WELCOME TO SIMPLICITY LIMITED’S PRIVACY NOTICE
Last updated: 1 September 2023
Purpose of this privacy notice
Simplicity Limited values your privacy and is committed to ensuring that your personal data is protected. Please read this privacy policy carefully as it contains vital information as to who we are and how, and why we collect, store, use, and share your personal data in connection to the use of our website. The privacy policy also explains your rights in relation to your personal data and how to contact us or the supervisory authority in the event you have a complaint.
We collect, use and store certain personal data about you, personal data refers to any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual. As we collect personal data, we are subject to certain data privacy laws. These laws include but are not limited to the following, The UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR).
Controller
Sewdirect.com is provided by Simplicity Limited, we are the controller and responsible for your personal data (referred to as “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy notice) obtained via our website, meaning that Simplicity Limited is the organisation legally responsible for deciding how the data is used and what purpose it is used for. If you have any questions about this privacy notice, including any request to exercise your legal rights, please email sewdirect@dga-intl.com.
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). A complaint can be raised using the details at https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or by telephone at 030 123 1113. We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.
What this policy applies to
Please be aware that this privacy policy relates to the use of our website only. Throughout our website we may provide links to other websites operated by certain trusted third parties, these third-party websites may also gather information about you in accordance with their separate privacy policies. For privacy information relating to those third parties, please refer to their privacy policies as appropriate.
Changes to this policy
We may change this privacy policy from time to time. In the event that we make significant changes to the policy, we will take steps to inform you. Please refer to the date at the top of the page to see when this policy was last updated.
PERSONAL DATA
Personal data we collect about you
The personal data we collect about you depends on how you use our website. We may collect and use the following personal data about you:
- Your activities on and use of our website
- Your account details e.g., username and log in details
- Any delivery addresses specified in your order.
- Billing information, transaction and payment card or other payment method information.
- Your name, address and contact information including email address and telephone number (and company details if applicable).
- Details of any information, transaction and payment card or other payment method information.
- Bank account and payment details.
- Details of any information, feedback or other matters given to us by phone, email, post or via social media.
- Information about the services we provide to you.
- Your contact history, purchase history and saved wishlist items.
- Information about how you use our website and technology systems.
- Your responses to surveys, giveaways, competitions, and promotions.
We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under the age of 13 or collect any special categories of personal data about you (this includes details about 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.
How we collect data
We collect personal data in the following ways:
- Directly, through information you send to us. E.g., when you provide an email address when you create an account.
- Indirectly, through the use of automated technologies or interactions. As you interact through our website, we will automatically collect technical data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We do this through the use of cookies and similar technologies. For more information see our cookie policy.
How and why we use personal data
We may share your personal data with the parties set out below:
- Third parties we use to help deliver our products and or services to you, e.g., delivery companies.
- Other parties we use to help us run our business, e.g., website hosts.
- Other business entities in connection with the sale, assignment, merger or other transfer of all or a portion of the Company’s business to that business entity.
- Subcontractors, agents, or payment service providers (who may be located in the United States) that we contract with to assist us in providing the services, provided that any such subcontractors or agents.
- Regulators and other similar authorities who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.
- Social Media sites, for example if you shop our products via your social media account.
Under data protection law personal data can only be used if we have proper reason e.g.:
- Where we have received your consent
- To comply with legal and regulatory requirements
- For our legitimate interests or those of a third party
- For the performance of a contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract.
A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your personal data, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests.
Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under 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 that we have or are trying to enter with you.
What we use your personal data for
Please see below a table of what we use your personal data for:
| What we use your personal data for | Our reason for using your personal data |
| Creating and managing your account with us | For our legitimate interests. i.e., to be as efficient as possible, therefore providing you with the best service possible.To perform our contract with you or take steps at your request before entering into a contract |
| Providing products and or services | To perform our contract with you or take steps at your request before entering a contract |
| Enforcing legal rights or defend and undertake legal proceedings | Depending on the circumstances:To comply with our legal and regulatory obligationsFor our legitimate interests. i.e., to protect our business, interests, and rights. |
| Updating and enhancing our customer records | To perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract.To comply with our legal and regulatory obligationsFor our legitimate interests. I.e., making sure we can keep in touch with our customers about new products and existing orders. |
| Marketing our services to existing and former customers | For our legitimate interests, i.e., to promote our business to existing and former customers. |
| Communications with you not related to marketing e.g., to inform you of changes to our policies | For our legitimate interests. i.e., to be as efficient as possible, therefore providing you with the best service possible. |
| Customising our website and its content to your particular preferences based on a record of your selected presences on your use of our website. | Depending on the circumstances:Your consent as gathered by cookies and other tracking technologies.Where we are not required to obtain your consent and do not do so, for our legitimate interests i.e., to be as efficient as possible, therefore providing you with the best service possible. You may withdraw your consent at anytime by changing the settings on the cookie tool, (please see the cookie policy for more detail). This will not affect the lawfulness of our use of your personal data in reliance on that consent before it was withdrawn. |
| Disclosures and other activities necessary to comply with legal and regulatory obligations that apply to our business. | To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. |
| Statistical Analysis to help us understand our customer base | For our legitimate interests. i.e., to be as efficient as possible, therefore providing you with the best service possible. |
| Retaining and evaluating information on your recent visit to our website and how you interact with different sections of the website, for analytics purposes. This is used to understand how people use our website to improve our website or make sure it is working as intended. | Depending on the circumstances:Your consent as gathered by cookies and other tracking technologies.Where we are not required to obtain your consent and do not do so, for our legitimate interests i.e., to be as efficient as possible, therefore providing you with the best service possible. You may withdraw your consent at any time by changing the settings on the cookie tool, (please see the cookie policy). This will not affect the lawfulness of our use of your personal data in reliance on that consent before it was withdrawn. |
Marketing
We will use your personal data to send you updates (by email) about our products, including exclusive offers, promotions, or new products and or services. For Sew Today VIP membership subscribers we also need to send you updates (by email) relating to your subscription benefits and status. We have a legitimate interest in using your personal data for marketing purposes. This means that we do not usually require your consent to send you marketing information. We will inform you if there are any changes in our marketing approach in the future.
You have the right to opt out of receiving marketing communications at any time by:
- Via the unsubscribe link at the end of every email we send you. Please note: unsubscribing from a Sew Today VIP membership email will not terminate your subscription.*
- Contacting us at sewdirect@dga-intl.com
*You have the right to cancel your VIP Membership at any time by:
- Cancelling within the Sew Today area of My Account
- Contacting us at sewdirect@dga-intl.com
- Contacting your bank to end your Direct Debit
We may ask you to confirm or update your marketing preferences if you ask us to provide further products and or services in the future, or if there are any changes in the law, regulation, or structure of our business.
We will ensure that your personal data obtained from marketing is treated with the utmost respect and never sell or share it with other organisations outside of Simplicity Limited for marketing purposes.
Change of purpose
We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which it was collected, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose.
In the event that we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and 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 by law.
Who we share your personal data with
There may be instances when we disclose your personal information to other parties:
- To comply with the law or respond to compulsory legal process (such as a search warrant or court order) or request for information from a regulator or otherwise for legal purposes.
- To verify or enforce compliance with the policies governing the services; or
- To protect the rights, property, or safety of the Company, or any of our respective affiliates, business partners, or customers or otherwise in the legitimate business interests of the Company and/or our affiliates and in accordance with Data Privacy Laws.
In any instance where we need to share your personal information with third parties, we will restrict the nature and categories of personal information to that which is required to comply with our contractual obligations to you or our legal and/or regulatory requirements. We may also de-identify your personal information to protect your privacy.
We also require third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. Third party service providers are not allowed to use personal data for their own purposes, and they are only permitted to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.
International transfers
The data that we collect from you may be transferred to and stored by us in Australia or the United States.
Your data may be processed by staff operating in Australia who work for us or one of our suppliers. Staff may be engaged in, amongst other things, the fulfilment of your order, the processing of your payment details and the provision of support services.
We may also disclose your personal information to our subcontractors, agents, or payment service providers (some of whom are located in the United States) that we contract with to assist us in providing the services. Such as our newsletter marketing software which stores your data in their US based servers.
Whenever we transfer your data to another country, we ensure that a similar degree of protection is afforded to it, by ensuring that subcontractors or agents agree in writing to comply with the privacy and security standards described in this privacy notice.
Information access
Customers may view, correct, or edit certain parts of the personal information previously provided to us by clicking on the My Account button found our homepage and updating their user and contact information.
Data retention
We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected, this includes retaining information for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period of time in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.
We retain your personal data for seven years after the customer account is closed for legal, regulatory, audit and tax requirements. After this period has expired, the personal information relating to your account and your use of the services will be deleted. Any personal information which you have provided to us for marketing purposes will be kept until you notify us that you no longer wish to receive this information.
Your rights
You generally have the following rights, which can usually be exercised free of charge:
- The right to access a copy of your personal data.
- The right to require us to delete your personal data.
- The right to require us to restrict use of your personal data in certain circumstances.
- The right to require us to correct any mistakes in your personal data.
- The right to receive personal data provided to us in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format, and/or transmit that data to a third party.
- The right to withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data.
- The right to object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is a something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts your fundamental rights and freedoms.
- The right to not be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (including profiling that) that produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you (we do not make such decisions based on data collected by our website).
In the event you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us at sewdirect@dga-intl.com.
Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
When contacting us please provide us with the following information:
- Name
- Full address
- Customer or matter reference number
- Any additional identity information we may request from you
- Let us know which rights you want to exercise and the information to which your request relates.
Data security
We have implemented appropriate security measures to prevent personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorized way, altered or disclosed. We limit access to your personal data to those who have a genuine need to access it.
We have also placed procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and we will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.
WHAT THIS POLICY APPLIES TO
Please be aware that this cookie policy relates to the use of our website only. Throughout our website we may provide links to other websites operated by certain trusted third parties, these third-party websites may also gather information about you in accordance with their separate cookie policies. For privacy information relating to those third parties please refer to their policies as appropriate.
COOKIES
A cookie is a small text file which is placed onto your device when you use our website if you agree. We use these cookies to help us recognise you and your device and store some information about your preferences or past actions, this helps us to improve your experience on our website and allows us to improve our website.
We will ask for your consent to place cookies or other similar technologies on your device, except where they are essential for us to provide you with a service that you have requested e.g., cookies used to save items into your shopping basket.
You can withdraw consent to the use of cookies or manage any other cookie preferences by reopening the cookies pop-up at the bottom of any page on our site. It may be necessary to refresh the page to enforce the changes.
CHANGES TO THIS POLICY
We may change this cookie policy from time to time, when we make significant changes, we will take steps to inform you. Please refer to the date at the top of the page to see when this policy was last updated.
OUR USE OF COOKIES
The table below provides more information about the cookies we use.
| Host | Cookie Name | Purpose | Expiry Duration (Days) |
| sewdirect.com | _dc_gtm_UA-xxxxxxxx | This cookie is associated with sites using Google Tag Manager to load other scripts and code into a page. without it, other scripts may not function correctly. | Never Expires |
| sewdirect.com | _hjSessionUser_xxxxxx | Hotjar cookie that is set when a user first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the Hotjar User ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behaviour in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID. | 364 |
| sewdirect.com | _gid | This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics. This appears to be a new cookie and as of Spring 2017 no information is available from Google. It appears to store and update a unique value for each page visited. Gid | Never Expires |
| sewdirect.com | _hjSession_xxxxxx | A cookie that holds the current session data. This ensures that subsequent requests within the session window will be attributed to the same Hotjar session. | Never Expires |
| sewdirect.com | _hjFirstSeen | Identifies a new user’s first session on a website, indicating whether Hotjar’s seeing this user for the first time. | Never Expires |
| sewdirect.com | _hjTLDTest | When the Hotjar script executes we try to determine the most generic cookie path we should use, instead of the page hostname. This is done so that cookies can be shared across subdomains (where applicable). To determine this, we try to store the _hjTLDTest cookie for different URL substring alternatives until it fails. After this check, the cookie is removed. | Never Expires |
| sewdirect.com | _hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress | This cookie is used by HotJar to detect the first pageview session of a user. This is a True/False flag set by the cookie. | Never Expires |
| sewdirect.com | _ga | This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics – which is a significant update to Google’s more commonly used analytics service. This cookie is used to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier. It is included in each page request in a site and used to calculate visitor, session and campaign data for the site’s analytics reports. By default it is set to expire after 2 years, although this is customisable by website owners._ga | 729 |
| sewdirect.com | _ga_xxxxxxx | As above | 729 |
| sewdirect.com | _pin_unauth | This cookie is associated with Pinterest. It is used to track the usage of services. | 364 |
| sewdirect.com | _gat_gtag_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx | Google Analytics | Never Expires |
| sewdirect.com | _fbp | Used by Facebook to deliver a series of advertisement products such as real time bidding from third party advertisers | 89 |
| www.facebook.com | This domain is owned by Facebook, which is the world’s largest social networking service. As a third-party host provider, it mostly collects data on the interests of users via widgets such as the ‘Like’ button found on many websites. This is used to serve targeted advertising to its users when logged into its services. In 2014 it also started serving up behaviourally targeted advertising on other websites, like most dedicated online marketing companies. | Never Expires | |
| sewdirect.com | _hjIncludedInSessionSample_1371629 | Set to determine if a user is included in the Hot Jar data sampling, defined by your site’s daily session limit. Returns a true/false value. Facilitates Hot Jar site-use heatmap. | Never Expires |
| ct.pinterest.com | _pinterest_ct_ua | These cookies allow users to share pictures via Pinterest / the “Pin It” button, and Pinterest can collect statistical information about usage of their service. | 364 |
| www.google.com | _GRECAPTCHA | This is a functional cookie to provide spam protection. It is executed for the purpose of providing risk analysis and asks the user to complete a visual challenge. | 179 |
Third party access to cookies
The cookies that we use will only be accessible to us and the third parties named in the table above or in the cookie policy. These cookies will not be accessed by any other third party.
How to turn off cookies
You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. Please be aware that doing so may cause certain parts of this websites to become inaccessible or function incorrectly.
For more information on cookies and how to disable them please go to the following websites:
CONTACT DETAILS
Please use our contact details below, if you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you, to exercise a right under data protection law or to make a complaint.
Trading Name: Simplicity Limited
Trading Address: PO Box 367, Stockport, SK5 7WZ
Registration Number: 1157363
Phone Number: 0344 880 1263 (9am-4pm Monday-Thursday, 9am-1pm Friday)
Email Address: sewdirect@dga-intl.com