Privacy Policy

Effective Date: October 31, 2026

At Hardware & Harmony, we are committed to maintaining the trust and confidence of our visitors and customers. This Privacy Policy outlines how we collect, use, and protect your personal data in strict compliance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

Who We Are

Our website address is: https://hardwareandharmony.co.uk.
For the purposes of the UK GDPR, we operate as the Data Controller for your personal information. If you have any questions regarding your data, you can contact us directly through our website.

What Personal Data We Collect and Why We Collect It

1. Orders and Order Fulfillment

When you buy from our shop, we collect the information necessary to process your transaction and deliver your goods. This includes your name, billing address, shipping address, email address, and phone number.

  • Supplier Sharing & Order Dispatch: To fulfill certain orders, some products are shipped directly from our carefully selected manufacturers or suppliers. In these specific instances, we share only your name, shipping address, and contact details with the supplier strictly for the purpose of getting your product delivered to you. Our suppliers are bound by data protection agreements and are not permitted to use your data for marketing or any other purpose.

2. Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site, we collect the data shown in the comments form, as well as the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to assist with spam detection.

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

3. Media

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

4. Cookies

  • Comments: 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 last for one year.
  • Account Login: 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.
  • Session Persistence: When you log in, we 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.
  • WooCommerce Cart: While you visit our site, we will use cookies to track cart contents while you are browsing our shop.

Who We Share Your Data With

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data with third parties for marketing purposes. Beyond the shipping/fulfillment suppliers mentioned above (who only receive delivery details), we only share data with essential third-party service providers who help us run our business, such as:

  • Our website hosting provider.
  • Payment gateways (e.g., Stripe, PayPal) to securely process payments.
  • Spam protection services (e.g., Akismet).

How Long We Retain Your Data

  • Comments: If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This allows us to recognise and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
  • User Accounts: For users that register on our website, we store the personal info 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.
  • Order Records: We retain order information (name, email, address, purchase history) for tax, legal, and accounting purposes for a minimum of 6 years as required by UK law.

Your Rights Under UK GDPR

Because we operate under UK GDPR regulations, you have explicit rights regarding your personal data. You can request to exercise any of the following:

  • The Right of Access: You can request a copy of all personal data we hold about you.
  • The Right to Rectification: You can ask us to correct any inaccurate or incomplete data.
  • The Right to Erasure (“Right to be Forgotten”): You can 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.
  • The Right to Restrict or Object to Processing: You can object to us processing your data, or request that we restrict how it is used.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us via our website’s contact options. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK’s supervisory body, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), if you feel your data has been mishandled.