Privacy policy

1. Online privacy practices

1.1 We are registered under, and process personal data in accordance with, the United Kingdom's data protection laws. Your right to privacy is important to us.

1.2 We are keen to strike a fair balance between your personal privacy and ensuring you obtain full value from the internet and other products and services we may be able to market to you.

1.3 If our website provides links to other websites we are not responsible for their data protection policies and you should check their privacy policies if you are concerned.

1.4 We operate the website and Services at shop.alpha.org on behalf of and in conjunction with Alpha International. All information gathered from Users is shared with Alpha International.

2. What information we gather and why

2.1 In some areas of our website, we ask you to provide information that will enable us to offer the Services to you, enhance your site visit, or reply to you after your visit. This would include where you subscribe to our online Services or provide feedback to us through a contact form or when you complete any online survey we may offer from time to time. When you do so, we may ask you to give us your name, email address and other personal information that will be needed to supply the Services to you. The information you provide will be kept confidential and will be used only to support your customer relationship with us.

2.2 We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information when you place an order, or enter, submit or access your personal information. All supplied information is transmitted via Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology and then encrypted.

2.3 You agree that we may use the email address you provide to send general correspondence regarding the Services and correspondence which may relate to you.

3. Using your personal Information

3.1 We use the information you provide to us when you choose to subscribe to our online Services to enable us to provide you with the Services.

3.2 So we can check and improve the Services we may gather information about you when you use it, such as details of your operating system, browser settings, and internet protocol address from which you accessed our website and the Services.

3.3 We do our best to protect your personal data, including through the use of encryption technology, but we cannot guarantee the security of any data that you disclose.

3.4 We should also like to send you information about support services, new products, or new versions. If you agree to being contacted in this way, you will be able to opt in to receive this information when registering.

3.5 You may opt out of receiving promotional or marketing communications at any time. If you do not wish (or no longer wish) to be contacted for these purposes, you may alter your subscription preferences on the account details page, or by clicking the unsubscribe link at the foot of a promotional email sent by us. You will then not receive future marketing emails from us. Such use is strictly in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003.

3.7 Your details will never be sent to any third party for marketing purposes and we will only market to you the same kind of goods and services you purchased from us or made an enquiry to us about.

4. Sharing your personal information

4.1 We may use third-party companies (including but not limited to Stripe, and PayPal) to fulfil payment on your order. We convey to them only the information needed to carry out the payment of your order. We do not store any information regarding credit and debit card numbers.

4.2 We may use third-party companies (including but not limited to Easypost, Parcelforce, and Royal Mail) to fulfil shipping on your order. We convey to them only the information needed to carry out the fulfilment of your order.

5. Accessing your personal information

5.1 You have a right to receive information about your personal data which we hold under the Data Protection Act 1998. You may make changes to the information held in your account at any time by logging into the ‘Settings’ section of your account. If you believe any of your data held by us is incorrect, you may also contact us.

6. Cookies and web beacons

6.1 In all emails sent from the Services, a clear GIF (also known as a web beacon) is used to track whether an email has been opened or read.

6.2 In the Services we make use of a local browser storage item (localStorage) which is essential for logging in to the Services. It contains a unique identifier string, which is used to identify your user account after authenticating, and maintains your connections and account status across all pages. This local storage item is deleted when you log out of the Services.

6.3 We may also make use of a cookie as an alternative method for logging into the Services. It contains a unique identifier string, which is used to identify your user account after authenticating, and maintains your connections and account status across all pages. This cookie is deleted when you log out of the Services.

6.4 We may also use, from time to time, third-party analytics services, including but not limited to: Google Analytics, Heap Analytics, Gosquared. These third-party services use cookies for analytical purposes and collect information about how visitors use a website - for instance which pages visitors go to most often, and if they get error messages from web pages. These cookies do not collect information that identifies a visitor. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous; they are used only to improve how a website works. The information generated by these cookies about a visitor’s use of this website (including their IP address) may at times be transmitted to data repositories outside of the European Economic Area (EEA) such as the United States of America.

6.5 We may also use, from time to time, other third-party services, including but not limited to: Intercom, Zendesk, Gosquared. These services use cookies for analytical, customer-support, and customer-engagement purposes. The third-party cookies collect information about how visitors use a website, for instance which pages visitors go to most often, which support messages visitors have submitted, which orders visitors have made, and how visitors have engaged with the website. The information generated by these cookies about a visitor’s use of this website (including their IP address) may at times be transmitted to data repositories outside of the European Economic Area (EEA) such as the United States of America.

6.6 You have the right to decide whether to accept cookies, by setting or amending your web browser controls to accept or reject cookies; the Help function within your browser should tell you how. If you choose to reject cookies, you may still use the Services though your access to some functionality and areas may be restricted.

7. Retention and data deletion

You can ascertain what data is held on your behalf in the Services by going to the ‘Settings’ section of your account. We store commercial details for six years from the end of the financial year in which any purchase was made, or (if later) from any correspondence which you have entered into. If you choose to close your account on the Services, we shall archive the account information for the appropriate period, before deletion after six years.

8. Changes to privacy policy

Any changes made to this policy will be posted on our website from time to time.