Who we are : Whilst we trade online as Dorset Perennials, we are a partnership, registered as Berkeley Perennials and comprise a husband and wife team, Dawn and Martin Preston (please reverse husband and wife!)

What we collect : When you place an order we collect the following information: IP address, Name and Address, email address, telephone number and a transaction ID for your payment.

For what reason : We collect this information in order to process your order and send your plants to the correct person at the right address. The IP address is collected by the software and serves no use to us personally. The transaction ID allows us to automatically refund charges if we need to. We will only contact you in connection with the order you have placed. You will receive several automatic emails concerning this order (confirmation, dispatch, completion), but no marketing emails thereafter.

Which third parties receive data : When you place an order through our website, the payment is processed by Paypal. It is Paypal that collects and retains your  card details – we never see them. If you place an order over the telephone and we take card details, these details are submitted to Paypal and once confirmed are lost to us. To read Paypal’s privacy policy follow this link. https://www.paypal.com/gb/webapps/mpp/ua/privacy-full

If your parcel is sent via a courier, we will submit your name and address to them in order to create a delivery booking and label. Currently we use DPD and I will also enter your email address so that you will get a tracking email from them. I can alternatively give them a mobile number or nothing at all. If you would like either of these then please say so when you place the order. To read DPD’s Privacy Policy follow this link. http://www.dpd.co.uk/privacy_policy.jsp

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

I do not pass your details on to any third party. We do not have or use a mailing list, we absolutely will never sell a mailing list and we do not currently have any facility to bulk email. Please see below for notes on nuisance emails.

How long we retain your data : If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue. (This is in theory only as we currently have disabled all comments). We retain inactive accounts 18 months, pending orders 1 year, failed orders 6 months and cancelled orders 6 months. Completed orders are retained 6 years.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Your account is protected by the password you create and it is your responsibility to maintain its secrecy. Website administrators can also see and edit that information, this again is protected by a password which is only shared by the administrators of our website (ie Dawn and me).

What rights you have over your data : If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

How to download your data : Currently this can be done via a request to Martin via email. When our software, WordPress and Woocommerce  prepare better tools to allow you to perform this function, we will implement these immediately.

How to delete your data : Currently this can be done via a request to Martin via email. When our software, WordPress and Woocommerce  prepare better tools to allow you to perform this function, we will implement these immediately.

How to get in touch : please email Martin on [email protected].

Comments : When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media : If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Contact forms and Cookies : If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

What data breach procedures we have in place : Currently only dawn and I have access to customers data. In the event of a data breach we will do our best to contact all customers to inform them of the extent of this breach and any action we are taking.

I’ve seen a lot in the press recently concerning privacy and information entered on the internet, so with new General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) coming into force from May this year I thought I’d write a few lines so that you can see where we stand as a company.

When you enter you name and address on our site, it is stored on the servers at our Hosting Company, which we then look at via a web browser behind several security features. It is also represented in backups kept by both our Hosting Company and Ourselves. By we, I mean me and Dawn – at present we are the only people who access our stores administration software. The information isn’t stored on a laptop or computer that can be left on a train.  Even if the information were looked at, it comprises only of your order, with address contact details. The financial information you enter is seen by Paypal alone, we never see more than a confirmation. Hence we can’t take more money from your card, although we can authorise a refund back. Again, if we take a payment over the telephone, once the details have been entered and sent to Paypal, they are lost to us forever. To read more about security CLICK HERE.

The details we take and store, (Name, address, telephone number and email address) are held purely to be able to process your order. We require an address to send the plants to, and contact details in case there is some problem or query with the order.

Some people are worried that we will bombard you with emails. I bought some sheets online last year and then had to endure 3 emails a week thereafter with offers (I could never work out why they thought we’d be buying sheets at a faster rate than most people wash them !). I can assure you that this will not happen with us. We are a small nursery and do not have the time, or more importantly, the inclination to send out marketing emails or jolly newsletters in the hope of cajoling you into another purchase. If you want proof, take a look at our Facebook page and count the posts. We feel it is a privilege to be able to set out our stall on the internet and have customers buy from it entirely in good faith. The last thing we want to do is abuse this by filling up your email with SPAM, if we have time on our hands Dawn will be out growing more plants and I’ll have a camera in my hands.  So, just to repeat it one more time, We will only use your email address or telephone number to contact you with information relevant to your order.