Our privacy policy

We're not interested in data-mining, or monetising, or distributing your information in anyway beyond that strictly necessary to fulfil orders or requests directly placed with us. As such Objects of Use shall not under any circumstances knowingly pass on your information to any third party for the purpose of marketing, or for any other purpose, save to those banks and payment gateway services providers necessary for the processing of your order and those couriers and agents we choose to use for the delivery of your goods. Nor shall we use such data ourselves except that we may occasionally (an erratic monthly endeavour) send electronic newsletters only to those who expressly sign up for such a service. You have the option of removal from our mailing list at any time and with immediate effect.

This Privacy Policy describes exactly when, how and why we collect personal information, what information we collect, how we use it and how we keep it secure, and the rights you have regarding our collection, processing and storage of your data, including the right to be forgotten.

What information we collect, how we collect it and what we use it for.

We may collect or receive personal information about you whenever you interact with us, for example when you:
Give us information directly by:
Visiting or completing a form on our website.
Subscribing to our mailing list or responding to one of our mailings.
Requesting information from us.
Contacting us, or becoming involved with us in any other way than as stated above.

The information we may collect from the above interactions may include, but is not limited to:
Your name, address, email address, telephone number, and/or mobile number, along with your preferences as to how we should contact you in the future.
Financial information which you give to us.
Records of your correspondence with us.
Information you provide via forms on our website.
Details of your visit to our website, including technical information such as the IP address you use to access the website, your browser type and version.
Other details relevant to your communications with us.

We will use your personal information in a number of ways, including for the following purposes:
To process orders you have placed.
To take and handle orders, deliver products and services, process payments, and communicate with you about orders, products and services.
To provide you with information you have requested.
Keeping a record of your relationship with us.
To send you our e-newsletters if you have subscribed to our mailing list or opted-in to receive further communications from us via email.
To maintain our organisational records and ensure we have your most up-to-date marketing and communications preferences.

Payment information
We do not directly collect and handle payment information such as credit/debit card or bank account details. If you make a purchase online, your card details are collected by our third-party payment processors, who specialise in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions. They may share your contact details with us but no payment information is shared with us, nor do we have access to it. Please refer to the Privacy Policy’s or Statements of these respective organisations for further information.

Sensitive personal data
We do not collect ‘sensitive personal data’, as defined by data protection regulation, such as health information, race, religious beliefs and political opinions.

Using your data for marketing
We will only use your data for marketing purposes (such as sending you our newsletters) if you have explicitly opted-in to receive such communications from us, and we will only send such information via the channels by which you have consented to receive it. If you receive a marketing email from us that you haven’t asked for please do let us know. You may opt-out of email marketing communications by clicking the ‘Unsubscribe’ link at the end of our mailing list emails. This request will be honoured automatically and immediately.

Cookies
We set 7 cookies to your computer. 4 are vital to the functioning of our store and shopping cart system. These are:
PHPSESSID
language
default
currency

3 further cookies are set through our Google Analytics code. This provides anonymised data regarding visitors to our site, their source if they have chosen to share it, landing page, pages visited, approximate geo-location, and route through checkout. We use this primarily to prevent and detect fraudulent or suspicious activity, and back-links to our site. We have elected not to share this data with any third parties. These are:
_ga - stored for 2 years - Used to distinguish users.
_gid - stored for 24 hours - Used to distinguish users.
_gat - stored from 30 seconds to 1 year - Used to throttle request rate.

Collecting children’s data
We don’t routinely collect information from children.

Who we share your data with
We will never sell your data to any third party nor will we share your details with other entities for marketing purposes, and you will not receive communications from other organisations as a result of giving your details to us, save those organisations contracted by us to undertake deliveries of orders placed.
We will only share information with other organisations where we have your permission to do so in accordance with this Privacy Policy or where it is necessary for a legitimate reason or where it is required by law or regulation. These “data processors” will only act under our instruction and we will not allow these organisations to use your data for their own purposes and will take care to ensure that they keep your data secure.

How we store your data and keep it safe
Objects of Use is committed to keeping your personal information safe and secure and we will always try to take appropriate precautions to protect against unauthorised access to, loss, misuse, or unauthorised disclosure, of your information.
We always ensure that only authorised personnel have access to your information and that any place where personal data is stored is protected via a secure password or log-in, or, in the case of physical records, held in a secure location.
Your data may be stored in the following places, depending on how and where you have provided it:
The admin end of our website.
Our email servers and in our email folders.
Our Mailchimp account.
Our paper records and files.
We may transfer the information provided to us to countries outside the European Economic Area (‘EEA’). We will take steps to ensure adequate protections are in place to ensure the security of your information. The EEA comprises the EU member states plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.

We shall take all reasonable precautions to keep your personal information secure including industry standard SSL and data encryption, but despite all precautions, no data transmitted over the internet, stored on a computer or in the Cloud, can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. So, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you disclose to us online either directly or via a third-party, and you must understand that you do so at your own risk.

How long we keep your information for.
We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity in line with our Data Protection Policy. For example HMRC requires that sales records be kept for a minimum of 6 years.
If you ask us to stop sending you marketing communications, we will keep a record of your contact details and appropriate information to enable us to comply with your request not to be contacted by us.

Your rights to your data Data protection legislation gives you the following rights in relation to your personal data:
The right to be informed about the data that we hold on you.
The right of access to, rectification of and erasure of the personal data we hold on you.
The right to object to, restrict or withdraw consent from us processing your personal data.
If you wish to exercise any of your rights, please write to us at Objects of Use, 6 Lincoln House, Market Street, Oxford, OX1 3EQ, or email us at the link below.

If you make a request relating to any of your rights listed above, we will consider each request in accordance with all applicable data protection laws and regulations. No administration fee will be charged for considering and/or complying with such a request unless the request is deemed to be excessive in nature.

Upon successful verification of your identity you are entitled to obtain the following information about your own personal information:
The purposes of the collection, processing, use and storage of your personal data.
The source(s) of the personal information, if it was not obtained from you.
The categories of personal data stored about you.
The recipients or categories of recipients to whom your personal data has been or may be transmitted, along with the location of those recipients.
The envisaged period of storage for your personal data or the rationale for determining the storage period.
The use of any automated decision-making and/or profiling.
If at any time you’d like us to change the way we contact you, please write to us at Objects of Use, 6 Lincoln House, Market Street, Oxford, OX1 3EQ, or email us at the link below.

Changes to this policy
This Privacy Policy may change from time to time. If we make any significant or material changes to this policy, we will publicise these changes clearly on our website or contact you directly with more information.
Should you have any queries about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at the email below.

Complaints
If at any time you are not happy with the way we have handled your personal data, please do contact us. If you do not feel we have been able to satisfactorily resolve your complaint you can report your concern to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) by visiting their website at ico.org.uk/concerns/.

This policy was last updated 24th May 2018.