PRIVACY POLICY

Welcome to Stories with Spine’s Privacy Policy.

This Privacy Policy will inform you about who we are, and how we collect and look after your personal data when you visit our website at storieswithspine.com.

It will tell you about your rights in relation to your personal information, and also how to contact us.

Please read the following carefully.

INTRODUCTION

We collect, use, and are responsible for certain personal information about you.

We are committed to respecting your privacy regarding any information you provide to us by visiting our website, subscribing to newsletters, filling out surveys or questionnaires, entering competitions, or by purchasing products and/or services.

We will not use or share your information with anyone except as described in this Privacy Policy.

When you provide us with personal information, this indicates that you have had sufficient opportunity to access this Privacy Policy, that you have read it, accepted it, and agree to the collection and use of your information in relation with this Privacy Policy.

1. WHO WE ARE

Stories with Spine is the data controller (collectively referred to as "we", "us" or "our" in this Privacy Policy.)

Registered business name: Stories with Spine

Contact name: Catriona Mitchell

Email address: catriona@storieswithspine.com

Postal address: 50 Hargraves St, Castlemaine, Victoria 3450, Australia

2. PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT

Personal data, or personal information, refers to any information about you from which you can be identified. It does not include data where your identity has been removed (anonymous data).

We collect this in order to enable you to access and use our website, and enable us to send you information, process your product and service orders, and for the purposes of analytics and market research, promotions about our product and services, and internal record-keeping.

The types of information we collect from you may include:

• You & your contact details: such your first and last name, age, gender, country of residence, email address, phone number, mailing or street address, billing address.
• Your payment information if you purchase from us, such as credit card details.
• Behavioural & usage data including products and services you have purchased from us; your preferences and opinions such as how you like to receive marketing from us; your feedback, or information you voluntarily provide to us through questionnaires or survey responses;  information about how you use our website, products and services.
• Technical & device data including details of browser sessions and geo-location, device and network information, statistics on page views and sessions, search queries and browsing behaviour.
  
• Aggregated data such as statistical or demographic data. This may be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law, as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity.

Additionally, we may collect any other information you voluntarily provide while interacting with us directly or indirectly, through your use of our website, associated social media platforms, or accounts from which you permit us to collect information.

3. HOW WE COLLECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We collect personal information from you in a variety of ways, including:

Direct interactions:

• When you communicate with us electronically, by phone or in person;
• When you access our website;
• When we provide our services to you;
• When you subscribe to our newsletters;
• When you request marketing to be sent to you;
• When you fill out a form, survey or questionnaire;
• When you enter a competition;
• When you provide feedback.

This information is collected by fair and lawful means, with your knowledge and consent.

You are free to refuse our request for this information, with the understanding that we may be unable to provide you with some of your desired services without it.

Automatically collected information:

As with most online businesses, our servers may automatically log information about your access and use of our website, as provided by your web browser.

Technical data collected may include your computer’s Internet Protocol (IP) address, your browser type and version, the pages you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on each page, and other details.

This data is considered “non-identifying information”, as it does not personally identify you on its own.

Device data that is collected may include your device type, operating system, unique device identifiers, device settings and geo-location. What we collect can depend on the individual settings of your device and software. We recommend checking the policies of your device manufacturer or software provider to learn what information they make available to us.

Analytics:

We may receive personal technical data about you from analytics providers such as Google.

Financial and transaction data:

We may receive contact, financial and transaction data from providers of technical, payment and delivery services such as Paypal, Stripe, Square or Wise.

Cookies:

We may from time to time use cookies on our website. Cookies are very small files which a website uses to identify you when you come back to the site and to store details about your use of the site. They do not tell us your e-mail address or other personally identifiable information; however, they do allow third parties such as Google and Facebook to cause our advertisements to appear on your social media and online media feeds as part of our re-targeting campaigns. 

If and when you choose to provide our website with personal information, this information may be linked to the data stored in the cookie.

Cookies are not malicious programs that access or damage your computer.

Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can choose to reject cookies by changing your browser settings. However, this may prevent you from taking full advantage of our website; not all functions may be entirely usable.

4. HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to.

We may use it in the following ways:

• To enable you to access and use our website, and any associated social media platforms;
• To maintain, operate and improve our website and any associated social media platforms, based on user needs;
  
• To communicate with you by a variety of measures including, but not limited to telephone, SMS or email;
• To send you electronic material such as newsletters;
• To notify you of new information or services that may be of interest to you;
• To send promotional materials, surveys and competitions;
• To send you administrative communications;
• To respond to your comments, feedback or enquiries;
• To process payments you make through the Stories with Spine website;
• To protect, investigate and deter against unauthorised or illegal activity.

Aggregated & anonymous data:

We may use a combination of identifying and non-identifying information to understand who our visitors are, how they use our services, and how we may improve their experience of our website in future.

For example, we may aggregate your usage data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature.

We do not disclose the specifics of this information publicly, but may share aggregated and anonymised versions of this information, for example, in website and customer usage trend reports. This does not identify you alone or when combined with data from other parties.

Third-party access to information:

We do not sell or rent your personal information to marketers or third parties. We may, however, share your information with third parties when we are authorised to do so by law, or in order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights, such as where you fail to pay for goods or services provided to you.

We may use third-party services for:

• Analytics tracking;
• Advertising and promotion;
• Content marketing;
• Email marketing;
• Payment processing.

These services may access our data solely for the purpose of performing specific tasks on our behalf. We do not share any personally identifying information with them without your explicit consent. We do not give them permission to disclose or use any of our data for any other purpose.

Where we allow limited access to our data by external consultants and agencies for the purpose of analytics and service improvement, this access is only permitted for as long as necessary to perform a specific function.

Where we disclose your personal information to third parties for these purposes, we will request that the third party follow this Privacy Policy regarding handling of your personal information.

5. YOUR DATA: PROCESSING, STORAGE & SECURITY

We are committed to ensuring that the information you provide is secure, and have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost or misused.

The personal information we collect is stored and processed where we or our partners, affiliates and third-party providers maintain facilities. This may include parties located, or that store data, outside of Australia.

We only transfer data within jurisdictions subject to data protection laws that reflect our commitment to protecting the privacy of our users.

We only retain personal information for as long as necessary to provide a service, or to improve our services in future. While we retain this data, we will protect it within commercially acceptable means to prevent loss and theft, as well as unauthorised access, disclosure, copying, use or modification.

That said, we advise that no method of electronic transmission or storage is 100% secure, and cannot guarantee the absolute security of any information that you transmit to us, or receive from us. The transmission and exchange of information is carried out at your own risk.

If you request your personal information be deleted, or where your personal information becomes no longer relevant to our operations, we will erase it from our system within a reasonable time-frame.

6. YOUR RIGHTS TO YOUR PERSONAL DATA

Choice and consent:

Providing us with your personal information is optional.

When you provide us with your personal information, you consent to the terms in this Privacy Policy, and to us disclosing or receiving your personal information for these purposes.

Restrictions, corrections and access:

As our user, you have the right to be informed about how your data is collected and used. You are entitled to know what data we collect about you, and how it is processed. You are entitled to correct and update any personal information about you, and to request that this information be deleted.

You are entitled to restrict or object to our use of your data, while retaining the right to use your personal information for your own purposes.

Complaints:

If you believe that we have breached the Australian Privacy Principles and wish to make a complaint about that breach, please contact us by email at catriona@storieswithspine.com. 

We will immediately investigate your complaint and respond to you in writing, setting out the outcome of our investigation, and the steps we propose to take to remedy the issue.

Opting out:

When your email address is collected, initially it is added to our mailing list. You will then receive emails that are designed to provide a benefit to you.

Feedback has shown that most people appreciate these emails - but not everyone. Hence, you can unsubscribe at any time. It is not our intention to provide emails to people who don’t want them.

There is an 'unsubscribe' button in the footer of every email, should you wish to opt out.

Alternatively you can request this by contacting us at catriona@storieswithspine.com

Children’s privacy:

This website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.

If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that your child has provided us with personal information, please contact us so that we will be able to do necessary actions.

We encourage parents to engage with us in protecting their children’s privacy.

Links to other websites:

Our website may occasionally contain links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Please note that when you click on one of these links, you are moving to another website. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you.

We do not have any control over those websites and therefore cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any personal information you provide while visiting these sites. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of these linked sites as theirs may differ from ours.

7. CHANGES TO THIS POLICY

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Your continued use of our website following any amendments indicates that you accept the amendments. 

We advise you to check this Privacy Policy regularly, prior to providing personal information, to ensure you are aware of any changes. Only proceed with providing personal information if you accept the new Privacy Policy.

Any changes are effective immediately after they are posted on this page.