Last updated: 24 July 2024

1. What is this document and why should you read it?

This Privacy Notice explains how and why CompareDent Limited (also referred to as “CompareDent”, “CompareDent.co.uk”, “we”, “our” and “us”) collects, uses, discloses and otherwise processes personal data about individual users of our website www.comparedent.co.uk (the “Website”) and those that access our services through APIs and through third-parties (collectively, the “Services”), including Website Users, Patients, and Dental Clinics (whether prospective, current or past), and people that apply to work with us (together, “you”).

This Privacy Notice does not address data that is not subject to applicable data protection laws (such as deidentified or publicly available information). This Privacy Policy is also not a contract and does not create any legal rights or obligations not otherwise provided by law.

You should read this Privacy Policy so that you know what we are doing with your personal data.

By creating an account with CompareDent, or by visiting www.comparedent.co.uk, you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Policy.

2. Our data protection responsibilities

“Personal data” is any information that relates to an identifiable natural person. Your name, address and contact details are examples of your personal data, if they identify you.

The term “process” means any activity relating to personal data, including collection, storage, use and transmission.

Whether you are a Patient, a Clinic, a Website User, or a Job Applicant for a vacancy at CompareDent (or a combination of those, as such terms are defined below), CompareDent is a “controller” of your personal data. This means that we make decisions about how and why we process your personal data and are responsible for making sure it is used in accordance with data protection laws. This Privacy Notice describes our privacy practices where we are acting as the controller of personal data. However, this Privacy Notice does not cover or address how our Clinics may process personal data when they provide their dental services.

3. What types of personal data do we collect and where do we get it from?

If you are reviewing this Privacy Notice, then you will fall into at least one of the following categories of individuals about whom we process personal data:

(a) prospective, current or past users of CompareDent.co.uk who register an account and/or use our Search Facility to compare treatments and services provided by dental practices (“Patients”);

(b) current or past individuals or businesses that register as a Clinic on CompareDent to provide a service to Patients, or businesses who we identify as being of interest to our Patients and who we may then contact with potential business opportunities relating to our Patients (“Clinics”);

(d) individuals applying for a job with us (“Job Applicants”).

Accordingly, we will collect and process different types of personal data about you depending on which of these categories are relevant to you. The different types of personal data that we collect and the sources we collect it from are summarised below.

4. Personal Data Categories

Depending on how you use our Website and Services, we will collect different types of personal data about you. This data might include your name, contact details, details about your business, any information you provide in correspondence with us, records of your transactions with us, and how you use CompareDent.co.uk. We need these details to provide the CompareDent.co.uk Search Facility to you. We have set out more specific details on the categories of personal data we collect and process about Patients, Clinics, Job Applicants, and Website Users in Table A:

Table A: Data Categories

Category

Types of Personal Data

Contact Data

Basic contact information and identity information

Communication Data

Your contact/marketing preferences

Account Data

CompareDent profile and details
User names, passwords and other log-in information
Activity history and referral data
Analysis we may undertake on account usage from time to time

Patient or Clinic Content

Any files, documents, audio, videos, images, data, or communications you choose to input, upload, or transmit to our Services.
Professional credentials, including professional association membership information and insurance information
Information about offered procured Clinic services
Reviews, referrals and ratings between Patients and Clinics

CompareDent Data

Your draft, actual and suggested search request(s) and any responses received
Feedback on CompareDent usage for Patients and feedback, comments and ratings of Clinics

Event, Contest, Promotion, and Survey Information

Information provided when you sign up for an event, enter a contest or promotion, complete a survey or submit a testimonial

Feedback and Support Information

Contents of custom messages sent through the forms, chat platforms, email addresses, or other contact information we make available on our Website
Recordings of calls with us, where permitted by law (including through the use of automated tools provided by us or our third-party providers)

Security-Related Information

Name and contact information of visitors to our premises, video recordings of videos on our premises, and electronic login records and access details when a visitor utilises company technology on our premises.

Information About Your Device and Network

Information about your device, which may include the device type, manufacturer, model, operating system, IP address, browser type, browsing history, preferences, identification numbers, your mobile carrier, date and time stamps and other interactions with the Service. We employ third-party technologies designed to allow us to recognize when two or more devices are likely being used by the same individual and may leverage these technologies (where permitted) to link information collected from different devices.

Information About the Way Individuals Use Our Search Facility and Interact with Us

Browsing behaviour and data on the actions you take on our Services (such as the pages you visit, the content you view, the communications you have through our Search Facility, and the content, links and ads you interact with).
We employ third-party technologies designed to allow us to collect detailed information about browsing behaviour and actions that you take on our Services, which may record your mouse movements, scrolling, clicks, and keystroke activity on our Services and other browsing and search behaviour. These third-party technologies may also record information you enter when you interact with our products or Services or engage in chat features or other communication platforms we provide.

Geolocation Data

Your device and/or the information you give us might tell us your approximate geographical location, or our third-party providers may derive your general geographic location from your IP address, as well as more precise geolocation when you grant us access.

Analytics Data

Information to monitor and analyse use of our Services, for example for our Service’s technical administration, to increase our Service’s functionality and user-friendliness, and to verify users have the authorisation needed to process their requests

Clinic Data

Details about the Service(s) you or your employer provide
Payment records and bank account details
CompareDent.co.uk profile
CompareDent analysis we may undertake from time to time
Account details and activity history
Usernames, passwords and other log-in information

Job Application Data

Any information you provide to us as part of your application to work at CompareDent.com

We and our trusted third-party partners may collect personal data automatically through technologies like cookies, beacons, pixels, scripts and SDKs about the devices and computers you use when you interact with our Website, App and other Services, such as browser type, device type, language, operating system, the referring web page, pages visited, and hyperlinks clicked (collectively, “Usage Information”). We may also use third-party tools to collect Usage

Information you provide to us or information about how you use the Service and may monitor and record your mouse movements, scrolling, clicks and keystroke activity on the Service and other browsing, search or purchasing behaviour. These tools may also record Usage Information you enter when you interact with our Services or engage in chat or form features through our Services.

We may also collect personal data from other sources and third parties. For example, this data could be from our Website, your business website, as well as social media. More details about the sources from which we obtain personal data about Patients, Clinics, Job Applicants, and Website Users can be found in Table B, below.

Table B: Sources of Personal Data

Category

Types of Personal Data

Collected from

Patients

Basic Data
Communication Data
Account Data
CompareDent Data
Website Data
Geolocation Data
Analytics Data
You
Our Website (including any cookies)
Your device
Third party sources, including social media, search engines, online maps, online marketplaces, online customer review sites and directories

Clinics

Basic Data
Communication Data
Professional Data
Website Data
Geolocation Data
Analytics Data
You
Your employer
The Services (including any cookies)
Your website
Your device
Third party sources, including social media, search engines, online maps, online marketplaces, online customer review sites and directories

Website Users

Basic Data
Communication Data
Website Data
Geolocation Data
Analytics Data
You
The Services (including any cookies)
Your device

Job Applications

Basic Data
Communication Data
Job Application Data
You

Employers

Contact information
You
Your employer
Your colleagues

Advertisers, Influencers, and Publishers

Device Data
Usage Information
Advertising Analytics and Conversion Data
You
Your device
The Services
Advertisers, influencers, and publishers

Advertisers, Influencers, and Publishers

Basic Data
Communication Data
Account Data
Bark Data
Website Data
Device Data
Usage Information
Geolocation Data
Analytics Data
Our service providers that perform services on our behalf,
You
Your device
The Services
Third party sources, including social media, search engines, online maps, online marketplaces, online customer review sites and directories

Social media

The data we receive is dependent upon your privacy settings with the social network, and may include profile information, profile picture, username, and any other information you permit the social network to share with third parties. You should always review and, if necessary, adjust your privacy settings on third-party websites and social media networks and services before sharing information and/or linking or connecting them to other services. We use this information primarily to operate, maintain, and provide to you the features and functionality of our Services, as well as to communicate directly with you, such as to send you messages about features that may be of interest to you.

You
Your device
Social media networks

Other Patients or Clinics

Contact information (for example, as part of a referral).
Procured Services
Reviews
Communication Data
Other users of the Services

Inferences

Inferences
We may generate inferences or predictions about you and your interests and preferences based on the other personal data we collect and the interactions we have with you.

Other Sources

Any Personal Data
Publicly available sources
Third-party data providers
Brand partnerships
Through transactions such as mergers and acquisitions

In certain circumstances, where necessary for the purposes listed in Table A, we will also disclose your personal data to:

CompareDent affiliates;
consultants and professional advisors including legal advisors, auditors and accountants;
business partners and joint ventures;
a prospective seller or buyer of our business and their advisors or in connection with a business transaction or reorganisation. Also, in the unlikely event of our bankruptcy, receivership, or insolvency, your personal data may be disclosed, transferred, or assigned to third parties in connection with the proceedings or disposition of our assets;
Insurers;
courts, court-appointed persons/entities, receivers and liquidators;
third parties such as legal advisors and law enforcement where necessary to comply with a legal obligation, to enforce a contract, to prevent fraud or to protect the rights, property or safety of our employees, customers or others;
to governmental departments, local government, statutory and regulatory bodies including (in the UK) the Information Commissioner’s Office, the police and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs;
with your consent or at your direction, we may disclose your personal data to certain other third parties or publicly;
our marketing providers in order to advertise and communicate with you about the Services;
with third-party ad networks and advertising partners to deliver advertising and personalized content on our Services, on other websites and services, and across other devices. These parties may collect information automatically from your browser or device when you visit our websites and other services through the use of cookies and related technologies; and
your employer or colleagues if you interact with our Services in connection with your employment.

5. How we use your Personal Data and why

We process your personal data for particular purposes, which are relevant to your relationship and engagement with us. We are required by law to always have a “lawful basis” for processing your personal data.

We use the personal data we collect for a number of different reasons, including to provide our Services to you or with you, to communicate with you, to verify your identity, to make sure our Website and Services are functioning properly and provide the best services for you, to keep accurate records and for legal reasons.

We rely on a number of different lawful grounds or ‘bases’ in order to process your personal data. These include that we have your consent to the processing, we need to process your personal data to enter into or perform a contract with you, we need to process your personal data to comply with our legal obligations, and/or the processing is necessary for our legitimate interests (or the legitimate interests of a third party).

More details on the purposes for which we process personal data on Patients, Clinics and Website Users, and the lawful bases we rely on, can be found below.

Information you give us

You provide information when you register an account at CompareDent, conduct a search for dental clinics, participate in a contest or questionnaire, use our chat feature or communicate with customer services. For example, you provide information when you contact a dental clinic found through the Website. As a result of those actions, you might supply us with such information as your name, address, and phone number.

We may also receive, convert, or process your personal data to create deidentified, statistical, or aggregated information that can no longer reasonably be used to infer information about, or otherwise be linked to, a particular individual or household. We do this to better protect your privacy, or so that you are not identified or identifiable from it. We may use such data to conduct research and analysis, including to produce statistical research and reports and for other purposes outside of the scope of this Privacy Notice. For example, to help us understand and improve the use of our Website.

Why do we collect this information?

To identify you as a Patient using CompareDent, to address you, access your account, answer your questions and resolve your issues, to contact you and to let you know if you have won a prize in any competition or other promotion run by CompareDent;
To identify whether you have an account with us already or have had an account with us which we closed for, without limitation, violation of our User Agreement or applicable Code of Conduct;
To share your information with selected partners, such as to Meta and Google for marketing purposes.
To allow us to send you Clinic information;
To allow us to market your services as a Clinic to Patients;
To enable us to provide services to you such as identifying Clinics to provide your requested dental treatments or, if you are a Clinic, enable us to identify patients searching for dental treatment;
To enable Clinics to respond to your queries;
To market our, or (where you have consented) selected partners’ services to you;
To provide a ratings service which informs our Patients and Website Users about the quality of service and treatments by our Clinics, and to carry out analysis (usually through aggregating information) on the way our services are used and your enquiry success rate if you are a Clinic.
To enable and promote CompareDent including the Website’s features, content products and services made available sharing, user interactions, notification and suggestion as and integration with third party services.
Please note we will never ask you to confirm your password via email. If you receive an email that requests this information and appears to be sent from us, please treat it as fraudulent and do not reply or provide any information. In this instance we would ask you to get in touch via the contact us page on our website to provide us with further details.

Automatically collected information

Examples of the information we collect and analyse include the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet; login; e-mail address; password; computer and connection information such as browser type, version, and time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system, and platform; purchase history, which we sometimes aggregate with similar information from other Users; the full Uniform Resource Locator (URL) clickstream to, through and from our Website, including date and time; cookie number; parts of the site you viewed or searched for; and the phone number you used to call our Customer Services. We may also use browser data such as cookies, Flash cookies (also known as Flash Local Shared Objects), or similar data on certain parts of our Website for fraud prevention and other purposes. During some visits we may use software tools such as JavaScript to measure and collect session information, including page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), and methods used to browse away from the page. We may also collect technical information to help us identify your device for fraud prevention and diagnostic purposes.

Why do we collect this information?

To understand the technology our Website Users are using and that we must design and build products for;
To understand the online behaviour of our Website Users;
To manage our exposure to and to prevent and detect fraud;
To aggregate this data with similar information from other Website Users to help inform product development;
Where your device is configured to allow it, we may also receive a confirmation that you’ve opened our communication (e.g. email) since we wish to ensure that our emails are interesting to our Website Users and that you receive relevant information from us.

Mobile/Tablet

Where you access our Website or services from a mobile or tablet device, we may receive information about your location and your device including a unique identifier for your device. Most mobile and tablet devices provide users with the ability to disable location services. Most likely, these controls are located in the device’s settings menu. For information about specific devices, please refer to your mobile’s user manual. If you have questions about how to disable your device’s location services, we recommend you contact your mobile service carrier or your device manufacturer.

Why do we collect this information?

To provide you with location based services (where you give us permission) including Dental Clinics offering relevant treatments in your immediate vicinity.

Information from Other Sources

Examples of information we receive from other sources include whether you interact with our partners, account information, page-view information from some merchants with which we operate co-branded businesses, or advertising, or other services.

Why do we collect this information?

To analyse and manage our investment in online marketing;
To help prevent and detect fraud.
Your data may also be used for other purposes for which you give your specific permission or, in very limited circumstances, when required by law or where permitted under the terms of the Data Protection Laws.

6. Co-branded and joint offerings

Working with other businesses, we offer joint or co-branded products among other offerings. You should check the Privacy Notices for each of these businesses to understand how they use your personal information.

7. Artificial Intelligence

We may utilise Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies to enhance our services and improve user experiences. This may include the processing of personal and usage data or user data to provide tailored recommendations, analyse user behaviour in order to protect the integrity of our systems, or optimise our products. Any data utilised for AI purposes will be in accordance with this Privacy Policy and applicable data protection laws.

8. Children’s personal data

Our Services are not directed to, and we do not intend to, or knowingly, collect or solicit personal data from children under the age of 18. If an individual is under the age of 18, they should not use our Services or otherwise provide us with any personal data either directly or by other means. If a child under the age of 18 has provided personal data to us, we encourage the child’s parent or guardian to contact us to request that we remove the personal data from our systems. If we learn that any personal data we collect has been provided by a child under the age of 18, we will promptly delete that personal data. Where a service category on the Website caters for children under the age of 18, only the personal data of the parent or guardian should be submitted to Clinics.

9. How long your personal information will be kept

We will hold your personal information whilst we continue to provide services to you and following the termination of our contractual relationship for any period we are required to do so by any applicable legislation (eg UK tax legislation requires us to hold information for a minimum of 6 years). Additionally, we will continue to hold such of your personal information as is necessary and proportionate to fulfil our legitimate interests. Specifically, we will retain information on Clinics no longer using the Website necessary to retain the integrity of the Website by preventing Clinics from using a different identity, re-listing on the Website following de-listing or manipulating ratings on the Website.

10. Where is your personal data transferred to?

When we share personal data about you, as set out above, this may include a transfer of your personal data to recipients outside the UK. If any disclosures of personal data mean that your personal data will be transferred outside the European Economic Area, we will only make that transfer in accordance with our obligations under applicable data protection laws.

11. Your rights

Under the Data Protection Laws, you have a number of important rights free of charge. In summary, those include rights to:

access to your personal information and to certain other supplementary information that this Privacy Policy is already designed to address
require us to correct any mistakes in your information which we hold
require the erasure of personal information concerning you in certain situations
receive the personal information concerning you which you have provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and have the right to transmit those data to a third party in certain situations
object at any time to processing of personal information concerning you for direct marketing
object to decisions being taken by automated means which produce legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affect you
object in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal information
otherwise restrict our processing of your personal information in certain circumstances

For further information about each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, please contact the Information Commissioner’s Office.

If you wish to exercise any of the above rights, please contact us using the details below with your request. We will not charge you for a copy of your personal data but we may ask you for proof of your identity before we disclose any information.

12. Marketing, competitions, and promotions

We may use your details to tell you about other products and services that we think may be of interest to you, via email address, SMS, or phone. We may also use your location data, including IP address or GPS location, to tailor marketing messages and our products & services to suit you. We may also share your data with our marketing partners, such as Meta and Google. All data will be hashed, which we may share a common account identifier (such as a hashed email address or user ID) with our third-party advertising partners to help link the personal data we and our third-party partners collect to the same person, or otherwise target advertising to an individual on a third-party website or platform. For more information about what this means, you should read Meta’s Customer Lists and how Google uses Customer Match data.

We may also send messages requesting feedback on our service for market research purposes, and research related to the development and improvement of our products and services.

If you enter any of our competitions, prize draws and promotions, we will use your personal information for administration purposes. There will be additional terms and conditions which will contain more information about how we use and share your personal information.

If you send us your personal information to enter a competition, prize draw or promotion, we will process your entry to allow for winners to be contacted. Please refer to the terms and conditions for further information. If you enter via social media channels, your personal data is subject to the processing of the channel so please refer to them directly.

You can unsubscribe or change your preferences at the bottom of each email you receive from us. You can change your mind at any time by sending an email to: @comparedent.co.uk

13. Updates to this Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes to the type of personal data that we process and/or the way in which it is processed. We also encourage you to check this Privacy Notice on a regular basis.

14. Contact Us

You can contact us if you would like to know what information that we hold about you, or require further information about how we keep personal information secure.

Please contact the CompareDent Data Protection Team below:

CompareDent Ltd,

10 Dunsters Avenue,

Bury,

England,

BL8 1EF

Email: @comparedent.co.uk

15. Complaints

If you feel that we have not processed your data fairly or you are not satisfied with how we have handled your personal information, please contact our privacy team. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive, you can submit a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). For full details on how to make a complaint please visit: ico.org.uk/concerns/