Privacy Policy.

Use of personal information under UK data protection laws must be justified under one of a number of legal grounds and we are required to set out the grounds in respect of each use in this policy. Anexplanation of the scope of the grounds available can be found here.

The main uses of your information are:

Customer Support and Marketing - to respond to enquiries and to bring you news and offers.

BMW UK and BMW FS use your personal data for customer care and for personalised communications of BMW Group product and service information, with your consent where necessary. For these purposes, BMW UK and BMW FS may transmit this data to authorised Retailers and other BMW Group companies (i.e. BMW FS and BMW Holdings).

In order to ensure that you receive relevant and personalised communications, we will use some of your data to create an individual customer profile and we may share your personal data between BMW Group companies, authorised BMW or MINI Retailers, BMW i agents and other suppliers of BMW or MINI branded products and services where relevant. This may include data you have provided to these companies, or which is generated by your use of BMW or MINI products, for example contact details, preferences, customer history, vehicle data, app usage and online behaviour.

If you have a finance agreement with BMW FS they may pass on your agreement details (term, monthly payment, rate, mileage, final payment, and agreement number and vehicle details) to the retailer who sold your vehicle to you to discuss your end of contract options, and if you agree, to discuss any future financing with BMW FS. They may also provide BMW UK with your contact details and the start and end dates of your agreement so they can send you news on products and services which may interest you.

Vehicle Sales & Service – to process your sale, configure and service your vehicle

BMW, MINI & BMW Motorrad Centres will obtain Contact Details, Vehicle Configuration Details, Vehicle Technical Information and Sales and Services Information when you purchase, service or repair a vehicle from or with them as part of the sale or service and will use it to provide the services you request and notify you of issues in relation to your vehicle. This information may be accessed by BMW UK and BMW AG to troubleshoot technical or other issues relating to the delivery of these services.

The above mentioned controllers may also receive limited Vehicle Location Information during the repair process which will be used only in accordance with Location Information Safeguards. For further information on these safeguards click here.

Vehicle Finance – to assess your eligibility for finance to comply with legal obligations. Where explicit consent is not provided we use information to meet our legitimate interests.  For example to ensure that BMW FS offers the most appropriate offers of finance to you, to ensure that the services function correctly, to prevent fraud and money laundering and to ensure that your records are accurate and up to date.

When you apply for finance from BMW FS you must provide certain personal information. BMW FS may share the information with Credit Reference and Fraud Prevention Agencies to help them decide whether to offer you finance. Using information about you in this way is necessary for BMW FS to make this decision and if you do not provide it to BMW FS they may not be able to offer you finance. Your information will be used by BMW FS and these agencies as follows:

• BMW FS will check records about you and others held by them and by Credit Reference and Fraud Prevention agencies, for example to assess your application for credit and verify identities to prevent and detect crime and money laundering. The Credit Reference Agencies will place a search footprint on your credit file that may be seen by other lenders. They will supply public information (for example information held on the electoral register) as well as shared credit and fraud prevention information. The Fraud Prevention Agencies will use your personal information to prevent fraud and money-laundering and to verify your identity.
• If you are making a joint application or if you advise BMW FS of a director or that you have a spouse or financial associate, they will link your records together so you must be sure that you have their agreement to disclose information about them. Credit Reference Agencies also link your records together and these links will remain on your and their files until such a time as you, a director or your partner successfully files for a disassociation with the Credit Reference Agencies to break that link.
• If you are an owner, director or partner in a small business, we may also check on your business.
• If you give BMW FS false or inaccurate information or BMW FS suspect or identifies fraud, they will record this and may also pass on the information to Fraud Prevention Agencies and other organisations involved in crime prevention. Law enforcement agencies may also access and use this information. If fraud is detected, you could be refused certain services, finance or employment.
• BMW FS and other organisations may access and use from other countries the information recorded by Fraud Prevention Agencies, which may be publicly-available sources.
• Your data may also be used for other purposes for which you give your permission or, in limited circumstances, when required by law or where permitted under the terms of relevant data protection and privacy law.

If you would like full details about how your information will be used by us, Credit Reference Agencies and Fraud Prevention Agencies, including details of your rights in relation to your information, or you would like to obtain contact details of the Credit Reference and Fraud Prevention Agencies, please: visit www.experian.co.uk/crain or https://www.transunion.co.uk/crain.

BMW FS uses the following credit reference agencies and they can be contacted in the following ways:

-      Transunion 0330 024 7574  TransUnion Information Group, One Park Lane, Leeds, West Yorkshire LS3 1EP

BMW FS uses the following Fraud Prevention Agencies and they can be contacted in the following ways:

-       National Hunter Limited. www.nhunter.co.uk; National Hunter, PO Box 4744, Stone, ST15 9FE.

-       Callcredit. 0330 024 7574.  TransUnion Information Group, One Park Lane, Leeds, LS3 1EP.

-      CIFAS.  0330 100 0180.  Cifas, 6th Floor, Lynton House, 7-12 Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9LT.

Fraud Prevention Agencies can hold your personal data for different periods of time, and if you are considered to pose a fraud or money laundering risk, your data can be held for up to 6 years. A record of any fraud or money laundering risk will be retained by the Fraud Prevention Agencies, and may result in others refusing to provide services or financing to you. If you have any questions about this, please contact the Fraud Prevention Agencies on the details above.

BMW FS uses automated decision-making tools to help it to decide whether to offer you finance. Based on the information you provide us, we will compare this against different metrics to determine whether you meet the eligibility criteria for finance or to determine whether you will be able to make repayments on a vehicle without difficulty. If your application for finance is rejected using automated means alone, you will be given the opportunity to ask for the decision to be reviewed manually. This does not mean that the decision will be changed.

BMW FS does not share credit and anti-fraud information with Retail Centres, BMW UK, BMW Holdings or BMW AG.

BMW FS will also use your personal information to manage its contractual obligations and to enforce its rights under the finance agreement. For example, if you fall into arrears or break any other term of the agreement, BMW FS may pass on your details to a debt collection agency for the purpose of collecting the debt or to a vehicle recovery agent to repossess the vehicle or to solicitors to issue court proceedings against you. BMW FS may also activate  your GPS tracker or review publicly available information to trace your whereabouts. For full details of how BMW FS processes your personal information please refer to the “Use of Your Information” clause in your finance agreement.

If BMW FS reasonably suspect that the Vehicle’s odometer has been tampered with or ‘clocked’, and if the Vehicle is a BMW or MINI, we will use BMW UK data to remotely retrieve mileage data from the Vehicle’s in-car system.

ConnectedDrive – to provide digital services in the vehicle.

BMW UK and BMW AG receive information from these digital services, such as:

Contact Details, Vehicle Location Information as well as Device and Service Usage information which they use in accordance with the detailed service descriptions for each element of the services set out in the ConnectedDrive policy.

• Further information is available in the ConnectedDrive Privacy Policy, click here.

Connected App – to provide digital services relating to the vehicle through a mobile device.

BMW AG will obtain Contact Details, Device and Vehicle Location Information as well as Device and Service Usage information through the provision of the BMW Connected App which it uses in accordance with the BMW Connected App privacy policy and Location Information Safeguards.

For more information on Vehicle Location Information safeguards click here.

Quality Assurance, Research and Development – to improve our products and services.

BMW AG may use any of the information that it receives through the provision of services to BMW UK, centres (including Location Information) for product and service quality assurance and development purposes. Before any such use is undertaken your information will be de-personalised so it cannot be directly linked back to you.

Compliance with legal requests for your information – to comply with our legal obligations to law enforcement, regulators and the court service.

We may be legally required to provide your information to law enforcement agencies, regulators, courts and third party litigants in connection with civil or criminal proceedings or investigations anywhere in the world. Where permitted, we will direct any such request to you or we may notify you before responding unless to do so would prejudice the prevention or detection of a crime.

Legal grounds for processing of your personal information.

The use of your information set out above is permitted under UK data protection law on the basis of these principal legal grounds:

• Where you have consented to the use (you will have been presented with a consent form in relation to any such use and may withdraw your consent at any time through the BMW Customer Information Centre

1. on 0800 561 0666 (calls are free of charge plus your phone company's access charge)
2. or sending an email to customer.information@bmw.co.uk or customer.information@mini.co.uk
3. or by writing to us at:

      BMW Customer Information Centre

      Phoenix One

      59 - 63 Farnham Road

      Slough

      Berkshire

      SL1 3TN

• Where necessary to enter into or perform our contract with you
• Where we need to use it to comply with our legal obligations
• Where we use it to achieve a legitimate interest and our reasons for using it outweigh any prejudice to your data protection rights (our legitimate interests include promoting the BMW Group business and tailoring news and offers to your profile, research and development of vehicle related products and services, assessing your credit-worthiness, detecting fraud and criminal activities).

There may be uses that are permitted on the basis of other grounds; where this is the case we will use reasonable endeavours to identify the ground and communicate it you as soon as possible after becoming aware of the new basis.

Third parties to whom we may transfer your data.

Personal information which we collect may be transferred to or accessed by third parties on our behalf, with your consent where necessary.

The types of third parties apart from the BMW companies already stated are:

• Marketing and research companies who run and manage marketing and research campaigns
• Event companies who run and manage sponsored events
• BMW Customer Interaction Centre who provide customer support
• BMW Retailers and Retail Centres who provide services to you
• IT providers who provide us systems and services for customer support
• Card Payment Services providers who operate payment platforms
• Logistics and courier companies who transport our products to you
• Companies who provide transport to you or offer you mobility services (e.g. chauffeurs)
• Law firms who provide legal advice to us (e.g. where there is a customer dispute)

This is only shared in a secure manner, using a consistent security protocol. When we share with other parties we ensure that they only use your personal data for the purpose it was collected and do not allow them to abuse this agreement.

BMW Group UK may also transfer your personal information to a third party without your consent if it is in its legitimate interest or if there is a contractual obligation to do so. For example, BMW FS may pass on your personal details to a third party debt recovery agent if you fail to make the payments due under your finance agreement or to a vehicle recovery agent to collect the vehicle at the end of your finance agreement. For full details of how BMW FS uses and shares your personal information please refer to the “Use of Your Information” clause in the finance agreement.