Privacy policy & cookies

At Scottish Friendly we are committed to protecting your privacy.

1. About us

This is a Privacy Policy for Scottish Friendly. At Scottish Friendly we are committed to protecting your privacy. Please read on for more details about our Privacy Policy.

We invite you to contact us if you have questions about this policy. You can contact us by mail at the following address:

Marketing Department
Scottish Friendly Assurance Society Limited
Scottish Friendly House
16 Blythswood Square
Glasgow, G2 4HJ

Or, you can contact us by e-mail.

2. Accessing your Data

You have the right under the Data Protection Act to request a copy of the personal data which we store on our computer systems. The fee for this is £10.

For further information, please contact the Data Protection Officer, Scottish Friendly Assurance, Blythswood House, 16 Blythswood Square, Glasgow G2 4HJ.

3. Additional Information

This policy is valid for one week from the time that it is loaded by a client. If Scottish Friendly’s privacy policy is changed in any way, an updated version will be placed on this page. By regularly reviewing this page, you will always be aware of the information that we collect and how we use it. You will also be aware of the circumstances, if any, under which we may share it with other parties.

If you have any feedback or would like to query or make a complaint about this privacy policy or about the website, please contact us via our enquiry form.

4. How we use the data you supply

Any information supplied by visitors online will become part of the data held by us in accordance with the Data Protection Act. The information you supply to us will be used for the purpose for which it was given i.e. to fulfil a request for product information or to send e-mail newsletters.

Some or all of the information that you supply to us may be used for research and statistical purposes. We may use information to advise you of other products and services offered by companies within the Scottish Friendly group or products and services offered by trusted third party organisations with whom we participate with in joint marketing activity. You will always be given the opportunity to decline receiving such information.

If you decide to amend your current mailing status you should write to us at the address above to request that your personal information is not used for direct marketing purposes.

5. Other companies' access to your personal information

We employ other companies to perform functions on our behalf, for example, to fulfil brochure requests from our website or to send e-mail newsletters. These companies will have access to the personal information needed to perform these functions on behalf of Scottish Friendly, but may not use it for any other purposes and are required to process the data in accordance with the UK's Data Protection legislation.

6. Data Collection

This policy contains four data groups. The data practices of each group will be explained separately.

6.1. Group 'Newsletter'

We collect the following information:

Email Address

This data will be used for the following purposes:

Contacting visitors for marketing of services or products. The user must opt-in to this usage.

This data will be used by ourselves and our agents.

The following explanation is provided for why this data is collected:

Contacting site visitors for ongoing marketing of products or services.

6.2. Group 'Web Access Statistics'

We collect the following information:

URL of requested resource
Request timestamp
Client's IP address or hostname
HTTP request method
Data bytes in response
Response status code
User agent information

This data will be used for the following purposes:

Web site and system administration.

This data will be used by ourselves and our agents.

6.3. Group 'Referrer Information'

At the user's option, we will collect the following data:

HTTP cookies [see section below for an explanation of a 'cookie']
Clickstream information

This data will be used for the following purposes:

Research and development.

This data will be used by ourselves and our agents.

6.4. Group "Information Requests"

We collect the following information:

User's name
User's home contact information

This data will be used for the following purposes:

Contacting visitors for marketing of services or products. The user must opt-in to this usage.
Telemarketing. The user must opt-in to this usage.

This data will be used by ourselves and our agents.

The following explanation is provided for why this data is collected: Your name and contact information is requested in order to send follow-up marketing material, on request.

7. Cookies

In this section you will find information on what cookies may be set when you visit the Scottish Friendly website and how to reject or delete them.

We want to make the services we provide easy, useful and reliable. The delivery of services on the Internet, can involve placing small amounts of information on your device, for example your computer or mobile phone, via small files known as cookies.

Cookies are a technology which can be used to provide you with tailored information from a Web site. A cookie is an element of data that a Web site can send to your browser, which may then store it on your system. They cannot be used to identify you personally.

You can set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie, giving you the chance to decide whether to accept it. You can manage these small files yourself and learn more about them via www.direct.gov.uk/managingcookies.

7.1. How to control and delete cookies

Scottish Friendly will not use cookies to collect information personally identifiable information about you. However, should you wish to restrict or avoid receiving the cookies set by our website, or any other website, you can disable cookies in your web browser setting.

You can access comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of browsers by visiting www.allaboutcookies.org. Here you will also find details on how to delete cookies from your machine as well as some general information on about cookies.

Please note that restricting cookies may impact on the functionality of the Scottish Friendly website.

If you want to view your cookie code, simply click on the cookie to open it and you’ll see a short string of text and numbers. The numbers are your identification card and they can only be seen by the server giving you the cookie.

If you are using a mobile and require information of how to do this on the browser of your mobile phone you will need to consult your handset manual.

To completely opt-out of our suppliers that collect data with regard to your interaction with the Scottish Friendly website, please refer to section 7.3.2, ‘Cookies set for web analytics’ below.

7.2. Scottish Friendly’s use of cookies

Our website makes use of four cookies - Google Analytics, ClickTale, Scottish Friendly and Affiliate. Cookies are used for the normal operation of our website, as well as research and development.

The third party cookies we use monitor how visitors use our site so that we can continue to improve the service we provide. These cookies are only used to identify general visitor behaviour and will not establish personal information.

7.3. Third party cookies

Scottish Friendly uses a number of suppliers who also set cookies on its website on its behalf.

7.3.1. Cookies set for embedded social web content

To support engagement and information supply, from time to time Scottish Friendly may embed photos and video content from websites such as You Tube and Facebook.

This means that when you visit a page that has content embedded from Facebook or You Tube, you may be presented with cookies from these sites.

Scottish Friendly does not control the distribution of these cookies. Therefore, you should check with these third party websites to gain more information about their use of cookies.

Cookies of this nature include:

Service	Cookie name
Facebook.com	datr lsd lu gz
Twitter.com	Guest_id _twitter_sess
Api.twitter.com	Guest_id Original_referer

7.3.2. Cookies set for web analytics

Scottish Friendly uses third party services to gather data on the usage of our website on our behalf. This is done using cookies embedded on our website. The cookies are used to monitor how visitors use our site such as, the links that are used most frequently or which pages get fewest unique views.

The purpose of this is to continue to improve the service we provide to users. The cookies are only used to identify general visitor behaviour (via Google Analytics and Clicktale) and do not establish personal information.

Cookies of this nature include:

Service	Cookie name	Expiry
Google Analytics	_utmb _utma _utmz _utmc	30 minutes 2 years 6 months Not set
ClickTale	WRUID	1 year

Google Analytics

Scottish Friendly uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. Google Analytics sets a cookie in order to evaluate a visitor’s use of our website.

Google stores the information collected by the cookie on servers in the United States. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google's behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google.

By using Scottish Friendly’s website, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above.

For more information on the cookie set by Google Analytics, including information on how to opt out please go to: http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacypolicy.html.

ClickTale

We also use ClickTale to monitor visits and general user behaviour within our website. ClickTale uses a cookie to tell whether you are a returning visitor to the site, and to track the pages that you visit during your session. Scottish Friendly uses the information collected by ClickTale service to improve our website, make it more user-friendly and monitor that it is performing correctly.

Clicktale stores the information collected by the cookie on servers in Israel. ClickTale may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on their behalf. ClickTale will not associate your IP address with any other data held by ClickTale.

By using Scottish Friendly’s website, you consent to the processing of data about you by ClickTale in the manner and for the purposes set out above.

For more information, see Privacy Policy for Information Collected by the ClickTale Web Analytics Service. You can choose to disable the Service via this privacy policy link.

7.3.3. Cookies set for Remarketing

Scottish Friendly use 2 AdJug Containers (secure and non-secure) for Remarketing purposes and 6 different AdJug Containers for tracking Conversions on different products. These are used for targeting and optimisation as well as reporting and attribution. Users are assigned anonymous, unique user id’s stored in the cookie. Time between clicks is also logged and taken into account by an audience profiling algorithm. No additional data is passed to the conversion pixel.

Data is stored in a fully owned data warehouse, not shared outside this product. Data stored is a behavioural profile + tracking data on a per user basis, indexed by userid stored in the cookie. Data is also stored within AdJug databases such as client contact and campaign details. Both are stored for up to two years. User tracking data from pixels is stored for one day and then moved into backup - 15 days backup data is retained.

You can choose to disable this service by visiting www.adjug.com and clicking on the ‘Consumer Cookie Opt-Out’ link under ‘Support’ at the bottom of their homepage. For the full AdJug privacy policy, visit www.adjug.com/info/privacy.asp

7.3.4. Linking to third party sites

We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other sites even if you access them using links from our Site and recommend that you check the policy of each site you visit and contact its owner or proprietor if you have any concerns or questions.

In addition, if you linked to this Site from a third party site, for example cashback websites, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of the owners or operators of that third party site and recommend that you check the policy of that third party site and again contact its owner or operator if you have any concerns or questions.

7.4. List of main Scottish Friendly cookies

This is a list of the main cookies set by Scottish Friendly. Underneath the list you’ll find more detail on each of the cookies regarding what they are used for.

Service	Cookie name	Expiry
Scottish Friendly system session cookie	SCOF scottishfriendly JSESSIONID	Expires when the browser session is closed
Scottish Friendly affiliate tracker cookie	sfAffStSrc	Expires when the browser session is closed

SCOF

This is a system session cookie, necessary for the normal operation of the Scottish Friendly website.

scottishfriendly

This is a system session cookie, necessary for the normal operation of the Scottish Friendly website. In particular, it applies to customers who decide to purchase a plan online. In doing so, a session cookie is applied which provides an applicant with a user ID. It is strictly necessary to complete the application process. The information submitted on each screen of the application form is encrypted and stored on the system to allow a user to move through each stage of the application process. At the end of the process, all of the information that the user has provided is submitted.

JSESSIONID

This is a session cookie which enables session management on the My Plans web application. An example of this would be enabling you to stay logged into your account. The cookie expires at the end of your browser session.

sfAffStSrc

This is a session cookie containing the affiliate source, necessary for processing cash back payments from affiliate websites. It is an affiliate tracker cookie. The cookie is placed by Scottish Friendly to capture the name of the website that a customer has been directed from. It contains the affiliate source and it is necessary for processing cash back payments from affiliate websites.