Privacy Policy

Introduction

Welcome to the Gemz Threadz privacy notice. We respect your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy notice will inform you as to when and why we collect personal information about people who visit our website (regardless of where you visit from), how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others, how we keep it secure and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you. We may update this policy on occasion so please do check to ensure you are happy with any changes. By using our website, and by the provision of information to us you will constitute acknowledgment of the terms of this privacy policy. Please do not send us any of your information if you do not want it to be used in the ways described in this privacy policy. Please also use the Glossary to understand the meaning of some of the terms used in this privacy notice.

1. IMPORTANT INFORMATION AND WHO WE ARE
2. THE DATA WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU
3. HOW IS YOUR PERSONAL DATA COLLECTED
4. HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA 
5. DISCLOSURES OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA 
6. INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS 
7. DATA SECURITY
8. DATA RETENTION
9. YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS 
10. GLOSSARY

1. IMPORTANT INFORMATION AND WHO WE ARE
Purpose of this privacy notice:
This privacy notice aims to give you information on how Gemz Threadz collects and processes your personal data through your use of this website, including any data you may provide through this website when you sign up to our newsletter, purchase a product or service, or take part in a competition. This website is not intended for children. It is important that you read this privacy notice together with any other privacy notice or fair processing notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This privacy notice supplements the other notices and is not intended to override them.

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance. Changes to the privacy notice and your duty to inform us of changes. 

Representation for data subjects in the EU:
We value your privacy and your rights as a data subject and have therefore appointed Prighter as our privacy representative and your point of contact.
Prighter gives you an easy way to exercise your privacy-related rights (e.g. requests to access or erase personal data). If you want to contact us via our representative Prighter or make use of your data subject rights, please visit: https://prighter.com/q/16051509623

Third-party links:
This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.

2. THE DATA WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU
Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).
We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

• Identity Data includes first name, maiden name, last name, username or similar identifier, marital status, title, date of birth and gender.
• Contact Data includes billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers.
• Financial Data includes bank account and payment card details.
• Transaction Data includes details about payments to and from you and other details of products and services you have purchased from us.
• Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
• Profile Data includes your username and password, purchases or orders made by you, your interests, preferences, feedback and survey responses.
• Usage Data includes information about how you use our website, products and services.
• Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.

We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data may be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this privacy notice. We do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences. If you fail to provide personal data where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with goods or services). In this case, we may have to cancel a product or service you have with us but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

3. HOW IS YOUR PERSONAL DATA COLLECTED
We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

• Direct interactions. You may give us your Identity, Contact, Technical and Financial Data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:
  (a) apply for our products or services;
  (b) create an account on our website or utilise the live chat function on our website;
  (c) subscribe to our service or publications;
  (d) request marketing to be sent to you;
  (e) make a telephone call to us and leave a message or request a call back;
  (f) enter a competition, promotion or survey; 
  (g) react to marketing posts on our social media forums (including but not limited to our Facebook, Twitter, TiKTok, Instagram pages); or
  (h) give us some feedback.
• Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website and the emails we send to you, we may automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. We may also receive Technical Data about you if you visit other websites employing our cookies. Please see our cookie policy at the bottom of this page for further details.
• Third parties or publicly available sources. We may receive personal data about you from various third parties as set out below:
  ï Technical Data, Profile Data, Usage Data, Marketing and Communication Data, and Aggregated Data from the following parties:
  (a) analytics providers such as Google based outside the EU;
  (b) advertising networks; 
  (c) search information providers;
  (d) third party providers of technical, payment and delivery services;
  (e) third party data brokers; and
  (f) from publicly available sources.

4. HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA 
We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

• Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
• Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
• Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.
• Where we have your consent to do so. 
• Purposes for which we will use your personal data:
• We have set out below, a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.
• Note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please see paragraph 10 if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out below.
• We use your information to:

• - Register you as a new customer 
  o Legal Basis (a) Necessary for our legitimate interests

  - Process and deliver your order including; To manage payments, fees and charges and to collect and recover money owed to us
  o Legal Bases (a) Performance of a contract with you; (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recover debts due to us)

  
  - Manage our relationship with you which will include notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy policy and asking you to leave a review or take a survey
  o  Legal Bases (a) Performance of a contract with you; (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation; (c) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and to study how customers use our products/services)

  
  - Enable you to partake in a prize draw, competition or complete a survey
  o Legal Bases (a) Performance of a contract with you; (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our products/ services, to develop them and grow our business)

  - Administer and protect our business and this website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data)
  o Legal Bases (a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise); (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation

  
  - Deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you
  o Legal Basis (a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our products/ services, to develop them, to grow our business and to inform our marketing strategy)

  
  - Use data analytics to improve our website, products/ services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences
  o Legal Basis (a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of customers for our products and services, to keep our website updated and relevant, to develop our business and inform our marketing strategy)

         - Make suggestions and recommendations to you about goods or                         services that may be of interest to you
        o Legal Basis (a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our                   products/ services and grow our business)

Marketing

• We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal data uses, particularly around marketing and advertising. We have established the following personal data control mechanisms:

1. Special offers and promotions from us:  We may use your Identity, Contact, Technical, Usage and Profile Data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which products, services and offers may be relevant for you (we call this marketing).
Where it is in our legitimate interests to do so, we will send you marketing communications by way of email, SMS or post if you have:
- requested information from us; or 
- purchased goods or services from us; or
- provided us with your details when you entered a competition; or
- registered for a promotion; and in each case, you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.

2. Third-party marketing
We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any company outside of Gemz Threadz for marketing purposes.

3. Opting out
We provide easy ways to stop our marketing and you can opt-out at any time. Please note, you may continue to receive marketing for a short period while we deal with your opt-out request.

You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by logging into the website and checking or unchecking relevant boxes to adjust your marketing preferences or by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you via email or SMS. If you would like to opt-out of receiving communications via post, please email info@gemzthreadz.co.uk. Alternatively, you can contact us via customer services and we can manually unsubscribe you from our mailing/marketing lists.

We will not send you marketing messages if you tell us not to, but if you receive a service from us we will still need to send you occasional service-related messages. Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of a product/service purchase, product/service experience or other transactions.

4. Cookies
You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly. For more information about the cookies we use, please see cookies policy at the bottom of this page.

5. Change of purpose
We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose.
If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.
Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

5. DISCLOSURES OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA 
We may have to share your personal data with third parties for the purposes described in paragraph 4 above.
We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

6. INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS 
We share your personal data within Gemz Threadz. In order to provide you with our services and products, we may need to transfer your personal information to locations outside the European Economic Area (EEA).
Some of our external third parties (for example Facebook, Google, Amazon) are based outside the European Economic Area (EEA) so their processing of your personal data will involve a transfer of data outside the EEA.
Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

• We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the European Commission. For further details, see European Commission: Adequacy of the protection of personal data in non-EU countries.
• Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved by the European Commission which give personal data the same protection it has in Europe. For further details, see European Commission: Model contracts for the transfer of personal data to third countries.
• Where we use providers based in the US, we may transfer data to them if they are part of the Privacy Shield which requires them to provide similar protection to personal data shared between the Europe and the US. For further details, see European Commission: EU-US Privacy Shield.

7. DATA SECURITY
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

8. DATA RETENTION
How long will you use my personal data for?
We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements. By law we have to keep basic information about our customers (including Contact, Identity, Financial and Transaction Data) for six years after they cease being customers for tax purposes. We will continue communicating to you whilst you engage with our services and make purchases from us. 
In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see Request erasure below for further information. If you wish to have your data deleted, or have any questions regarding our data retention, please contact our DPO. In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

9. YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS 
Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. Please click on the links below to find out more about these rights:

• Request access to your personal data.
• Request correction of your personal data.
• Request erasure of your personal data.
• Object to processing of your personal data.
• Request restriction of processing your personal data.
• Request transfer of your personal data.
• Right to withdraw consent.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact the DPO for Subject Access Rights.

No fee usually required:
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What we may need from you:
We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond:
We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

10. GLOSSARY
LAWFUL BASIS
Legitimate Interest means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service/product and the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting our DPO. Performance of Contract means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract. Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject to.

THIRD PARTIES
Third Parties (without limitation):

• Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy notice.
• Service providers to whom we outsource services, for example, who provide IT and system administration, or who assist us with customer insight marketing analytics, such as Google.
• Professional advisers including lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services.
• HM Revenue & Customs, regulators and other authorities who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.
• Details of any other third parties, for example, market researchers, fraud prevention agencies, price comparison sites, etc.

YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS
You have the right to:
1. Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
2. Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
3. Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
4. Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
5. Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data's accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
6. Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
7. Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

COOKIE POLICY
Information about our use of cookies
Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer if you agree. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer's hard drive.

We use the following cookies:

• Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our website, use a shopping cart or make use of e-billing services.
• Analytical/performance cookies. They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.
• Functionality cookies. These are used to recognise you when you return to our website. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences (for example, your choice of language or region).
• Targeting cookies. These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make our website and the advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third parties for this purpose.

Cookie Category: Targeting

Cookie Name: Facebook Ads, Google Ads (YouTube covered as part of Google Ads), Microsoft Ads, AWIN/ Affiliate Window, Pinterest, TikTok, and Criteo

Purpose: Targeting cookies track our own paid advertising activity. We use the information collected by these cookies to help us to determine where our ads will be most effective.

More information: Each individual advertiser uses its own tracking cookies and the data taken is not confidential data.

Cookie Category: Analytical

Cookie Name: Google Analytics

Purpose: We have implemented Google Analytics features based on Display Advertising (Google Analytics Demographics and Interest Reporting). You can opt-out of Google Analytics for Display Advertising and customise Google Display Network ads using the Ad Settings. To opt out use the Google Analytics Opt-Out Browser Add-On to disable tracking by Google Analytics.

More information: We will use the data provided by Google Analytics Demographics and Interest Reporting to develop the site and content around our users’ interests. We also use Google User ID to associate engagement data from multiple devices and different sessions with unique IDs. This data is non-personally identifiable and is used to analyse user interaction between devices.

You block cookies by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies. However, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of our site.

Except for essential cookies, all cookies will expire after 18 months.