Privacy

Black Thread Society (admin@blackthreadsociety.uk) is the controller for the personal information this shop collects. This page says what we keep and why.

What we collect

• Account details you type in: name, email, phone, password (stored as a hash, never in plain text).
• Order details: the clothes you bought, the address you asked us to ship to, and the payment reference from Stripe when card payments are on.
• Messages you send through the contact form.
• Your email address if you join our list, ask to be told when the store opens, or ask for a restock alert.
• Visitor statistics, described below.

Visitor statistics

We run our own first-party statistics so we can see how people find the shop and which pieces they look at. There are no advertising or third-party tracking scripts. For each visit we record the pages viewed, how long they were open and how far down they were scrolled, the website or campaign that referred you, the type of device, browser and screen size, your browser's language and time zone, and actions such as choosing a size or adding to your bag.

We also record the IP address your visit came from, and work out from it — on our own server — your approximate location (town or city, region and country) and the network you are connecting through, such as your broadband or mobile provider. We use this to understand where our customers are, to spot automated or fraudulent traffic and to keep the shop secure. IP addresses and the network hostname linked to them are deleted after 90 days; the approximate location stays in our statistics.

We set two first-party cookies to tell visits apart: bt_vid (an anonymous random ID, kept for two years) and bt_ses (the current visit, expires after 30 minutes of inactivity). Statistics are kept for up to two years.

You can switch this off for your browser at any time on the analytics opt-out page.

Why

To take and deliver orders, to run your account, to reply when you write to us, to send the emails you asked for, and to understand which products to make again. Card numbers are handled by Stripe. They do not land on this server.

How long

Order records are kept for as long as UK tax and consumer rules need them, then deleted. Contact messages are kept until the conversation is finished and a short while after. Email sign-ups are kept until you unsubscribe. You can ask us to delete an account that has no open orders.

Who else sees it

The carrier who delivers the parcel, the print partner who makes your order, and Stripe if you pay by card. We don't sell the list, and we don't hand it to advertisers.

Asking for a copy or a deletion

Email admin@blackthreadsociety.uk. If you're unhappy with the answer you can also complain to the ICO.