We are committed to safeguarding the privacy of our website visitors; this policy sets out how we will treat your personal information.

Personal information is information that you provide to us which personally identifies you, such as your name or email address, or other data which can be reasonably linked to such information by Choc Lit Limited. We use ‘personal data’ and ‘personal information’ interchangeably in this Privacy Policy.

We want you to be able to take part fully in our website and marketing activities and offers whilst ensuring that, where we collect personal information about you, we do so in a way that does not infringe your right to privacy.

In the event that we intend to disclose your personal information to a third party, we will say so when the information is collected and you will be able to say that you do not want us to do this.

 1. Who are we?

This website is owned and operated by Choc Lit Limited, the publisher that owns the imprints of Choc Lit and Ruby Fiction. Trademark registered in England No. 6933599.

If you have any questions about this website or our Privacy Policy, please contact us:

By post: Choc Lit Limited
Penrose House
Crawley Drive
Camberley
Surrey
GU15 2AB
England

By email: info@choc-lit.co.uk

2.  What personal information do we collect?

We may collect, store and use the following kinds of personal data:

a) information about your computer and about your visits to and use of this website (including your IP address, geographical location, browser type, referral source, date/time/length of visit and number of page views);

b) information relating to any transactions carried out between you and us on or in relation to this website, including information relating to any purchases you make of our goods or services, such as our books, ebooks, gifts and writers’ packages (including your name, email address, delivery address and any personal message where supplied by yourself);

c) information relating to any transactions carried out between you and websites affiliated with our website such as payment portals, IT delivery services. We offer some of our services in connection with other websites and personal information that you provide to those websites may be sent to us in order for us to deliver our service. We process such information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. The affiliated sites may have different privacy practices and we encourage you to read their privacy policies;

d) information that you provide to us for the purpose of subscribing to our website services, email notifications and/or newsletters (including your email address and personal preferences);

e) information that you provide to us when you enter competitions (including your name, email address and residential address). If you win, we will let you know and send you your prize. We will also communicate this to other people, (such as other users of our website, the public and our own employees). We will only  use your Christian name and where given, locality to publicise our competitions and winners;

f) information that you provide to us when you give a book review or rating (including your name and email address). Email addresses will not be stored or publicised for book reveiws;

g) information that you provide to us for the purpose of registering as a writer and managing your account with us (including your name, your pen name, your email address, the title of your novel and the name/description of your novel and synopsis); and

h) any other information that you choose to send to us which can be reasonably linked to you personally.

i) other publicly available personal data, including any which you have shared with us via a public platform (such as a Twitter feed or public Facebook page).

3. How long do we keep your data?

We will not retain your data for longer than necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. Different retention periods apply for different types of data.  However, for any goods and services bought, the longest we normally hold your personal data is seven years.

4. How do we use cookies?

A cookie consists of information sent by a web server to a web browser, and stored by the browser. The information is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. This enables the web server to identify and track the web browser.

We may use both “session” cookies and “persistent” cookies on the website.  We will use the session cookies to: keep track of you whilst you navigate the website; and assist us with the future development of our website. We will use the persistent cookies to: enable our website to recognise you when you visit; and present to you the most relevant information in line with your personal preferences.

Cookies do not identify you personally – just the presence of your browser. Session cookies will be deleted from your computer when you close your browser.  Persistent cookies will remain stored on your computer until deleted, or until they reach a specified expiry date.

We use 1 and 1 Web Statistics to analyse the use of this website. Web Statistics generates statistical and other information about website use by means of cookies, which are stored on users’ computers.  The information generated relating to our website is used to create reports about the use of the website. 1 and 1 will store this information. 1 and 1’s Privacy Policy is available at:
https://order.1and1.co.uk/xml/order/PrivacyPolicy

Our payment services and data storage provider may also send you cookies.

Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies.  (For example, in Internet Explorer you can refuse all cookies by clicking “Tools”, “Internet Options”, “Privacy”, and selecting “Block all cookies” using the sliding selector.)  This will, however, have a negative impact upon the usability of many websites, including this one.

5. How do we use your personal data?

Personal data submitted on this website will be used for the purposes specified in this Privacy Policy or in relevant parts of the website.

We may use your personal information to:

a) administer the website;

b) improve your browsing experience by personalising the website;

c) enable your use of the services available on the website;

d) send to you goods purchased via the website, and supply to you services purchased via the website;

e) send statements and invoices to you, and collect payments from you. All transactions are securely handled by PayPal and we do not have access to your personal financial details;

f) send you general (non-marketing) commercial communications;

g) send you email notifications which you have specifically requested;

h) send to you our newsletter and other marketing communications relating to our business or the businesses of carefully-selected third parties which we think may be of interest to you, where you have specifically agreed to this, by email or similar technology (you can inform us at any time if you no longer require marketing communications);

i) provide third parties with statistical information about our users – but this information will not be used to identify any individual user;

j) deal with enquiries and complaints made by or about you relating to the website;

k) inform any decision we make to restrict access to areas of our website or indeed refuse access to our whole website; and

l) send you prizes or information relating to a prize that you have won.

Where you submit personal information for publication on our website, we will publish and otherwise use that information in accordance with the licence you grant to us.

We will not without your express consent provide your personal information to any third parties for the purpose of direct marketing.

All our website financial transactions are handled through our payment services provider, PayPal. You should only provide your personal information to PayPal after reviewing the PayPal Privacy Policy (available at www.paypal.com). We will share information with PayPal only to the extent necessary for the purposes of processing orders you make via our website. When you add a personal message to an order, your message will be printed by us on a gift card that is part of the dispatch stationery. This is positioned in the packaging so that the message cannot be read during transit.

All personal information collected for our email marketing communications is held by Malichimp. We use MailChimp as our marketing automation platform. While your email address remains within the Mailchimp database, you will receive emails from us. We do not share this data with any third party organisations other than the database held at Mailchimp for our use.   Emails are created by our in-house team. You may unsubscribe from our email list at any time using the unsubscribe link contained in all our emails.  You can read more about MailChimp processing and security in accordance with their Privacy Policy and Terms.

6. Disclosures

We may disclose information about you to any of our employees, officers, agents, suppliers or subcontractors insofar as reasonably necessary for the purposes as set out in this Privacy Policy.

In addition, we may disclose information about you:

a) to the extent that we are required to do so by law;

b) in connection with any legal proceedings or prospective legal proceedings;

c) in order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights (including providing information to others for the purposes of fraud prevention and reducing credit risk); and

d) to the purchaser (or prospective purchaser) of any business or asset which we are (or are contemplating) selling.

Except as provided in this Privacy Policy, we will not provide your information to third parties.

7. International data transfers

Information that we collect may be stored and processed in and transferred between any of the countries in which we operate in order to enable us to use the information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

If you are in the European Economic Area (EEA), information which you provide may be transferred to countries including the United States (US) which do not have data protection laws equivalent to those in force in the EEA. Many US websites adhere to the US Safe Harbor Privacy Principles and are registered with the US Department of Commerce’s Safe Harbor Program.

In addition, personal information that you submit for publication on the website will be published on the internet and may be available, via the internet, around the world.

You expressly agree to such transfers of personal information.

8. Security of your personal data

We will take reasonable technical and organisational precautions to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your personal information.

We will store all the personal information you provide on our secure (password- and firewall- protected) servers. All electronic transactions you make to or receive from us will be encrypted using SSL technology.

Of course, data transmission over the internet is inherently insecure, and we cannot guarantee the security of data sent over the internet.

You are responsible for keeping your password and user details confidential. We will not ask you for your password.

9. Policy amendments

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time by posting this to a new version on our website.  You should check this page occasionally to ensure you are happy with any changes. Any changes will not apply to any visits or transactions undertaken by you prior to these changes becoming effective.

We will also notify you of changes to our Privacy Policy by email.

10. Your rights

You may instruct us to provide you with any personal information we hold about you, please email info@choc-lit.co.uk and our Data Protection Officer will be in touch.

You may instruct us not to process your personal data for marketing purposes by email at any time.  (In practice, you will usually either expressly agree in advance to opt-in to our use of your personal data for marketing purposes, or we will provide you with an opportunity to opt-out of the use of your personal data for marketing purposes.)

11. Third party websites

The website contains links to other websites. We are not responsible for the privacy policies or practices of third party websites.

12. Updating information

Please let us know if the personal information which we hold about you needs to be corrected or updated.

13. Contact

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our treatment of your personal data, please contact us:

By post:
Data Protection Officer
Choc Lit Limited
Penrose House
Crawley Drive
Camberley
Surrey
GU15 2AB
England
By email: info@choc-lit.co.uk

23 May 2018
Ref. CLPP02