Smart Home Energy Privacy policy
Last updated: 23 April 2026
This policy explains what personal data Smart Home Energy collects when you use our tariff comparison tool, how we use it, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and the rights you have over it.
Who we are
Smart Home Energy is a trading name of OLISB Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales.
For any privacy question, to exercise your rights under UK GDPR, or to request that we delete your data, email us at info@smarthomeenergy.co.uk.
We are the data controller for your personal data under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office under registration number ZC131908.
What data we collect
When you use the tariff comparison tool
To give you a tariff recommendation, we ask for information about your home and energy use. This includes:
- Your postcode
- Your current electricity supplier and tariff
- Your current unit rate(s) and standing charge
- Whether you have an electric vehicle, heat pump, solar panels, or a home battery — and details about each if so
- Driving mileage, home size, insulation quality, and similar profile information
None of this is “special category” personal data under UK GDPR.
When you ask us to email your results
To send you your full report and alert you when a better tariff becomes available, we collect:
- Your email address
- Your consent to send you the report and alerts, with a timestamp and a record of the exact wording you agreed to
When you create an account (optional)
If you create an account to save your setup:
- The same data above, linked to your email
Technical data (collected automatically)
When you visit the site, we collect standard technical data needed to run a web service: IP address, browser user-agent string, and page interactions via Vercel Analytics. Vercel Analytics is cookieless: no analytics cookies are placed on your device, IP addresses are truncated server-side, and no cross-site identifiers are stored. That's why we don't show a cookie banner.
We do not use third-party advertising cookies, retargeting pixels, or behavioural profiling.
If you connect your Octopus account
If you choose to paste your Octopus API key to get exact rates, we use it once to read your current tariff and (with your separate permission) your half-hourly consumption for the comparison. We do not store your API key after the comparison is complete unless you create an account and explicitly choose to save it.
If you upload a bill
If you upload a PDF bill for OCR, we send it to Anthropic's Claude API to extract your unit rate and standing charge. Anthropic processes the file solely on our behalf under a data processing agreement. The bill file is deleted from our systems within 24 hours of processing.
Why we use your data (lawful bases under UK GDPR)
| What | Lawful basis |
|---|---|
| Running the comparison and showing your result | Legitimate interests — you asked us for a comparison |
| Emailing your full report | Consent (given at the email gate) |
| Emailing you when a better tariff is available | Consent (given at the email gate) |
| Saving your profile for future visits (account holders only) | Consent (given at account creation) |
| Using anonymised usage patterns to improve the service | Consent (separate optional opt-in) |
| Sending you a switch confirmation / handover to a supplier | Contract — necessary to fulfil your switch request |
| Keeping records of consent (audit trail) | Legal obligation (UK GDPR Article 7) |
| Security, fraud prevention, and service operation | Legitimate interests |
We record the timestamp, exact wording, and version of every consent you give us. You can ask us to show you this audit trail at any time.
Who we share your data with
We share your personal data only with:
- Supabase — our database provider. Data is stored on EU/UK servers.
- Vercel — our hosting provider.
- Brevo — our transactional email provider. Receives your email address and the contents of your report when we send it.
- Vercel Analytics— receives anonymised, cookieless analytics events (page views + a small number of named flow events, e.g. "email_gate_submitted", "switch_cta_clicked"). We do not send your email address, name, or any other identifying data.
- Anthropic— if you upload a bill, we send the bill file to Anthropic's Claude API to extract the rate information.
- The supplier you click through to— if you click “Find out more” on a recommended tariff, we pass you to that supplier via an affiliate link. What happens next is governed by that supplier's privacy policy.
We do not sell your personal data. We do not share your data with third parties for their own marketing.
How long we keep your data
Comparison data (your postcode, equipment, tariff details)
- Stored for 24 months from your last activity. After 24 months with no activity (no return visit, no click on an alert email), we delete your comparison data.
- If you create an account, the 24-month clock resets every time you log in or receive an alert you engage with.
- You can delete your data at any time by emailing info@smarthomeenergy.co.uk or, if you have an account, from your account settings.
Email address and alert subscription
- Kept for as long as you're subscribed to alerts.
- One-click unsubscribe removes you from the alert list and schedules your email address for deletion within 30 days.
Consent audit trail
- Retained for 6 yearsfrom the date of the last consent event. We're required by UK GDPR to keep this to prove you consented — and to prove when you withdrew consent.
Anonymised, aggregated data
- Once personal identifiers are removed, aggregated data (e.g. “X% of EV owners in the North West are on British Gas”) may be retained indefinitely to improve the service. This is no longer personal data.
Technical logs
- Standard server logs retained for up to 90 days then deleted.
Your rights under UK GDPR
You have the following rights over your personal data:
- Access — ask us for a copy of the data we hold about you. Email us at info@smarthomeenergy.co.uk and we'll send a JSON export within one month.
- Rectification — ask us to correct anything wrong. For your saved comparison, sign in to your account and re-run the comparison with the corrected details.
- Erasure(“right to be forgotten”) — delete your account and all linked data via the Delete account button on your account page. Self-serve, immediate. (Or email us — same result, by hand.)
- Restriction — ask us to stop using your data while a concern is resolved.
- Portability— ask us for a machine-readable copy of the data you've given us.
- Objection — object to our use of your data under legitimate interests.
- Withdraw consent — at any time, for anything you consented to. The marketing-email opt-in lives on your account — flip the toggle off and we stop sending. Every marketing email also has a one-click unsubscribe link in the footer. Withdrawing consent doesn't undo what we did lawfully before you withdrew it.
To exercise any right we don't yet have a self-serve flow for, email info@smarthomeenergy.co.uk. We'll respond within one month (usually much sooner).
If you're unhappy with anything we've done — data handling or otherwise — see our complaints page for how to raise it with us and how to escalate. For data issues specifically, you can also go straight to the Information Commissioner's Office: ico.org.uk.
Cookies
We use a small number of essential cookiesonly — to keep you signed in if you have an account, and to remember your consent choices. These are exempt from prior-consent requirements under UK PECR, which is why we don't show a cookie banner.
For analytics we use Vercel Analytics, which is cookieless: no analytics cookies are placed on your device. We do not use advertising, retargeting, or behavioural-profiling cookies of any kind.
International transfers
All personal data is stored on servers in the UK or the European Economic Area. Where a processor (e.g. Anthropic, Google) operates outside the UK/EEA, transfers are protected by UK/EU Standard Contractual Clauses or an adequacy decision.
Changes to this policy
If we change this policy materially, we'll update the “Last updated” date at the top and, where changes affect how we use data you've already given us, we'll email you.
Contact
For anything privacy-related: info@smarthomeenergy.co.uk.
OLISB Ltd, trading as Smart Home Energy.