Privacy
This is a demo. Swift & Hale is a fictional company. If you create an account on this site, the real data controller is Clive Holmes Limited (trading as CHS), The Island, 41 Mill Road, Christchurch, Dorset BH23 2JY, office@chs.agency. We keep your name, email address, password (stored only as a salted hash), phone number and nearest shop if you add them, saved addresses, wishlist, basket and preferences so the demo works, and delete your account and everything attached to it 30 days after you sign up (or straight away if you delete it yourself in your account). If you go through checkout without an account, the email address and delivery address you enter are kept with your basket and deleted 30 days after you last use it. We send no email and share nothing with anyone. Cloudflare hosts the site. You can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.
Example privacy notice
Everything from here to the end of the page is an example: the privacy notice Swift & Hale would publish if it were a real retailer. It describes a company that does not exist, so none of it applies to this demo or to your data.
Who we are
Swift & Hale plc ("Swift & Hale", "we", "us") sells walking and camping kit through our shops in the UK and Ireland, our website and app, and a printed catalogue. We are the controller of the personal data described in this notice. Our registered office is Hale House, Fordington Fields, Dorchester, Dorset DT1 9SH, and we are registered in England and Wales under company number 01234567.
Our Data Protection Officer looks after how we use personal data and answers questions about this notice. This notice covers customers of our shops, website, app and catalogue, Club members, and people who use our repair, hire and led walk services. Colleagues and job applicants have their own notices.
What we collect and why
| What for | What we collect | Lawful basis |
|---|---|---|
| Taking, delivering and refunding orders | Name, delivery and billing address, phone number, email address, what you ordered, and confirmation that you paid | Contract |
| Running your Club membership | Name, contact details, the date you joined, what you buy in shops and online, your repair credit balance and the led walks you book | Contract |
| Repairs | Name, phone number, the item, what's wrong with it, photographs of the damage, the price and the ready date | Contract |
| Hire | Name, address and phone number, the kit and dates you book, and for schools and youth groups, the group leader's details and the organisation | Contract |
| Led walks | Name, phone number, an emergency contact, and any health information you choose to give the walk leader | Contract, and your explicit consent for health information |
| Marketing | Name, contact details, your preferences, and what you've bought from us | Consent for email and text messages; legitimate interests for the catalogue and post |
| Customer services | Your letters and messages, notes of calls, and call recordings | Legitimate interests |
| CCTV in our shops and at Huntworth | Images of people in and around our buildings | Legitimate interests |
| Keeping the website, app and payments secure | Device and browser details, IP address, and the pages you visit | Legitimate interests |
| Improving our kit and service | Survey answers, product reviews, and Trail Panel test notes | Consent for the Trail Panel and reviews; legitimate interests for surveys |
We never see or store your full card number. Our payment providers handle card details and tell us whether a payment went through.
We use what you buy to decide which offers, emails and catalogue pages to send you. You can object to this at any time. We don't make decisions about you by automated means alone that have legal or similarly significant effects.
Our lawful bases
UK data protection law (the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018) only lets us use personal data when we have a lawful basis. We rely on:
- Contract, when we need the data to do what you've asked, such as delivering an order or mending a jacket.
- Legal obligation, when the law requires it, such as keeping tax records or contacting buyers about a product safety recall.
- Legitimate interests, when we have a good business reason that is not outweighed by your rights, such as using CCTV to keep customers and colleagues safe and to prevent crime. You can ask us how we weighed this up.
- Consent, when you've said yes, such as to marketing emails. You can withdraw it at any time in your preferences or by calling us.
Who we share it with
We share personal data only with organisations that help us run the business, and only what they need for the job. They act on our instructions under contracts that require them to protect it:
- carriers and couriers who deliver orders and collect returns
- payment providers and banks, which process payments and check for fraud
- IT suppliers who host our website, app and systems, and run our customer services phones
- the specialist workshop in Northamptonshire that resoles boots for us
- printers and mailing houses that print and post the catalogue
- research agencies that run our customer surveys
- The Open Paths Trust, a charity we work with, when a school borrows kit for its first trip, with the teacher's agreement
- our professional advisers, auditors and insurers
We also share data with the police, courts and regulators when the law requires it, and with a buyer if we sell all or part of the business. We never sell personal data.
Sending data abroad
Most of the data we hold stays in the UK. Some of our IT suppliers store or access data in other countries. When they do, we use safeguards that UK law recognises, such as the UK's adequacy regulations or the International Data Transfer Agreement issued by the Information Commissioner. You can ask us for a copy. Data about customers of our Irish shops moves between Ireland and the UK under the same kind of protection.
How long we keep it
| Data | How long we keep it |
|---|---|
| Orders, receipts and refunds | Six years after the end of the financial year they fall in, for tax and accounting |
| Club membership | While you're a member. If you don't buy anything or sign in for three years, we close the membership and delete your details. |
| Repairs | Two years after you collect the item |
| Hire bookings | Six years after the hire ends |
| Led walk bookings | Twelve months. Health information is deleted the day after the walk. |
| Marketing preferences | Until you change them. If you ask us to stop, we keep a note so we don't contact you again. |
| Call recordings | 90 days |
| CCTV | 31 days, unless we need it for an incident |
Keeping it safe
Only colleagues who need personal data for their job can see it, and every colleague signs in with multi-factor authentication. We encrypt data when it's stored and when it's sent. Outside specialists test our systems for weaknesses twice a year, and a specialist partner monitors them day and night.
Your rights
You have the right to:
- have a copy of the personal data we hold about you
- have anything wrong corrected
- have your data deleted, where we don't need to keep it
- ask us to restrict how we use it
- object to how we use it, including the right to stop direct marketing at any time
- have data you gave us sent to you or another organisation in a format a computer can read
- withdraw your consent, where we rely on it
Asking is free. We reply within one month, or tell you within that month if a complicated request will take up to two months more. We may ask for proof of who you are before we give out any data.
Cookies
Our cookie policy explains the cookies we use and how to change your choice.
Children
Our website, app and Club are for people aged 16 and over, and we don't knowingly collect data about children online. When a school or youth group hires kit, we deal with the group leader and don't need children's names. Children on led walks are booked by a parent or carer, who gives the leader any details they need.
Contact us
Write to the Data Protection Officer, Swift & Hale plc, Hale House, Fordington Fields, Dorchester, Dorset DT1 9SH. Or call customer services on 01632 960 123 and ask for your message to go to the Data Protection Officer.
If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk. Customers of our Irish shops can complain to the Data Protection Commission in Ireland at dataprotection.ie. We'd like the chance to put things right first, so please contact us before you do.
Changes to this notice
We update this notice when we change how we use personal data. This version is dated September 2026. If we make a significant change, we'll tell Club members before it takes effect.