1. Who We Are
SwitchPilot ("we", "us", "our") is an energy comparison service that helps UK households find better energy deals. We show tariffs from multiple suppliers so you can compare and switch. Our registered address is 128 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX. For data protection queries, contact us at team@switch-pilot.com.
2. What Data We Collect
2.1 Signup Data
When you sign up via the homepage or tariff tracker, we collect:
- Email address
- Postcode and property address (house number, street, city)
- Annual energy usage (kWh), fuel type, and regional information used to personalise tariff recommendations
- The source you arrived from, where available (UTM parameters or browser referrer)
We do not collect your bank account details. If you switch through a supplier link on our site, you set up your account directly with the supplier. SwitchPilot never sits in the payment flow.
2.2 Switch Interaction Data
When you use our energy tariff tracker and click a "Switch Now" link to visit a supplier's website, we log:
- The supplier and tariff you clicked
- A timestamp
- Your email address, where you have already signed up on our site
This helps us understand which tariffs our users find most relevant, improves our recommendations, and allows us to confirm referrals where applicable. You can disable this tracking by blocking local storage in your browser.
2.3 Website Analytics and Marketing Cookies
When you visit our website, we use:
- Google Analytics 4 (property ID G-WEQ6VBT567) - anonymised usage data including pages visited, approximate location, and device type. No personally identifiable information is collected by analytics.
- Meta Pixel (ID 1468513154931300) - conversion tracking across our pages, used to measure the effectiveness of our advertising campaigns on Meta platforms (Facebook and Instagram). This uses cookies set by Meta.
- Local storage - a small piece of browser storage used to remember your email address while you browse our tracker, so you are not asked to sign up twice.
Standard web server logs also record your IP address, browser type, and pages visited.
2.4 SwitchInsights Comments and Reactions
If you leave a comment on a SwitchInsights article, we collect your name and comment text. Comments are publicly visible once approved. Reactions (thumbs-up) are anonymous - we record a count only, with no personal data attached.
2.5 Web Chatbot Conversations
When you use the SwitchPilot or SwitchInsider chatbot on our website, we log your questions and the chatbot's responses to improve our service. These logs are anonymous - we do not attach your name, email, or any account identifier to them. We record only the message text, which page you were on, and a random session identifier so we can group a single conversation together. Please avoid sharing sensitive personal information (such as bank details or account numbers) in the chatbot. Chatbot logs are retained for up to 12 months, then deleted.
2.6 WhatsApp Conversations
If you message our WhatsApp business number (+44 7862 139584), we collect:
- Your WhatsApp phone number (used to identify you across messages)
- The full text of the messages you send and the chatbot's replies
- Timestamps for each message
We store recent conversation history so the chatbot can respond in context. Messages are routed and delivered through Twilio (our WhatsApp messaging provider) and processed by Anthropic's Claude API to generate replies. Please avoid sharing sensitive personal information (such as bank details, full account numbers, or passwords) over WhatsApp. WhatsApp conversation data is retained for up to 12 months, after which it is deleted. You can ask us to delete your WhatsApp conversation history at any time by emailing team@switch-pilot.com with the phone number you messaged us from.
3. Why We Collect Your Data (Legal Basis)
We process your data on the following legal bases under UK GDPR:
- Contract performance (Article 6(1)(b)) - to provide you with our energy comparison and switching service once you have signed up
- Consent (Article 6(1)(a)) - where you explicitly consent, for example to receive marketing communications from us
- Legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f)) - to measure and improve our service, to track referrals, and to communicate with you about the progress of any switch
4. How We Use Your Data
We use your personal data to:
- Compare available energy tariffs and provide you with personalised recommendations based on your postcode and usage
- Track which supplier links you click on our tariff tracker, so we can confirm referrals where applicable
- Communicate with you about the status of any switch
- Send you our newsletter and energy market updates (only with your consent)
- Measure and improve our service using anonymised analytics
SwitchPilot never processes your payments and never stores your bank account details. All account setup - including your direct debit - happens between you and your chosen energy supplier.
5. Who We Share Your Data With
We share your data with:
- Energy suppliers - when you click a "Switch Now" link on our tariff tracker, the supplier may receive a referral identifier so we can track the switch. Where the supplier is a paid affiliate partner (currently EDF Energy), this identifier also allows us to be paid a referral commission if you complete a switch. We do not pass your name, email, address or any other personal details to suppliers through the link itself - any personal information you enter once you reach the supplier's site is collected by that supplier under their own privacy policy.
- Supabase - our database provider, used to store signups, switch interaction logs, SwitchInsights comment data, and WhatsApp conversation history. Data is hosted in the EU.
- Google - Google Analytics processes anonymised usage data.
- Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd - Meta Pixel processes anonymised conversion events for our advertising campaigns. Data is subject to Meta's own privacy controls. Meta also operates WhatsApp; if you message our WhatsApp business number, your messages pass through WhatsApp's infrastructure and are subject to its own privacy terms.
- Twilio - our WhatsApp messaging provider, used to route messages between you and our chatbot. Twilio processes your phone number and message content to deliver messages.
- Anthropic - provider of the Claude AI model used to generate chatbot replies (web and WhatsApp). Message text is sent to Anthropic's API for inference and is not used to train their models.
- Vercel - our website hosting provider.
We do not sell, rent, or share your personal data with any third parties for their own marketing purposes.
5.1 International Transfers
Some of our processors are based outside the UK and EU:
- Anthropic and Twilio are based in the United States. Transfers to these processors rely on the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where applicable, supplemented by Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) approved under UK GDPR.
- Google (Analytics) and Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd are headquartered in Ireland but may transfer data to the United States under similar safeguards.
You can request a copy of the relevant transfer safeguards by emailing team@switch-pilot.com.
6. How We Store and Protect Your Data
Your data is transmitted over encrypted connections (HTTPS / TLS 1.2 or higher) and stored encrypted at rest on our hosted database (Supabase). Form submissions containing personal data are processed via a server-side endpoint authenticated with a private service key; the public-facing site does not have direct write access to the personal data store.
Access to your personal data is restricted to authorised SwitchPilot personnel for service operations, customer support, and fraud prevention. We review access regularly and revoke it when no longer needed.
If we become aware of a personal data breach that is likely to result in a risk to your rights and freedoms, we will notify the Information Commissioner's Office within 72 hours and inform affected users without undue delay.
7. How Long We Keep Your Data
- Signup data (email, postcode, address) - retained until you unsubscribe or request deletion
- Switch interaction logs (tariff clicks) - retained for up to 12 months, then aggregated and stripped of the personal identifier
- SwitchInsights comment data - retained for the life of the article unless you request deletion
- Web chatbot logs - retained for up to 12 months, then deleted
- WhatsApp conversation data (phone number and message history) - retained for up to 12 months, then deleted, or sooner on request
8. Your Rights
Under UK GDPR, you have the right to:
- Access - request a copy of the personal data we hold about you
- Rectification - ask us to correct any inaccurate data
- Erasure - ask us to delete your data (subject to any legal obligations)
- Restrict processing - ask us to limit how we use your data
- Data portability - request your data in a machine-readable format
- Withdraw consent - withdraw consent for processing at any time (this does not affect the lawfulness of processing before withdrawal)
- Object - object to processing based on legitimate interests
- Unsubscribe - unsubscribe from emails at any time using the link in any email we send
To exercise any of these rights, email us at team@switch-pilot.com. We will respond within 30 days.
9. Complaints
If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk or by calling 0303 123 1113.
10. Cookies and Local Storage
We use cookies and browser local storage for three purposes:
- Strictly necessary - to remember your email while you browse our tariff tracker, so you are not asked to sign up twice. These are set without consent because the service cannot function without them.
- Analytics - Google Analytics 4 cookies measure anonymised site usage (pages visited, device type, approximate location). Set only with your consent.
- Advertising and conversion tracking - Meta Pixel cookies measure the effectiveness of our advertising campaigns on Meta platforms (Facebook and Instagram). Set only with your consent. This is the only advertising technology we use.
The first time you visit our site we display a cookie consent banner. Analytics and advertising cookies are blocked until you accept; you can change your choice at any time by clearing your browser storage or contacting us. We do not sell your data to advertisers and we do not use ad-retargeting networks beyond Meta.
11. Affiliate Partnerships
SwitchPilot has a paid referral partnership with EDF Energy. If you click through to EDF from our site and complete a switch, EDF pays us a commission. The data shared with EDF in that process is a referral identifier appended to the link - no other personal data is passed by us. Once you arrive on EDF's website, any details you enter are handled under EDF's own privacy policy.
Affiliate partnerships do not affect the tariffs we show you, the order they appear in, or the SwitchPilot Score. We will update this section as partnerships are added or removed.
12. Changes to This Policy
We may update this policy from time to time. Any changes will be posted on this page with an updated date. We encourage you to review this policy periodically.
See also our Terms of Service.