Privacy notice

Your privacy

Your privacy is important to us. This privacy notice applies to personal information we collect from you when you use the HSBC History website (www.history.hsbc.com).

Some of the links on this website may lead to HSBC or non-HSBC websites with their own privacy notices, which may be different to this notice, and you should read those notices carefully.

For the purposes of this privacy notice, the data controller is HSBC Holdings plc with its address at 8 Canada Square, London E14 5HQ, UK. We’ve also set out contact details towards the end of this notice.

If you’re an HSBC customer, or otherwise have a relationship with us, we may also have provided you with a separate privacy notice setting out how we use your personal information, which will also apply. You can also find that privacy notice by visiting the website for the product or services we provide you (for example, www.hsbc.co.uk in the UK or www.hsbc.com.hk in Hong Kong) or by contacting your customer service team.

Information we may collect from you

We may collect and process the following information about you:

Information that you provide to us, for example when you fill out an enquiry form on the site
Information that we obtain or learn, such as information about the browser or device you use to access this site, how you use this site and the pages you visit, traffic and location data

We may also ask you for information if you experience problems when using this site. We may also ask you to complete surveys for research purposes, although you don’t have to respond to these.

We may use information provided or obtained via this site to:

Respond to your queries and feedback (for example, if you’ve asked a question or submitted feedback via the site)
Allow you to participate in any interactive features of the site
Ensure site content is presented in the most effective manner for the device you’re accessing it from
Notify you about changes to the site, if you have asked us to
Provide you with information you have requested or which we feel may interest you, unless you tell us otherwise
Undertake data analytics to learn more about how you and others interact with this site
Detect and prevent misuse or abuse of this site

We also use information to meet our compliance obligations, to comply with other laws and regulations and to share with regulators and other authorities that HSBC Group companies are subject to. This may include using it to help detect or prevent crime (including criminal abuse of our site).

We’ll only process your information collected from you on the basis that it’s needed to comply with a legal obligation, it’s in our legitimate interests and that of others, or to prevent or detect unlawful acts.

Information from our archives

This website includes material from our archives. In some cases, this material might identify individuals, for example text or photographs that mention or show present or former HSBC colleagues, or public figures. We make this information available in the public interest.

If this includes your information, then in some cases, we may be able to remove your information from our site should you so wish. If you would like to discuss this, you can contact us. Our contact details are set out in the ‘More details about your information’ section below.

Who we’ll share your information with

We may share your information: in order to provide you with services you’ve requested (for example, if you contact us about banking services, which are not provided on this site, we need to may refer you to your local HSBC entity); if we have a legitimate interest in doing so (for example, to manage risk, such as to combat abuse of our site); or where you’ve agreed to us doing so.

We may share your information with others including: other HSBC Group companies and any of our service providers (for example our site providers); anyone who we’re under an obligation to disclose information to (for example law enforcement); or where it’s in the public interest (for example to prevent or detect abuse of our site).

We may share information within and outside of the HSBC Group with partners such as research groups and or universities. We will share this either where there’s a public interest to do so (for example, information from our archives) or in an aggregated or anonymised form (for example, where we share website usage data).

IP addresses

We may collect information about your computer (or mobile device), including where available your IP address, operating system and browser type, for system administration or for our own commercial purposes. This is statistical data about our users’ browsing actions and patterns.

Cookies

We use cookies and similar technologies to distinguish you from other users of this site, to improve your experience when accessing this site, and to improve the site. Detailed information on the cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them are set out in our Cookie Notice.

How long we’ll keep your information

We keep information that we collect from you in line with our data retention policy. For example, we’ll normally keep your enquiries for a period of seven years from the end of our relationship with you. This enables us to comply with legal and regulatory requirements or use it where we need to for our legitimate purposes such as dealing with any disputes or concerns that may arise. We may need to retain your information for a longer period where we need the information to comply with regulatory or legal requirements or where we may need it for our legitimate purposes, e.g. to help us respond to queries or complaints, fighting fraud and financial crime, responding to requests from regulators, etc.

We may retain information in our archives for as long as it remains in the public interest to do so.

Transferring your information overseas

Your information may be transferred to and stored in locations outside of your home location, including countries that may not have the same level of protection for personal information. When we do this, we’ll ensure it has an appropriate level of protection and that the transfer is lawful.

In certain cases you can obtain more details of the protection given to your information when it’s transferred by contacting us using the details in the ‘More details about your information’ section below.

Your rights

Your rights in relation to the information that we hold about you, include:

The right to access information we hold about you and to obtain information about how we process it;
The right to request that we rectify your information if it’s inaccurate or incomplete;
In some circumstances, the right to request that we restrict processing or erase your information. We may continue to process and retain your information if we’re entitled or required to do so;
In some circumstances, the right to object to our processing of your information. Again, there may be situations where we’re entitled to continue processing anyway.

If you object to the processing of any of your information from HSBC’s archives (for example because the processing is likely to cause you substantial damage or substantial distress) please notify us by using the ‘Contact us’ form on the site or by contacting us using the details set out in the ‘More details about your information’ section below. We will carefully consider your objection, but note that there may be situations where we’re entitled to continue processing your information for this purpose.

You also have a right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office by visiting www.ico.org.uk or to the data protection regulator in the country where you live or work.

How we keep your information secure

We use a range of measures to keep your information safe and secure which may include encryption and other forms of security. We require our staff and any third parties who carry out any work on our behalf to comply with appropriate compliance standards including obligations to protect any information and applying appropriate measures for the use and transfer of information.

More details about your information

If you’d like further information on anything we’ve said in this privacy notice, or to contact our Data Protection Officer, contact us at P.O. Box 6201, Coventry CV3 9HW, UK addressed ‘for the attention of the DPO’.

This privacy notice may be updated from time to time, and you’ll always be able to find the most recent version on this site.