Sending money abroad is a regular part of life when you’re an immigrant. So you’ll be glad to know that transferring money from the UK to another country is perfectly safe.
That’s in no small part thanks to the UK GDPR, a law that aims to protect your personal and financial data. It requires financial service providers like Remitly to collect only the data necessary to facilitate a transfer—and keep that data safe.
In this blog post, we’ll explain why the UK GDPR matters when you’re transferring money across borders. Let’s show you how to choose a money transfer service that complies with this important law.
What is the UK GDPR?
The UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) is a set of rules designed to protect people’s personal information online. It gives you control over how companies collect, store, and use your data.
The law keeps your information safe by requiring compliance by businesses, especially those with access to sensitive financial data. This means your personal details, like your name, address, and banking information, are legally protected.
Companies must follow the strict guidelines in the UK GDPR to secure your data. This helps to ensure responsible data management and avoid misuse.
Your Rights Under the UK GDPR
The UK GDPR gives you control over how your personal data is used. If a company collects, stores, or processes your information, you are referred to as a “data subject.” As one, you can enforce specific rights to ensure your information is handled fairly, securely, and transparently:
- Right to be informed: You are entitled to know what data is collected, how it is used, and who it’s shared with.
- Right of access: You can request a copy of your personal data to see what information a company has about you and how they use it.
- Right to rectification: You have the right to ask a business to correct or update any data it keeps about you.
- Right to erasure: You can request that a business delete your data. This is also known as the right to be forgotten.
- Right to restrict processing: You have the right to object to how a business uses your data.
- Right to data portability: You can request that a business hand over your data in a commonly used format so that you can transfer it to another service provider.
- Right to object: You can object to your data being processed for direct marketing, research, or legitimate business interests.
Does the UK GDPR apply to apps?
In today’s digital world, most money transfer providers have mobile apps to offer customers a more convenient way of accessing services. As such, these companies must respect your rights under the provisions of the UK GDPR.
If they don’t, you can report them to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). This body is responsible for keeping businesses accountable for protecting your data. Find out more about making your report on the ICO’s official website.
UK GDPR and restricted transfers
The requirements outlined in the UK GDPR apply mainly to data controllers and processors based in Britain. Mobile transfer apps could lose their UK GDPR compliance rating in case of data transfers outside the country. However, the law makes exceptions in certain circumstances:
- If the receiver is in a third country and is an employee of the sender
- If the receiver and sender are part of the same company
These transactions are known as restricted transfers. They are meant to protect the interests of UK entities and nationals, even in a third country.
Automated decision-making and profiling
Many businesses rely on artificial intelligence (AI) and automated systems to make decisions. Under UK GDPR, you have the right to challenge an automated decision that significantly impacts you.
For example, say a bank rejects your loan application based purely on an algorithm. You can ask for an explanation and request that a human review the decision. Similarly, if an automated hiring system rejects your job application, contest the outcome and seek an assessment from a person rather than a machine. Get more tips to make your UK job search a success.
Companies using automated decision-making must ensure their systems are transparent, unbiased, and fair. They must also inform you when decisions are made this way and offer an option for human intervention.
Why does the UK GDPR Matter?
When you send money home, you’re trusting a financial service with some of your most personal details. This includes everything from your name to proof of address, bank account information, and National Insurance Number—along with the identity of the person receiving the funds.
The sensitive nature of this information is a big reason why the UK GDPR matters for money transfers. It exists to protect your personal and financial data from being misused.
Knowing this, lawmakers in the UK have included extensive security provisions in the GDPR. They’ve also given data subjects rights like you rights that can be exercised in relation to your data. For instance, companies must regularly perform a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) to mitigate security risks during data processing.
The UK GDPR doesn’t just create obligations for companies, though. It puts protections in place for consumers. By giving you a range of rights, the law ensures you will stay informed about what companies know about you. It also offers the peace of mind that your information is being handled with care.
What Personal Data Do Money Transfer Providers Collect?
Money transfer apps ask for quite a bit of personal information whenever you send or receive funds internationally. So, why would such a company need all of that information?
Here are the most common types of personal data that you’ll need to provide when making international transfers:
- Your identifying information: This includes your full name, identity number and contact details. This data is used to verify your identity and ensures no one is pretending to be you.
- Your bank or payment details: Companies need your payment information—like the bank you use and your account number—to process transactions securely.
- The recipient’s details: Provide the name and contact information of the person on the receiving end to ensure funds reach the right account.
- Transaction history: The dates, amounts, and destinations of previous transfers are tracked to help prevent fraud, meet financial regulations, and improve security.
Impacts of UK GDPR on data collection by mobile and money transfer apps
This information might be necessary to process transactions, but that doesn’t mean that money transfer providers can do whatever they want with your data. According to the UK GDPR, these companies can only collect what’s necessary for processing your transfer. Plus, they must be transparent about how they store and protect it.
Think of it this way: Just as you wouldn’t hand over your banking details to a stranger, financial services must follow strict rules to safeguard your information. Thanks to the UK GDPR, you have rights over your data and businesses are required to respect them.
So, while sharing personal details is part of using a money transfer service, these protections help keep your information secure and private.
How the UK GDPR Protects Your Money and Your Privacy
The UK GDPR revolves around five core principles that aim to reduce security risks by limiting how much personal data is collected and stored. This can help prevent your information from being misused or exposed to an unknown third party.
Consent
Businesses must get clear and informed consent before collecting or using your personal data. This means you must give your permission before they can handle your personal information.
Under the UK GDPR, consent must be freely given. This means you shouldn’t be pressured into agreeing, and you must be informed about exactly what you’re agreeing to.
Lawfulness, fairness, and transparency
Under the lawfulness, fairness, and transparency principle, businesses must inform you about what data they’re collecting, why they need that data, and how they’re protecting it. They must also have a valid reason to collect and use your information. Additionally, they can only use your data for that stated purpose.
Data minimisation and storage limitation
Under the UK GDPR, companies must be careful about how much personal data they collect and how long they keep it. The goal is simple: only gather data that’s truly necessary for business purposes and avoid keeping it longer than needed.
Money transfer services should only collect the bare minimum amount of personal information required to send or receive money. Once the data is no longer needed, it should either be deleted or scrubbed of any identifying information.
Accuracy
When a business stores and uses outdated or inaccurate information about you, it can lead to misunderstandings that affect the service you receive. Lack of accuracy can also have major effects on data privacy and security.
To comply with the accuracy principle, companies must take reasonable steps to correct or erase inaccurate data. This is especially important when decisions might be taken based on that data.
They must also have processes in place to prevent errors, like enabling you to update your details or periodically requesting updates.
Security and accountability
Financial services must put strong security measures in place to protect your personal information from data breaches, theft, or misuse. This means using encryption, secure storage, and access controls to keep information safe.
They must also show accountability by proving they follow UK GDPR rules. This includes keeping records of how they collect and use data, training employees on data protection, and conducting risk assessments.
How to Choose a UK GDPR-compliant Money Transfer App
Speed and reliability are important when you’re sending money internationally, but so is security. A UK GDPR-compliant money transfer provider follows strict rules to protect your information and ensure transparency.
Here’s what to look out for when choosing a service provider:
- Clear privacy policy: A legitimate provider will have an easy-to-understand privacy policy that explains what data they collect, why they need it, and how they use it. A policy that is full of confusing legal jargon or missing important details is a red flag.
- Strong security measures: Look for apps that use encryption, fraud detection, and multi-factor authentication to keep your information safe. These tools ensure your personal details can’t be easily stolen or misused.
- No data-sharing fine print: A reputable service will be transparent about whether they share data with third parties. If a company sells your information to advertisers or other businesses without your consent, they’re neither UK GDPR-compliant nor trustworthy.
- Easily accessible customer rights: Under the UK GDPR, you have the right to view, correct, or delete your data. A compliant money transfer app should make it simple to carry out any of these actions without making you jump through multiple hoops.
When a provider ticks all the boxes on this checklist, you can be confident they’ll respect privacy laws and secure your transactions.
Secure International Transfers
The UK GDPR exists to ensure that trust isn’t misplaced. It protects your data by requiring companies to collect and securely store only the data necessary to process a transaction.
While this law is helpful, it’s not enough to protect your data on its own. Ensure your information and your money stay safe by choosing a reliable money transfer service.
At Remitly, we keep your data and your money safe so you can make transfers without worrying about your privacy or the security of your funds.
FAQs
What is considered GDPR compliant?
A company is rated UK GDPR compliant when it enforces the specific data subject rights outlined in the law. Such companies follow strict guidelines for collecting, processing, and storing their customers’ personal data.
Does UK GDPR apply to apps?
Yes. All entities that collect, process, or store customers’ personal data are required to follow the rules outlined in the UK GDPR. Doing so ensures a high level of data protection and security, especially when making international transfers.
What are the 7 principles of GDPR in the UK?
The UK GDPR revolves around seven core principles: lawfulness, fairness, and transparency; purpose limitation; data minimisation; accuracy; storage limitation; integrity and confidentiality; and accountability. These principles guide businesses on how to process personal data on a lawful basis while protecting your privacy.
What are my individual rights under the GDPR in the UK?
The UK GDPR grants British consumers eight rights: the right to be informed, the right to access, the right to rectification, the right to erasure, the right to restriction of processing, the right to portability, and the right to objection. It also provides protections against automated decision-making.
What is a restricted transfer under UK GDPR?
Restricted transfers refer to international transfers made by a sender to their employee in a third country, or between individuals who are part of the same organisation. This provision allows companies to transfer personal data outside the country without risking UK GDPR compliance.