Privacy Centre

Updated – 26 May 2023

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The legal details

More information about our data protection compliance and the further legal details required in some countries.

What makes our data processing lawful?

In many of the countries where we operate, data protection law requires us to process personal data only where we have an approved basis under the law. You have the right to understand what our legal bases are, so we explain them here. We use the following bases, depending on the activity we undertake:

Some of the activities we undertake are necessary to comply with our legal and other obligations as a payment provider.

For example, we process personal data for:

Anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance
Activities connected with claims and litigation

To comply with our anti-money laundering and customer due diligence obligations, we must collect information on merchant criminal history. Where we do so, we comply with the laws that apply to collecting this category of data. For example, in the UK, it falls under the "substantial public interest conditions" of Schedule 1 of the UK Data Protection Act 2018.

We use personal data as necessary to meet our legitimate business interests. When we do, we make sure we understand and work to minimise its privacy impact. For example, we limit the data to what is necessary, control access to the data, and where we can, aggregate or de-identify the data.

Some examples of the data processing activities we undertake in our legitimate interests are:

Preventing fraud and unauthorised use
Preventing payment failures and speeding up payment processing times
Marketing our services to prospective merchants
Communicating news and industry events to our current and prospective merchants
Hosting and participating in events
Developing and improving our products and services

What is legitimate interest? Under GDPR Article 6(1)(f), companies have the ability to engage in activities without consent under a balancing test: Do we have a legitimate interest in engaging in the activity that is not outweighed by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject?

Automatic decision-making

Technology helps us make automatic decisions based on the information we collect about you or a transaction. We routinely test our software to improve the accuracy of these decisions and to prevent unintended bias. These decisions can have effects for you, such as:

Requiring additional steps to authenticate your identity or verify your bank account, if the patterns we monitor indicate that doing so would make our services safer and more effective.
Preventing access to our services, if we determine there is a high likelihood that it would violate our regulatory requirements - for example, if the identification you provide does not match public records, identity verification or credit reference information.
Pausing services, if we need more information to investigate or prevent suspected fraud or financial crime - for example, if your behaviours match patterns of previous fraudulent activities.
Cancelling transactions, if we determine there is a high likelihood that there are insufficient funds to cover it or that it is fraudulent - for example, because the payment is made from a location that does not match our records.
Cancelling the service, if we determine that it is being used in violation of our terms - for example, if any of the activities you conduct appear on our list of restricted activities.
Sharing mis-categorised data, in cases where we collate and package up information about you as part of a feature we offer to your service provider - for example, if the underlying raw data was not clear, or our categorisation was not accurate.

If you believe a decision has been made in error, please contact us.

Your rights and choices

You may have rights under privacy and data protection law. Depending on where you live, these include the right to ask GoCardless for a copy of your personal data, to correct, delete or restrict processing of it, and to obtain personal data in a format you can share with a new provider. You may have the right to object to processing. These rights may be limited in some situations – for example, where we can demonstrate that we have a legal requirement to process your data.You can contact our privacy team to ask a question about our privacy practices or exercise your rights. If you have unresolved concerns, you have the right to complain to a data protection authority or other regulator where you live or work, or where you believe a breach may have occurred.

How is personal data shared?

We don't sell personal data. We share personal data with recipients under lawful conditions as required to perform our services or operate our business.

Other companies help us conduct the activities described in this privacy notice.

How do we share data?

We work with service providers who have access to personal data when they provide us with services, like technical infrastructure, web and app development, and marketing, analytics and survey tools. We impose strict restrictions on how service providers store, use and share data on our behalf. We also work with companies who provide identity verification, background screening, due diligence, consulting and other regulatory services for us. We review the protections these companies provide and ensure our contracts with them prevent privacy harm, but they may be data controllers subject to their own direct legal obligations.

Review our list of material suppliers.

Where financial regulations require it, we share merchant and payer data with the GoCardless entity who holds a license in that country. In other countries, we share merchant and prospect data with the local GoCardless entity that helps us sell our services.

How do we share data?

Some GoCardless companies in our corporate family help us provide our regulated services in the country where they are located. GoCardless Ltd in the United Kingdom is our headquarters office and where the majority of our personal data is processed. GoCardless SAS in France provides our services in the EU under a French financial services license. We must share merchant and payer data with GoCardless SAS to provide our services. These entities process and handle merchant and payer personal data to execute transactions and provide our services. We also share merchant and prospect data with the local GoCardless entity or office in countries where we house sales offices, for example GoCardless GmbH, in Germany, SIA Nordigen Solution in Latvia, the GoCardless sales office in Australia, and GoCardless Inc. in the USA. They use merchant and prospect data to market our services and provide support to local merchants and partners.All GoCardless companies are governed by our global privacy program and subject to this privacy notice.

We share personal data when we think it's reasonably necessary to protect ourselves and the people who use our services, enforce agreements, respond to emergencies and comply with law.

How do we share data?

In exceptional circumstances, we share personal data with government agencies and other third parties if we believe it is reasonably necessary to comply with law, regulation, legal process or governmental request; to enforce our agreements, policies and terms; to protect the security of our services; to protect GoCardless and our merchants, payers or the public from harm or illegal activities; or to respond to an emergency.

International transfers

GoCardless’ services are offered from our United Kingdom headquarters and from GoCardless offices in France, Germany, Australia and the United States. Our services are available to merchants in a number of countries around the world. If you use our services to pay a merchant in another country, personal data will be transferred as necessary to complete this transaction.Personal data may also be stored and accessed by service providers located in other countries. For EU individuals, it’s important to note that some of our service providers are located in the United States or other countries that do not provide the same standard of data protection as the EU. Wherever we transfer data, we enter into contracts or seek other ways to ensure service providers treat data as required by law in the country where it was collected.

How long do we keep personal data?

GoCardless keeps personal data for as long as necessary to provide our services and process payments for our merchants. We also keep personal data for other legitimate business purposes, such as complying with our legal obligations, resolving disputes, preventing fraud, and enforcing our agreements. Because these needs can vary for different data types used for different purposes, retention times will also vary. Here are some of the factors we have considered to set retention times:

How long do we need the personal data to develop, maintain and improve our services, keep our systems secure, execute refunds, prevent fraudulent transactions, and store appropriate business and financial records?
Have you asked us to stop using your data or withdrawn your consent? Where we can delete the data, we will process it for only a short period after this to meet your request. If needed, we will also keep a record of your request so that we can make sure it is respected in the future.
Are we subject to a legal, regulatory or contractual obligation to keep the data? For example, we’re required to keep transaction data and other information that helps us carry out required checks, for periods of time that vary according to the underlying payments scheme. We may also need to comply with government orders to preserve data relevant to an investigation or retain data for the purposes of litigation.

Privacy Notice

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