If you’re visiting this page, it’s because you’re wanting to know how we here at Struth HQ (fancy) handle your data. You may have received some very annoying e-mails lately from all your favourite companies (or those you’ve forgotten about) and they are begging you to allow them to continue sending you e-mails. This is because of something called GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) . It’s a bit of a confusing and boring topic for most people but as a business we want to make sure that our clients know exactly what we do when you get in touch. Because you know, the law.
We want to provide you guys with some jargon- free information on how and why we collect your personal data when you visit our website. It also means, if you email us to tell us about any of your wild relative’s antics, we aren’t allowed to tell anyone! (We call this the anti-gossip law!)
Personal data The Struths collect
We may collect and process the following information you provide by completing the initial enquiry form on our website:
Names – So we don’t have to call you Sir/Madam like those telesales folk!
Email Address – So we know where to reply to you
Mobile Number – Just in case the email gets lost, we can let you know that we have responded to your initial enquiry
If you decide to go ahead with the booking, we may collect and process the following additional information you provide by completing our booking form and pre-wedding questionnaire:
Home Address – So we know where about you live, you never know we might even send you a little prezzy!
The addresses you’ll both be getting ready at – So we know where to arrive to get the preparation photos
Names of guests included in key group shots – So we know who the important people are!
How we collect and keep this information
When you initially enquire using the form on the contact page, the information arrives in our email inbox which is secured with a password (this isn’t easy to guess either!). We receive the email to both our password protected iMac in our home office and to our mobile phones which lock using either passwords, finger prints, or face recognition! It’s like MI5!
Emails are also stored within our website, simply because e-mail inboxes can be a bit tricky and some amazing enquiries end up in our junk/spam! Our website is very securely passworded with a HTTPS link also. If you decide not to proceed with the booking we delete your data after a reasonable amount of time has passed. None of this personal information will be passed to third parties.
If you go ahead with booking us as your wedding photographers (Go you!), We will do a little squeal and ask you to fill in the booking form which is linked to a contract. This booking form is stored on a secure online database called ‘Signable’ – We sometimes will download these to our computer hard drive if we need to, but usually online is sufficient enough . Pre-Wedding Questionnaires are handled in exactly the same manner. We may print these out on the wedding morning to take with us for reference and then they will be shredded once we return back home!
Right of confirmation, access, rectification and erasure
If you do have any questions at all about what data we have on you, we are more than happy to share. If you need to correct your data at any time just let us know, we have more chance of getting in touch with you and turning up at the correct addresses, hurray!
If you do decide you want us to erase all your data, could we maybe suggest we do this after the wedding once you’ve had all of your images.
Use of your data
To summarise, we will definitely use your email address several times in the lead up to your wedding day. We might even use it several times after the wedding if we like you. We most certainly won’t pass your email address on to anyone else, not even our second shooters! We may however, send any second shooters or assistants your mobile number and getting ready locations, simply so they can find you! We don’t send any marketing emails, just personal ones about you and your wedding, so you don’t have to worry about that.
Face based data
Fortunately for wedding photographers, the EU hasn’t really been that specific on whether your face is classed as data. They just state that it must be for reasonable and legitimate use. However, we promise to not sell your images on to anyone, even if they beg!
If anyone does approach us in relation to your images, we will always email you about it.
In order to run our business, we do post photos of our clients and work on social media and our website. We do ask for clients to agree to this in contract, but if you do have major objections, please do say! There have been a few occasions where weddings haven’t made it into the public eye for a number of personal reasons. We work on assumption that guests are happy to be photographed, so they must say so otherwise. We do try and avoid posting many photos of children on our website and social media. If you really don’t any photos of children on our social media, website or blog then please let us know, that goes for adults too of course!
Your wedding photos and gorgeous faces are stored on an password protected external hard drive which is kept in our office (behind the multi-locked door). We also hold the RAW files on a password protected cloud account just in case. They are also stored on an online gallery called ‘Zenfolio’ for a minimum of 12 months, which is GDPR compliant.
Links to other websites
Our website does occasionally provide links to other websites, such as wedding blogs and other suppliers. We have no control over such websites and are not responsible for the content of these websites. This privacy policy does not extend to your use of such websites. You are advised to read the privacy policy or statement of other websites prior to using them.
Third Parties
We do not, and will not sell your images to any third parties without your knowledge. On occasion however we will be contacted by wedding magazines and blogs or other suppliers who love your wedding and would love to feature it. Before even communicating with them, we will discuss this with you. Sometimes suppliers from your wedding will ask to use our images for their own marketing purposes. Again, we will always discuss this with you first and we usually charge them a small fee as it would involve not crediting us and this is quite common practice in the wedding industry.
We use an app called Quickbooks for our accounting, when you make a payment to us it will be stored in there until we have the unholy job of sending the data to our accountant for our annual tax return. The only thing he will do with this data is send us a bill that will make us cry.
Website Tracking
We use Google Analytics and a website called Mouseflow to track which pages people are looking at in order to provide a better user experience. They collect general information such as your location (like just the city.. not the actual street), what device you’re using and sometimes your IP address – we genuinely wouldn’t even know what to do with this! It’s not super personal, but if you have a problem with this, you can always just delete your cookies :)
We also use the Facebook Pixel which basically decides whether to show you adverts or not. Ever been on a website and then 10 minutes later your seeing adverts for things you’ve just looked at? It’s pretty spooky until you realise it’s all planned!
And that’s it! If you got to the end of this, well done you! Go and grab a gin!