Privacy: Vodafone apps
Types of app
This privacy supplement gives some general information around app usage. For further information about privacy, please see our main privacy policy. If you’re using an app together with another service such as mobile, read those sections too.
There are a range of Vodafone apps, including the My Vodafone app. The privacy policy also applies to those apps, but there will also sometimes be an additional privacy supplement provided with the app itself with more information. In those cases, both will apply.
When you download or use a Vodafone app, information may be accessed from or stored on your device. This will let it operate and function as well as remember you.
To provide you with the service, communicate with you and to work to improve our services, we’ll need to collect information about your device (for example, type, unique identifiers, its operating system, if you’re using 3G or 4G, etc.), app ID and information about your use of the app. Additional information may also be collected to provide you with the requested service.
Each app will set out the preferences it requires to operate, some of which you may be able to opt out of in some cases.
Opting out of certain preferences may, however, affect the functionality of certain services and apps. For example, if you opt out of the location-based feature on your device, you may find that an app doesn’t operate.
It’s important to flag that, where you choose to download or use an app not operated by Vodafone, those apps are subject to their own terms of use and privacy and cookies policies. Make sure you’re familiar with those before downloading or using that app. We can’t be responsible for the security and content of such third-party apps.
If you have any queries in any aspect of this privacy supplement, please use our privacy query form and a member of our dedicated team will respond to you.
To provide you with features of My Vodafone, VeryMe Rewards send you personalised recommendations, and help improve our products and services, My Vodafone will share certain information from your device within our company. This privacy supplement explains the information that is collected by My Vodafone and how it will be used. For further information about privacy, please see our main privacy policy
What information we collect
Information about your interactions with us:
When you use the basic features of My Vodafone, for example checking your billing details, viewing your data plans, viewing information about how much data a particular app is consuming, interacting with VeryMe Rewards or interacting with our customer care, information about such interactions is recorded on our servers.
Information about the quality and use of your connectivity services and apps:
Unless you have disabled the collection through the app settings, My Vodafone will regularly send us information about the coverage, connectivity and data usage relating to your connectivity services, information about the applications on your device, your location as well as information about your device, as explained in more detail below.
Coverage, connectivity and data usage
Information about network connectivity and quality for phone calls, internet and data services as experienced by you, as well as statistics about how much your device uses internet services and consumes data, such as:
The percentage of time your phone is on the network
Signal strength
Areas of limited or no service
Quality of the mobile coverage (2G, 3G, 4G)
Call duration
How the call ends
Regular tests of whether your device can connect to the internet
Your upload and download speed
How long it takes to set up a connection to the internet
Wi-Fi connection quality and MAC addresses of the Wi-Fi hot spots your device can see, and how congested they are
Hourly data use
How much data your phone uses when it's in standby mode
How much data goes over Wi-Fi connections vs. the mobile network
Applications
Statistics about applications on your devices, such as:
Which apps are installed on your device
Which apps are started each day and for how long each app is used
How much data is consumed by each app, how fast each app receives and transmits data and the type and quality of network used for the connection (for example cellular or Wi-Fi and related signal strength)
Device information
Technical information about your device, such as:
Phone brand and model
Operating system
Firmware version
Hardware capabilities
Language and locale
Battery state
Memory consumption
Time since last reboot
Location information
Unless you have disabled the collection through the app settings, we collect your location data when we measure the items above. For example, we know your rough location from the phone mast and Wi-Fi hot spot your phone is using. When your phone or one of your apps is using GPS location data, we use that to assess location more precisely and sometimes your speed and direction of travel if available with GPS information.
Unless you have chosen otherwise, this information is collected with a personal identifier.
Usage of My Vodafone app
Information about the performance and use of the My Vodafone app, for example when and how many times the app has been used, your choices and journeys within the app, app version, last update, application ID and device make and model.
What information we don’t collect
We understand that some of the information we collect may be seen as sensitive. Therefore, we have designed the app to reduce the sensitivity of the collected information. For example, we don’t collect information about:
Numbers you dial or receive calls from
Sender or receiver information from text messages, emails or internet chat messaging on your device
Any content of your communications, such as text, email or chat content or your browsing history
Information about which features of the apps you use or what content you send, receive or otherwise consume through an app
How we use this information
In addition to using the data to the extent necessary to provide you with the services you've requested - for example to show you how much data an app consumes - we also use the data to help us improve our networks and services as well as to make personalised recommendations to you.
Helping us improve our networks and services
We analyse the collected information to diagnose connectivity, coverage or connection quality problems, understand connectivity needs from the usage of mobile data, Wi-Fi and apps, and use such insights to make improvements to our network and services. This may include, for example:
Improving the quality of the network, for example through better understanding about the exact areas with low network performance or areas of high consumption of data - this helps us prioritise new site implementation and otherwise improve network performance
Helping us deal with performance issues caused by poorly performing devices
Improving our commercial models and offers based on improved understanding of the patterns related to the use of apps and connection quality
Improving the performance and design of My Vodafone by understanding which features of the app are popular and how those features perform on different types of devices
Providing you with a Personalised app experience
Contact Book – To personalise your app experience with a photo and name of anyone on your account, straight from your contact book. The app requests this permission to show images and names from your contact book if their number appears as part of the subscriptions you can manage in the app
Photos Media and files – the app requests this permission to download your bill to the device.
Providing you with personalised assistance and recommendations
We may use the collected information to help us provide more personalised marketing communications to you. We may, for example:
Recommend a new or a different bundle for you based on the way you use your connectivity services
Personalise VeryMe Rewards
Help you manage your data plans by showing you which apps consume more data
Recommend upgrades to your device or promote accessories
We may combine the collected information with other information we may hold about you.
If you have chosen to provide us with information without being personally identified, all personal identifiers are removed in the app before sending such information to Vodafone - we then process the collected information anonymously. We do not intend to use the information to identify you or any other person personally and we have in place appropriate technical and organisational measures to prevent that from happening.
What choices do you have?
Vodafone offers you choices and control over what information you are willing to share from your device. You may choose to:
Disable the sending of personal information about the quality and use of your connectivity services, location and apps
Disable the sending of any information about the quality and use of your connectivity services, location and apps
Disable the sending of information about your use of My Vodafone
Disable push-notifications. Note: if you disable push-notifications, we may still send you marketing texts or emails, or conduct telemarketing if we have your permission to do so. You can get in touch with Customer Services through the contact us page on our site to opt out of all marketing communications or to opt out of marketing in one of several ways (such as email, text, phone or post)
Remember that turning off these preferences will impact the level of personalisation we will be able to offer you.
How do you protect my data?
Vodafone takes technical and organisational security measures as required by law and by industry standards to protect your personal data from unauthorised access, use or disclosure. We take steps to ensure that we only use your personal information as described in this privacy notice and to honour the choices that you have made. We only partner with service providers who contract to provide the same level of information security that you can expect from Vodafone.
For how long do you keep my data?
Detailed information about the quality and use of your connectivity services, location and apps is kept no longer than 14 months after it has been collected.
Vodafone may retain aggregated and statistical reports that have been generated using the listed information for a longer period, but as these reports do not identify you as a user, they will not be used in a way that impacts your privacy.
For information about other data retention with Vodafone, please refer to our general privacy policy
The service is offered by Vodafone Limited, which is also the controller of your personal data. If you have any queries in any aspect of this privacy supplement, please use our privacy query form and a member of our dedicated team will respond to you.
To provide you with features of My Vodafone, VeryMe Rewards send you personalised recommendations, and help improve our products and services, My Vodafone will share certain information from your device with us. This privacy supplement explains the information that is collected by My Vodafone and how it will be used. For further information on our privacy policy please see our main privacy policy page
What information we collect
Information about your interactions with us:
When you use the basic features of My Vodafone, for example checking your billing details, viewing your data plans, viewing information about how much data a particular app is consuming, interacting with VeryMe Rewards or interacting with our customer care, information about such interactions is recorded on our servers.
Information about the quality and use of your connectivity services and apps:
Unless you have disabled information collection through the app settings, My Vodafone will regularly send us information about coverage, connectivity and data usage relating to your connectivity services, as well as information about the applications on your device, your location, and information about your device, as explained in more detail below.
Coverage, connectivity and data usage
Information about network connectivity and quality for phone calls, internet and data services as experienced by you, as well as statistics about how much your device uses internet services and consumes data, such as:
The percentage of time your phone is on the network
Signal strength
Areas of limited or no service
Quality of the mobile coverage (2G, 3G, 4G)
Call duration
How the call ends
Regular tests of whether your device can connect to the internet
Your upload and download speed
How long it takes to set up a connection to the internet
Wi-Fi connection quality and MAC addresses of the Wi-Fi hot spots your device can see, and how congested they are
Hourly data use
How much data your phone uses when it's in standby mode
How much data goes over Wi-Fi connections vs. the mobile network
Device information
Technical information about your device, such as:
Phone brand and model
Operating system
Firmware version
Hardware capabilities
Language and locale
Battery state
Memory consumption
Time since last reboot
Location information
Unless you have disabled the collection through the app settings, we collect your location data when we measure the items above. For example, we know your rough location from the phone mast and Wi-Fi hot spot your phone is using. When your phone or one of your apps is using GPS location data, we use that to assess location more precisely and sometimes your speed and direction of travel if available with GPS information.
Usage of My Vodafone app
Information about the performance and use of the My Vodafone app, for example when and how many times the app has been used, your choices and journeys within the app, app version, last update, application ID and device make and model.
What information we don’t collect
We understand that some of the information we collect may be seen as sensitive. Therefore, we have designed the app to reduce the sensitivity of the collected information. For example, we don’t collect information about:
Numbers you dial or receive calls from
Sender or receiver information from texts, emails or internet chat messaging on your device
Any content of your communications, such as texts, emails or chat content or your browsing history
Information about which features of the apps you use, or what content you send, receive or otherwise consume through an app
How we use this information
In addition to using the data to the extent necessary to provide you with the services you've requested - for example to show you how much data an app consumes - we also use the data to help us improve our networks and services as well as to make personalised recommendations to you.
Helping us improve our networks and services
We analyse the collected information to diagnose connectivity, coverage or connection quality problems, understand connectivity needs from the usage of mobile data, Wi-Fi and apps, and use such insights to make improvements to our network and services. This may include, for example:
Improving the quality of the network, for example through better understanding about the exact areas with low network performance or areas of high consumption of data - this helps us prioritise new site implementation and otherwise improve network performance
Helping us deal with performance issues caused by poorly performing devices
Improving our commercial models and offers based on improved understanding of the patterns related to the use of apps and connection quality
Improving the performance and design of My Vodafone by understanding which features of the app are popular and how those features perform on different types of devices
All personal identifiers are removed in the app before sending such information to Vodafone and we process the collected information anonymously. We do not intend to use the information to identify you or any other person personally and we have in place appropriate technical and organisational measures to prevent this from happening.
Providing you with a Personalised app experience
Contact Book – To personalise your app experience with a photo and name of anyone on your account, straight from your contact book. The app requests this permission to show images and names from your contact book if their number appears as part of the subscriptions you can manage in the app
Photos Media and files – the app requests this permission to download your bill to the device.
Providing you with personalised assistance and recommendations.
We may use the collected information to help us provide more personalised marketing communications to you. We may, for example:
Recommend a new or a different bundle for you based on the way you use your connectivity services
Personalise VeryMe Rewards
Help you manage your data plans by showing you which apps consume more data
Recommend upgrades to your device or promote accessories
We may combine the collected information with other information we may hold about you.
If you have chosen to provide us with information without being personally identified, all personal identifiers are removed in the app before sending such information to Vodafone – we then process the collected information anonymously. We do not intend to use the information to identify you or any other person personally and we have in place appropriate technical and organisational measures to prevent that from happening.
What choices do you have?
Vodafone offers you choices and control over what information you are willing to share from your device.
You may choose to:
Disable the sending of personal information about the quality and use of your connectivity services, location and apps
Disable the sending of any information about the quality and use of your connectivity services, location and apps
Disable the sending of information about your use of My Vodafone
Disable push-notifications
Note: if you disable push notifications, we may still send you marketing texts or emails, or conduct telemarketing if we have your permission to do so. You can get in touch with Customer Services through the contact us page on our site to opt out of all marketing communications or to opt out of marketing in one of several ways (such as email, text, phone or post).
How do you protect my data?
Vodafone takes technical and organisational security measures as required by law and by industry standards to protect your personal data from unauthorised access, use or disclosure. We take steps to ensure that we only use your personal information as described in this privacy notice and to honour the choices that you have made. We only partner with service providers who we contract to provide the same level of information security as you can expect from Vodafone.
For how long do you keep my data?
Detailed information about the quality and use of your connectivity services, location and apps is kept no longer than 14 months after it has been collected.
Vodafone may retain aggregated and statistical reports that have been generated using the listed information for a longer period, but as these reports do not identify you as a user, they will not be used in a way that impacts your privacy.
For information about other data retention with Vodafone, please refer to our general privacy policy
The service is offered by Vodafone Limited, which is also the controller of your personal data. If you have any queries in any aspect of this privacy supplement, please use our privacy query form and a member of our dedicated team will respond to you.