Privacy & Cookie Policy
Our commitment to privacy
The Brontë Sisters is committed to protecting your privacy. As part of this commitment, we provide this notice explaining our online information practices and the choices you can make about the way your information is collected and used.
Our Privacy Policy does not affect your statutory rights as a consumer.
Introduction
This Privacy and Cookies Policy relates to our use of any personal information we collect from you via online services and other channels:
The Brontë Sisters websites
The Brontë Sisters (@brontesisitersuk) social media content
Other forms of The Brontë Sisters web activity, such as competitions, surveys and content.
Transactional data provided from third party business (Etsy), when orders are fulfilled by The Brontë Sisters
Information you provide to us by email, messenger, other forms of correspondence
Forms for transaction or other purchases
This Privacy and Cookies Policy explains the following:
Who We Are
What Information We May Collect About You
How Information About You May Be Used
Information on Data Provided With Consent,
Direct Mail and Data Provided With Consent To Share With Third Parties
The Storage,
Deletion and Availability of Your Personal Data to You
Information On The Use of Web Browser Cookies
Information on Changes To This Policy
Who we are
The data controller is The Brontë Sisters (referred to in this policy as “we” or “us).
We ship our products all over the world from Yorkshire in the UK.
The information we collect
When you purchase from The Brontë Sisters via Etsy or provide information to The Brontë Sisters directly we may receive personal information about you. The types of personal information collected may include:
Name
Address
Email address
Details of transactions you make from us.
Details of when you have contacted us by email.
Please note that we may keep a record of that correspondence.
Group information.
When you browse our websites, we may collect information about your online browsing behaviour and information about when you click on one of our adverts (including those shown on other organisations’ websites). We may also collect information about the device you have used to access our services, such as the device type, operating system and browser type.
We may also obtain data from third parties to enrich our understanding of our customers. This information is used to understand who shops with us and allows us to create customer segments with defined characteristics. Creating segments of customers may then help us to target similar groups of people with content and advertising.
If you are a member of our email and digital marketing list, we may collect information on the communications which you open, including any links that you click.
Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.
All information will be collected lawfully and in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulations 2018 and The Data Protection Act 1998.
How we use information
We never collect sensitive information about you without your explicit consent and the information we have will be as accurate and up to date as possible. You may contact us to find what information is held about you. If you find any inaccuracies please let us know and we will delete or correct it for you. You may also request that we delete all data we hold about your from our systems.
The Brontë Sisters will use your personal information for a number of purposes, including the following:
To deal with any enquiries you may have about our services
To improve the content and appearance of the Website or App, to ensure that content is presented in the most effective manner for you.
To send you materials when requested
To contact you about our services, for example by email or by replying to social media posts or messages which you have directed at as.
Manage promotions and competitions that you take part in
To provide digital experiences that are optimised to your profile
To generate understanding of our customers and to create customer segments for marketing purposes
To provide you with relevant advertising, via digital and non-digital mediums
To monitor and understand online behaviour and the use of The Brontë Sisters websites.
To aggregate information for marketing and strategic development purposes, after removing personally identifiable information
To enrich with additional data to assist in further understanding of our customers, for the purposes outlined above
To enable you to access specific materials and sections within the site
To make you aware of new and existing products, promotions and to provide you with information that we believe is relevant to our contacts
To carry out market research and internal research and development, and to improve our systems, product range, service and stores. This allows us to better serve you as a customer.
To monitor how our services are used to detect and prevent fraud, other crimes and misuse. This helps us to make sure that you can safely use our services.
Why do we process your data in these ways?
To administer any prize draws or competitions run by The Brontë Sisters. Please refer to the specific terms & conditions for each prize draw or competition.
To carry out assessment and analysis (for example market, customer and product analysis) to enable us to review, develop and improve the products or services which we offer.
You should be aware that if we are requested by the police or any other regulatory or government authority investigating suspected illegal activities to provide your personal information or any other information we obtain about you, we are entitled do so.
We use return email addresses to answer the email we receive. Such addresses are not used for any other purpose and are not shared with outside parties.
Finally, we never use or share the personally identifiable information provided to us online in ways unrelated to the ones described above without your prior explicit consent.
You agree that you do not object to us using your personal information for any of the purposes outlined in this privacy policy and you confirm that you do not and will not consider any of these purposes as a breach of any of your rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (Regulation (EU) 2016/679).
We will not keep your personal information processed by us for any purpose or purposes for longer than is necessary for that purpose or for those purposes. Under data protection legislation you have the right to access information held about you.
Marketing
The Brontë Sisters will send you relevant offers and news about our products in a number of ways, including by email and digital marketing channels, but only if you have previously agreed to receive them.
Our communications are designed to tell you about the benefits we can offer, so that you have exclusive access to our best deals. We use the information we have about you to tailor the content and try to ensure that the offers are as relevant to you as possible.
Cookies and similar technologies
A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer’s hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.
Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.
Here are the main types of cookie that we use:
1. Site functionality cookies – these cookies allow you to navigate the site and use our features, such as “Recently Viewed”.
2. Site analytics cookies – these cookies allow us to measure and analyse how customers use our sites, to improve our service.
3. Customer preference cookies – These cookies will remember your preferences so you do not have to keep entering the same information over and over again.
4. Targeting or advertising cookies – these cookies are used to deliver ads that are more relevant to you. They also limit the number of times that you see an ad and help us measure the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns.
By using our site, you agree to us placing these sorts of cookies on your device and accessing them when you visit the site in the future. If you want to delete any cookies that are already on your computer, the “help” section in your browser should provide instructions on how to locate the file or directory that stores cookies. Further information about cookies can be found at https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-pecr/cookies-and-similar-technologies/ . Please note that by deleting or disabling future cookies, your user experience may be affected and you might not be able to take advantage of certain functions of our site.
We also use Google Analytics, the web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. Google Analytics uses cookies to collect information about details of our users’ visits to the site (including IP addresses) and the resources they access on it.
You can also install the Google Analytics Opt-Out Browser Add-On to prevent Google Analytics cookies being set, available for download here: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en
Data retention
We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity. If you request the deletion of your personal information, it will be removed as soon as we can reasonably achieve (no longer than 30 days). It is necessary to retain some data for statutory legal purposes and the remaining information is anonymised for analytical purposes. For further information about deleting your account please see the section below.
Requesting copies of, or removing data held about you
Under the GDPR you have the right to request a copy of the personal information The Brontë Sisters holds about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected. We have a legal duty to supply, correct or delete personal information about you on our files.
Please send requests and questions about this or any other question about this Privacy and Cookies Policy via our contact us page.
Our commitment to data security
We know how important it is to keep your data secure. In this section, we set out some of the measure we have in place to protect it:
To prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy, and ensure the correct use of information, we have put in place appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.
We use technical safeguards, such as firewalls and data encryption, and access to your data is only given to employees who need it to carry out their job responsibilities.
We enforce safeguards in connection with the collection and disclosure of personal data. If you request your personal data, we may ask for proof of identity before supplying it to you.
The personal data that we collect from you may be transferred to and stored at a destination outside the EU. It may also be processed by companies operating outside this area in their role a data processor. We have put appropriate checks and protection in place to ensure that your data is protected in line with this policy.
Our commitment to children’s privacy
Protecting the privacy of the very young is especially important. For that reason, we never collect or maintain information at our website from those we actually know are under 16, and no part of our website is structured to attract anyone under 16.
How to contact us
Should you have other questions or concerns about these privacy policies, please contact us on brontesisitersuk@gmail.com or via the form on the Contact Us page.