Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

1.1 Cocoa Black is committed to complying with the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation 2021 and has published this Privacy Policy to help you understand how and why we collect information from you, to whom such information is disclosed and what your rights are.  Please read this Privacy Policy carefully as you are bound by it.

1.2 This Privacy Policy together with our Terms & Conditions sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, will be processed by us. By ticking the acceptance box when signing up to use our Services, and by your continued use of the Services, you agree to be bound by this policy.

1.3 If you choose to submit or otherwise provide to us any information relating to another individual, you expressly warrant to us that you have obtained that individual’s prior written consent to the collection, use and processing of their information, in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

2. Who We Are

Cocoa Black Limited is the data controller for the purposes of the UK’s General Data Protection Regulation 2021. We are a private limited company incorporated in Scotland, having Company Number SC310529 and offices at Unit 7, Southpark Industrial Estate, Peebles, EH45 9ED. We operate The Chocolate Shop, The Chocolate & Pastry School and an ecommerce website at www.cocoablack.com (the “Services” referred to within this policy).

3. Your Rights

3.1 If you want to know what data we hold on you, you have a legal right to obtain this information from us. You can make a Subject Access Request at any time, in writing, by following this simple process. By law, we have up to 40 days to respond to you and reserve the right to make a small charge for this service.

To make a Subject Access Request please write to the Data Protection Officer at our office address, enclosing a photocopy of a photographic ID (e.g. passport or driving licence) and utility bill (to provide proof of your address). This is to ensure we only send your data to you, or a third party that you expressly authorise in writing to deal with for you.

3.2  If you want to amend the data we hold that’s also very easy to do. We want to make sure we have everything right so please simply contact us to make any amendments to our records.

3.3 You can contact us to make any amendments to your consents. We have to advise you however, that opting out of some data storage will result in a loss of functionality of the website and a reduced user experience.

4. What Information We Collect

We may collect and process different types of information about you. Some of this data is considered to be Personal Data (meaning you can be identified by it) and Anonymous Data (that you cannot be identified from).

4.1  When you sign up to our Services, we will collect your personal details including but not limited to your real name, user name, address, telephone, email address and any other information you submit when you create an account and make an online purchase.

4.2  When you use our Services, we will collect, process and store information about you that is provided by you, or collected automatically by us, when you use our Services, explore our Services, or interact with us. Examples of the data we will gather related to these activities includes:

  •  information you populate your profile with including any images;
  •  messages that you send or receive through our site;
  •  customer support enquiries we receive from you by other means;
  •  participation in user surveys or competitions and any feedback provided to us;
  •  records of your activity including postings to our forums or other areas of the Service;
  • details of any transactions that you carry out, including any information we require to provide the Service that you sign up to;
  • your location according to the IP address assigned to your computer  or mobile device by your internet service provider, and mobile location data; and
  • usage data about how you use our site.

4.3  We can collect location data from your computer and mobile device. When accessing the Services from a mobile device you will be given the option to allow location sharing with our application. If you do not wish to share your location data with us please turn off this feature by following your mobile device instructions to do so. We can track your IP address if you are using a computer to access the Services.  We also use your location data to research our own Services, develop new products and improve our Services, including using third parties to help us either provide the Services to you or develop new ones, and target advertising to suit your user experience.

5. How We Use Your Information

We process data we collect from you for the following purposes, to:

  • grant you and allow you continued access to our Services;
  • administer your account;
  • help us improve the structure, layout and usability of the Services;
  • allow you to participate in any interactive features of the Services;
  • help personalise your repeat visits to and usage of the Services;
  • communicate with you about your account;
  • provide you with information on products or services and offers;
  • answer any questions or respond to any comments you may send to us;
  • notify you about changes to our service or the functionality of the Site;
  • carry out market analysis and research;
  • ensure that you are complying with the Terms & Conditions of use and to
    comply with our and your statutory and regulatory obligations.

6. Marketing And Publicity

6.1  By posting information or content including but not limited to copyrighted content, name and likeness and photographs to your profile pages or any public area of the Services, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant to us a non-exclusive, royalty free, worldwide licence to use, copy, publish, display, reformat, translate and distribute, and broadcast, such information or content and to grant and authorise sub-licences of the same. You further waive any moral or potential infringements rights you may have in any such information or content. Specifically please note that we may use any of your content, including your photographs for the purposes of advertising or publicity in various ways including case studies on our websites and other marketing materials. If you do not wish us to do this, please contact us.

6.2  We may use your information to develop and deliver targeted advertising to you of our own products and services. We may send you information about our products and services, news and offers, and selected third party products and services that we think may be of interest to you. We may do this by contacting you through your email address or telephone phone number that you have provided. Any communication received from us will clearly state that it is being sent by us. You have the option to opt-out of our marketing communications at any time (see below).

6.3  If you change your mind about the marketing consent you have granted to us, you can amend your consents by contacting us.

7. Where We Store Your Data

The personal data that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a location outside the European Economic Area (EEA). It may also be processed by law enforcement agencies, employees and independent contractors located outside the EEA who work for us or for one of our suppliers (for example, staff who are involved in providing services that you order from us, processing your payment details or providing support services to us). By submitting your personal data to us, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.

8. Keeping Your Data Secure

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to the Site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password or user ID which enables you to access certain parts of the Site, you are responsible for keeping the password or user ID confidential. We ask you not to share a password or user ID code with anyone.

9. Our Cookie Policy

We may collect information about your computer or mobile device by using Cookies. If you use our site you are consenting to the use of Cookies as explained here. Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit and provide statistical data to us, that does not identify you personally but an tell us a lot about your browsing habits to tailor your user experience to suit your needs. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site. We use cookies to enhance our security, help us gather information when you use our services and understand our web traffic trends and to share your non-personal information with carefully selected third parties for marketing purposes.

Cookies help us to improve the Services and to deliver a better and more personalised service. They enable us to:

  • estimate our audience size and usage pattern;
  • store information about your preferences and customise our Services according to your individual interests;
  • speed up your searches;
  • recognise you when you return to any website or application;
  • provide statistical information: non-personal data may be gathered on our behalf using cookies, log file data, and code that is embedded on our websites by specific third party partners to help these selected third parties to deliver relevant advertisements to you.

We use this non-personal information to help improve the services we provide to you. When you visit the publicly available sections of the Services, a session ID cookie is placed on your computer that only lasts while you’re visiting. We also place persistent cookies (also known as local storage devices) on members’ computers, so that we remember them to make your login in process faster and easier.

9.1 You have the right to choose whether or not to accept cookies and we explain how you can exercise this right below. However, please note that if you choose to refuse cookies you may not be able to use the full functionality of our Sites and the websites of other companies. You may block cookies in several ways:

You can also block cookies by changing your browser settings so that cookies from this Site cannot be placed on your computer or mobile device. In order to do this follow the instructions provided by your browser. Disabling a cookie does not delete the cookie from your browser, you will need to do this yourself from within your browser.

9.2 This table shows fully the cookie functions and why they are used, although our uses may change over time and it is important that you revisit this page to understand these uses:

Analytics And Research

We may use the information collected by Google Analytics to compile reports and to help us improve the site. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited. You can opt-out of Google Analytics here

Authentication

Cookies help us to identify our members so that when you’re logged in, you can enjoy all of the features without having to continually log in – our website “remembers” you and allows you full access without the need to keep entering your log in details.

Security And Site Integrity

We may use cookies and other devices, such as CAPTCHAs, to help keep the Site and our members safe and secure by protecting the Site from fraud and spam attacks to keep your data safe.

Site Features And Services

These cookies and local storage devices provide the functionality that our members enjoy, such as uploading of photographs, chats, instant messaging, your account settings etc. We also use cookies to help provide experiences, such as links to other social media sites, social plugins and video content, including making it easier for you to share content between the website with your other favourite social networks. In some cases, the site feature you choose may allow a third party to place cookies or local storage devices on your computer. The third party who places cookies on your device is responsible for how they process their data you should always read their privacy policies. Third parties who place cookies on your device when you use the Site include Twitter and Facebook whose own privacy policies apply.

Performance

We need to use certain cookies and local storage devices to ensure our members have the best possible experience, such assisting with your navigation of our site, ensuring pages load up quickly and respond faster to your requests for our Services.

10. Our Rights To Amend This Policy

We keep our privacy policy under regular review and will post any changes to it on this page. We encourage you to regularly review our privacy policy to make sure you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances, if any, we may share it with other parties. We may also contact you from time to time to advise of any changes if we feel such notification is necessary depending on the extent of the changes, or post a notice within the forum area of our websites.

11. Links To Other Third Party Websites

Our websites, apps, and promotional materials, may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of our third party networks, advertisers and affiliates. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.