Inkstone Books Privacy Policy

Inkstone Books collects data on our customers when they browse and purchase books through our website. This Privacy Policy outlines the data we collect, and how we use and store it, as well as detailing your rights.

Please read through the following Privacy Policy carefully. If you don’t agree with it, then you can’t use our Website or purchase our Products. By accessing our Website and purchasing our Products, you confirm that you accept the way in which we process your personal information.

If you have any concerns, please feel free to contact us at [email protected].

About Inkstone Books

We are Inkstone Books Limited, trading as Inkstone Books, a company incorporated and registered in England and Wales with company number 13919643. Our normal place of business is at Suite 2.8 Monument House, 215 Marsh Road, Pinner, United Kingdom, HA5 5NE (referred to as Inkstone Books, we, our and us). We are the data controller for the purposes of the personal information processed in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

About this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy applies to the personal information we collect about you through our Website, by telephone, by email or post, through our social media platforms, from third parties and when you communicate with us by any means not already mentioned.

This Privacy Policy may change from time to time and, if it does, the up-to-date version will always be available on our Website. We will also tell you about any important changes to our Privacy Policy.

The personal information we collect, how we collect it, and why

While you visit our site, we’ll track:

  • Products you’ve viewed: we’ll use this to, for example, show you products you’ve recently viewed
  • Location, IP address and browser type: we’ll use this for purposes like estimating taxes and shipping
  • Shipping address: we’ll ask you to enter this so we can, for instance, estimate shipping before you place an order, and send you the order

We’ll also use cookies to keep track of basket contents while you’re browsing our site.

When you purchase from us, we’ll ask you to provide information including your name, billing address, shipping address, email address, phone number, credit card/payment details and account information like username and password. We’ll use this information for purposes, such as, to:

  • Send you information about your account and order
  • Respond to your requests, including refunds and complaints
  • Process payments and prevent fraud
  • Comply with any legal obligations we have, such as calculating taxes

You will be required to create an account when checking out. We will store your name, address, email and phone number, which can be used to populate the checkout for future orders.

We may also use all of the above information to establish, exercise and defend our legal rights. The lawful bases on which we rely upon to do such are where it is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation and where it is in our legitimate interest to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights.

Our legal basis for processing personal information

We only ever use your information in line with applicable data protection laws – in particular, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Consequently, we only use it where we have a legal basis to do so. Under GDPR, these are the general legal bases for which we process your personal information:

Consent – you have given us consent to process your personal information for a specific purpose that we have told you about.
Performance of our contract – processing your personal information is necessary for a contract you have with us, or because we have asked you to take specific steps before entering into that contract.
Legitimate interests – processing your personal information is necessary for our legitimate interests or those of a third party, provided those interests are not outweighed by your rights and interests (including where processing is required to comply with or enforce a legal obligation).

Your rights and choices

Under GDPR, as a user of our Website or purchaser of our Products, you are entitled to certain rights. There are circumstances in which your rights may not apply. You have the right to request that we:

  • Provide you with a copy of the information we hold about you.
  • Update any of your personal information.
  • Delete the personal information we hold about you.
  • Restrict the way in which we use your personal information.
  • Stop processing your data if you have valid objections to such processing.
  • Transfer your personal information to a third party.

For more information on your rights and how to use them, or if you would like to make any of the requests set out above, please contact us via [email protected].

As a security measure, we may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal information.

How long do we store your personal information?

We keep your personal information for only as long as is necessary to provide you with our products and for our legitimate and necessary business purposes. In accordance with this Privacy Policy, you have the right to request that we delete your personal information, except where we are legally permitted or required to maintain certain personal information.

We are legally required to retain financial and transaction data for a minimum period of 7 years for tax, audit and accounting purposes. While you many request to have all personal data deleted, we are required by law to keep any information that will allow us to provide authorities with the above information. We will delete all data after the statutory 7 year period is concluded.

Additionally, if there are any issues with your account at the time you request deletion, such as an unresolved dispute, we will retain information until the issue is resolved.

Any Third Party Providers that we utilize will keep your personal information stored on their systems for as long as is necessary to provide the relevant services. If we terminate our relationship with any Third Party Providers, we will ensure they securely delete all personal information they store.

When do we share your personal information?

We may disclose your information for certain purposes and to third parties, as described below:

Third Party Providers: We use certain companies, agents or contractors (Third Party Providers) to perform services on our behalf or to help deliver our services to you. This includes, but is not limited to, payment providers to process transactions, marketing and newslettering software, and shipping companies. In the course of providing such services, these providers may have access to your personal information. We do not authorise them to use or disclose your personal information except in connection with providing their services to us.

We accept payments through Stripe. When processing payments, some of your data will be passed to Stripe, including information required to process or support the payment, such as the purchase total and billing information. You can view the Stripe Privacy Policy here: https://stripe.com/gb/privacy

To protect legitimate interests: There are certain circumstances where Inkstone Books and our Third Party Providers may disclose and/or make use of your information where a disclosure would be necessary to: (a) satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process, or other legal or governmental request or requirement, (b) enforce applicable terms of use, including investigation of any actual or alleged breaches, (c) detect, prevent, or otherwise address illegal or suspected illegal activities (including payment fraud), security or technical issues, or (d) protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of Inkstone Books, its members or the public, as required or permitted by law.

Security of your personal information

We have multiple procedures in place to protect and secure the information we collect. We are committed to protecting personal information from loss, misuse, disclosure, alteration, and unauthorised access and we take every reasonable precaution to safeguard the confidentiality of personal information.

Due to the lack of complete security when transmitting information over the internet, we cannot guarantee the security of your information transmitted to us and you acknowledge that any transmission is at your own risk.

The information that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside of the European Economic Area (EEA). When we transfer and store your personal information outside of the EEA we will take steps to ensure that the information is transferred in accordance with this Privacy Policy and applicable data protection laws.

Communications

By consenting to receive marketing communications from us and any named third parties that feature at the point of obtaining consent in respect of such information, we will process your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

If you do opt in to receive marketing communications, then you can click to unsubscribe at any time by following the relevant link in those communications. If you choose not to receive this information we will be unable to keep you informed of new products and promotions.

Regardless of your decision with regards to marketing communications, if you purchase a product from us you will receive emails including, but not limited to, delivery updates and purchase confirmations.

We may send you communications such as those which relate to any product or service updates or conduct surveys. These communications are to effectively provide you with optimal service and to grow the business.

Contacting us

If you have any questions or concerns about how we handle your personal information, please contact at [email protected].

If you are unsatisfied with our response to any data protection issues you raise with us, you have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The ICO is the authority in the UK which is tasked with the protection of personal information and privacy.

Cookies

We may use cookies on our Website which help us monitor use of the Website, and in turn improve it based on how our users interact with it. You can choose to accept or turn off cookies within your browser settings.

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