Privacy and Security

DATA LAWS

Fontana Seeds is committed to protecting your privacy. We will only use the information that we collect about you lawfully (in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003) in addition to the the updated General Data Protection Act 25^th May 2018 and Eprivacy policy 2018.

The law on data protection sets out a number of different reasons for which a company may collect and process your personal data, including:

1. consent

In specific situations, we can collect and process your data with your consent.

When collecting your personal data, we’ll always make clear to you which data is necessary in connection with a particular service

2. Contractual obligations

In certain circumstances, we need your personal data to comply with our contractual obligations. For example, if you order an item from us for home delivery, we’ll collect your address details to deliver your purchase and pass them to our courier.

3. Legal compliance

If the law requires us to, we may need to collect and process your data.  For example, we can pass on details of people involved in fraud or other criminal activity affecting Fontana Seeds to law enforcement.

4. Legitimate interest

In specific situations, we require your data to pursue our legitimate interests in a way which might reasonably be expected as part of running our business and which does not materially impact your rights, freedom or interests. For example, we will use your purchase history to send you or make available personalised offers. We also combine the shopping history of many customers to identify trends and ensure we can keep up with demand, or develop new products/services. We will also use your address details to send you direct marketing information by post, telling you about products and services that we think might interest you.

HOW AND WHEN DO WE COLLECT YOUR DATA?

Our systems collect address and buying information at the point of order so that we may process your order and provide you with the best possible service.

We may also collect your data in any of the following circumstances:

• When you visit our website, and use your account to buy products and services, or redeem vouchers.
• When you make an online purchase and check out as a guest (in which case we just collect transaction-based data).
• When you create an account with us on our website..
• When you engage with us on social media.
• When you contact us by any means with queries, complaints etc.
• When you enter prize draws or competitions.
• When you book to attend an event
• When you choose to complete any surveys we send you. 
• When you comment on or review our products and services.
• When you’ve given a third party permission to share with us the information they hold about you.
• We may collect data from publicly-available sources (such as Land Registry) when you have given your consent to share information or where the information is made public as a matter of law.
• When you ask us to contact you when a specific product is back in stock
• When you click submit or place an item in your basket we may have the ability to retain some of your information, even if you don’t complete your registration. Such contact details and data may be used to contact you to enquire why you did not complete your registration/transaction, ie an abandoned basket email.

We use this information to make your shopping experience as easy and enjoyable as possible. We need it to process your order, inform you of any delays or problems and occasionally to send you special offers and promotions, although you can manage your communication preferences at any time – see ‘Your Mailing Preferences.’

The information we collect is:

• Your name
• Email address – so we can email your order confirmations, delivery delays, offers etc.
• Delivery address
• Telephone number or mobile number – we’ll only call if we have a delivery problem or to talk to you about your order
• Credit card details – we only ask for these when you place an order

HOW WE PROTECT YOUR DATA

We know how much data security matters to all our customers. With this in mind we will treat your data with the utmost care and take all appropriate steps to protect it.

We secure access to all transactional areas of our websites and apps using ‘https’ technology.

Access to your personal data is password-protected, and sensitive data such as payment card information is secured and tokenised to ensure it is protected.

We regularly monitor our system for possible vulnerabilities and attacks, and we carry out penetration testing to identify ways to further strengthen security.

We use the latest secure server technology to ensure all information is protected to the highest standards.

We use encryption to safeguard your credit card information and only accept orders from web browsers that permit communication through Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology - this means you cannot inadvertently place an order through an unsecured connection. Most web browsers above version three support this security.

This encryption makes it virtually impossible for unauthorised parties to read any information that you send us.

The encryption technique we use is one of the highest standard available for e-commerce and certified by the E-commerce plaform Shopify, which Fontana Seeds is operating on.

HOW LONG WILL WE KEEP YOUR PERSONAL DATA?

Whenever we keep your personal data we’ll only keep it for as long as is necessary for the purpose for which it was collected.

At the end of the retention period your data will either be deleted completely or anonymised, for example by aggregation with other data so that it can be used in a non-identifiable way for statistical analysis and business planning.

YOUR MAILING PREFERENCES

We want to give you the best possible customer experience. One way to achieve that is to get the richest picture we can of who you are by combining the data we have about you.

We then use this to offer you promotions, products and services that are most likely to interest you.

The data privacy law allows this as part of our legitimate interest in understanding our customers and providing the highest levels of service.

Remember, if you choose not to share your personal data with us, or refuse certain contact permissions, we might not be able to provide some services you’ve asked for.

How to stop or start direct marketing email communications from us:

• Click the ‘unsubscribe’ link in any email communication that we send you. We will then stop any further emails. This will take you to a dedicated page, where you will have the option to either:

Please note that you may continue to receive communications for a short period after changing your preferences while our systems are fully updated.  If you change your mind at any point, that’s fine, just let us know through any of the methods above.

WHO WE MAY SHARE YOUR DATA WITH 

We will never share your email address with anyone.

However there are only three circumstances where we may share some of your data with others:

• With agents, partners and suppliers (including credit reference agencies, credit card clearing agencies, fraud prevention and detection agencies, technology providers, delivery companies, direct despatch suppliers and data processing analysts) that we use to process the orders you place with us or who assist us in the service we provide to you. At Fontana Seeds, we select our partners carefully and require that they comply with high security standards for the protection of your personal data.

Examples of partners who we may share your data with are:

• Companies who we work with in order to carry out our everyday business such as data bureaus, credit card, order processing, fulfilment and postal/courier companies. We also have a number of direct despatch suppliers.
• Companies who we may work closely with to provide our online service and the relevant marketing such as Shopify, Google and Feefo.
• Authorities – we may disclose your data when this is required by the law of any jurisdiction to which Fontana Seeds may be subject.

 

Statement regarding Feefo

We work with Feefo, a company that manages our online reviews.  A feedback request falls under the remit of market research rather than marketing communication.  Provided you have given us your details as part of a transaction, we can contact you regarding a review as long as it’s directly related to that transaction. Feefo hold very little of your personal data. They can securely keep the review and associated data, but only for the purposes of replying to you in the event of a Subject Access Request.

YOUR RIGHTS OVER YOUR PERSONAL DATA 

An overview of your different rights.

You have the right to request:

• Access to the personal data we hold about you, titled a ‘subject access request’. 
• That all your data is deleted from our system.

 

Your request will be acknowledged upon receipt and we will come back to you within 30 working days. Please note that if you are requesting we delete your record we may out of necessity still hold one file with a note of your request for administration purposes.

• The correction of your personal data when incorrect, out of date or incomplete. 
• For example, when you withdraw consent, or object and we have no legitimate overriding interest, or once the purpose for which we hold the data has come to an end (such as the end of a warranty).
• That we stop using your personal data for direct marketing (either through specific channels, or all channels).
• That we stop any consent-based processing of your personal data after you withdraw that consent.

Your right to withdraw consent

Whenever you have given us your consent to use your personal data, you have the right to change your mind at any time and withdraw that consent. Please see ‘Your Mailing Preferences’ for further information on how to do this.

Where we rely on our legitimate interest

In cases where we are processing your personal data on the basis of our legitimate interest, you can ask us to stop for reasons connected to your individual situation. We must then do so unless we believe we have a legitimate overriding reason to continue processing your personal data.

Direct marketing

You have the right to stop the use of your personal data for direct marketing activity through all channels, or selected channels. We must always comply with your request.

Checking your identity

To protect the confidentiality of your information, we will ask you to verify your identity before proceeding with any request you make under this Privacy Notice. If you have authorised a third party to submit a request on your behalf, we will ask them to prove they have your permission to act.

OUR COOKIE POLICY

Cookies are small pieces of information that are stored on your computer when you visit some websites. They do not harm your computer – instead they are used to analyse the way you use the internet, and can personalise websites to suit your preferences. The cookies we use are Google Analytics (in which all user data is anonymous). We may also use technologies, such as our own cookies, to provide you with personalised online display advertising tailored to your interests. 

If you click on a link in an email from us or around our site, we may set a cookie on your browser. If you visit our website as a result of clicking on a link, we are thus able to understand how you interact with the pages of our website through the combination of the cookie and pixels set on the pages of our website. This enables us to understand what interested you in our emails and what did not, and what interests you about our website and what does not. We can then try to send you more relevant information in the future.

If you do not wish this to happen, you can change the cookie settings in your browser (however you will then be unable to use our website for shopping purposes).

Please note that this information is for our use only – we do not disclose or share this information with any third parties.

We may use the services of third parties to collect and use anonymous information about your visits and interactions with our website through the use of technologies such as cookies to personalise advertisements for goods and services. To learn more, or to opt-out of receiving online display advertisements tailored to your interests by our third party partners, visit the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance at http://youronlinechoices.eu/