Privacy Policy
We, at Special Plants, are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy provides an overview of the data we collect, hold and use as a result of all communications, electronic, postal or verbal between you and Special Plants.
We may change this Policy from time to time so please check this page occasionally to ensure that you’re happy with any changes. By continuing to use our website, you are agreeing to be bound by this Policy.
Any questions regarding this Policy and our privacy practices should be sent by email or post to the Data Controller at Special Plants as per the contact details at the end of this document.
Who are we?
Special Plants is a garden, nursery and online seed shop run by Derry Watkins near Bath in Southwest England.
How do we collect information from you?
We obtain information about you when you use our website, when you contact us about our products and services, when you attend any of our courses or talks or if you register to receive our newsletters and catalogues.
What type of information is collected from you?
The personal information we collect may include your name, shipping and billing address, email address, IP address, and information regarding what pages are accessed and when.
If you purchase a product from us, your card information is not held by us, it is collected by our third party payment processors, who specialise in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions, as explained below.
We do not collect location information from your device, information on the apps and settings of your device nor recordings of your voice.
Information from third-party sources
We do not solicit, or combine, information received about you from publicly or commercial sources or from third party social networking services.
How is your information used?
We may use the information we collect:
• to enable us to fulfil our obligations under any request by you for provision of our products or services;
• to notify you of changes to our products or services;
• to send you communications which you have requested or that may be of interest to you. These may include information about new seeds and plants, courses, presentations and activities and promotions of gardening related events;
• to seek your views or comments on the services we provide;
• to process a grant or job application.
• to enable business monitoring and internal record keeping
• to comply with our legal obligations.
Data Retention
We will hold your personal information on our systems for only as long as is necessary for the relevant activity, or as long as is set out in any relevant contract you hold with us. We review our retention periods for personal information on a regular basis. Currently, customer accounts inactive for 5 years or more are removed.
Who has access to your information?
We will not disclose your information to third parties for their own independent marketing or business purposes. However, we may disclose your information to the following entities:
Third Party Service Providers working on our behalf: We may disclose your information to companies that provide services for or on our behalf, such as companies that send mail-outs or emails on our behalf. These entities are limited in their ability to use your information for purposes other than that of providing services for us.
When you are using our secure online payments pages, your payment is processed by a third party payment processor, who specialises in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions. If you have any questions regarding these secure transactions, please contact us.
Other Parties: We may transfer your personal information to a third party as part of a sale of some or all of our business and assets to any third party or as part of any business restructuring or reorganisation, or if we’re under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation or to enforce or apply our terms of use or to protect the rights, property or safety of our supporters and customers. However, we will take steps with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected.
Your choices
You have a choice about whether or not you wish to receive information from us. If you do not want to receive direct marketing communications from us about our exciting products and services, then you can select your preferences by ticking the relevant boxes situated on the form on which we collect your information.
We will not contact you for marketing purposes by email, phone or text message unless you have given your prior consent. We will not contact you for marketing purposes by post if you have indicated that you do not wish to be contacted. You can manage your preferences by accessing your Account, at any time convenient to you, and resetting your preferences or by contacting our Data Protection Officer at our address. In addition, if you receive direct marketing from us by email, you will be offered the opportunity to unsubscribe from such communications. If you do change your preferences, we will retain your Personal Data on our database(s) but we will note your changed preferences and will follow them for the purpose of direct marketing as soon as reasonably possible.
How you can access and update your information
The accuracy of your information is important to us. If you change email address, or if any of the other information we hold for you is inaccurate or out of date, please log into your Account on our website and correct this data. Or write to our Data Controller at our office address. We will correct or update any information about you as soon as reasonably possible.
You have the right to request a copy of the Personal Data we hold about you. We will action your request promptly and by no later than 30 days from receipt of any such request. We may charge a reasonable fee for dealing with your request which we will notify to you. All requests should be directed to the Data Controller at our office address
Security precautions in place to protect the loss, misuse or alteration of your information
When you give us personal information, we take steps to ensure that it’s treated securely. Any sensitive information (such as credit or debit card details) is encrypted and protected. When you are on a secure page, a lock icon will appear in the address bar in your web browser.
Non-sensitive details (your email address etc.) are transmitted normally over the Internet, and this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your information, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems. Where we have given (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our websites, you are responsible for keeping this password secure and confidential.
Profiling
We may analyse your personal information to create a profile of your interests and preferences so that we can contact you with information relevant to you. We may also use your personal information to detect and reduce fraud and credit risk.
Use of 'cookies'
Like many other websites, our website uses cookies. 'Cookies' are small pieces of information sent by an organisation to your computer and stored on your hard drive to allow that website to recognise you when you visit. They collect statistical data about your browsing actions and patterns but do not identify you as an individual. For example, we use cookies to retain your shopping basket active for up to 7 days. This helps us to improve our website and deliver a better more personalised service.
When you use a web browser to access our website you can configure your browser to accept all cookies, reject all cookies, or notify you when a cookie is sent. Each browser is different, so check the “Help” menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.
Please note, however, that some of our Services may be designed to work using cookies and that disabling cookies may affect your ability to use those Services, or certain parts of them.
Links to other websites
Our website may contain links to websites run by other organisations. This privacy policy applies only to our website‚ so we encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other sites even if you access them using links from our website. In addition, if you linked to our website from a third party site, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of the owners and operators of that third party site and recommend that you check the policy of that third party.
Transferring your information outside of Europe
The data that we collect from you is held and processed within the UK. However, we may use services for support and communication with our customers that use internet based applications based outside the European Economic Area .
If you use our services while you are outside the EU, your information may be transferred outside the EU in order to provide you with those services.
Review of this Policy
This Policy was last updated in April 2018.
Data Controller
Email: derry@specialplants.net
Telephone: 01225 891 686
Special Plants
Greenways Lane
Cold Ashton
Wiltshire, UK
SN14 8LA