Privacy & Cookies Policy

To ensure we always get full marks for school uniform, we keep your personal data safe. We want all our customers to be assured that their data is secure and that you understand how we use your data to better your shopping experience.

What does this policy cover?
The data controller (who determines how your personal data is used) is J. Smiths & Sons Schoolwear Ltd. (referred to in this policy as “we” or “us”). Just like our uniform, we are committed to getting data collection right. Hence, we’ve created this privacy and cookies policy which explains the following:

  • The different ways you interact with us and the types of personal data we collect.
  • Why we use the data we collect.
  • Why and when we will share personal data within the business and with other organisations.
  • The rights and choices you have around your personal data.

This policy applies to you if you use the following services:

  • Shopping with us online, in-store, or by appointment.
  • Shopping or querying with us via mobile telephone.
  • Being a member of our loyalty scheme.
  • Our mail subscription service.

If you shop with us in store, parts of this policy will apply to you where our stores operate using CCTV systems and capture footage of you. Please make sure you read the terms and conditions and privacy policy before allowing the collection of personal data on any website. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for websites of other organisations.

What personal data do you collect?

Aggregated data
We remove any personal data we do not need. If you unsubscribe from our mailing list, for example, you become anonymous in deleting your personal details from our mailing system. Please note that this only applies to our mailing list and, if you have made a purchase with us before, the data collected through this purchase/these purchases will still be securely stored.

Identity data
We collect information that helps us identify who you are, ie. your name and title.

Contact data
We collect information that helps us to contact you. This includes your address, telephone number and email.

Financial data
We collect financial data about your bank account and payment card details.

Location data
Our website collects location data to help better serve you. We use this data to understand which stores are local to you, and to help you locate the uniform you’re looking for.

Transactional data
We collect information about your purchase history with us. This includes when, where, what and how you purchased that item or service from us. It will also include where we sent that product, any accrued loyalty card points, delivery or general notes.

Technical data
We also collect information about your device used to access our website. This is collected through a third-part partner. This could be information that identifies your device, its operating system, internet address, login data, browser and plugins, location, where you came to our website from, what webpages you have looked at and the times you visited.

User data
We collect other data from user interactions in surveys, social media consent forms collected in store, customer contact cards, call back cards, and CCTV in store. We will also collect information about you that helps us to create an analysis of you as a consumer. This helps us tailor our services to you, suggesting products and services we know you’ll love.

Marketing and communication data
Whatever your marketing preferences, we collect data according to your wants and needs. We collect data from interactions with online marketing such as email marketing to judge its effectiveness. This extends to our social media platforms, where we may use anonymous data to judge the success of a social media campaign.

Our legitimate interests in using your personal data:
While we collect your data to better your customer experience, we also collect it on the following legal grounds:

  1. Contractual Necessity at the time we collect it
  2. Purchase and transactional data
  3. Contact details
  4. Profile details
  5. Delivery, click and collect, and collect from school details
  6. We cannot provide you with your products or services without this data
  7. Legitimate interests following the fulfilment of your order
  8. How collecting your personal data helps us
  9. To service our customers’ needs
  10. To promote and market our products and services
  11. To service your account, loyalty card, manage complaints, and resolve any disputes
  12. To understand consumer patterns and behaviours, likes and dislikes
  13. To protect our busines, colleagues, customers, and shareholders
  14. To prevent and detect anti-social behaviour, fraud, and other crimes
  15. To test and develop new products and services and improve existing ones

Some cookies are necessary so you should not disable these if you want to use all the features of our website. You can disable other cookies but this may effect your customer experience. We use cookies to help develop our product range, so we can give you exactly what you’re looking for.

Personalising your experience
We use your online browsing behaviour as well as your online and in store purchase history to help us understand you as a customer. This means we can show you products you’ll love and offers you’ll love even more. Looking at browsing behaviour and purchases helps us personalise our services for you. This way, we can transform your shopping experience so it never disappoints:

  • Send you relevant marketing communications (including via email, post, and online advertising), relating to our products and services. We measure the success of these campaigns through user and technical data.
  • In order to resolve legal claims or disputes involving you or us, we collect your personal data. I.e if you have an accident or incident in our store. We use this data to bring or defend legal claims.
  • We use CCTV in our stores to monitor, prevent, and detect, crime and anti-social behaviour.

Third parties operating through our Website
Through our website, we have several third parties operating to help us use your data effectively. Our EPoS system, Cybertill, collects your personal data for us in a safe and secure way. This means that we know where your products are going, we can manage any refunds and queries, collect loyalty card data, and personal information such as identifiable information and contact details.

We use MailChimp for email marketing and Google Analytics for anonymised data collection. These operate in line with our privacy policy aforementioned. If you have any queries about the privacy policies of our partners, we recommend you use the following links:

Cybertill: www.cybertill.com/privacy

MailChimp: www.intuit.com/privacy/statement/

Google Analytics: www.policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites

How we protect your personal data
Our EPoS system have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed un an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, Cybertill limit access to your personal data. All Cybertill employees 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 of a breach where legally required to do so.

How long we use personal data for
We don’t keep any personal data for longer than we need to, and only use customer data for the reasons outlined in this policy. We will always keep customers’ personal data in line with applicable legal and regulatory requirements.

In most circumstances we will not keep personal data for more than 7 years after the end of our relationship with you. However, for certain data, we have the following retention periods:

  1. Customer complaints and feedback will be deleted 3 years following the resolution/outcome of the issue being raised.
  2. Information you submit in our marketing surveys are retained for 3 years, then are deleted from our system.
  3. CCTV is deleted a month after its creation.
  4. Image sharing as a result of a photo campaign your child has participated in will be open for download for one month only. Smiths Schoolwear retains the right to all these photos and media as per our copyright policy.
  5. Where personal data is needed because we are in serious dispute with you (ie litigation), your personal data will be deleted 7 years after closure of the matter.
    Cookies and similar technologies.
  6. Cookies are small text files which contain a unique identifier, stored on your device so that it can be recognised when you are using a particular website or mobile app. They can only be used for the duration of your visit to the site. They can also be used to detect fraudulent activity or to prevent security breaches.

Subject access rights
Each service user retains the right to access their personal data. This is called a Subject Access Request. To request a copy of your personal data, please email:
privacy@smithsschoolwear.co.uk

Our Data Protection Officer
We have a nominated Data Protection Officer who can be contacted at:
privacy@smithsschoolwear.co.uk