Our privacy and cookies policy gets updated from time to time. Whenever we make a change, we’ll post this on our website and let you know if there is a material change.
We have revised our privacy and cookies policy, refreshing it to tie in with the launch of our new Privacy Portal.
Last updated: 5 June 2020
How to use this privacy and cookies policy
In this policy, we explain how we collect, use, share and protect your personal information when you use our products and services and our website.
Who we are
We are Vodafone Limited.
In this privacy policy:
Our registered office is Vodafone House, The Connection Newbury, Berkshire RG14 2FN. We are registered in England under company number 1471587 and registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), registration number Z1933885.
How to contact us
Your opinion matters to us – if you have any questions about our privacy policy or your privacy settings, please submit your query and a member of our dedicated team will respond to you. If you would like to mail us by post directly, send it marked the “Privacy Team” to Vodafone House, The Connection, Newbury, Berkshire, RG14 2FN.
Our principles
Vodafone is committed to respecting your privacy. We take privacy, security and complying with data protection and privacy laws seriously.
Here are Vodafone’s core Privacy Commitments. We aim to put these commitments at the heart of everything we do.
The information we collect about you and how we collect it can vary depending on the products and services that you use and subscribe to, how you have used the products and services, and how you have interacted with Vodafone even if you aren’t a customer, or what we have obtained from a third party with permission to share it with us.
To find the privacy supplements for all our products and services, please go to the 'Privacy and our products and services' section of this Privacy Portal.
Vodafone will process your personal data based on:
We will collect your personal information when you, for example:
We also collect information from certain organisations, where appropriate and to the extent we have legal grounds to do so. These include fraud-prevention agencies, business directories, credit check reference/vetting agencies, billing calculating agencies and connected network providers.
We may also collect information about you on CCTV when you visit our premises or on other security cameras as part of our security and crime prevention measures.
We use cookies (small text files stored in your browser) and other techniques such as web beacons (small, clear picture files used to follow your movements on our website). For more details on this and how to opt out of these, please see the 'Cookies' section of this policy.
The types of information we may have are, where applicable:
We’ll also get information about how you use our products and services, such as:
We will use your personal information for the following purposes:
1. To provide you with your service
Processing your order and providing you with your products and services
Billing and customer care
Service messages
Providing roaming services
Vodafone uses personal data such as your name, email address, password, mobile phone number and call records in order to do this. Vodafone creates aggregated and statistical management reports from this information that do not identify you individually. Vodafone may also take this personal data and anonymise it so that more in-depth analysis of our roaming services can be undertaken. This helps Vodafone to develop its roaming services for customers without identifying users in an individual way.
2. To improve our service
Improving and innovating our products and services
Managing our networks and understanding network usage
3. Marketing and tailoring our service to you
Marketing
Advertising online
4. Research and analytics
We use a variety of analytics methods including what is commonly referred to as “Big data analytics”. Big data analytics are mathematically driven analysis techniques on large and varied data sets (that is why it is “big” data) to uncover hidden patterns and hitherto unrevealed trends. At Vodafone we take governance of big data analytics seriously. Our data scientists are required to sign up to a Code of Ethics. We have a strict use case process that requires that privacy and data protection law checks are carried out before any use case commences. We also have strict rules ensuring that personal information is anonymised or de-identified at the appropriate stage in the process.
We use our analytics to, for example:
5. Credit checks, fraud prevention and security
We will sometimes need to profile you, for credit, fraud and security purposes.
Credit checks and ID
Fraud prevention and security
For more details on these, check our Credit checks page and our Fraud page.
Where applicable, we share information about you with:
Fraud management and law enforcement
Mergers and acquisitions
If we’re reorganised or sold to another organisation, we will provide your information to that organisation.
Third parties that we work with
Where you’ve purchased Vodafone products and services using a third party or partner organisation, we often need to exchange information with them as part of managing that relationship and your account – for example, to be able to identify your order and be able to pay them.
If we have a contract with a service provider or contractor to provide us with services or provide a service on our behalf, and they may have access to your personal information, we don’t authorise them to use or disclose your personal information except in connection with providing their services.
We collect and combine information in order to monitor your use of products and services, and that of our other customers, as well as to help us to improve the quality of our products and services.
Third-party products that you buy through your Vodafone account
Where you buy a third-party product or service through your Vodafone account (such as Charge to Bill for mobile), the contract for it is with the party selling that product or service. Vodafone is only charging the amount directly to your bill as part of its arrangements with the seller (or with a third party authorised by the seller). As part of this, you’re agreeing that Vodafone may pass certain personal information to such parties to complete your purchase.
The seller’s terms and conditions and privacy and cookies policies will apply to how it uses your personal information – please read them carefully.
You may connect third party devices to your SIM, either manually via a SIM card or electronically through our OneNumber product. These include mobile phone devices or connected devices such as smart speakers or smart watches.
When you connect your SIM to these devices those third parties may record your SIM details or your interaction with the network. The third party device manufacturers will process your personal data in accordance with their privacy policies and we recommend that you read these before choosing to connect.
We may need to transfer your information to other Vodafone Group companies or service providers in countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA). The EEA consists of countries in the European Union, Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway: they are considered to have equivalent laws when it comes to data protection and privacy. This kind of data transfer may happen if our servers (i.e. where we store data) or our suppliers and service providers are based outside the EEA, or if you use our services and products while visiting countries outside this area.
If Vodafone sends your information to a country that is not in the EEA, we will make sure that your information is properly protected. We will always ensure that there is a proper legal agreement that covers the data transfer. In addition, if the country is not considered to have laws that are equivalent to EU data protection standards then we will ask the third party to enter into a legal agreement that reflects those standards.
For information on how long we hold your personal data for, see our retention schedule [PDF: 57.6KB].
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 is 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.
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 or use our privacy query form and a member of our dedicated team will respond to you.
Please note: the privacy query form is not for Subject Access Requests (SARs). To raise a Subject Access Request, please fill in the Subject Access Request form
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 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 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.
To opt out of marketing messages:
If you no longer want to receive marketing messages from Vodafone, you can choose to opt out at any time. If you’ve previously opted in to receive personalised content based on how and where you use our network, you can also opt out at any time.
The easiest way to opt out is by using our marketing preferences page, found under your My Vodafone account settings.
There are also various other ways to opt out:
If you’re opted out of marketing, you may still receive service-related messages.
Please note: You may still receive marketing messages for a short period after opting out while we update our records.
You may have received marketing from Vodafone even if you’re not a customer or have never had contact with us. This is a result of third-party marketing lists which Vodafone may acquire from time to time, stating that you have given permission to be contacted by other organisations. If you’ve registered with us to opt out of marketing from Vodafone, you shouldn’t receive such communications. If you still do, we ask that you let us know immediately by contacting our customer data team. This will only stop marketing from us and not stop the third parties from sharing your data unless you contact them directly.
To manage cookies and understand more about what they are
Want to disable a cookie, or understand more about what these are? Check the 'Cookies' section of this Privacy Portal for full details on how to do this.
To opt out of Vodafone Analytics, or to understand what it means for you
While it can’t identify or contact you, it’s your choice whether you’re included. Please see the Vodafone Analytics page.
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 www.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?’.
If you have any questions about our privacy policy or your privacy settings, please submit your query and a member of our dedicated team will respond to you.
Go to your My Vodafone account settings to manage your marketing preferences. See our Privacy Policy for more information.
If you’re unable to access My Vodafone, give us a call instead.