Privacy Policy and Cookies

Our Privacy Policy

The University of Edinburgh Gift Shop is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This policy explains when and why we collect personal information about you, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it safe and secure.

Any questions regarding this policy and our privacy practices can be sent by email to giftshop@ed.ac.uk or in writing to Gordon Chalmers, Manager, The University of Edinburgh Gift Shop, 2 Charles Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9AD.

The University of Edinburgh Gift Shop is part of the University’s Communications and Marketing Department. All income generated by the Gift Shop is reinvested into the work of the University.

In this policy ‘The University of Edinburgh Gift Shop’, ‘Gift Shop’, ‘we’, ‘us’, ‘our’ or ‘the site’ means:

  • The University of Edinburgh Gift Shop, 2 Charles Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9AD.
  • A sub-unit of the Communications and Marketing Department of the University of Edinburgh, Company number SC005336.

What information do we collect from you?

The personal information we collect, store and use includes:

  • Your name and contact details (including postal address, email address and telephone number).
  • Information about your activity on our website and about the device used to access it, including your IP address and geographical location – this helps Shopify to spot potentially fraudulent transactions to safeguard online shopping for all customers.
  • Additionally when you make a purchase online we collect certain information from you, including your name, billing address, shipping address, email address, and phone number.  We refer to this information as “Order Information.” Payment information, including credit card number, is processed by trusted third party payment providers through the Shopify payment portal.

How and why do we use your personal information?

We may use your information for a number of different purposes, including:

  • Processing online sales that you have made.
  • Sending you communications which you have agreed to including campaigns, advertisements and other promotions of goods and services.
  • Conducting market research and analysis to understand how we can improve our products and services.
  • Keeping a record of your transactions and shopping and browsing history with us.

We do not use profiling or automated decision-making processes when handling your information.

How do we obtain your information?

  • Directly:
    • Information provided by you when you purchase products, sign up as a customer or register to receive marketing materials online.
  • Indirectly:
    • Information gathered when you visit our website including technical information, IP address, browser and operating system, referral sources, pages visited, website navigation, length of visit to pages, products viewed and what you searched for.
    • We collect and use your personal information by using cookies on our website. See the “Use of Cookies” section below for more details.
    • When you interact with us on social media through our Facebook page or Instagram we may obtain information about you. The information we receive will depend on the privacy settings you have set up on these platforms.

Use of 'cookies'

  • Like many other websites, this website uses cookies. “Cookies” are data files that are placed on your device or computer and often include an anonymous unique identifier. For example, we use cookies to store your country preference. This helps us to deliver a better more personalised service when you browse our website and improve our services.
  • We use Shopify as a platform for our online store and the cookies we use are dictated by their systems. You can find a list of the cookies Shopify uses here: Shopify Cookies 

What is our Legal basis for using your personal information?

We are required to have lawful reasons to process your personal information.

We consider the following as a relevant legal basis:

  • You have provided us with specific consent to use your personal information in a certain way.
  • We are entering into a contract or performing our obligations as part of that contract, such as when you are placing an order and purchasing goods or services.

How long will we keep your personal information?

We only keep your personal information for as long as it is necessary to complete the purpose it was collected for.

This is determined by the operational consideration of the business and the way in which you initially gave us your information. We are legally required to retain some types of personal information to fulfil regulatory and statutory obligations (e.g. tax and financial purposes).

Our retention periods are reviewed on a regular basis. You can request that your information be deleted from our system at any time by contacting us using the information provided in the first section of this policy.

Who has access to my personal information?

Your information is primarily accessed by the Gift Shop team to process orders, prepare marketing materials and analyse website and marketing performance.

We do not sell or rent your information under any circumstances or share it with third parties for marketing purposes.


We may disclose your information to third parties in order to complete the primary functions of the business as outlined elsewhere in this policy.

This may include:


Shopify

We use Shopify to power our online store.

You can read more about how Shopify uses your Personal Information here: Shopify Privacy Policy 


Dotdigital

We use Dotdigital to manage our mailing lists and digital marketing.

When you sign up to our mailing list or create a customer account we share your name, email address and order details including products ordered and amount paid.

You can find their Privacy Policy here: Dot Digital Privacy Policy 


External suppliers

In order to fulfil custom orders we will provide necessary information to our external suppliers.

We will only share with them information needed to fulfil the order.

Your Rights in the EU If you are a European resident, you have the right to access personal information we hold about you and to ask that your personal information be corrected, updated, or deleted. If you would like to exercise this right, please contact us through the contact information at the start of this document.


Additionally, please note that your information will be transferred outside of Europe, including to Canada and the United States.

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GDPR compliance page

CCPA compliance page