal information for?’. 

Last updated: 25 November 2020