Privacy Policy

Last updated: [22/11/2023]

This Privacy Policy describes how Hand Forged (herein referred to as "we", "us", "our" and the "site") collects, uses, and discloses your personal information when you visit, use our services, or make a purchase from handforged.co.uk or otherwise communicate with us (referred to collectively as the "Services").

For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, "you" and "your" refers to you as the user of the Services, either as a customer, website visitor, or another individual whose information we have collected pursuant to this Privacy Policy.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. By using and accessing any of the Services, you agree to the collection, use, and disclosure of your information as described in this Privacy Policy.

If you do not agree to this Privacy Policy, please do not use or access any of our Services.

At Hand Forged, we take your privacy seriously and continue to invest in security, doing our utmost to protect all our users' privacy.

For the purpose of General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), we are the data controller and any enquiry regarding the collection or processing of your data should be addressed to: Data Privacy Office, Hand Forged, 3 Walled Garden, Knill, Presteigne, LD8 2PR.

From time to time, we may update this Privacy Policy for various operational, legal, or regulatory reasons.

The revised and most updated version of our Privacy Policy will always be posted to this page on our site. The "Last updated" section at the top of this page will be updated corresponding to the most recent revision, and any other necessary steps will be taken as required by law.

To allow us to improve, enhance, and maintain our Services, we collect data and information from you through a variety of sources as outlined below. The information that we collect from you depends on how you interact with us.

In addition to the specific uses outlined below, we may use information we collect about you to send communications, provide our Services, comply with legal obligations, enforce Terms of Service, and to protect or defend the Services, our rights, and the rights of our users.

"Personal Information" refers to information that identifies, relates to, describes, or can be associated with you as an individual.

This can include identifiers such as basic contact details and certain account/order information. It can also include commercial information like order information, shopping information and customer support information, alongside internet or other similar network activity like data usage.

The personal information we collect from you depends on how you interact with our site and use our Services.

The following sections outline what types of information we may collect from you and the ways in which we collect it.

This is information which you directly submit to us through our Services. This may include;

- Basic contact details: this may include your name, address, phone number, and email.

- Order Information: this may include your name, billing address, shipping address, payment confirmation, email address, and phone number.

- Account Information: this may include your username, password, and security questions.

- Shopping Information: this my include the items you view, add to your cart, or favourite on your wishlist.

- Customer Support Information: this includes any information you choose to include in communications with us, such as when sending a message through the services.

Some features of our Services may ask you to directly provide information about yourself. You are under no obligation to provide such information, but by refusing to do so, your access to these features may be limited.

Our Services may enable you to post product reviews and other user-generated content. If you choose to submit user-generated content to any public area of the Services, please be aware that this content will be public and accessible to all.

We do not control who will have access to the information that you choose to make available to others, and cannot ensure that parties who have access to such information will respect your privacy or keep it secure. We are not responsible for the privacy or security of any information that you make publicly available, or for the accuracy, use, or misuse of any information that you disclose or receive from third parties.

When you visit and interact with our website or use our Services, we automatically collect certain information about your experience (called "Usage Data").

We do this using small files called "Cookies" and similar technologies.

The type of information we collect includes behaviour (how you access and use our site), device information, browser information, network connection, IP address and other information.

We use the information obtained from cookies to power and improve out Site and Services (e.g., remembering your actions and preferences), to run analytics and better understand user interaction with the Services (in our legitimate interests to administer, improve, and optimise the Services). We may also permit third parties and services providers to use cookies on our Site to better tailor the services, products , and advertising on our site and on other websites.

Most browsers automatically accept cookies as default, but you can choose to set your browser to remove or reject cookies through your browser controls. Please keep in mind that disabling cookies can impair your experience on this site and may limit the functionality of certain features or cause them to not work at all. Additionally, blocking cookies may not completely prevent how we share information with third parties such as our advertising partners.

We use the following cookies on our website:

_cmp_a : used by Shopify to manage customer privacy settings from the Consent Management Platform (CMP).

_ga : used by Google Analytics to assign randomly generated numbers to users to calculate anonymous visitor, session, and campaign data for analytics reports.

_ga_0TTZ0FKDW2 : used by Google Analytics to persist session state.

_ga_V8NHLK0KKV : used by Google Analytics to persist session state.

_gcl_au : used by Google AdSense for experimenting with advertisement efficiency across websites using their services.

_landing_page : used to track, report, and analyse on landing pages.

_orig_referrer : used by Shopify in connection with a shopping part.

_shopify_s : used by Shopify's analytics suite.

_shopify_y : used by Shopify's analytics suite.

cart_currency : used to recognise the user's country of origin and populate the correct transaction currency.

cookieconsent_preferences_disabled : used to store the user's cookie consent preferences for the current domain.

IDE : used by Google's DoubleClick to collect information about how users interact with the website and any advertisements the user may have seen before visiting the website.

keep_alive : used by Shopify in connection with localization to process purchase requests.

localization : used on pages with the Flickr widget to track usage of photo galleries embedded by Flickr.

secure_customer_sig : used by Shopify for customer logins.

test_cookie : used by Google's DoubleClick to determine if the website visitor's browser supports cookies.

We may obtain certain information about you from third parties, including from vendors and service providers who may collect information on our behalf, such as:

- Companies who support out Site and Services, such as Shopify.

- Our payment processors, who collect payment information (e.g., bank account, credit or debit card information, billing address) to process your payment in order to fulfil your orders and provide you with products or services you have requested to fulfil our contractual obligation to you.

- When you visit our Site, open or click on emails we send you, or interact with our Services or advertisements, we, or third parties we work with, may automatically collect certain information using online tracking technologies such as pixels, web beacons, software developer kits, third-party libraries, and cookies.

Any information we obtain from third parties will be treated in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

We cannot be held responsible or liable for the accuracy of the information provided to use by third parties, and are not responsible for any third party's policies or practices.

- Providing Products & Services: your personal information is essential for us to be able to fulfil our legal duty when you place an order with us. This includes processing payments, fulfilling orders, sending delivery updates, informing you about purchases, returns, exchanges, or other transaction, to create, maintain and manage your account, to arrange for shipping, to facilitate returns and exchanges, and to enable you to post reviews.

- Marketing & Advertising: with your consent, we use your personal information for marketing and promotional services by sharing communications about our products and services via email, text message and post.

- Security & Fraud Prevention: we use your personal data to detect, investigate, and, where necessary, take action regarding possible fraudulent, illegal, or malicious activity. If you choose to use our Services and register an account, it is your personal responsibility to keep your credentials safe. We highly recommend that you do not share your username, password or any other access details with anyone else. If you believe your account has been compromised, please contact us immediately.

- Communicating With You: we use your personal information to provide you with customer support and to improve our Services. This is in our legitimate interests to enable us to provide the best service possible and to maintain our business relationship with you.

We use Shopify to create and send our emails. You can read Shopify's full Privacy Policy on their website.

If you subscribe to our emails, you’ll receive regular e-newsletters any other promotions automatically, unless you express that you don’t want to receive such communications.

You can sign up to our e-newsletter using the subscription form on our website.

If you decide you no longer want to receive email communications from Hand Forged, you can unsubscribe by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any of our emails. Alternatively, you can email us atinfo@handforged.co.uk.

We use Outlook as our primary email provider as this platform encrypts and protects email traffic for us. If your email service doesn’t support encryption, please be aware that any emails we send or receive may not be protected during transit.

We monitor all the emails sent to us, including their attachments, for viruses and malicious software. It’s your personal responsibility to ensure that any email you send is within the bounds of the law.

In certain circumstances, we may disclose your personal information to third parties for legitimate purposes subject to this Privacy Policy. Such circumstances may include, but are not limited to;

• With vendors or other third parties who perform services on our behalf (e.g., IT management, payment processing, data analytics, customer support, cloud storage, fulfilment, and shipping).
• With business and marketing partners, including Shopify, to provide services and advertise to you. Our business and marketing partners will use your information in accordance with their own privacy notes.
• When you direct, request us, or otherwise consent to our disclosure of certain information to third parties, such as to ship your products or through use of social media widgets or login integrations, with your consent.
• With our affiliates or otherwise within our corporate group, in our legitimate interests to run a successful business.
• In connection with a business transaction such as a merger or bankruptcy, to comply with any applicable legal obligations (including to respond to subpoenas, search warrants, and similar requests), to enforce any applicable terms of service, and to protect or defend the Services, our rights, and the rights of our users or others.

Our site may provide links to websites or other online platforms operated by third parties. If you follow links to sites not affiliated or controlled by us, you should review their privacy and security policies and other terms and conditions.

We do not guarantee and are not responsible for the privacy of such sites, including the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of information found on these sites.

Information you provide on public or semi-public venues, including information you share on third-party social networking platforms may also be viewable by other users of the Services and/or users of those third-party platforms without limitation as to its use by us or by a third party.

Our inclusion of such links does not, by itself, imply any endorsement of the content on such platforms, or of their owners or operators, except as disclosed on the Services.

The Services are not intended for use by children, and we do not knowingly collect any personal information about children.

If you are the parent or guardian of a child who has provided us with their personal information, you may contact us using the contact details at the bottom of this page to request the deletion of your child's data.

As of the Effective Date of this Privacy Policy, we do not have actual knowledge that we "share" or "sell" personal information of individuals under 16 years of age.

While we do our utmost to keep your information secure, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable, and we cannot guarantee "perfect security". In addition, any information you share with us may not be secure while in transit. We recommend that you don't use unsecure channels to communicate sensitive or confidential information to us.

The length of time we retain your personal information for depends on different factors, such as whether we need the information to maintain your account, to provide our Services, comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, or enforce other applicable contracts and policies.

Depending on where you live, you may have some or all of the rights listed below regarding your personal information. Please keep in mind that these rights are not absolute, may only apply in certain circumstances and, in certain cases, we may decline your requests as permitted by law.

Right to Access/Know: you may have a right to request access to personal information that we hold about you, including details relating to the ways in which we use and share your information.

Right to Delete: you may have a right to request that we delete personal information we hold about you.

Right to Correct: you may have a right to request that we correct inaccurate personal information we maintain about you.

Right of Portability: you my have a right to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to request that we transfer it to a third party, in certain circumstances and with certain exceptions.

Restriction of Processing: you may have the right to ask us to stop or restrict our processing of personal information.

Withdrawal of Consent: where we rely on consent to process your personal information, you may have the right to withdraw this consent.

Appeal: you may have a right to appeal our decision if we decline to process your request. You can do so by replying directly to our denial.

Managing Communication Preferences: we may send you promotional emails, and you may opt out of receiving these at any time by using the unsubscribe option displayed in our emails to you. If you opt out, we may still send you non-promotional emails, such as those about your account or orders you have placed.

You may exercise any of these rights where indicated on our Site or by contacting us using the contact details provided below. In accordance with applicable laws, you may designate an authorised agent to make requests on your behalf to exercise your rights. Before accepting such a request from an agent, we will require that the agent provide proof you have authorised them to act on your behalf, and we may need you to verify your identity directly with us. We will respond to your request in a timely manner as required under applicable law.

If you have any complaints about how we process your personal information, please contact us using the contact details provided below. If, for any reason, you are not satisfied with our response to your complaint, you may have the right to appeal our decision by contacting us using the contact details set out below, or lodge your complaint with your local data protection authority.

Please note that we may transfer, store, and process your personal information outside the country you live in, including the United States. Your personal information is also processed by staff and third party service providers and partners in these countries.

If we transfer your personal information out of Europe, we will reply on recognised transfer mechanisms like the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses, or any equivalent contracts issued by the relevant competent authority of the UK, as relevant, unless the data transfer is to a country that has been determined to provide an adequate level of protection.