Privacy & Cookie Policy

1. Introduction

1.1 We are committed to safeguarding the privacy of our website visitors and customers.

1.2 This policy applies where we are acting as a data controller with respect to the personal data of our website visitors; in other words, where we determine the purposes and means of the processing of that personal data.

1.3 We use cookies on our website. Where these cookies are not strictly necessary for the provision of our website, we will ask you to consent to our use of cookies when you first visit our website.

1.4 In this policy, “we”, “us” and “our” refer to My Student Essentials Ltd: registered in England and Wales, company number 08412404, registered address: 11 Cromwell Close, Washingborough, Lincoln, LN4 1EU, UK.

2. How we use your personal data

2.1 In this Section 2 we have set out:

(a) the general categories of personal data that we may process;

(b) the purposes for which we may process personal data; and

2.2 We may process data about your use of our website and services (“usage data“). The usage data may include your IP address, geographical location, browser type and version, operating system, referral source, length of visit, page views and website navigation paths, as well as information about the timing, frequency and pattern of your service use. The source of the usage data is our analytics tracking system (Google Analytics). This usage data may be processed for the purposes of analysing the use of the website and services. The legal basis for this processing is consent.

2.3 We may process your account data (“account data“). The account data may include your name and email address, billing address, shipping address, phone number. The source of the account data is you, entered on checkout. The account data may be processed for the purposes of operating our website, providing our services, ensuring the security of our website and services, maintaining back-ups of our databases and communicating with you. The legal basis for this processing is consent and our legitimate interests, namely: the proper administration of our website and services. Some, or all, account data may be shared with: the company we use to provide the shipping of our products; and the payment processing company (PayPal).

2.4 We may process information in any enquiry you submit to us, whether this be via a contact form, via the live chat, by email or phone (“enquiry data“). The enquiry data may be processed and stored to enable communication regarding the requested information. The legal basis for this processing is consent or legitimate interest to provide a service.

2.5 We may process any of your personal data identified in this policy where necessary for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims, whether in court proceedings or in an administrative or out-of-court procedure. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely the protection and assertion of our legal rights, your legal rights and the legal rights of others.

2.6 In addition to the specific purposes for which we may process your personal data set out in this Section 2, we may also process any of your personal data] where such processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, or in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person.

2.7 Please do not supply any other person’s personal data to us, unless we prompt you to do so.

3. Providing your personal data to others

3.1 We may share your personal data with third-parties. Please read their respective privacy policies before agreeing to ours. Links to the relevant privacy policies are given below.

3.2 Financial transactions relating to our website and services are handled by our payment services provider (PayPal). We will share transaction data with our payment services providers only to the extent necessary for the purposes of processing your payments, refunding such payments and dealing with complaints and queries relating to such payments and refunds. You can find information about the payment services providers’ privacy policies and practices at https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/ua/privacy-full.

3.3 We will disclose some of your personal data to our shipping service provider, where required to provide the service. Our shipping service provider is Parcel Force and you can read their privacy policy here – https://www.parcelforce.com/privacy.

3.4 Information you enter into the website live chat system may be stored by the third-party provider (Zopim – https://www.zendesk.com/company/customers-partners/privacy-policy/).

3.6 In addition to the specific disclosures of personal data set out in this Section 3, we may disclose your personal data where such disclosure is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, or in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person. We may also disclose your personal data where such disclosure is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims, whether in court proceedings or in an administrative or out-of-court procedure.

4. Retaining and deleting personal data

4.1 This Section (4) sets out our data retention policies and procedure, which are designed to help ensure that we comply with our legal obligations in relation to the retention and deletion of personal data.

4.2 Personal data that we process for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes or until you request it be deleted.

4.3 Notwithstanding the other provisions of this Section, we may retain your personal data where such retention is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, or in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person.

5. Security of personal data

5.1 We will take appropriate technical and organisational precautions to secure your personal data and to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your personal data.

5.2 We will store all your personal data on our website’s secure server and personal computers and mobile devices. All data entered into our website is protected by SSL, though we cannot guarantee the secureness.

5.3 Your credit/debit card details will never be known to us – this data is taken directly by our payment service provider and stored on their secure servers.

5.4 You acknowledge that the transmission of data, encrypted or not, is not guaranteed to be secure and we cannot guarantee the security of data sent over the internet.

5.5 You should ensure that your password is not susceptible to being guessed, whether by a person or a computer program. You are responsible for keeping the password you use for accessing our website confidential and we will not ask you for your password (except when you log in to our website).

6. Amendments

6.1 We may update this policy from time to time by publishing a new version on our website.

6.2 You should check this page occasionally to ensure you are happy with any changes to this policy.

6.3 We will do our best to notify you of changes to this policy by email, but please do re-check this privacy policy actively.

7. Your rights

7.1 In this Section, we have summarised the rights that you have under data protection law. Some of the rights are complex, and not all of the details have been included in our summaries. Accordingly, you should read the relevant laws and guidance from the regulatory authorities for a full explanation of these rights.

7.2 Your principal rights under data protection law are:

(a) the right to access your personal data;.

(b) the right to rectification;

(d) the right to restrict processing;

(e) the right to object to processing;

(f) the right to data portability;

(g) the right to complain to a supervisory authority.

(h) the right to withdraw consent.

7.3 You have the right to confirmation as to whether or not we process your personal data and, where we do, access to the personal data, together with certain additional information. That additional information includes details of the purposes of the processing, the categories of personal data concerned and the recipients of the personal data. Providing the rights and freedoms of others are not affected, we will supply to you a copy of your personal data. The first copy will be provided free of charge, but additional copies may be subject to a reasonable fee.

7.4 You have the right to have any inaccurate personal data about you rectified and, taking into account the purposes of the processing, to have any incomplete personal data about you completed.

7.5 In some circumstances you have the right to the erasure of your personal data without undue delay. Those circumstances include: the personal data are no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which they were collected or otherwise processed; you withdraw consent to consent-based processing; you object to the processing under certain rules of applicable data protection law; the processing is for direct marketing purposes; and the personal data have been unlawfully processed. However, there are exclusions of the right to erasure. The general exclusions include where processing is necessary: for exercising the right of freedom of expression and information; for compliance with a legal obligation; or for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims.

7.6 In some circumstances you have the right to restrict the processing of your personal data. Those circumstances are: you contest the accuracy of the personal data; processing is unlawful but you oppose erasure; we no longer need the personal data for the purposes of our processing, but you require personal data for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims; and you have objected to processing, pending the verification of that objection. Where processing has been restricted on this basis, we may continue to store your personal data. However, we will only otherwise process it: with your consent; for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims; for the protection of the rights of another natural or legal person; or for reasons of important public interest.

7.7 You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data on grounds relating to your particular situation, but only to the extent that the legal basis for the processing is that the processing is necessary for: the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of any official authority vested in us; or the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by us or by a third party. If you make such an objection, we will cease to process the personal information unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override your interests, rights and freedoms, or the processing is for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims.

7.8 You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes (including profiling for direct marketing purposes). If you make such an objection, we will cease to process your personal data for this purpose.

7.9 You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data for scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes on grounds relating to your particular situation, unless the processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out for reasons of public interest.

7.10 To the extent that the legal basis for our processing of your personal data is:

(a) consent; or

(b) that the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are party or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract,

and such processing is carried out by automated means, you have the right to receive your personal data from us in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format. However, this right does not apply where it would adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others.

7.11 If you consider that our processing of your personal information infringes data protection laws, you have a legal right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority responsible for data protection. You may do so in the EU member state of your habitual residence, your place of work or the place of the alleged infringement. In the UK, this is the ICO – https://ico.org.uk/

7.12 To the extent that the legal basis for our processing of your personal information is consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawal will not affect the lawfulness of processing before the withdrawal.

7.13 You may exercise any of your rights in relation to your personal data by contacting us by email, in writing or phone, or by contacting your local supervisory authority.

8. Third party websites

8.1 Our website includes hyperlinks to, and details of, third party websites.

8.2 We have no control over, and are not responsible for, the privacy policies and practices of third parties.

9. Personal data of children

9.1 Our website and services are targeted at persons over the age of 16. If you are under this age, please do not use our website or services.

9.2 If we have reason to believe that we hold personal data of a person under that age in our databases, we will delete that personal data.

10. Updating information

10.1 Please let us know if the personal information that we hold about you needs to be corrected or updated.

11. About cookies

11.1 A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser and is stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server.

11.2 Cookies may be either “persistent” cookies or “session” cookies: a persistent cookie will be stored by a web browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by the user before the expiry date; a session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed.

11.3 Cookies do not typically contain any information that personally identifies a user, but personal information that we store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies.

12. Cookies that we use

12.1 We use cookies for the following purposes:

(a) Authentication – we use cookies to identify you when you visit our website and as you navigate our website and to keep you logged in if you log into your account. Cookies used for this purpose are: (1) wordpress_logged_in_<hash> used to determine your logged-in state and identify you in relation to a user account.

(b) Shopping cart – we use cookies to maintain the state of your shopping cart as you navigate our website. Cookies used for this purpose are: (1) wp_woocommerce_session_<ID> used to identify you in relation to a set of cart contents. (2) woocommerce_cart_hash used to determine if cart contents have changed. (3) woocommerce_items_in_cart used to determine whether or not your cart has any items in it.

(c) Analysis – we use cookies to help us to analyse the use and performance of our website and services. These cookies are set by the third-party analytics platform we use. Cookies used for this purpose are: (1) _ga used to distinguish users. (2) _gid Used to distinguish users. (3) _gat Used to throttle request rate. (4) AMP_TOKEN Contains a token that can be used to retrieve a Client ID from AMP Client ID service. Other possible values indicate opt-out, inflight request or an error retrieving a Client ID from AMP Client ID service. (5) _gac_<property-id> Contains campaign related information for the user. If you have linked your Google Analytics and Google Ads accounts, Google Ads website conversion tags will read this cookie unless you opt-out. Please read Google’s privacy policy – https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-US. We also use Facebook Pixel, a similar service provided by Facebook. The cookie used is _fbp which is used to identify you for analytics tracking. Please read Facebook’s privacy policy – https://www.facebook.com/policy.php.

(d) Cookie consent – we use cookies to store your preferences in relation to the use of cookies more generally. Cookies used for this purpose are: (1) moove_gdpr_popup used to store your cookie preferences.

(e) Website live chat – we use a third-party provider for the live chat feature. The following cookies are set by this service: (1) __zlcid to store the Zopim Live Chat ID used to identify a device across visits, and also across a single chat session, and (2) __zprivacy to store the user’s preference to disable Live Chat, and cease using cookies. The __zprivacy cookie is stored across visits. Please read Zopim’s privacy policy – https://www.zopim.com/privacy.html

(f) Affiliate tracking – we use cookies to track users who may have come from a website of one of our affiliates. The cookies used for this purpose are: (1) wp_affiliates used to identify you in relation to match to an affiliate’s account.

12. Managing cookies

13.1 Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies and to delete cookies. The methods for doing so vary from browser to browser, and from version to version. You can however obtain up-to-date information about blocking and deleting cookies via these links:

(a) https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95647?hl=en (Chrome);

(b) https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-and-disable-cookies-website-preferences (Firefox);

(d) https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/17442/windows-internet-explorer-delete-manage-cookies (Internet Explorer);

(e) https://support.apple.com/kb/PH21411 (Safari); and

(f) https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10-microsoft-edge-and-privacy (Edge).

13.2 Blocking all cookies will have a negative impact upon the usability of many websites.

13.3 If you block cookies, you will not be able to use all the features on our website.

13.4 In addition to your browser’s cookie settings, you may use the cookie preferences settings on our website.

14. Our details

14.1 This website is owned and operated by My Student Essentials Ltd. Unpacked is a trading name of My Student Essentials Ltd.

14.2 We are registered in England and Wales under registration number 08412404, and our registered office is 11 at Cromwell Close, Washingborough, Lincoln, LN4 1EU.

14.3 Our principal place of business is at 11 Cromwell Close, Washingborough, Lincoln, LN4 1EU.

14.4 You can contact us:

(a) By post at 11 Cromwell Close, Washingborough, Lincoln, LN4 1EU;

(b) Using the contact form on our website;

(d) By email on the email address displayed on our website.