PRIVATE POLICY
&
USE OF COOKIES
Introduction

​
Sophie Siddons Photography is the data controller and is responsible for your personal data (referred to as “we”, “us”, “our” or “I” in this privacy notice).

Contact Details:
Sophiesiddonsphotography@outlook.com

www.sophiesiddonsphotography.co.uk - Via the contact form​

This private policy provides you with details of how we collect and process your personal data through your use of our site www.sophiesiddonsphotography.co.uk, including any information you may provide through our site when making an enquiry.
​

What data do we collect about you & for what purpose?
Personal data means any information capable of identifying an individual. It does not include anonymised data. We may process certain types of personal data about you as follows:

​
Communication Data: this includes any communication that you send to us whether that be through the contact form on our website, through email, text, social media messaging, social media posting or any other communication that you send us. We process this data for the purposes of communicating with you, for record keeping and for the establishment, pursuance or defence of legal claims. Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interests which in this case are to reply to communications sent to us, to keep records and to establish, pursue or defend legal claims.


Technical Data: this includes data about your use of our website and online services such as your IP address, details about your browser, length of visit to pages on our website, page views and navigation paths, details about the number of times you use our website, time zone settings and other technology on the devices you use to access our website.

The source of this data is from our analytics tracking system. We process this data to analyse your use of our website and other online services, to administer and protect our business and website and to understand the effectiveness of our advertising. Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interests which in this case are to enable us to properly administer our website and our business and to grow our business and to decide our marketing strategy.

Sensitive Data - We do not collect any Sensitive Data about you. Sensitive data refers to data that includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data. We do not collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.


How we use your personal data
We will only use your personal data between us for use of your enquiry or when legally permitted. The most common uses of your personal data are:

Where we need to perform the contract between us regarding the services you require or have previously had with us
Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.


Data Retention
We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for. This includes for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

​
What are your rights?
Under data protection laws you have rights in relation to your personal data that include the right to request access, to correct, to erase, to restrict, to transfer, to object to processing and (where the lawful ground of processing is consent) to withdraw consent.


We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within a reasonable time. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made multiple requests.

If you are not happy with how we collect and use your data, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We should be grateful if you would contact us first if you do have a complaint so that we can try to resolve it for you.

Bookings:
Bookings are only secured once both a 25% non-refundable booking fee and contract (weddings) or booking form (families & couples) are received. Only when you receive a confirmation email confirming I have received both of these is your booking secured. Final payment must be paid on or before 4weeks prior to the wedding date, if late a late fee will be added. For family & couples sessions the final payment needs to be paid 48 hours before the session, if not paid the session will not go ahead and the booking fee lost. If you wish to book another session another non-refundable booking free will need to be paid.

​
Client Area – the galleries:
Online galleries - they are where clients can view and download their images within password protected galleries. The gallery website is run by Pixieset and here is the privacy policy concerning any viewing or purchases that are made through the client area (https://pixieset.com/privacy).

​
Transaction Information:
When you make, accept, request, or record payments, we collect information about when and where the transactions occur, the names of the transacting parties, a description of the transactions, the payment or transfer amounts, billing and shipping information, the devices and payment methods used to complete the transactions, and other related transaction details.

​
Clients’ images – their storage and retention:
Clients’ images are only used on the website portfolio, social media sites and the blog with written consent and / or after signing a contract. If being used on a third party wedding blog or magazine this would have written consent from the client beforehand. Images that are used within another supplier’s portfolio again would have written consent from both clients and I.



Image backup:
Pixieset (your gallery) is used as an online backup for shoots for up to one month. Once you download/receive your digital images I recommend that you back them up multiple times. I keep photos for up two years unless contacted but this must not be relied upon if you loose your digital images.


Image retention:
I try to keep all images for 2 years after a photography session. This is a personal choice and clients must not rely on the fact that I keep images just in case hard drives become damaged and unusable. It is my hope that if a client does have a problem with their copies of images that we would still have a back up for them but this cannot be presumed or relied upon.

​

Social Media Policy & Usage
While we may have official profiles on social media platforms, users are advised to verify authenticity of such profiles before engaging with, or sharing information with such profiles. We will never ask for personal details or user passwords on social media platforms.

​

There may be instances where our website features social sharing buttons, which help share web content directly from web pages to the respective social media platforms. You use social sharing buttons at your own discretion and accept that doing so may publish content to your social media profile feed or page.

​

COOKIE POLICY -

What's a cookie?
A "cookie" is a piece of information that is stored on your computer's hard drive and which records how you move your way around a website so that, when you revisit that website, it can present tailored options based on the information stored about your last visit. Cookies can also be used to analyse traffic and for advertising and marketing purposes.

Cookies are used by nearly all websites and do not harm your system. If you want to check or change what types of cookies you accept, this can usually be altered within your browser settings. You can block cookies at any time by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies. However, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of our site.

Cookies on this website
This website uses cookies for a variety of different purposes. These include functional and required cookies which allow you to navigate and use key features on this website, and analytics and performance cookies which collect information about how you interact with this website.


Controlling cookies:
You may wish to restrict the use of cookies, or completely prevent them from being set. Most browsers provide for ways to control cookie behaviour such as the length of time they are stored – either through built-in functionality or by utilizing third party plugins.

It’s important to note that restricting or disabling the use of cookies can limit the functionality of sites, or prevent them from working correctly at all.


Third Party Links:
Our website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications, such as Facebook, Instagram & Pinterest (through the use of sharing buttons) or tracking services such as Google Analytics. As a result, cookies may be set by these third parties, and used by them to track your online activity. We have no direct control over the information that is collected by these cookies and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.​

Contact
To ask questions about this privacy policy, contact us at sophiesiddonsphotography@outlook.com