How will we use the information about you?
How we will use data about your enquiry or complaint
The data that you provide in this web form is stored by PSA. It will be retained in a secure environment and access to it will be restricted.
We will only process this data in order to carry out our public task of regulating the promotion, operation and content of phone-paid services, including carrying out investigations and taking enforcement action where appropriate. We will record the details of your complaint in our systems. This will contain details of your identity and also the identity of any other individuals involved in the complaint who you have identified to us. We will only use the personal information we collect from you to process the complaint, including carrying out enquiries and gathering evidence for any related investigation. Please note that we do not generally require any sensitive personal data from you (such as health, race, sex life or orientation or political views) in order for us to carry out any enquiries or investigations. If you choose to provide us with such data we will need your explicit consent before we can store and use it.
We do also compile and publish statistics showing information such as the number of complaints we have received, but this will not be in a form that identifies you or anyone else.
We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it. If we need to use your personal data for a different purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.
Who we may share your data with
We may need to share some or all of the information you have provided with your mobile or fixed line network, the company providing the technical platform for the service and the provider of the service. We may also need to obtain information about you from these parties, such as information about any interactions you have had with the service or with these parties. If you do not want information identifying you to be disclosed to an outside party, we will respect that. However, you should be aware that it may not be possible to for us to use your complaint on an anonymous basis.
If the service you have complained about is run by a provider based in another EU country, we may need to securely transmit the details of your complaint to that provider (unless you don’t wish us to do so) and the appropriate regulatory body in that country. Similarly, we may need to securely transmit your data outside the EU as part of our regulatory investigation, where the provider is based outside of the EU. For some of these countries we may need to seek your explicit consent. Where we need to do so we will also provide you with further details of any risks and the safeguards in place in relation to your personal data.
How long we will keep your enquiry or complaint data for
We will keep your personal information in line with our retention policy. This means that information relating to your complaint will be retained for three years from the date we receive it, unless we allocate the service you have complained about for formal investigation, in which case we will retain your personal information for 3 years from the date of allocation of the service or, where the allocation results in an active investigation or regulatory proceedings, for three years after the closure of the investigation or proceedings.
Your rights under the data protection laws
If you wish to exercise any of the following rights, you should contact our data protection officer Ayo Omideyi
Requesting corrections to your personal data
If any data we hold regarding you is incorrect, you may request a correction to your data at any time.
Requesting a copy of the personal data we hold about you
You have the right to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
Requesting that we cease, restrict, delete or transfer your personal data
You may also request that we cease processing your data at any time or to object to our continued use of your data. This does not affect any processing that has been carried out prior to your request being received.
You may also request that we restrict or suspend the processing of your personal data for one of the following reasons: where you want us to establish the data's accuracy; where our use of your data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; or where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need the data to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim; or where you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
You also have the right to request that we delete any or all personal data that PSA holds on you at any time. The only reason we would not carry out this request is if it would result in us being in breach of other legal or regulatory obligations we have, but we would always inform you at the time were this the case.
You can also request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide this to you, or a third party you have chosen, in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to sensitive data that you have consented to us processing and which we have processed through automated means
Please note that in some circumstances we may not be able to carry out your requests due to exemptions applying under the Data Protection Act 2018.
A link to our full privacy statement, containing further details about how the PSA stores and uses personal data can be found here.
If you are unhappy with the way we have stored or handled your personal data
If you are unhappy with the way we have stored or handled your personal data, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) who are the UK Regulator for data protection matters. They can be contacted by telephone on 0303 123 1113.
Further information about how to report a concern to the ICO can be found at https://ico.org.uk/concerns.
Who we are and how to contact us
The Phone-paid Services Authority (PSA) is the UK regulator for content, goods and services charged to a phone bill.
For any enquiries specifically regarding data we store about you, or how PSA uses your data, you can contact our Data Protection Officer in the following ways:
- via e-mail at information@psauthority.org.uk
- by writing to them at our company address, marking your letter for the attention of the Data Protection Officer: Phone-paid Services Authority, c/o Ofcom, Riverside House, 2a Southwark Bridge Road, London, SE1 9HA.
- by phone on 020 7940 7474 between 9.30am and 5pm Monday to Friday.
Our website is www.psauthority.org.uk.
