Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

We are “Mortgage Brain Group”, when we say we say “we”, “our” or “us” in this policy we are referring to the companies that are part of the Mortgage Brain Group, which are:

Mortgage Brain Holdings Limited, Mortgage Brain Limited, The Mortgage Trading Exchange Limited, Premier Processing Services Limited, MBL Financial Services Limited, Criteria Hub Limited, AE3 Media Limited, Mortgage Engine Limited and/or Mister Broker Limited.

We take the protection of your personal data very seriously and strictly adhere to the rules laid out by Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR and EU GDPR).

This privacy notice gives you information on how we collect and process your personal data through your use of our services, websites and social media platforms, including but not limited to any data you may provide if you contact us regarding our products and services (including free trials, webinars, job alerts and any promotional offers, posting material or requesting further services, engaging in correspondence with us by phone, email, social media or otherwise and/or registering or attending any of our events).

This information is shared among the aforementioned companies within the Mortgage Brain Group for the legitimate purposes.

2. Why we collect your personal information

We collect your personal data for one of the following purposes:

2.1 If you are a one of our Customers

• To manage communications between you and us
• Where we need to perform the contract, we have entered with you
• To provide you access to software solutions, including Third Party Software Solutions where necessary for our fulfilment of contractual obligations or security measures.
• To provide you with information you have requested or which we may feel may be of interest to you
• To ensure the security and safe operation of our systems, websites, and underlying business infrastructure
• For marketing and advertising purposes
• If you report a problem with our site
• If you complete any surveys that we request, you to complete from research purposes
• To keep you safe at events you attend
• To give third parties feedback on events you may attend and so that they can provide you with further information on products or services that may be of interest to you.

2.2 If you are a client of one of our customers

As part of the mortgage broker advice process, our mortgage brokers (who are our customers) will collect personal information from their clients including name, address, telephone number, email address, financial information and responses as well as associated information to enable them to provide financial advice and process any financial transaction as your agent. The processing of this data will be covered under your agreement with your mortgage broker, who has elected that the use of our services will enable them to provide their services to you. In order for our services to best facilitate this, mortgage brokers will share their clients personal information with us. We will process this data only to satisfy our contractual obligation to our customers and it is not used for any other purpose by us.

3. Lawful Basis Of Processing Information

We only collect and use personal information about you when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we use it where:

• The data subject (you) has given consent to the processing activity taking place
• If the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract
• If the processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the controller is subject
• If the processing in necessary for the purpose of the legitimate interest pursued by us or our partners

Where legitimate interest is identified as a lawful basis, we will undertake a legitimate interest assessment which is a three-part test covering:

• The purpose test – to identify the legitimate interest;
• Necessity test – to consider if the processing is necessary for the purpose identified; and
• Balancing test – considering the individual’s interests, rights or freedoms and whether these override the legitimate interests identified.

4. What Information we collect and where from

4.1 As Data Controller

Where we act as a Data Controller, we collect personal information from you via our websites (including but not limited to www.mortgagebrain.com; www.mortgagevision.net; www.mortgagesolutions.com; www.criteriahub.co.uk; www.yourmoney.com; www.yourmortgage.co.uk), our social media platforms, and/or corresponding with us by phone, email or otherwise and is provided entirely voluntarily.

This includes personal data provided at the time of contacting us or making an enquiry to us via our website or helpdesk, subscribing to the services we provide (including free trials, webinars, job alerts and any promotional offers), posting material or requesting further services, engaging in correspondence with us by phone, email or otherwise and/or registering or attending any of our events. We may also process your personal data when you report a problem with our service (s), website(s) or complete the surveys that we request you to complete for research purposes.

The categories of personal information that we may collect, store, and use about you include:

• Name
• Address and post code
• Telephone number
• Email address
• IP address
• Details about your job role
• Details of your company/employer
• Financial/billing information
• Marketing preferences
• Legal information relating to claims made by you or against you
• Responses to any surveys
• Information collected at the time of correspondence with you about our business.

We may obtain certain personal data about you from sources outside of our business which may include our partners and other third-party companies (Mortgage Broker Networks and Mortgage Brokers). For example, we may collect personal data about you from a partner referral where you have expressed an interest in our services. The personal data received about you may include:

• Name
• Address and post code
• Telephone number
• Email
• Job role, status and employer
• FCA authorisation status
• FCA registration number
• Best day/time to contact
• Dietary requirements
• Bank Details (account number and sort code)

4.2 As Data Processor

Where we are provided with personal information regarding our customers’ clients, we are the Data Processor (processing personal information on behalf of our customers (normally mortgage brokers)). This is input by them into our software service(s) in order for them to provide their services to their clients and may also be processed by us where our customer requires assistance from us in using our services. Our customer may also request that their clients input data directly into our software services, for the same purposes. The personal data processed by us in such instances may include:

• Name
• Address and post code
• Telephone number
• Email
• Job role, status and employer
• FCA authorisation status
• FCA registration number
• Best day/time to contact
• Dietary requirements
• Bank Details (account number and sort code)
• Date of birth
• Marital status
• Gender
• Nationality
• Details, including date of birth, of any dependents, including children
• NI number and salary
• Loans
• Credit cards and monthly outgoings
• Adverse Credit data
• Previous name, address, and employers
• Existing and new property details
• Existing and new mortgage details
• Income and expenditure
• Contact details of estate agent, solicitor, landlord, current mortgage lender, accountant, doctor,
• Health and capability information and
• Convictions.

5. How long we keep information for

We pride ourselves on ensuring that your personal data is only retained for the period that we need it for, or in accordance with laws, regulations, and professional obligations that we are subject to. All personal information collect has a defined retention period, which is in-line with our retention policy. We have efficient mechanisms for anonymising and deleting the personal data upon completion of the retention period. If you would like to find out how long your information is being retained, please see “additional information”, section 16 of this policy.

6. Security of personal information

Mortgage Brain takes the responsibility for protecting your privacy very seriously and we will ensure your data is secured in accordance with our obligations under the Data Protection laws. We have in place technical and organisational measures to ensure personal information is secured and to prevent your personal data from being accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed.  We have in place a robust access control policy which limits access to your personal data to those employees, contractors and other third parties who only have a business need to know. The processing of your personal data will only take place subject to our instruction.

We use SSL encryption on a number of our websites from which we transfer certain personal information. We take measures to destroy or permanently de-identify personal information if required by law or the personal information is no longer required for the purpose for which we collected it.

We have policies and procedures to handle any potential data security breaches and data subjects, third parties and any applicable regulators will be notified where we are legally required to do so.

We do not, however, have any control over what happens between your device and the boundary of our information infrastructure. You should be aware of the many information security risks that exist and take appropriate steps to safeguard your own information. We accept no liability in respect of breaches that occur beyond our sphere of control.

We have ensured that all employees have had information security and data protection training. If you would like more details of the security we have in place, please see “additional information”, section 16 of this policy.

7. Children’s information

We do not knowingly collect information on children as data controller. However, we may process information regarding children on behalf of one of our customers (normally mortgage brokers) where such customer requires the information in order provide their services to their clients. If we have collected personal information on a child, other than on behalf of our customers, please contact us immediately using the details in section 16, so we can remove this information without any undue delay.

8. Anonymous data

You acknowledge that the functionality of our Services allows us to collect and record information relating to your use of the Services including details regarding those that you represent (including your clients). This information is valuable to us and to other parties for analysing and understanding market trends in relation to the recommendation and purchasing of financial products. By using the Service, you consent to us viewing, monitoring, collecting and recording such information input by you into our Services or derived therefrom (including via application processing interfaces (“API”)) and to us on an aggregate basis (to a minimum aggregated level of that of your Business Subscriber) in a manner that does not identify you or those that you represent and to us collating, compiling, reformatting, reproducing, adapting, translating, arranging, publishing, selling, distributing, dealing with or otherwise commercially exploiting any part of such information or otherwise making it available to any third party on such terms as we deem appropriate. It is not, of course, personal data. We confirm that we shall not commercially exploit or distribute to any third party any information which is personal data. Rather, we undertake that whenever we commercially exploit any such information this will be done on an anonymous and generic basis such that the privacy of any individual is not compromised.

9. Your individual rights

In this Section, we have summarised the rights that you have under General Data Protection Regulation. Some of the rights are complex, and not all the details have been included in our summaries. Accordingly, you should read the relevant laws and guidance from the regulatory authorities for a full explanation of these rights.

Your principal rights under General Data Protection Regulation are:

• Right to object
• Right of access
• Right to be informed
• Right to rectification
• Right to erasure
• Right to restrict processing
• Right to data portability

9.1 The right to object

You can exercise this right if;

• Processing relies on legitimate interest
• Processing is for scientific or historical research
• Processing includes automated decision making and profiling
• Processing is for direct marketing purposes

9.2 The right of access

• You or any third party acting on your behalf with your authority may request a copy of the personal data we hold about you without charge.
• We will ask to verify your identity or request evidence from the third party that they are acting on your behalf before releasing any personal data we hold about you.

9.3 The right to be informed

We are required, to provide clear and transparent information to you about how we process your personal data. This privacy notice addresses this right.

9.4 The right of rectification

If you believe the personal data we hold about you is incorrect or incomplete you have the right to correct this and you may exercise this right along with the right to restrict processing until these corrections are made.

9.5 The right to erasure

If there is no legal basis or legitimate reason for processing your personal data, you may request that we erase it.

9.6 The right to restrict processing

• You may ask us to restrict the processing of your personal data. This means we will still hold it but not process it. This is a conditional right which may only be exercised when:
• Processing is unlawful
• We no longer need the personal data, but it is required for a legal process
• You have exercised your right to object to processing and require processing to be halted while a decision on the request to object is made.
• If you are exercising your right to rectification

9.7    The right to data portability

You can request that your personal data is transferred to another controller or processor in a machine-readable format if:

• Processing is based on consent
• Processing is by automated means (i.e. not paper based)
• Processing is necessary for the fulfilment of a contractual obligation

Where we are processing your personal information as Data Processor only, you should contact the Data Controller to apply any of the above rights.

If you have any question about these rights, please see “additional information”, kindly contact us at [email protected].

10. Consent

Where you have given consent for processing, or explicit consent in relation to the processing of special category data, you have the right to withdraw this consent at any time, but this will not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.

11. Failure To Provide Personal Information

Where we need to collect personal data by law or in order to process your instructions or perform a contract we have with you and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to carry out your instructions or perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you. In this case, we may have to cancel our engagement or contract you have with us, but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

12. Cookies

Our website uses cookies. Please see our cookies policy for full details of the cookies used.

13. Automated Decision Making

Your personal data is not used in any automated decision making (a decision made solely by automated means without any human involvement) or profiling (automated processing of personal data to evaluate certain conditions about an individual).

14. Transfers To Third Parties

Mortgage Brain may disclose your personal data, listed in section 4 to some third parties to help us deliver our services. All third parties are contractually bound to protect the personal data we provide to them. We ensure that the data disclosed to them is necessary for them to provide their services. We may use several or all of the following categories of recipients:

• Business partners, suppliers, contractors for the performance of any contract we enter into with them or you
• Companies within our group where necessary for administrative purposes and to provide services to you
• Third parties that support us to provide products and services e.g. IT support, cloud-based software services (such as hosting and email management), providers of telecommunications equipment, IT software or maintenance providers, data backup providers
• Advertising and marketing service provider
• Financial services providers
• IT developers
• Data analysis providers
• Security services providers
• Administrative services
• Recruitment service providers
• Professional advisors e.g. lawyers, auditors
• Web analytics and search engine provider to ensure the continued improvement and optimisation of our website.

See our Mortgage Brain Sub-Processors for a full list of third parties that are authorised by us to process Personal Information.

15. Transfers Outside Of The UK

All personal data that you provide to us is stored on our secure servers which are located within the UK.

We may share personal information to third parties outside of the UK or EEA. Any personal information transferred will only be processed on our instruction and we ensure that information security at the highest standard would be used to protect any personal information and data subject rights as required by the Data Protection laws.

Where personal data is transferred outside of the UK or EEA to a country without an adequacy decision, we will ensure appropriate safeguards are in place prior to the transfer. These could include:

• Standard Contractual Clauses
• Standard Contractual Clauses + Addendum
• International Data Transfer Agreement
• An exception as defined in Article 49 of the GDPR
• For more information about transfers and safeguarding measures, please contact us using the information in section 16.

16. Right to complaint

We take any complaints about our collection and use of personal information very seriously.

If you think that our collection or use of personal information is unfair, misleading, or inappropriate, or have any other concern about our data processing, please raise this with us in the first instance.

To make a complaint, please contact us via email on [email protected].

Alternatively, you can contact us:

Mortgage Brain Limited
6 The Courtyard
Buntsford Gate,
Bromsgrove
Worcestershire
B60 3DJ
United Kingdom.
Telephone: 01527 557200

If you are not satisfied by our response, you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office:
By Post: Information Commissioners Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
By Website: click here
By Email: click here
By Phone: 0303 123 1113 (Local rate) or 01625 545 745 (National rate)

17. Additional information

Your trust is important to us. That is why we are always available to talk with you at any time and answer any questions concerning how your data is processed. If you have any questions that could not be answered by this privacy policy or if you wish to receive more in-depth information about any topic within it, please contact our DPO and Compliance Team via email on [email protected].

18. Policy Review and Amendments

We keep this Policy under regular review. This Policy was last updated on 1/10/24.
We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time.
We recommend you regularly check for changes and review this policy whenever you visit our website.