1. Introduction
This Privacy Notice explains in detail the types of personal data we may collect about you when you interact with us. It also explains how we will store and handle that data and keep it safe.
We know that there’s a lot of information here, but we want you to be fully informed about your rights, and how London Cake Store Ltd uses your data; for example, we will explain things such as our credit checking procedure, and how we combine data across The Cake Store Ltd to build a picture of you.
We hope the following sections will answer any questions you have but if not, please do get in touch with us at dpo@thecakestore.com
It is likely that we’ll need to update this Privacy Notice from time to time. We will notify you of any significant changes, but you’re welcome to come back and check it whenever you wish.
2. Who are The Cake Store?
London Cake Store Ltd, trading as The Cake Store manufactures and delivers celebration cakes UK wide.
3. Explaining the legal bases we rely on
The law on data protection sets out several different reasons for which a company may collect and process your personal data, including:
Consent
In specific situations, we can collect and process your data with your consent.
For example, when you tick a box to receive email newsletters.
When collecting your personal data, we will always make clear to your which data is necessary in connection with a particular service.
Contractual obligations
In certain circumstances, we need your personal data to comply with our contractual obligations.
For example, if you order an item from us for home delivery, we will collect your address details to deliver your purchase, and pass them to our courier.
Legal compliance
If the law requires us to, we may need to collect and process your data.
For example, we can pass on details of people involved in fraud or other criminal activity
Legitimate interest
In specific situations, we require your data to pursue our legitimate interests in a way which might reasonably be expected as part of running our business and which does not materially impact your rights, freedom or interests.
For example, we will use your purchase history to send you or make available personalised offers.
We also combine the shopping history of many customers to identify trends and ensure we can keep up with demand or develop new products/services.
We may also use your address details to send you direct marketing information by post, telling you about products and services that we think might interest you.
4. When do we collect your personal data?
- When you visit any of our websites and use your account to buy products in our shop or online.
- When you make an online purchase and check out as a guest (in which case we just collect transaction-based data).
- When you create an account with us.
- When you purchase a product or service in store or by phone but don’t have (or don’t use) an account.
- When you engage with us on social media.
- When you contact us by any means with queries, complaints etc.
- When you enter prize draws or competitions.
- When you book any kind of appointment with us.
- When you comment on or review our products and services.
- When you fill in any online forms.
- When you use our store, which has CCTV systems operated for the security of both customers and staff. These systems may record your image during your visit.
5. What sort of personal data do we collect?
- If you have a web account with us: your name, gender, billing/delivery address, orders and receipts, email and telephone number.
- Details of your interactions with us in store, online.
For example, we collect notes from our conversations with you, details of any complaints or comments you make, details of purchases you made, items viewed or added to your basket when you visit and how and when you contact us.
- Details of your visits to our websites and which site you came from to ours.
- Information gathered by the use of cookies in your web browser.
- Personal details which help us to recommend items of interest.
We’ll only ask for and use your personal data collected for recommending items of interest and to tailor your shopping experience with us. Of course, it’s always your choice whether you share such details with us.
- Payment card information.
- Your comments and product reviews.
- Your image may be recorded on CCTV when you visit a shop.
- To deliver the best possible web experience, we collect technical information about your internet connection and browser as well as the country and telephone code where your computer is located, the web pages viewed during your visit, and any search terms you entered.
- Your social media username, if you interact with us through those channels, to help us respond to your comments, questions or feedback.
6. How and why do we use your personal data?
We want to give you the best possible customer experience. One way to achieve that is to get the richest picture we can of who you are by combining the data we have about you.
We then use this to offer you promotions, products and services that are most likely to interest you. In the case of loyalty scheme members, we’ll also offer you relevant rewards.
The data privacy law allows this as part of our legitimate interest in understanding our customers and providing the highest levels of service.
Of course, if you wish to change how we use your data, you’ll find details in the ‘What are my rights?’ section below.
Remember, if you choose not to share your personal data with us, or refuse certain contact permissions, we might not be able to provide some services you’ve asked for.
For example, if you’ve asked us to let you know when an item comes back into stock, we can’t do that if you’ve withdrawn your general consent to hear from us.
Here’s how we’ll use your personal data and why:
- To process any orders that you make by using our websites or in store. If we do not collect your personal data during checkout, we won’t be able to process your order and comply with our legal obligations.
For example, your details may need to be passed to a third party to supply or deliver the product or service that you ordered, and we may keep your details for a reasonable period afterwards in order to fulfil any contractual obligations such as refunds, guarantees and so on.
- To respond to your queries, refund requests and complaints. Handling the information you sent enables us to respond. We may also keep a record of these to inform any future communication with us and to demonstrate how we communicated with you throughout. We do this on the basis of our contractual obligations to you, our legal obligations and our legitimate interests in providing you with the best service and understanding how we can improve our service based on your experience.
- To protect our business and your account from fraud and other illegal activities. This includes using your personal data to maintain, update and safeguard your account. We’ll also monitor your browsing activity with us to quickly identify and resolve any problems and protect the integrity of our websites. We’ll do all of this as part of our legitimate interest.
For example, by checking your password when you login and using automated monitoring of IP addresses to identify possible fraudulent log-ins from unexpected locations.
- To protect our customers, premises, assets and staff from crime, we operate CCTV systems in our store which record images for security. We do this on the basis of our legitimate business interests.
- To process payments and to prevent fraudulent transactions. We do this on the basis of our legitimate business interests. This also helps to protect our customers from fraud.
- If we discover any criminal activity or alleged criminal activity through our use of CCTV, fraud monitoring and suspicious transaction monitoring, we will process this data for the purposes of preventing or detecting unlawful acts. We aim is to protect the individuals we interact with from criminal activities.
- With your consent, we will use your personal data, preferences and details of your transactions to keep you informed by email, web, text, telephone about relevant products and services including special offers, discounts, promotions, and competitions and so on. You are free to opt out of hearing from us at any time.
- To send you communications required by law or which are necessary to inform you about our changes to the services we provide you. For example, updates to this Privacy Notice, product recall notices, and legally required information relating to your orders. These service messages will not include any promotional content and do not require prior consent when sent by email or text message. If we do not use your personal data for these purposes, we would be unable to comply with our legal obligations.
- To display the most interesting content to you on our websites we’ll use data we hold about your favourite products and so on. We do so on the basis of your consent to receive notifications and/or for our website to place cookies or similar technology on your device.
For example, we might display a list of items you’ve recently looked at or offer you recommendations based on your purchase history and any other data you’ve shared with us.
- To administer any of our prize draws or competitions which you enter, based on your consent given at the time of entering.
- To develop, test and improve the systems, services and products we provide to you. We’ll do this on the basis of our legitimate business interests.
For example, we’ll record your browser’s Session ID to help us understand more when you leave us online feedback about any problems, you’re having
- To comply with our contractual or legal obligations to share data with law enforcement.
Of course, you are free to opt out of receiving these requests from us at any time by contacting us at: Data Protection Officer: dpo@thecakestore.com
7. Combining your data for personalised direct marketing
We want to bring you offers and promotions that are most relevant to your interests at particular times. To help us form a better, overall understanding of you as a customer, we combine your personal data gathered across The Cake Store as described above, for example your shopping history at both.
8. How we protect your personal data
We know how much data security matters to all our customers. With this in mind we will treat your data with the utmost care and take all appropriate steps to protect it.
We secure access to all transactional areas of our websites and apps using ‘https’ technology.
Access to your personal data is password-protected, and sensitive data (such as payment card information) is secured by SSL encryption.
Our software partners regularly monitor our system for possible vulnerabilities and attacks.
9. How long will we keep your personal data?
Whenever we collect or process your personal data, we’ll only keep it for as long as is necessary for the purpose for which it was collected.
At the end of that retention period, your data will either be deleted completely or anonymised, for example by aggregation with other data so that it can be used in a non-identifiable way for statistical analysis and business planning.
Some examples of customer data retention periods:
Orders: When you place an order, we’ll keep the personal data you give us for one year, so we can comply with our legal and contractual obligations.
10. Who do we share your personal data with?
We sometimes share your personal data with trusted third parties.
For example, delivery couriers, for fraud management, to handle complaints, to help us personalise our offers to you and so on.
Here’s the policy we apply to those organisations to keep your data safe and protect your privacy:
- We provide only the information they need to perform their specific services.
- They may only use your data for the exact purposes we specify in our contract with them.
- We work closely with them to ensure that your privacy is respected and protected at all times.
- If we stop using their services, any of your data held by them will either be deleted or rendered anonymous.
Examples of the kind of third parties we work with are:
- IT companies who support our website and other business systems.
- Operational companies such as delivery couriers.
- Direct marketing companies who help us manage our electronic communications with you.
- Google/Facebook to show you products that might interest you while you’re browsing the internet. This is based on either your marketing consent or your acceptance of cookies on our websites.
- Data insight companies to ensure your details are up to date and accurate.
To help personalise your journey through The Cake Store websites we currently use the following companies, who will process your personal data as part of their contracts with us:
- Big Commerce: Our ecommerce provider
- Outlook Office 365: Responding to customer questions and queries.
- Stripe: Payment Service Provider.
- APC: Couriers delivering orders to addresses.
- Xero: Staff details
- Karpow: Social media agent
- Omnisend Email Communicator
- Soundest.IO Review Communicator
11. Where your personal data may be processed
Sometimes we will need to share your personal data with third parties and suppliers outside the European Economic Area (EEA), such as Australia or the USA.
International orders
If you are based outside the UK and place an order with us, we will transfer the personal data that we collect from you to us in the UK.
Protecting your data outside the EEA
The EEA includes all EU Member countries as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. We may transfer personal data that we collect from you to third-party data processors in countries that are outside the EEA.
For example, this might be required to fulfil your order, process your payment details or provide support services.
If we do this, we have procedures in place to ensure your data receives the same protection as if it were being processed inside the EEA. For example, our contracts with third parties stipulate the standards they must follow at all times.
Any transfer of your personal data will follow applicable laws and we will treat the information under the guiding principles of this Privacy Notice.
12. What are your rights over your personal data?
An overview of your different rights
You have the right to request:
- Access to the personal data we hold about you, free of charge in most cases.
- The correction of your personal data when incorrect, out of date or incomplete.
- For example, when you withdraw consent, or object and we have no legitimate overriding interest, or once the purpose for which we hold the data has come to an end
- That we stop using your personal data for direct marketing (either through specific channels, or all channels).
- That we stop any consent-based processing of your personal data after you withdraw that consent.
You have the right to request a copy of any information about you that the The Cake Store holds at any time, and also to have that information corrected if it is inaccurate. To ask for your information, please contact Data Protection Officer, London Cake Store Ltd, 111 Sydenham Rd, London SE26 5UA or email dpo@thecakestore.com. To ask for your information to be amended, please update your online account, or contact our Customer Services team on dpo@thecakestore.com.
If we choose not to action your request we will explain to you the reasons for our refusal.
Your right to withdraw consent
Whenever you have given us your consent to use your personal data, you have the right to change your mind at any time and withdraw that consent.
Where we rely on our legitimate interest
In cases where we are processing your personal data on the basis of our legitimate interest, you can ask us to stop for reasons connected to your individual situation. We must then do so unless we believe we have a legitimate overriding reason to continue processing your personal data.
Direct marketing
You have the right to stop the use of your personal data for direct marketing activity through all channels, or selected channels. We must always comply with your request.
Checking your identity
To protect the confidentiality of your information, we will ask you to verify your identity before proceeding with any request you make under this Privacy Notice. If you have authorised a third party to submit a request on your behalf, we will ask them to prove they have your permission to act.
13. How can you stop the use of your personal data for direct marketing?
There are several ways you can stop direct marketing communications from us:
- Click the ‘unsubscribe’ link in any email communication that we send you. We will then stop any further emails from that particular division.
- If you have an account, log in into you’re the Cake Store or The Brilliant Bakers account, visit the ‘My Account’ area and change your details.
- Email our Data Protection Officer: dpo@thecakestore.com
Please note that you may continue to receive communications for a short period after changing your preferences while our systems are fully updated.
Joint use of your personal data
We will share data with our providers to bring you relevant offers, updates, products and services, and discounts that reward your loyalty to our brands.
We may check your details with appropriate third parties (for example credit reference agencies) before we send you promotions for our financial services products, to ensure your information is accurate and fulfils our legal and regulatory obligations, and to tailor those offers to you.
Rest assured that all applications for financial services products will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
14. Contacting the Regulator
If you feel that your data has not been handled correctly, or you are unhappy with our response to any requests you have made to us regarding the use of your personal data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office.
You can contact them by calling 0303 123 1113.
Or go online to www.ico.org.uk/concerns (opens in a new window; please note we can't be responsible for the content of external websites)
If you are based outside the UK, you have the right to lodge your complaint with the relevant data protection regulator in your country of residence. Details can be found in Section 16.
15. If you live outside the UK
For all non-UK customers
By using our services or providing your personal data to us, you expressly consent to the processing of your personal data by us or on our behalf. Of course, you still have the right to ask us not to process your data in certain ways, and if you do so, we will respect your wishes.
Sometimes we’ll need to transfer your personal data between countries to enable us to supply the goods or services you’ve requested. In the ordinary course of business, we may transfer your personal data from your country of residence to ourselves and to third parties located in the UK.
By dealing with us, you are giving your consent to this overseas use, transfer and disclosure of your personal data outside your country of residence for our ordinary business purposes.
This may occur because our information technology storage facilities and servers are located outside your country of residence, and could include storage of your personal data on servers in the UK.
We’ll ensure that reasonable steps are taken to prevent third parties outside your country of residence using your personal data in any way that’s not set out in this Privacy Notice. We’ll also make sure we adequately protect the confidentiality and privacy of your personal data.
We are committed to keeping your personal information secure and will take all reasonable precautions to protect it from loss, misuse or unauthorised access or alteration. However, except to the extent liability cannot be excluded due to the operation of statute, we exclude all liability (including in negligence) for the consequences of any unauthorised access to, disclosure of, misuse of or loss or corruption of your personal information.
Nothing in this Privacy Notice restricts, excludes or modifies or purports to restrict, exclude or modify any statutory consumer rights under any applicable law including the Competition and Consumer Act 2010.
We hope this Privacy Notice has been helpful in setting out the way we handle your personal data and your rights to control it.