Privacy Policy
New rules regarding data protection came into force in May 2018. The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is a regulation intended to strengthen and unify data protection for everyone within the European Union (EU). The GDPR requires greater openness and transparency from companies on how they collect, store and use personal data, while also imposing tighter limits on the use of personal data.
Simpsons Garden Centre (‘Simpsons’) respect your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy policy will inform you as to how we look after your personal data when you visit our store, website and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.
We do not and will not sell your data to third parties.
The prime purpose of collecting your data is associated to processing an order and for customer support purposes ie events and activities.
This Privacy Policy (the ‘Policy’) explains the personal information we collect from you, either directly or indirectly, and how we will use it. Personal information is any information that can be used to identify you or that we can link to you. The Policy also elaborates on the choices you can make about the data we collect, and how you can control these decisions.
Please read this Policy carefully to understand how we may collect, use and share your personal information.
The Types of Personal Information We Collect During an Order
We collect information you provide to us during placing an order, such as your name, phone number and email address, billing / delivery address or when you contact our Customer Support team for assistance.
Why we collect: To process sales or assist you with any issues relating to an order.
The Types of Personal Information We Collect When Signing up to any Simpsons Rewards scheme
We collect information you provide when signing up to our in store rewards scheme, such as your name, phone/mobile number and email address, address and date of birth. Please note we currently do not have an operational rewards scheme.
Why we collect: To process your rewards card and to assist you with any issues relating to your rewards card account. We collect your date of birth for future birthday offers. To email or text you updates about your rewards card.
The Types of Personal Information We collect when Booking an Event/Activity
We collect information you provide when booking an event/activity such as your name, phone number and email address, address and any dietary requirements.
Why we collect: To process your booking and to assist you with any issues relating to your booking. Medical information such as dietary requirements are shared with our restaurant team. If you have selected to receive marketing information from us, we will also use this information to contact you by email or text message about relevant events. Data is also used to produce statistics/analytics about our events.
Information we collect automatically
We may collect information about the type of device you use to access our websites, the operating system and version, your IP address, your general geographic location, as indicated by your IP address, your browser type, the web pages you view on our websites, whether you interact with content available on our websites and how. This information is collected via third parties such as Google Analytics and is anonymised.
Why we collect: To produce website usage statistics / analytics.
Comments/Contact forms
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
An anonymised string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service Privacy Policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Media
If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Information obtained from other sources
We may receive information about you from social media platforms, for instance, when you interact with us on those platforms. We protect data obtained from third parties according to the practices described in this Policy and we also apply any additional restrictions imposed by the source of data.
Why we collect: To assist us in responding to a query or keeping you informed.
How We Use Personal Information
Processing Orders: We use the data we collect to process sales, this includes name, email, billing and delivery address. Please note we do not hold credit card details on file.
Customer Support: We use data to respond to customer support enquiries.
Business Operations: We use data to develop aggregate analysis and business intelligence that enables us to operate, protect, make informed decisions, and report on the performance of our business. This processing is necessary to serve our legitimate interest.
Communication, Marketing and Advertising: We use the data we collect to deliver and personalise our communications with you. For example, we may contact you by email, text message or other means of electronic communication to inform you about new Products, Special Offers or News. This processing is necessary to serve our legitimate interest.
How We May Share Personal Information: We do not and will not sell personal information about our customers. We only disclose your data as described in this Policy. We may share information with the following types of third parties.
Third Party Vendors: We use a variety of third-party vendors to carry out services like website management and hosting, online Product purchases and shipping, credit card processing and email communications. We only share your personal data as necessary: to complete a transaction and only with vendors or agents working on our behalf for the purposes described in this Statement. In this case, your personal information will be shared with these agents or contractors.
The Legal Bases for Using Personal Information
There are different legal bases that we rely on to use your personal information, namely:
Performance of a contract: The use of your personal information may be necessary to perform the agreement you have with us. For example, to complete a purchase, to register and maintain your account, for billing delivery issues and to handle returns.
Legitimate interests: We may use your personal information for our legitimate interests. For example, we rely on our legitimate interest to analyse (using tools such as Google Analytics) and improve our website/s.
Security, Storage and Retention of Personal Information
Security: Simpsons is committed to protecting the security of your personal information. However, while we take reasonable precautions to guard the personal information we collect, no security system is impenetrable.
While no Service is completely secure, Simpsons takes precautionary measures to help prevent information about you from loss, theft, misuse and unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration and destruction. For example, we store the personal data you provide on computer systems that have limited access and that are in controlled facilities. We also ensure that our third-party data centre vendors provide adequate security measures.
Storage: Personal data collected by Simpsons may be stored and processed in the UK or where third-party service providers (i.e. Google Analytics) are located / maintain facilities.
Retention: Simpsons will retain your personal information for as long as we deem it necessary to enable you to use our websites, to provide services to you, to comply with applicable laws (including those regarding document retention), resolve disputes with any parties and otherwise as necessary to allow us to conduct our business. All personal information we retain will be subject to this Privacy Statement.
Your Rights and Choices
Your Rights
We want you to be in control of how your personal information is used by us. Subject to local law, you can do this in the following ways:
- you can ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you;
- you can inform us of any changes to your personal information, or if you want us to correct any of the personal information we hold about you;
- in certain situations, you can ask us to erase, block or restrict the personal information we hold about you, or object to particular ways in which we are using your personal information; and
- in certain situations, you can also ask us to send the personal information you have given us to a third party.
You are entitled to receive a copy of your personal data that we may hold and must complete a SAR form to request this. Click HERE to download a SAR form.
Where we are using your personal information on the basis of your consent, you are entitled to withdraw that consent at any time. Moreover, where we process your personal information based on legitimate interest or the public interest, you have the right to object at any time to that use of your personal information.
We rely on you to ensure that your personal information is complete, accurate and up to date. We will respond to your request as soon as possible but certainly within 60 days.
We are committed to working with you to obtain a fair resolution of any complaint or concern you may have about our use of your personal information. If, however, you believe that we have not been able to assist with your complaint or concern, you may have the right to file a complaint with the data protection authority or supervisory authority.
Your Choices
Your Communication, Marketing and Advertising Preferences
You can opt out of receiving direct marketing communications by clicking on the ‘unsubscribe’ button on our email communications. You can also email us at info@simpsonsgc.co.uk at any time to request to be removed from our marketing mailing list.
Please note, regardless of your communication settings, we will continue to communicate with you regarding changes to terms and conditions, policy updates, routine customer service messages such as information about current or past purchase, delivery of products, service interruptions, data breaches or other significant information about a Product you own, such as discontinuation of support or safety issues.
Our Use of Cookies and Other Similar Technologies
We use cookies and similar technologies like pixels, tags and other identifiers to help us personalise our website for you, remember your preferences, understand how users are using our website, and help customise our marketing offerings.
Cookies
A cookie is a small data file containing a string of characters that is sent to your computer when you visit a website. When you visit the website again, the cookie allows that site to recognise your browser. The length of time a cookie will stay on your computer or mobile device depends on whether it is a “persistent” or “session” cookie.
Simpsons uses both types of cookies. Session cookies will only stay on your device until you stop browsing. Persistent cookies stay on your computer or mobile device until they expire or are deleted. We use the following types of cookies on our website.
- Strictly necessary cookies. These cookies are essential for you to browse our website and use its features. Without these cookies, services like shopping baskets cannot be provided.
- Performance cookies. These cookies collect information about how you use our websites. This data may be used to help optimise our website and make it easier for you to navigate.
- Functional cookies. These cookies allow our websites to remember choices you make while browsing and personalise your experience. We may store your geographic location in a cookie for instance, to ensure that we show you the website relevant to your area.
- Third Party cookies. Third party cookies are those placed by websites and/or parties other than Simpsons. These cookies may be used on our website to improve our products or services or to help us provide more relevant advertising. These cookies are subject to the respective privacy policies for these external services, for example, Facebook Data Use Policy.
- Analytics cookies. We use analytics cookies, like those offered by Google Analytics, to help us understand things like how long a visitor stays on our website, what pages they find most useful, and how they arrived at our websites.
How to control Cookie settings
Most web browsers allow you to control cookies through their settings preferences. However, if you limit the ability of websites to set cookies, you may impair your overall user experience, as it will no longer be personalised to you. Some browsers offer a “Do Not Track” (“DNT”) signal where you can indicate your preference regarding tracking and cross-site tracking. Although we do not currently employ technology that recognises DNT signals, we will only process your personal data in accordance with this Statement. Below you can learn about how to control cookie settings on popular web browsers:
- Google Chrome
- Internet explorer
- Safari
- Firefox
Pixels
In addition to cookies, we sometimes use small graphic images known as ‘pixels’ (also known as web beacons, clear GIFs, or pixel tags). We use pixels in our email communications to you (if you have selected to receive such communications) to help us to understand whether our email communication has been viewed. We also use third party pixels (such as those from Google, Facebook, and other advertising networks) to help us provide advertising that is relevant to your interests.
Advertising and Modern Marketing Tools
Simpsons may work with third-party advertisers that use cookies and similar technologies to provide more relevant advertising about our Products on our websites and across the internet. To provide this “interest-based advertising”, parties combine non-personal data about your online activities over time which helps tailor advertising that we deliver to you. Examples of this may include a Simpsons Florists advertisement on a Facebook page, or a Google owned page such as a search results page or YouTube, or on a site within Google’s advertising network.
We do not share your personal information as part of this process. Where necessary, we obtain your consent for this process. At all times, you can opt out of these personalised ads from third-party advertisers and ad networks who are members of the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) or who follow the Digital Advertising Alliance’s Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioural Advertising by visiting the opt-out pages on the NAI websites and DAA websites. Opting out may make the ads you see across the internet less relevant to you.
How to Contact Us
If you have any questions about the use of your personal information, please email info@simpsonsgc.co.uk.
Changes to Our Privacy Policy
Simpsons may modify or update this Policy when necessary. Please review it regularly. When we update this Policy, we will revise the ‘Last Update’ date at the top of the Statement. If there are material changes to the Statement or in how Simpsons uses your personal data, we will inform you either by posting a notice of such changes, prior to them taking place, or by directly sending you a notification. We encourage you to regularly review this Statement to learn more how we are using and protecting your information.
We will update our privacy statement as necessary to ensure that our policies are in line with international regulations, our product and business practices.