Here at Balanced-Earth we respect the privacy of our customers and website users and are committed to safeguarding their personal information. This policy outlines how we do this.
Please read this Privacy Policy carefully and ensure that you understand it. Your acceptance of our Privacy Policy is deemed to occur upon your first use of our site and accept this Privacy Policy. If you do not accept and agree with this Privacy Policy, you must stop using our site immediately.
Balanced-Earth may change this privacy policy by updating this page. Please check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes. This policy is effective from 4th December 2020.
Our website www.balanced-earth.co.uk is owned and operated by Karen Whiterod, who is also the Data Protection Officer. Karen Whiterod can be contacted via email: enquiry@balanced-earth.co.uk
What personal data we collect and why we collect it
We collect information about you during the checkout process on our online shop and 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 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 :
- First name, last name, e-mail address, postal address and telephone/mobile number.
- Contact information for financial transaction and payments. Although we do take financial transactions, we do not have access to, process or store customers’ credit/debit card details. This is carried out via secure, third party payment processors.
- Any other information customers and users send to us when making an enquiry with us. We’ll use this information for purposes, such as, to:
- Send you information about your order and purchase
- Respond to your requests, including refunds and complaints
- Process payments and prevent fraud
- With your permission and/or where permitted by law, we may send you marketing messages, which may include contacting you by email and or post with information and news about our products. We will not, however, send you any unsolicited marketing or spam and will take all reasonable steps to ensure that we fully protect your rights and comply with our obligations under the GDPR.
How long we retain your data
We will store information about you for as long as we need the information for fulfilling your purchase order, we are not legally required to continue to keep it. We do keep a record of customers’ purchase history for financial purposes. We only keep your data for as long as we need to in order to use it as described and/or for as long as we have your permission to keep it. In any event, we will conduct an annual review to ascertain whether we need to keep your data and will check if you wish to remain on our mailing list. Your data will be deleted it if no longer required and your mailing list permission has been withdrawn.
How can you control your data?
When you submit information via our site, you may be given options to restrict our use of your data. We aim to give you strong controls on our use of your data (including the ability to opt-out of receiving emails from us which you may do by unsubscribing using the links provided at the bottom of our emails.
Cookies
None of the cookies on this website are used to personally identify its visitors (e.g. name and address). They do not collect or store personal or sensitive data about individual visitors and are necessary for the functionality and security of the website. Our website cookies do collect details about your IP address which is necessary to protect against fraud. If you do not wish to receive cookies then you can switch them off and delete them in your browser. Different browsers perform this function in different ways. You can find out how to do it in your browser by searching its ‘Help’ facility. You can change your cookie settings at any time. Please note: If cookies are disabled then features on this website will be disrupted and some functions may not work fully or at all.
We keep data processing and storage to a minimum and as required for each purpose.
Analytics and tracking data
Some information may be collected automatically when users visit www.balanced-earth.co.uk We use third party services on our website to help us improve our website users’ experience and to help us make decisions about our marketing activities. Google Analytics tracks website users’ behaviour, such as referral sources, browsers used, navigation etc. We do not collect any personal information via these analytics and we have set our Google Analytics tracking to anonymise visitors’ IP addresses. Google may use this tracking information for its own purposes. Please see Google’s privacy policy and opt-out information for more details.
Third party websites, social media platforms and apps
Our website links to third parties’ social media platforms and apps may collect types of data such as cookies and web traffic data. Please see their privacy policies for full details. We are not responsible for their practices or privacy policies.
Measures taken to keep information secure
Here at Balanced-Earth we take extensive measures to keep information secure including, but not limited to:-
- Keeping passwords for our website secure.
- Using secured connections for our website (SSL)
- Employing encrypted, password protected back ups of our website
- Using secure third party services which employ measures such as password protected accounts, firewalls, anti-virus/malware detection/protection and encrypted storage and connections.
Using of anti-virus software and firewalls.
- Password protected computer and devices.
- Lock / log off computer when away from desk.
- Disposal of confidential paper waste by shredding.
- Being aware and vigilant of potential attacks/hacks (opening e-mails/websites).
Information sharing / Disclosure
We will never sell, rent, share or disclose customers’ or users’ information to third parties for marketing purposes.
We will not share or disclose customers’ or users’ information unless required to by law or for purposes other than providing the service as described in this Privacy Policy and our service Terms & Conditions.
What rights you have over your data
Customers have the right to request details of the information we store about them. In this case a proof of identity will be requested.
Customers have the right to request that we amend or delete their information at any time. Please contact us if you would like to amend or delete your information. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
Payments
We accept payments through PayPal and Stripe. When processing payments, some of your data will be passed to PayPal or Stripe (depending on how you choose to pay), including information required to process or support the payment, such as the purchase total and billing information.
Please see the PayPal Privacy Policy or the Stripe Privacy Policy for more details.