Privacy Policy

Purpose of this privacy notice

This privacy notice aims to give you information on how DotcomBlinds Ltd (DotcomBlinds) collects and processes your personal data when you interact with us, including any data you may provide to us.

Our site, DotcomBlinds, is intended to be used for the research and transaction of business to consumers looking to purchase blinds and other shading or privacy systems, as such it is not intended for minors and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.

It is important that you read this privacy notice together with any other privacy notice or fair processing notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data.

This privacy notice supplements the other notices and is not intended to override them.

DotcomBlinds is the controller and responsible for your personal data (also referred to as "we", "us" or "our" in this privacy notice).

We have appointed a data protection advisor who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please email them to [email protected].

Our full details are:

DotcomBlinds, Unit 10 Enterprise Way, Wickford, Essex, United Kingdom, SS11 8DH.
Company Number 10448566
Email address: [email protected]  
Tel: 0800 1422417

Our website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit. These links may include YouTube as well as Social Media networks such as Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram and Google+.

We use Klarna as the provider of our checkout. This means that we might transfer your personal data in the form of contact and order details to Klarna when the checkout is loaded, in order for Klarna to manage your purchase. Your personal data transferred is processed in line with Klarna’s own privacy notice.

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

Identity Data includes first name, last name, username or similar identifier, title.
Contact Data includes billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers.
Financial Data includes payment terms. No credit card information is collected or stored.
Transaction Data includes details about payments to and from you along with any other products you have purchased from us.
Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and the devices you use to access our website.
Profile Data includes your username and password, purchases or orders made by you.
Usage Data includes information about how you use our website, products and services.
Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and your communication preferences.

We do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, 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.

We value and respect you, your business and your personal data and therefore would like to assure you that we do not, have not and will never sell or pass your details to third parties for remarketing purposes.

Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the 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 we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with goods or services). In this case, we may have to cancel a product or service you have with us but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

You may give us your Identity, Contact and Financial Data by filling in forms, by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:

- create a customer account with us;
- purchase a product online, by email, or by phone;
- subscribe to our newsletter;
- request marketing material and samples to be sent to you;
- enter a competition, promotion or survey;
- interact with us on social media; or
- provide us with feedback.

As you interact with our website, we may automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies.

We may receive personal data about you from various third parties and public sources as set out below:

- Technical Data from the following parties: analytics providers;
- Contact, Financial and Transaction Data from providers of technical, payment and delivery services.
- Identity and Contact Data from data brokers or aggregators.

We use Hotjar in order to better understand our users’ needs and to optimize this service and experience. Hotjar is a technology service that helps us better understand our users' experience (e.g. how much time they spend on which pages, which links they choose to click, what users do and don’t like, etc.) and this enables us to build and maintain our service with user feedback. Hotjar uses cookies and other technologies to collect data on our users’ behavior and their devices (in particular device's IP address (captured and stored only in anonymized form), device screen size, device type (unique device identifiers), browser information, geographic location (country only), preferred language used to display our website). Hotjar stores this information in a pseudonymized user profile. Neither Hotjar nor we will ever use this information to identify individual users or to match it with further data on an individual user. For further details, please see Hotjar’s privacy policy by clicking on this link.

You can opt-out to the creation of a user profile, Hotjar’s storing of data about your usage of our site and Hotjar’s use of tracking cookies on other websites by following this opt-out link.

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

- Where we need to perform the contract, we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
- Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
- Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.
- Where you have consented for us to do so.

You have the right to withdraw consent to receive marketing material at any time by contacting us at [email protected].

Purposes for which we will use your personal data

We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.

Note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us at [email protected] if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.

We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal data uses, particularly around marketing and advertising. 

We combine the data we have about you to offer you promotions, products and services that are most likely to interest you. The data privacy law allows this as part of our legitimate interest in understanding our customers and providing the highest levels of service.

We offer regular emails to let you know about any promotions that may be running along with any new products that we have introduced into our ranges.

Your consent to marketing emails and your email address are never shared outside of DotcomBlinds and you can unsubscribe at any stage by clicking on the unsubscribe link in any marketing email you have received from us.

We may use your Identity, Contact, Technical, Usage and Profile Data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which products, services and offers may berelevantforyou(we call this marketing).

You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us or purchased goods or services from us or if you provided us with your details when you registered, you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.

You can ask us to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by contacting us at [email protected] or clicking on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any marketing email.

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of our website may become inaccessible or not function properly.

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose.

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will 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 or permitted by law.

We may have to share your personal data with external third parties for the purposes set out in the table displayed within “Purposes for which we will use your personal data”.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

We use a third-party provider, Hootsuite to manage our social media interactions.

We use a third-party provider, MailChimp, to deliver our electronic mail content. We gather statistics around email opening and clicks using industry standard technologies including clear gifs to help us monitor and improve our services. For more information, please see MailChimp’s statement regarding GDPR.

We use a third-party provider, Zendesk, to supply and support our LiveChat service, which we use to handle customer enquiries in real time.
When you use the LiveChat service we will collect your name, email address (optional) and the contents of your LiveChat session.
You can request a transcript of your LiveChat session if you provide your email address at the start of your session or when prompted at the end.

Limited personal data will be shared with Royal Mail, Tuffnells Parcel Express, Maxoptra and from time to time alternative courier businesses depending on the need of the business in order to make delivery of goods purchased.

A minority of our external third parties are based outside the European Economic Area (EEA) so their processing of your personal data will involve a transfer of data outside the EEA.

Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

- We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the European Commission.
- Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved by the European Commission which give personal data the same protection it has in Europe.
- Where we use providers based in the US, we may transfer data to them if they are part of the Privacy Shield which requires them to provide similar protection to personal data shared between Europe and the US.

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

How long will you use my personal data for?

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.
To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

Details of retention periods for different aspects of your personal data can be requested from us by contacting us at [email protected].
In some circumstances, we may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

You have the right to:

Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.

Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.

Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.

Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.

Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data's accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.

Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.

Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

No fee usually required. You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

Legitimate Interest means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service/product and the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us at [email protected].  

Performance of Contract means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.
Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject to.

You have the right to:

Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data's accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.