Privacy Policy

Carmen’s Creative Works – Personal Information Protection Policy

Overview

We do business as Carmen Waterman and Carmen’s Creative Works. Our website address is https://carmenwaterman.com.

At Carmen’s Creative Works, we are committed to providing our customers with exceptional service. Providing this service involves collecting, using, and disclosing some personal information about our customers. Consequently, protecting your personal information is one of our highest priorities.

We developed this Personal Information Protection Policy, hereafter referred to as our Privacy Policy, in compliance with the British Columbia Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA). PIPA sets out the ground rules for how BC businesses and not-for-profit organizations may collect, use, and disclose personal information.

We will inform our customers how we collect, use and disclose their personal information, obtain their consent where required, and only handle their personal information in a manner that a reasonable person would consider appropriate in the circumstances.

Our Privacy Policy outlines the principles and practices we will follow in protecting customers’ personal information. Our privacy commitment includes ensuring the accuracy, confidentiality, and security of your personal information and allowing you to request access to and correct your personal information.

Our Privacy Policy applies to products and services purchased from Carmen’s Creative Works via https://carmenwaterman.com.

From time to time, we may use third party businesses to provide products and services, including Etsy, Redbubble, PayPal, and others. This policy does not apply to the practices of these third parties. Please refer to the privacy policies of each third party to ensure you agree to their privacy policies. E.g., Etsy, Redbubble, and PayPal.

Policy 1 – Collection and Use of Personal Information

1.1       Unless the purposes for collecting personal information are obvious and the customer voluntarily provides their personal information for those purposes, we will communicate the purposes for which personal information is being collected, either orally or in writing, before or at the time of collection.

Contact Forms

We collect customer information from forms embedded in the website for the following purposes:

  • To fulfill your order for products or services, e.g., your name, email address, postal address, payment information, and any other information needed to provide the product or service that you’re ordering.
  • To collect and process your payment.
  • To settle disputes and provide customer support.
  • When you opt-in to receive content from us, including signing up for a mailing list.
  • To enroll in a class, training program, or coaching sessions.
  • When you create an account on the website, we store the information you enter in your profile, so you do not have to re-enter it on future visits.
  • To comply with legal obligations, such as retaining information about your purchase if required by tax law.

Cookies

Cookies are small pieces of data stored by your web browser on your computer when you visit most websites. Cookies can enhance the functionality of the site. Most modern browsers will allow you to control which cookies you accept, but be aware that disabling all cookies may affect the basic functionality of the website.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the website, we collect the data entered in the comments form and the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection using the Akismet service. Refer to Akismet’s privacy policy at https://akismet.com/privacy/.

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.

If you leave a comment on our website, you may opt-in to save 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.

User Accounts

If you visit our login page, 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 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 upload images or other media 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.

Website Shop

Our website shop is powered by WooCommerce, which also sets cookies to keep track of your shopping experience, including assigning a customer identifier, tracking products viewed, and flagging when the contents of your shopping cart changes. You can learn more about these cookies at https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/woocommerce-cookies/.

Embedded Content from Other Websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g., videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Analytics

Our website uses analytics services, including Google Analytics and Jetpack analytics. These services help us understand how visitors use the site and identify useful features and navigation issues to improve your experience.

Google Analytics is a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. Analytics collects standard internet log information, e.g., your IP address and browser user agent. This tracking information does not include personal information that could identify you. You can obtain further information about Google’s privacy policy from https://www.google.com/privacy.html and Jetpack’s privacy centre at https://jetpack.com/support/privacy/.

Policy 2 – Consent

2.1       We will obtain customer consent to collect, use, or disclose personal information (except where, as noted below, we are authorized to do so without consent).

2.2       Consent can be provided in writing or electronically via our website or shop, or it can be implied where the purpose for collecting, using, or disclosing the personal information would be considered obvious and the customer voluntarily provides personal information for that purpose.

2.3       Customers who have provided their information to be added to a mailing list have the option to opt-out of receiving this information at any time by selecting the unsubscribe option.

2.4       We may collect, use, or disclose personal information without the customer’s knowledge or consent in the following limited circumstances:

  • When required by law;
  • In an emergency that threatens an individual’s life, health, or personal security;
  • For the purpose of collecting a debt.

Policy 3 – Using and Disclosing Personal Information

3.1       We will only use or disclose customer personal information only where necessary to fulfill the purposes identified at the time of collection

3.2       We will not use or disclose customer personal information for any additional purpose unless we obtain consent to do so.

3.3       We will not sell customer lists or personal information to other parties.

Policy 4 – Retaining Personal Information

4.1       We will retain customer personal information only as long as necessary to fulfill the identified purposes or a legal or business purpose such as tax reporting requirements to a maximum of 7 years.

Comments

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This allows us to automatically recognize and approve any follow-up comments instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

Website Account

For users that register on our website, 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). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

Policy 5 – Ensuring Accuracy of Personal Information

5.1       Customers may request a correction to their personal information to ensure its accuracy and completeness. A request to correct personal information must be made in writing and provide sufficient detail to identify the personal information and the correction being sought.

Policy 6 – Securing Personal Information

6.1       We are committed to ensuring the security of customer personal information to protect it from unauthorized access, collection, use, disclosure, copying, modification, disposal, or similar risks.

6.2       We will continually review and update our security policies and controls as technology changes to ensure ongoing personal information security.

Policy 7 – Providing Customers Access to Personal Information

7.1       Customers have a right to access your personal information, subject to limited exceptions.

  • Access: A request to access personal information must be made in writing and provide sufficient detail to identify the personal information being sought.
  • Change, restrict, and delete: You have the right to change, restrict my use of, or delete your personal information except for specific circumstances (such as requirements to store data for legal reasons). I will generally delete your personal information upon request.

Policy 8 – Questions and Complaints: The Role of the Privacy Officer or designated individual

8.1       The designated individual is responsible for ensuring Carmen’s Creative Work’s compliance with this policy and the Personal Information Protection Act.

8.2       Customers should direct any complaints, concerns, or questions regarding Carmen’s Creative Work’s compliance in writing to the Privacy Officer. If the Privacy Officer cannot resolve the concern, the customer may also write to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia.

Contact information for Carmen’s Creative Work’s designated individual:
Carmen Waterman.