Privacy policy

This policy (together with our Terms of Use and any other documents referred to in it) sets out the basis on which North Books (hereafter referred to as “we”) collects, uses and processes personal data relating to users (referred to in this policy as “you”) of www.northbooks.co.uk (“our site”), and related services. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.

We are the data controller for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 2018 (the Act), the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and any other data protection legislation applicable in the UK from time to time.

If you have any questions or comments, or if you want to update, delete, or change any personal information we hold, or you have a concern about the way in which we have handled any privacy matter, please contact us at jules@northbooks.co.uk. You may also contact us by post at 4 Castle Street, Hay-on-Wye HR3 5DF, UK.

Information we may collect from you

We may collect and process the following data about you:

  • Information you give us voluntarily. You may give us information about you by filling in forms on our site or by corresponding with us by phone, email or otherwise. This includes information you provide when you register to use our site, search for a product, place an order on our site, enter a competition, promotion or survey and when you report a problem with our site. The information you give us may include your name, address, date of birth, email address and phone number, financial and credit card information and other personal information.

  • Information we collect about you. With regard to each of your visits to our site we may automatically collect the following information:

    • technical information, including your IP address, your login information, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform;

    • information about your visit, including the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL) clickstream to, through and from our site (including date and time);

    • products you viewed or searched for; and

    • page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), and methods used to browse away from the page and any phone number used to call our customer service number.

  • Information we receive from other sources. We may receive information about you if you use any other websites we operate or any other services we provide. We may also work with third parties (including, for example, business partners, sub-contractors in technical, payment and delivery services, advertising networks, analytics providers, search information providers, credit reference agencies) and may receive information about you from them.

  • Cookies. Our site uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our site. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our site and also allows us to improve our site. Please see our Cookies Policy below for more information.

Our site is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.

Use of personal information

Our use of your personal data will always have a lawful basis, either because you have consented to our use of your personal data, where it is necessary to comply with our legal obligations or to perform our contract with you, or because it is in our legitimate interests. We may use your personal information:

  • To promote use of our services to you and others. For example, if you have bought services from us in the past and we think you might be interested in another service we offer, we may send you an email about that. You can stop receiving our promotional emails by following the unsubscribe instructions included in every promotional email we send.

  • To send you informational and promotional content in accordance with your marketing preferences. We will only do this if you have opted in to receive our newsletter and marketing communications. You can stop receiving our promotional emails by following the unsubscribe instructions included in every promotional email.

  • To bill and collect money owed to us. This includes sending you emails, invoices, receipts, and alerting you if we need a different credit card number. We use third parties for secure credit card transaction processing, and we send billing information to those third parties to process your orders and credit card payments.

  • To communicate with our customers about a purchase they have made and to provide customer support.

  • To enforce compliance with our Terms and Conditions of Supply, Terms of Website Use and applicable law.

  • To protect your interests, or the interests of others (such as in the event of criminality such as identity theft, piracy or fraud).

  • To meet legal requirements, or provide information to representatives (such as lawyers or accountants) to help us comply with legal, security or accounting requirements.

  • To provide, support and improve the services we offer.

We may share your data with selected third parties. For example, we may share your information with:

  • Internet hosting providers to host the site, related infrastructure, services and applications.

  • Contact management systems to send emails, instant messages, social media messages and SMS messages.

  • Payment providers.

There are certain exceptional circumstances in which we may disclose your information to third parties. This would be where we believe that the disclosure is:

  • Required by law, or in order to comply with judicial proceedings, court orders of legal or regulatory proceedings.

  • Necessary to protect the safety of our employees, our property or the public.

  • Necessary for the prevention or detection of crime, including exchanging information with other companies or organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

Third party websites

  • Social media platforms and widgets. Our websites include social media features, such as the Instagram button. These features may collect information about your IP address and which page you are visiting on our site, and they may set a cookie to make sure the feature functions properly. Social media features and widgets are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our site. We also maintain presences on social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Any personal data that you provide via these platforms will only be used in accordance with this policy. Any information, communications, or materials you submit to us via a social media platform is done at your own risk. We cannot control the actions of other users of these platforms or the actions of the platforms themselves. Your interactions with those features and platforms are governed by the privacy policies of the companies that provide them.

  • Links to third-party websites. Our websites include links to other websites, whose privacy practices may be different from ours. If you submit personal information to any of those sites, your information is governed by their privacy policies. We encourage you to carefully read the privacy policy of any website you visit.

Competitions

We may, from time to time, offer surveys, contests, sweepstakes, or other promotions on our websites or through social media. Participation in these is completely voluntary. Information requested for entry may include personal contact information such as your name, address, date of birth, phone number, email address, username, and similar details. We use the information you provide to administer our promotions. We may also use the information provided to communicate with you about our services. We may share this information with other organisations or Service Providers in line with this policy and the rules posted for the promotion.

Safeguarding your information

Your personal data is stored in electronic and physical records maintained by us and our service providers. By submitting your personal data, you agree that we may transfer, store or process your personal data.

We take reasonable and appropriate measures to protect personal information from loss, misuse and unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration and destruction, taking into account the risks involved in the processing and the nature of the personal information.

Our credit card processing vendor uses security measures to protect your information both during the transaction and after it is complete. If you have any questions about the security of your personal information, you may contact us at jules@northbooks.co.uk.

Accuracy and retention of data

We do our best to keep your data accurate and up to date, to the extent that you provide us with the information we need to do so. If your data changes (for example, if you have a new email address), then you are responsible for notifying us of those changes. Upon request, we will provide you with information about whether we hold, or process on behalf of a third party, any of your personal information. We will retain your information for as long as your account is active or as long as needed to supply our products or services. We may also retain and use your information in order to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, prevent abuse, and enforce our Terms and Conditions.

Your rights

Under the GDPR you have a number of rights in relation to your personal data:

  • The right to be informed about our collection and use of your personal data.

  • The right to access the personal data we hold about you.

  • The right to correct any inaccurate or incomplete personal data.

  • The right to erasure of your personal data.

  • The right to have your data transferred to you or a third party in a common format.

  • The right to object to direct marketing.

  • The right to object to our use of your data for our own legitimate interests.

  • The right to restrict the processing of your personal data.

  • The right not to be subject to decisions made by an automated system which produces legal effects or otherwise substantially affects you.

If you wish to make a complaint about our collection or use of your personal data, please contact us on jules@northbooks.co.uk in the first instance so that we may seek to resolve your complaint.

You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the statutory body which oversees data protection law in the UK. Please visit the ICO website if you wish to lodge a complaint with the ICO.

Access

We will give an individual access to any personal information we hold about them within one month of any request for that information. Individuals may request to exercise the rights set out above by contacting us at jules@northbooks.co.uk. Unless it is prohibited by law, we will remove any personal information about an individual from our servers at your or their request. There is no charge for an individual to exercise their rights.

Cookies policy

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 on our site:

We use both persistent cookies (which expire on a specified date) and session cookies (which expire when you close your browser).

The cookies used on this site have been categorised based on definitions given in the ICC UK Cookie Guide. We use the following cookies:

  • Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our site. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our site, use a shopping cart or make use of e-billing services.

  • Analytical/performance cookies. These allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our site when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our site works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.

You decide which cookies we use.

We understand that not everyone wants to see targeted adverts or contribute to statistics on website use, so you can configure cookie settings in your web browser. You can find out more about how to do this at the following links:

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.

Further information about cookies

There is a lot of good information about cookies available online. For more information about cookies generally, visit allaboutcookies.org.