Privacy Policy

Privacy and Cookie Policy

Last Updated 17/05/2024

The Empty Bobbin is committed to protecting your privacy and takes its respon­sibi­lities regarding the security of customer information very seriously. This privacy policy explains what personal data we collect about you, how and why we use it, who we disclose it to, and how we protect your privacy.

1. WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR DATA

Our Privacy Policy applies to the personal data that The Empty Bobbin collects and uses.

References in this Privacy Policy to “The Empty Bobbin”, “we”, “us” or “our” refer to Anne Yeung of The Empty Bobbin.

We control the ways your personal data are collected and the purposes for which your personal data are used by The Empty Bobbin and are the “data controller” for the purposes of the UK Data Protection Act 1998, EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), PCI-DSS, and European data protection legislation.

Anne Yeung (The Empty Bobbin) is a sole trader registered with HM Revenue and Customs .

2. PURPOSE AND LEGAL GROUNDS FOR PROCESSING YOUR DATA

  • To sell our products to you and carry out any logistics for delivery or return of goods
    This purpose allows The Empty Bobbin to lawfully process your data for legitimate interests (GDPR) and our legal obligations to your country’s tax and revenue authorities.

3. CONSENT

From 25th May 2018 your consent will be an explicit action; we will not use defaulted opt-in checkboxes or include your personal data for marketing purposes.

However, by purchasing from us, you enter a contract with us and we will be able to use your personal data to communicate with you about your order.

We will not contact you if you have withdrawn consent, you can grant or withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us at sales@emptybobbin.co.uk

You can opt out from direct marketing by the following means:

  • Following the instruction in each marketing post, there is an unsubscribe link at the bottom of every email.
  • If you prefer, you can also contact our Customer Service team and express your preference to not receive marketing communications by  sending an email to sales@emptybobbin.co.uk with the header “Unsubscribe”. We ask that you allow 28 working days to complete any unsubscribe request.

 

4. PERSONAL DATA WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU

When using the term “personal data” in our Privacy Policy, we mean information that relates to you and allows us to identify you, either directly or in combination with other information that we may hold. Your personal data may include for example your name, your contact details, information relating to your purchase (e.g. your order references) or information on how you use our website.

For more information on the parties who may share your personal data with us, please see section 7 below.

Categories of data we collect 

We may collect and process the following categories of information about you:

CATEGORY OF DATA COLLECTED / HELD WHEN WE PROCESS SUCH DATA
name and surname and your contact details
(email address, telephone number and postal address)		 When you create an account on our website
When you purchase our products
When you take part in our competitions
When you choose an offer we make available on our website
Information about your transaction, including your payment details When you purchase our products or services
The communications you exchange with us (for example, your emails, letters, calls, or your messages on our online chat service) When you contact The Empty Bobbin or you are contacted by us
Your social media account ID When you interact with us on social media

When we target social media posts
Your posts and messages on social media directed to The Empty Bobbin When you interact with us on social media
Your feedback When you reply to our requests for feedback or participate in our customer surveys

Sensitive personal data 
Information that could reveal your racial or ethnic origin, physical or mental health, religious beliefs or alleged commission or conviction of criminal offences is considered “sensitive personal data” under the UK Data Protection Act 1998 and other data protection laws. We do not collect this data.

5. HOW AND WHY WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA

We use your personal data for the following purposes:

  • To manage your orders and provide our services to you. When you purchase from us, or seek advice, we use your information to perform our services in relation to your purchase or enquiry, for example to provide you with product, tailor specific advice to your needs
  • To communicate with you and manage our relationship with you. Occasionally we may need to contact you by email and/or telephone for administrative or operational reasons, for example in order to send you confirmation of your purchases and your payments, to notify you when backordered products are available or to advise you of disruption and changes to your orders and deliveries.
  • Please be aware that these communications are not made for marketing purposes and as such, you will continue to receive them even if you opt-out from receiving marketing communications.
  • We will use the communications you exchange with us and the feedback you may provide in order to manage our relationship with you as our customer and to improve our services and experiences for customers.
  • To personalise and improve your customer experience. We may use your personal data in order to tailor our services to your needs and preferences and to provide you with a personalised customer experience. For example, if you inform us about your preferred products, colours or style we will be able to send you inspirational tips and ideas relevant to your interests.
  • If you are in the process of making a purchase under your account and you leave our website before your order has been placed, we may contact you in order to help you easily complete your purchase.

Please note that we do not share your contact details and other personal data with other companies for marketing purposes.

  • To improve our services, fulfil our administrative purposes and protect our business interests The business purposes for which we will use your information include accounting, billing and audit, credit or other payment card verification, fraud screening, security and legal purposes, statistical and marketing analysis, systems testing, maintenance and development.
  • To comply with our legal obligations, for example, our obligation to provide your information to local police agencies.

6. REQUESTING ACCESS TO YOUR PERSONAL DATA

Following a successful security process, you have a right to request access to the personal data that we hold about you. This could include purchase information relating to products and services.

If you have questions in relation to your personal data, please contact us at: sales@emptybobbin.co.uk

 

7. Your Rights

Right to portability: 
Whenever The Empty Bobbin processes your personal data, by automated means based on your consent or based on an agreement; you have the right to get a copy of your data transferred to you or to another party. This only includes the personal data you have submitted to us.

Right to rectification: 
You have the right to request rectification of your personal data if the information is incorrect, including the right to have incomplete personal data completed.

If you have a The Empty Bobbin account you can edit your personal data under your account.

Your right to object to processing based on legitimate interest:  
You have the right to object to processing of your personal data that is based on The Empty Bobbin’s legitimate interest. The Empty Bobbin will not continue to process the personal data unless we can demonstrate legitimate grounds for the process which overrides your interest and rights or due to legal claims.

How can you exercise your rights?
We take data protection very seriously and will process any enquiry in a prompt manner, please contact sales@emptybobbin.co.uk

Right to complain with a supervisory authority: 
If you consider The Empty Bobbin to process your personal data in an incorrect way you can contact us. You also have the right to raise a complaint to a supervisory authority.

Right to erasure – You have the right to erase any personal data processed by The Empty Bobbin at any time except for the following situations:

  • you have an on-going matter with Customer Service
  • you have an open order which has not yet been shipped or partially shipped
  • you have an unsettled debt with The Empty Bobbin, regardless of the payment method
  • if you are suspected or have misused our services within the last four years
  • if you have made any purchase, we will keep your personal data in connection to your transaction for book-keeping purposes.
  • Encrypted system backups, held for up to 10 years. It is practically impossible to alter these backup files
  • Our anti-spam and email gateway. We maintain email archiving for security reasons, and your info may be kept in this archive. Access to this gateway is limited to named data controllers for The Empty Bobbin

If you have questions in relation to your personal data, please contact us at:  sales@emptybobbib.co.uk

8. RIGHT TO RESTRICT PROCESSING

You have a right for your personal data to be stored but not processed. This is achieved through the withdrawal of consent.

You have the right to request that The Empty Bobbin restricts the process of your personal data under the following circumstances:

  • If you object to a processing based The Empty Bobbin’s legitimate interest, The Empty Bobbin shall restrict all processing of such data pending the verification of the legitimate interest.
  • If you have claim that your personal data is incorrect, The Empty Bobbin must restrict all processing of such data pending the verification of the accuracy of the personal data.
  • If the processing is unlawful you can oppose the erasure of personal data and instead request the restriction of the use of your personal data instead
  • If The Empty Bobbin no longer needs the personal data but it is required by you to defend legal claims.

If you have questions in relation to your personal data, please contact us at: sales@emptybobbin.co.uk

 

9. SECURITY OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA

We are committed to taking appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against unauthorised or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction or damage to personal data.

As described in this Privacy Policy, we may in some instances disclose your personal data to third parties. Where The Empty Bobbin discloses your personal data to a third party, we require that third party to have appropriate technical and organisational measures in place to protect your personal data.

The information that you provide to us will be held in our systems, which are located on our premises or those of an appointed third party. We may also allow access to your information by other third parties who act for us for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy or for other purposes approved by you.

We will retain your personal data for as long as we need it in order to fulfil our purposes set out in this Privacy Policy or in order to comply with the law, but for a period no more than 10 years.

 

10. COOKIES

In order to improve our services, to provide you with more relevant content and to analyse how visitors use our website, we may use cookies, pixels or tracking software. Please be aware that in most cases we will not be able to identify you from the information we collect using these technologies.

For example, we use software to monitor customer traffic patterns and website usage to help us develop the design and layout of the website in order to enhance the experience of the visitors to our website. This software does not enable us to collect any personal data. In addition, in order to understand how our customers interact with the emails and the content that we send, we use pixels that allow us to know if the emails we send are opened or if the content of our emails is displayed in text or html form.

Cookies are small pieces of information stored by your browser on your computer’s hard drive. They enable you to navigate on our website or app and allow us to provide features such as remembering aspects of your last search to make subsequent searches faster. You can delete cookies if you wish; while certain cookies are necessary for viewing and navigating on our website, most of the features will be still accessible without cookies. For more information on how we use cookies and how you can remove them, read our Cookie Policy.

11. SHARING YOUR PERSONAL DATA

We may share some of your personal data with, or obtain your personal data from, the following categories of third parties:

  • Suppliers providing services to us in order to help us run our business and improve our services and your customer experience. We may for example share your personal data with the companies who provide deliveries for us predominantly Royal Mail, but other couriers may be used). We may also disclose your information to the companies who help us get your feedback on our services.We select very carefully our suppliers who process your personal data on our behalf and require that they comply with high security standards for the protection of your personal data.
  • Authorities
    We may disclose your personal data when this is required by the law of any jurisdiction to which The Empty Bobbin may be subject.

12. UPDATES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY

Any new versions of this Privacy Policy will be published on the website.

13. CONTACT INFORMATION

Any queries regarding this privacy policy should be addressed to sales@emptybobbin.co.uk