GardenTags Privacy Policy

Effective Date: 25th May 2018
 

We hope you get as much enjoyment as possible out of the GardenTags services. To enable you to do this it is important that you know where you stand when it comes to the collection, use, sharing and protection of your personal data.

Before we get down into the detail here are a few fundamentals you should know about our privacy principles:

1. Information and content you post and upload to GardenTags may be seen by others on the app and on our website.
2. We give you a number of options to control the privacy of your personal information and content . These options can be found in the app under Settings > Edit Your Profile
3. We may aggregate and then anonymise information about our members to use for business purposes
4. You can control how you hear from us. Your email options can be found in the app under Settings > Email Subscriptions
5. If you wish to delete all of your personal information and content from GardenTags please email us at support@gardentags.com and we will action this on your behalf
6. Be mindful that what you share, even if deleted, may still remain viewable and if shared outside our Services it may still appear

We take the privacy of our users very seriously. We ask that you read this privacy policy (“Policy”) which also includes our cookie policy, carefully as it contains important information about how we will use your personal data. We’ve tried to avoid jargon wherever possible however, if there is anything in our policy you don’t understand or would like us to clarify please don’t hesitate to contact us at hello@gardentags.com and we’ll try our best to help out. Or, if you prefer you can write to us at the following address:

GardenTags
Beau Pignon
6 La Grange Martin
La Grande Route de St Martin
St Hellier
Jersey
JE3 6JB

 

So here's the detail…

1. Introduction

The app, website, and other services are brought to you by 4D Media Limited (“we” or “us”) a company incorporated and registered in Jersey in the Channel Islands with registration number 118316. For the purposes of the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2005, we are the 'data controller' (i.e. the company who is responsible for, and controls the processing of, your personal data).

We receive your personal information through a variety of means including our mobile app and our website www.gardentags.com. Collectively we call these our "Services".

By using our Services, you understand and agree that we are providing a platform for you to post content including but not limited to photos, comments and plant information that we share publicly. As such you consent to the collection, storage, transmission, transfer, adaptation, publication of your information and other uses as described in this Policy.

The Privacy Policy may change from time to time and, if it does, the up-to-date version will always be available on our Service. Please note that by continuing to use the service you are agreeing to any updated versions. This policy was last updated on 25 May 2018.

 

2. Information we collect from you

When you register
When you register for our Services we collect the following information - username, password, email address, date of birth, name, profile picture, certain biographical details (“Bio”), gardening experience level, gardening styles and location data. If you sign in with Facebook you give us permission to access your information from this service e.g. email address, friends list, interests and so on. The information we have access to through Facebook depends on your settings and/or Facebook’s privacy policy.

This information we collect helps secure and provide access to the services. It also enables us to provide a relevant experience to you.

Some of the information you provide during registration will be publicly available to other users of our Services. This will include your username, name, profile picture, information you supplied in your Bio and the country you are located in. This information will also be publicly available on the GardenTags website to all users and non-users of our Services. You can change what information is publicly available at any time by going into the app Profile > Settings > Edit your profile.

When you use our Services
When you use our Services we collect more detailed information about you based on how you use our Services and interact with other members. There is information you provide directly to us and information we collect indirectly when you use our Services. For example:

1. The content and information you share on the Service - garden and plant photos, comments you make, your contributions to the plant database, people you are following, photos and comments you like, photos and comments you tag, people who are following you, people you follow
2. Information and content you provide to help manage your garden. For example, plant task information and the notes you add to your plants, plants you add to your wishlist and premium tasks subscriptions you may purchase
3. Updated profile information - you may update your profile information at any time after registration, including your Bio. This information allows you to be found by other users of our Services.
4. Your location - When you use our Services, we collect and process information about your specific location. For the app to know your location you will be asked to give your consent to this when joining and from time to time during your use of the Services. Knowing your location helps us improve the Services including offering location specific plant tasks, planting recommendations and plants for sale in our price comparison. We may also share an aggregated and anonymised approximation of your location with our partners.
5. Communications between you and us – you provide us with your email contact information so we can better respond to your support requests and comments. We will keep a record of the email exchanges between us so we can better respond to future communications
6. Find Friends - this feature allows you to find friends that are using our Services. We can locate your friends on the app through (i) your contacts list on your device - in this instance we will access your device to look for users. We will always ask your permission to do this before we access your contacts (ii) third party social media sites such as Facebook - in this instance we will request you link your account to the social media site in doing so you understand that that the information you provide via this method is governed by this policy (iii) through a simple name and username search on www.gardentags.com
7. Invite Friends - this works in a similar way to Find Friends. In this instance it will send them a message either via email, SMS , Twitter or a Facebook request to join. For invite friends via Facebook we will request access to your friend list on Facebook. Please note that you are responsible for any charges that apply to these communications. By selecting ‘Invite’ a friend you also confirm that you have the consent of the person whose details you are supplying. Please also be aware that we will let your invited friends know on the invite that you supplied his or her contact details
8. We use Google Analytics, Google Analytics demographics and interest reporting, and integrated services that require Google Analytics to collect data via advertising cookies and identifiers. Google Analytics is a tool that helps website and app owners to understand how their visitors behave on their websites and apps. This helps us improve the user experience and identify opportunities to enhance our Services wherever possible. It uses a set of cookies to collect information and report website usage statistics without personally identifying individual visitors to Google. It also uses some cookies set by other websites to help us understand more about our sites' visitors
9. Logging of your activity - a log of information is automatically generated and reported to us every time you use our Services e.g. if you upload a new garden photo. Our servers collect this log file information. The types of information logged include your IP (Internet Protocol) address, browser type, device used, location, page requested, how you entered and exited the app or website and what pages and actions you carried out whilst using our Services. When we send you an email we may also log if you opened the email and what links you clicked on in the email. We will also log what information you contributed to our gardening database
10. Identifying your device - as our Services include a mobile application it's important we understand from which device you are accessing our Services. To enable us to do this we may access, collect, monitor and store device identifiers on your device. The device identifier may deliver information to us about how you use our Services. This information will allow us to improve our Services and better personalise your experience of them.
11. Meta data - this is information that is associated with content which can either be added by us and/or users e.g. a hash tag which is added to a photo or piece of content that you publish. In the instance of a hash tag it makes your content more searchable by other users. It is also possible for us to add geographically related meta data that enables other users to search for the location of the content. Please note that we never publish your exact location.
12. Please note that any content you voluntarily share using our Services is made available to the public and can be re-shared, searched for and posted on other platforms such as Facebook which are outside our control
13. We shall not be liable to you or to any third party for any loss or damage resulting from content posted using our Services and you are responsible for displaying the personal data of any other person
14. Content shared or collected by our Services will also appear on those parts of our website which are publicly accessible for example your profile picture, bio and any comments or photos you post

 

 

3. Information about our use of cookies – our cookie policy

We use cookies to store and collect information about your usage of our website Services. Cookies are small pieces of information stored by your browser on your device’s hard drive. They send information back to our servers when you access our Services. They enable us to track your IP address, the browser and any search engine you use to arrive at our Services. You can find out more about cookies at www.allaboutcookies.org. If you continue to use our website Services we will assume that you are happy to receive all cookies. However, if you would prefer to change your cookie settings, you can do so at any time in your browser.

We use a limited number of cookies. We set our own cookie which captures limited site usage information and a Google Analytics cookie. As stated above we make use of a tool from Google called Google Analytics which tells us about the way people are using our Services. It uses cookies to detect that someone has been to the Services before, so that we can see how often people return, how long they stay, and where on the Services they tend to go. We use this to try to work out what kind of experience they're having so we can make it better.

We also use cookies from the following services:

1. Google Double Click For Publishers – this cookie enables us to serve relevant adverts to you across our Services
2. Affiliate Window, Webgains, Trade Doubler and Skimlinks – these cookies enables us to track what retailers you visit through our plant price comparison engine we may also be able to track what you buy. This enable us to fine tune the comparison engine so it serves you relevant plants and products.
3. Bit.ly – we use a service called Bit.ly that enables us to provide shorter links i.e. that don’t use up too many characters. Cookies are used to track who is clicking on the links
4. Strikingly.com – this is a service that enables us to create landing pages for GardenTags content. This service may use cookies.
5. Mailchimp – this service enables us to send out emails to you. They use cookies to track how you interact with the emails including what links you click on. This enables us to make the emails more relevant to you.

 

 

4. Purposes for which we use your personal data

We've let you know what information we collect, and given examples illustrating how we may use it. Here's a little more detail on how we may use your information.

We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.

Note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us at support@gardentags.com if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.

Purpose/Activity	Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest
To register you as a new customer	Performance of a contract with you
To process premium subscriptions	(a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recover debts due to us)
To manage our relationship with you which will include: (a) Notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy policy (b) Asking you to leave a review or take a survey	(a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation (c) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and to study how customers use our products/services)
To enable you to partake in a prize draw, competition or complete a survey	(a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our products/services, to develop them and grow our business)
To administer and protect our business and the services (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data)	(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise) (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation
To deliver relevant / personalised content, follower recommendations, planting recommendations, experiences and advertisements to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you	Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our products/services, to keep them relevant, to develop them, to grow our business and to inform our marketing strategy)
To use data analytics to improve our Services, products/services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences	Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of customers for our products and services, to keep our Services updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy)
To make suggestions and recommendations to you about goods or services that may be of interest to you	Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our products/services and grow our business)
To update services on your device	(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise) (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation (c) Performance of contract with you
To validate that you are old enough to use the Services i.e. 16 years and over	Necessary to comply with a legal obligation
To make plant identifications, planting combination recommendations and tasks recommendations	(a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary for legitimate interest (to help us improve our products and services)

 

5. Sharing your information

We will not sell or rent out your information to third parties outside of our group of entities without your consent. The exceptions to this are listed below:

1. To other entities from time to time within our group
2. To third parties who help us provide our Services to you. These third parties will only be sent information that is reasonably necessary to perform services to us e.g. Google Analytics
3. To third party advertising partners in respect of cookie data only. This information will enable third party advertising networks to deliver targeted advertising that we believe will be relevant to you
4. To third parties in an aggregated and anonymised form.
5. To find people with similar tastes and interests to you on other social and advertising networks e.g. Facebook and invite them to join GardenTags.
6. To law enforcement agencies in connection with any investigation to help prevent unlawful activity.
7. We may share your photo content on social media and on other public channels. We will also use your username to ensure that you are credited for that content.
8. Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy notice.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

 

 

6. How we will communicate with you

Only if you have given permission to marketing communications, we or our partners may contact you by push notification, email, SMS or social media message about products, services, promotions, special offers, charitable causes that may be of interest to you. If you prefer not to receive any direct marketing communications from us or our partners, you can change your permissions at any time (see “Your rights” below).

We may send you service emails (e.g. informing you of updates to our Services, password reminders, welcome messages, new app updates and so on). You may not opt out of these service emails. We may also send you service emails to notify you when there is activity on your account (e.g. when someone likes a post of yours, follows you, identifies a plant for you and so on) and we may make recommendations (e.g. who to follow, what's trending and so on) by email. You can opt out of these emails in the 'profile' section of the app in 'settings' > 'email subscriptions'.

 

7. How we keep your information secure

We use technical and organisational measures to safeguard your personal data, for example:

1. access to your account is controlled by a password and user name that are unique to you; and
2. we store your personal data on secure servers.

While we will use all reasonable efforts to safeguard your personal data, you acknowledge that the use of the internet is not entirely secure and for this reason we cannot guarantee the security or integrity of any personal data that are transferred from you or to you via our Services.

 

 

8. Managing your settings

Privacy settings
You can change your privacy settings at any time by logging into the app and going to your Profile > Settings > Edit your profile. In here you can make your in app and website profile private. You can also approve your follower requests.

Email settings
You may also manage the emails you receive from us. You can choose which service and marketing emails you receive by logging into the app and going to your Profile > Settings > Email subscriptions

Updating, amending and deleting your information
You can update and amend your personal information in the Profile section of the app. You may also request that your entire account is deleted by emailing us at support@gardentags.com. You must email us on the email you registered to your account. You may be asked to provide additional information so we can identify you. If you delete your account, all of your personal data will be removed from our servers within 48 hours of us acknowledging your request. Some of our partners may keep anonymised data relating to you activity history while using our Services for a commercially reasonable period to allow them to back-up, audit and archive.

 

9. How long we keep your information

We will retain your information as long as it is necessary to provide the Services to you and others. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

By law we have to keep basic information about our customers (including Contact, Identity, Financial and Transaction Data) for six years after they cease being customers for tax purposes.

Information about you that is no longer necessary to provide the Services may be de-identified and aggregated with other non-personal information to help us provide insight that is useful for commercial purposes and for the provision of insight. For example, we may retain plant task information to help us provide better task recommendations to others

 

10. Your rights

Under the General Data Protection Regulation you have the right to:

1. Object to the processing of your information where this is justified
2. Access your personal data by making a subject access request
3. Restrict, rectify and ask for the deletion of your information where this is justified
4. Ask for the transfer of your data
5. Withdraw your consent

No fee usually required
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What we may need from you
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.

Time limit to respond
We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated

To exercise your rights above please email us at support@gardentags.com or write to us at the postal address above. We may need to request specific information from you to confirm your identity.

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (https://ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.
 

 

 

11. Transferring your information outside EEA

Many of our external third parties are based outside the European Economic Area (EEA) so their processing of your personal data will involve a transfer of data outside the EEA.

Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

1. We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the European Commission. For further details, see European Commission: Adequacy of the protection of personal data in non-EU countries.
2. Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved by the European Commission which give personal data the same protection it has in Europe. For further details, see European Commission: Model contracts for the transfer of personal data to third countries.
3. Where we use providers based in the US, we may transfer data to them if they are part of the Privacy Shield which requires them to provide similar protection to personal data shared between the Europe and the US. For further details, see European Commission: EU-US Privacy Shield.

 

 

12. Personal information relating to minors

It is prohibited for anyone to use our services who are under 16 years of age.

Protecting the online privacy of children is especially important. If you are under 16 years old, please do not register for our Services or provide us with your name, contact details or any other information about yourself.

 

13. Links to other websites

Our Services may contain links to other websites posted by us or other users of the Services. We don't have any control over these other websites and take no responsibility for any information you may give them.