Privacy Policy

About this policy

Your privacy is important to us and we want you to feel comfortable with how we use and share your personal information. This policy sets out how Santander Consumer Finance, a trading style of Santander Consumer (UK) plc (Company number 02248870), handles your personal information in relation to the use of our website santanderconsumer.co.uk, including when and why it is collected, used and disclosed and how it is kept secure. Throughout the site, the terms “we,” “us” and “our” refer to Santander Consumer Finance.

The data controller in respect of your personal information is Santander Consumer (UK) plc. You will find the contact details of our Data Protection Officer at the end of this policy, which you can use if you have any questions about this policy, including how to update or access your personal information or to make a complaint.

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.

This policy may change from time to time so please check this page occasionally to ensure that you’re happy with any changes. Please see further Changes to this policy.

This policy was last updated on 12-Feb-2025.

Information we collect about you

The types of personal data we capture and use will depend on what you are doing on the website or mobile apps. We’ll use your personal data for some or all of the reasons set out in this Privacy Policy. If you become a customer we’ll also use it to manage the account, product or 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 or agreement 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 and mobile app may include:

  • Personal information you give to us: This is information about you that you give to us by entering information on this site or contacting us directly, including by submitting details via the “Your account” section on the site (e.g. if you are updating your contact details), submitting an enquiry form, and from any other contact forms on the site or by corresponding with us by phone, email or otherwise.
  • The information you give to us on the site may include your name, and personal details including contact information (home address and address history, email address, home and mobile telephone numbers).
  • Date of birth and/or age.
  • Financial details (e.g. salary and details of other income, and details of other accounts).
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Special category data, including data about your health and biometric data (e.g. facial ID, fingerprints, keystrokes, and voice recordings for Touch ID and voice recognition).
  • Agreement number, vehicle registration number, your normal monthly instalment, bank account details, and any information you provide to us in “free text” fields on the site.
  • Personal information we collect about you: We may automatically collect the following information: your location if you use the ‘search for a dealer’ function on our site and allow us to see your location, details of your browser and operating system, the website from which you visit our site, the pages that you visit on our site, the date of your visit, and, for security reasons such as to identify attacks on our site, the Internet protocol (IP) address assigned to you by your internet service. We collect some of this information using cookies – please see our Cookie Policy for further information. We also use Google Analytics to collect tracking information about you; for more information about Google Analytics, please refer to Google’s privacy policy.
  • We also collect public data and data from third parties such as credit reference agencies, fraud prevention agencies electoral roll and court records of judgment debts and bankruptcies and other publicly available sources, as well as information on any financial associates you may have if you apply for a product or service with us. This may include details about any criminal record and may also include information about any person you are “linked” with because you have made a joint application for a finance agreement with us.
  • Providing your personal data: We’ll tell you if providing some personal data is optional including if we need to ask for your content 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. When 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. 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 in relation to your dealings with us. We’ll do this for regulatory compliance, self-regulatory practices, 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 an agreement/service with us, we may also monitor activities on your agreement /service where necessary for these reasons and this is justified by our legitimate interests or our legal obligations.

Use of your information

The purposes for which we use your information and the legal basis under data protection laws on which we rely to do this are as follows:

1) It is necessary for the performance of the contract with you or to take steps to enter into it or to decide whether to enter into an agreement with you:

  • This applies when we need to verify your identity to enter into an agreement with you.
  • If you have an agreement with us, then we will also use your information for administering the agreement between us (including tracing your whereabouts to contact you and recover debt) and to provide you with the service under that agreement (i.e. managing your account, communicating with you, providing updates on the status of your account.)
  • Mid and end agreement reviews.
  • Dealing with any complaints.
  • Notifying you of any changes to this statement.

2) It is necessary for our legitimate interests or that of a third party. This includes:

  • To enhance and personalise your customer or visitor experience.
  • To identify you when you contact us and to correspond and communicate with you.
  • Monitoring communications between us (online services, calls, letters, emails, SMS and texts) and activities on your account.
  • To prevent and detect crime, to protect the security of our communications, systems and procedures, and for quality control and training purposes. This includes for the prevention, detection and investigation of financial crime, including fraud, money laundering, and terrorism financing.
  • For market research in order to continually improve the products and services that we and our authorised dealers offer and deliver to you analysis and developing statistics.
  • To verify the accuracy of data that we hold about you and create a better understanding of you as a customer or visitor to understand your needs and provide a better service to you.
  • Contacting you to ask you to participate in customer satisfaction surveys and market research (by email, letter, SMS or phone) and to undertake and analyse those surveys and research, this is to allow us to benchmark our services and evaluate new and existing products and services.
  • To trace your whereabouts to contact you about your account and to recover debt you owe to us.
  • Creating a profile of you, which enables us to identify and personalise what products and services to offer to you for marketing purposes.
  • To send you marketing communications.
  • Conducting a propensity to renew analysis and evaluating those results to enable us to provide relevant and timely renewal communication activities.
  • For good governance, accounting and managing and auditing our business operations including statistical analysis and accounting and system testing in order to protect our business.
  • To administer our site, for website analysis and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, testing, statistical purposes.
  • For network and information security in order for us to take steps to protect your information against loss or damage, theft or unauthorised access.
  • For efficiency, accuracy or other improvements of our databases and systems e.g. by combining systems or consolidating records we, our group companies or manufacturers hold about you.
  • Anonymising information we have about you and using that anonymised data for statistical purposes (you cannot be identified or re-identified from this data).
  • For the purposes of a corporate restructure or reorganisation or sale of our business or assets.
  • To enforce or protect our contractual or other legal rights or to bring or defend legal proceedings.
  • For general administration including managing your queries, complaints, or claims, and to send service messages to you

3) It is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation:

  • This includes when you exercise your legal rights under data protection law.
  • To verify your identity.
  • For the establishment and defence of our legal rights.
  • For activities relating to the prevention, detection and investigation of crime.
  • To conduct credit, fraud prevention and anti-money laundering checks.
  • For compliance with our legal and regulatory responsibilities. This may also include processing special categories of data about you, for example, for our compliance with our legal obligations relating to vulnerable people or if you go into arrears with your payments due to a health related reason.
  • To monitor emails calls other communications and activities on your account.

4) You have given us your consent to use it in certain ways including:

  • When you request that we disclose it to a third party such as a company handling a claim on your behalf or otherwise agree to disclosures.
  • 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
  • For direct marketing communications (by us and the third parties named when we asked for your consent). You have the right at any time to ask us, or the third parties notified to you, to stop contacting you or passing your details to others for marketing purposes. Please follow the unsubscribe instructions in the relevant communication or follow this link to contact our Customer Services department.

You are free at any time to change your mind and withdraw your consent. The consequences 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.

Disclosure to and use by third parties

We disclose your information to the following third parties:

  • Our group of companies see Group Companies who will use your information to better understand you as a customer and for reporting and analysis purposes to assist in the development and improvement of existing and new products and services. These companies will also use your information to send you marketing communications if you have consented to this.
  • With sub-contractors and other persons who help us provide our products and services.
  • With other parties connected with your account (e.g. guarantors and other people named on the application).
  • When you update your details via the “Your account” portal on the site, your account with us will be updated. This updated information will be provided to your intermediary (or any intermediary that acquires your intermediary’s business, as applicable) to assist us with administering your agreement (including conducting mid and end agreement reviews with you) and for them to send you marketing communications about their products and services if you have consented to this.
  • If applicable, the vehicle manufacturer referred to within your customer agreement whom will use your information to better understand you as a customer and for reporting and analysis purposes to assist in the development and improvement of existing and new products and services. The manufacturer will also use your information to send you marketing communications if you have consented to this.
  • Credit Reference agencies including Experian, TransUnion and Equifax and fraud prevention agencies.
  • With our legal and other professional advisors including our auditors.
  • Law enforcement agencies in order to detect, investigate and prevent crime (we or any fraud prevention agency may pass your information to law enforcement agencies) (e.g. Police).
  • Government bodies and dispute resolution bodies. This may include the Financial Ombudsman Service, HMRC and our regulators in the UK (such as the Financial Conduct Authority and the Information Commissioners Office) and elsewhere. If we need to share information about you with HMRC, they may share this with tax authorities outside the UK.
  • Third party debt collecting agencies engaged by us to recover monies owed to us.
  • If you are a customer, any third party to whom we sell your debt. If we do this, you will be notified and that third party will become the data controller of your information.
  • Your intermediary (or any intermediary that acquires your intermediary’s business, as applicable) to assist us with administering your proposal, application or agreement (including conducting mid and end agreement reviews with you) and for them to send you marketing communications about their products and services if you have consented to this.
  • If applicable, an alternative franchised intermediary, which takes responsibility for the management of your vehicle via transfer or reallocation of responsibilities, to assist us with administering your agreement.
  • Third parties acting on our behalf (such as service providers, agents, subcontractors and other organisations for the purposes of providing products or services to us or directly to you on our behalf), these parties may include, back-up and server hosting providers, IT software and maintenance providers, third parties that provide income verification services and affordability checks or to manage and collect arrears, claims management companies, communication fulfilment services, marketing research organisations engaged by us to undertake customer satisfaction surveys and market research and Google Analytics.
  • Outsourced service providers required for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation, provision of your agreement service or for marketing activities where your consent has been provided.
  • With payment systems providers (e.g. Visa or MasterCard) to process transactions resolve disputes and for statistical purposes including by sending your personal data overseas; this is necessary to process payments on your agreement and for regulatory purposes.
  • Courts in the United Kingdom or abroad as necessary to comply with a legal requirement, for the administration of justice, to protect vital interests and to protect the security or integrity of our business operations.
  • Any third party who is restructuring, selling or acquiring some or all of our business or assets or otherwise in the event of a merger, re-organisation or similar event.
  • In an emergency or to otherwise protect your vital interests:
    • To protect the security or integrity of our business operations. For example, if someone tried to hack our systems, we might need to share information about you with third parties to help us respond to this.
    • To comply with law.
  • With anyone else where we have your consent or where we have another lawful basis for doing so.

Data anonymisation and use of aggregated information

Your personal data may be converted into statistical or aggregated data in such a way as to ensure that you are not identified or identifiable from it. Aggregated data cannot be linked back to you as a natural person. We may use this data to conduct research and analysis, including to produce statistical research and reports.

Retention of your information

The length of time we retain your information is determined by a number of factors including the purpose for which we use that information and our obligations under other laws. We do not retain personal information in an identifiable format for longer than is necessary.

Where you are a customer, we hold your information for 10 years from the date at which your agreement is closed, where settled by you or upon default or as long as necessary thereafter to deal with any queries you may have.

We may hold your information for a longer or shorter period from that described above where:

  • The law requires us to hold your personal information for a longer period or delete it sooner.
  • You exercise your right to have the information erased (where it applies) and we do not need to hold it in connection with any of the reasons permitted or required under the law.
  • In limited cases, the law permits us to keep your personal information indefinitely provided we put certain protections in place.

INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS 

Transfers to third countries/ where we store your information

We store your information on servers located within the UK and European Economic Area (EEA). The third parties listed under Disclosure to and use by third parties may be located outside of the UK or they may transfer your information outside of the UK.  Whilst some countries have adequate protections for personal data under applicable laws in other countries additional steps will be necessary to ensure appropriate safeguards are put in place or requiring the recipient to subscribe to or be certified with an “international framework” for the protection of personal data. Whenever we transfer your information outside of the UK, we impose contractual obligations on the recipients of that information to protect your personal data to the standard required in the UK. Any third parties transferring your information outside of the UK must also have in place appropriate safeguards as required under data protection law.

If you use our services whilst you are outside of the UK, your information may be transferred outside of the UK in order to provide you with those services.

Please note that, as we use Google Analytics, Google may transfer your information outside of the UK and   EEA and we recommend that you read Google’s privacy notice for further information. More details can be found in our Use of Your Information booklet.

Online Applications

If you apply for an agreement online, before you enter any personal details into the online form, we’ll tell you how your information will be used in our data protection statement relevant to that agreement, in the Use of Your Information booklet and in the relevant terms and conditions. You’ll be asked to confirm that you have read these and you’ll be asked to agree to our terms and conditions before your application can proceed.

The data protection statement, in conjunction with the Use of Your Information booklet and the Application and Agreement privacy 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 will pass your details to a recognised credit reference agency to help process your application.

Your rights

You have a number of rights in relation to your personal information under data protection law. In relation to certain rights, we may ask you for information to confirm your identity and, where applicable, to help us to search for your personal information. Except in rare cases, we will respond to you within 30 days after we have received this information or, where not required, after we have received your request.

  • To be informed about the processing of your information. This is what this privacy notice sets out to do.
  • Accessing your personal information. You have the right to ask for a copy of the information that we hold about you by emailing or writing to us at the address at the end of this policy. We may not provide you with a copy of your personal information if this concerns other individuals or we have another lawful reason to withhold that information.
  • Correcting and updating your personal information. The accuracy of your information is important to us. You can update your information by visiting the “Your account” section on our site. Otherwise, if you change your name or address/email address, or you discover that any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date, please let us know by contacting us on any of the details described at the end of this policy.
  • Withdrawing your consent. Where we rely on your consent as the legal basis for processing your personal information, as set out under Use of Your Information booklet you may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us using the details at the end of this policy. If you withdraw your consent, our use of your personal information before you withdraw is still lawful.
  • Objecting to our use of your personal information Where we rely on our legitimate business interests as the legal basis for processing your personal information for any purposes, as set out under Use of Your Information booklet, you may object to us using your personal information for these purposes by emailing or writing to us at the address at the end of this policy. Except for the purposes for which we are sure we can continue to process your personal information, we will temporarily stop processing your personal information in line with your objection until we have investigated the matter. If we agree that your objection is justified in accordance with your rights under data protection laws, we will permanently stop using your data for those purposes. Otherwise, we will provide you with our justification as to why we need to continue using your data. You may object to us using your personal information for direct marketing purposes and we will automatically comply with your request. If you would like to do so, please use our unsubscribe tool, if applicable.
  • Automated decision making and processing. We may automatically process your personal information, without human intervention, to evaluate certain personal aspects about you (known as profiling).

    During the term of an agreement, we have with you, we may use automated processing to analyse or predict (amongst others) your economic situation, personal preferences, interests or behaviour.  This could mean that automated decisions are made about you using your information. For instance, we might do an analysis of certain customer demographics (such as your characteristics). We may also analyse triggers and events such as the maturity dates of your agreement.

    In some instances, we may carry out automated processing and decision making to do behavioural scoring, including by looking at the accounts and products you already have with us and how they are being conducted, such as account activity, arrears and other indications of financial difficulties. We will do this where this information is relevant to the product that we think you might be interested in.  This will help us to decide whether other products and services might be suitable and appropriate for you. All of this includes an element of automated processing.

    We will use the information gleaned from this activity to: (i) send direct marketing communications to you where you have consented to this; and (ii) decide which of our other products and services might be suitable and appropriate for you, including those which are offered by us, or by us in conjunction with our partners, or by the Santander group of companies.  This means that automated decisions and processing can help to determine what marketing communications you receive, when you receive them and what marketing activity is conducted by us or one of our third parties.   

    Where you take out an agreement with us your information will be used to assess your credit risk using an automated decision-making technique called ‘credit scoring’. Various factors help us to assess the risk. A score is given to each factor and a total credit score obtained, which will be assessed against a confidential pre-set pass score.

    In regard to fraud prevention checks, we may automatically decide that you pose a fraud or money laundering risk if our processing reveals your behaviour to be consistent with money laundering or known fraudulent conduct or is inconsistent with your previous submissions or you appear to have deliberately hidden your true identity.

    If we, or a fraud prevention agency, determine that you pose a fraud or money laundering risk, we may refuse to provide the services and financing you have requested, or we may stop providing existing services to you

You may have a right to certain information about how we make these decisions. You may also have a right to request human intervention and to challenge the decision.

  • Erasing your personal information or restricting its processing. In certain circumstances, you may ask for your personal information to be removed from our systems by emailing or writing to us at the address at the end of this policy. Provided we do not have any continuing lawful reason to continue processing or holding your personal information, we will make reasonable efforts to comply with your request. You may also ask us to restrict processing your personal information where you believe it is unlawful for us to do so. You have objected to its use and our investigation is pending or you require us to keep it in connection with legal proceedings. We may only process your personal information whilst its processing is restricted if we have your consent or are legally permitted to do so, for example for storage purposes, to protect the rights of another individual or company or in connection with legal proceedings.
  • Transferring your personal information in a structured data file. Where we rely on your consent as the legal basis for processing your personal information or need to process it in connection with a contract with have with you, you may ask us to provide you with a copy of that information in a structured data file. We will provide this to you electronically in a structured, commonly used and machine readable form, such as a CSV file.
  • You can ask us to send your personal information directly to another service provider, and we will do so if this is technically possible. We may not provide you with a copy of your personal information if this concerns other individuals or we have another lawful reason to withhold that information.

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.
  • In some cases, remember information about you when you visit our site. We may need to do this to provide some of our services.

We use cookies to enable us to perform our contract with you (e.g. if you apply for a product online and for our legitimate interests (e.g. to help us improve our service). We’ll also ask your consent for non-essential cookies. To find out more about all types of cookies and how to control and delete them, including clearing your browsing history, you can read our cookie policy you can read Cookie Policy

If you’re not happy with how we use your data. If you have concerns about the way we have handled your personal information, we encourage you to contact us and we will seek to resolve any issues or concerns you may have. You can also contact our DPO with any data protection concerns. You have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office where your data has or is being used in a way that you believe does not comply with data protection laws. You may contact the ICO and find out more information from the ICO website ico.org.uk.

More information on your data subject rights and how to exercise these rights can be found in the ‘Using my information’ booklet which you can download here or you can request a copy via email from [email protected] or calling our customer services team on 0800 085 1759. If you would like to discuss or exercise any of these rights, please contact us by writing to Santander House, 86 Station Road, Redhill RH1 1SR or using the below contact information.

Contact us

If you have any queries about our handling of your information, you can contact our Data Protection Officer by writing to Santander House, 86 Station Road, Redhill RH1 1SR.

Changes to this policy

We may review this policy from time to time and any material changes will be notified to you by posting an updated version on our site and/or by contacting you by email. Any changes will take effect immediately on the date on which we post the modified terms on our site or the date of our email, whichever is the earlier. We recommend you regularly check for changes and review this policy when you visit our site. If you do not agree with any aspect of the updated policy, you must promptly notify us and cease using our services.

Legal statement about this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy is not designed to form a legally binding contract between Santander Consumer and users of our website or online services.

Links to other websites

Certain hypertext links in this website may lead you to websites which are not under the control of Santander Consumer (UK) plc. When you activate these, you may leave the santanderconsumer.co.uk website. These links are provided solely for your convenience and do not represent any endorsement or recommendation by Santander Consumer (UK) plc.

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 any services or products advertised within this website become unavailable.

Customer responsibility

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

* Group companies The Santander group of companies includes but is not limited to Banco Santander S.A.; Santander Consumer Finance S.A., Santander UK Group Holdings plc; Santander UK plc, Santander Consumer (UK) plc trading as Santander Consumer Finance; Santander Insurance Services UK Ltd.