PRIVACY POLICY

Introduction
Giraffe CVs is committed to respecting and protecting your privacy.

This privacy policy sets out how Giraffe CVs collects, stores, uses, shares, retains, and destroys personal data in accordance with the applicable data protection laws and regulations, including principles of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Within this policy, personal data is defined as information that can be used to identify an individual, either directly or indirectly.

Lis McGuire, founder and operator of Giraffe CVs is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). If you are unhappy with how we collect and use your data, please reach out to us in the first instance so that we can work to address and hopefully resolve your issue. If you feel it is necessary, you can complain to the ICO (www.ico.org.uk).

About Giraffe CVs

Giraffe CVs is a professional CV writing service which serves clients by providing high-quality CVs, cover letters, LinkedIn profiles, and related advice.

Registered address: 5A School Lane, Maidstone, Kent ME15 8DU. Email address: lis@giraffecvs.co.uk

Review of this policy

We keep this privacy policy under regular review and as such, may change it from time to time. Please check the page frequently for any changes. By using our website, you are agreeing to be bound by our privacy policy.

This privacy policy was last updated in February 2023.

What is Giraffe CVs’ lawful basis for processing your personal information?

Giraffe CVs’ lawful basis for processing the personal data of private clients (individuals) is ‘Contract’: processing your data is necessary to deliver our services.

As set out by Article 6(1)(b) of the GDPR: “processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which the data subject is party or in order to take steps at the request of the data subject prior to entering into a contract”.

Giraffe CVs will therefore process your personal data in order to fulfil our contractual obligations to you, or because you have asked us to do something before entering into a contract (e.g. to provide a quote or details of our services, for example).

How do we collect information from you?

Giraffe CVs collects personal information about you when:

  • you make an enquiry or order via our website https://www.giraffecvs.co.uk
  • when you share personal information or documents containing personal information with us via our website, email, post, text message, telephone call, face-to-face meeting, WhatsApp, Skype, Zoom, or social media.
  • you request that we send you resources.
  • you share feedback on our products and services.
  • we gather publicly available data sourced online (e.g., from LinkedIn profiles, press releases, news articles, presentations, company websites).
  • if your parent or guardian sends information on your behalf.

Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified, you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy policy.

What types of personal information does Giraffe CVs collect?

Personal information means information that can be used to identify an individual. The personal information we collect about you may include:

  • Name and contact details: name; address/location; telephone numbers; email address; Skype ID; details of social media profiles (e.g. LinkedIn, online portfolios),
  • Order details: This may include the date; time; details; value; and status of your order.
  • Career details: Career history; education; qualifications; skills and qualities; references; past achievements; and future aspirations and plans as uncovered through telephone / online conversations or via written correspondence and content sent via post or email (e.g. completed questionnaires; CVs; cover letters; personal statements; personal bios; application forms; LinkedIn profiles and personal websites; supporting files; references; and educational certificates).
  • Technical and website usage data: This may include your IP address, browser type/version, browser plug-in types/versions, time zone and location, operating system/platform and other device technology you use to access our website. It may also include information regarding the pages of our website that you access and when you access them.

If you place an order, your payment card information is not held by us. It is collected by our carefully selected third-party payment processors, who are experts in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions. We have no access to your bank account, PayPal account, or other personal data provided to these third-party processors. It is your responsibility to ensure that you are satisfied with the way in which the third-party processors will handle and process any data you provide to them. Please check each site’s privacy policy and terms and conditions.

How does Giraffe CVs use your personal information?

By providing personal data to us, you are consenting to Giraffe CVs using your data to:

  • Provide requested product or service information in response to your enquiries
  • Process orders that you have submitted
  • Provide our products or services (perform the contract between us)
  • Seek your views or comments on the products and services we provide
  • Notify you of any changes to our products or services
  • Develop and improve our products or services
  • Communicate with you about other relevant products or services
  • Track and analyse user trends
  • Monitor the security of our products or services

We will not:

  • lease or sell your personal information to third parties
  • spam you
  • share your personal information with third parties for direct marketing purposes, unless you have permitted us to do so, or we are required to do so by law

Who has access to your personal information?

Under certain conditions, we may disclose your personal information to others as follows:

Employees: Our employees access and use your personal data for the purposes outlined under ‘How does Giraffe CVs use your personal information?’. All employees work in line with our privacy policy.

Third party service providers working on our behalf: We may use carefully chosen third-party service providers for the purposes of completing your order, for providing our services to you, and for running our business. Third-party service providers may include IT and website support professionals, professional advisors supplying banking, legal, insurance, and accountancy services, and online service providers (e.g. PayPal, Carbonite, Zoom, Skype, Canva, Xero). We understand that chosen third-party service providers have adopted relevant security and technical measures to protect your data.

If our use of a third-party service provider requires your data to be transferred outside of the United Kingdom, we understand that these providers work in line with appropriate data security standards e.g. GDPR; the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework; the Swiss-U.S Privacy Shield; and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards.

Other: We would share personal data in response to a legal or regulatory request e.g. a court order or to investigate or prevent fraud or another crime.

Data security precautions

Security of information transmitted over the internet cannot be assured, therefore we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us; you do so at your own risk.

Whilst we cannot guarantee that loss, misuse or alteration to data will not occur, Giraffe CVs takes appropriate steps to guard against unauthorised access, misuse, alternation, or loss of your personal information under our control.

For example, if you make an order, your payment information is collected by our carefully selected third party payment processors (PayPal and Stripe), who are experts in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions. 

At your request, we can password protect files before sending them to you via email, with passwords communicated by text message or verbally by telephone.

Use of cookies

Giraffe CVs uses cookies to help us identify and track visitors, their use of Giraffe CVs’ website, and their website access preferences.

A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer.

Visitors who do not wish to have cookies placed on their computers should set their browsers to refuse cookies before using Giraffe CVs’ website, with the drawback that some website features may not function properly without the aid of cookies.

Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over the protection and privacy of any information you provide whilst visiting such sites. This privacy policy applies only to Giraffe CVs’ website‚ so please check the privacy statements on the other websites you visit.

Controlling your personal information

Here are some practical steps you can take to restrict the collection or use of your personal information:

Limit the personal information you share: Only share data that you want to share and are comfortable in sharing. However, please note that not sharing requested information may impact the quality of our service.

Audit your publicly available information: Conduct an audit to clarify what personal information you are sharing online. If you share information on public forums e.g. Facebook and LinkedIn, this may be visible to others, unless you lock down your privacy. If, for example, you connect with a member of our staff on LinkedIn, this may be visible to other members of your network, or to other users of the site.

Opt out of electronic communications: We will not contact you for marketing purposes by email, phone, post, or text message unless you have given your prior consent. If you give consent, then we may email you from time to time offering further information about our products and services. If you change your mind about receiving these communications, you can unsubscribe by clicking the unsubscribe link on our emails or by emailing lis@giraffecvs.co.uk with the heading Unsubscribe.

If you unsubscribe from our marketing communications, Giraffe CVs reserves the right to contact you about your orders and to share policy updates. You will continue to receive essential account-relevant information.

Cookies: Set your browser to reject cookies.

How to access your personal information as held by Giraffe CVs

It is your right to access, amend, and update your personal data as held by Giraffe CVs. You can:

  • ask for a copy of the information we hold about you
  • request that we amend or delete the personal data we hold about you
  • revoke your consent to our use of your information for the above listed purposes, accepting this will not entitle you to a refund unless otherwise permitted under our standard terms and conditions
  • ask us to stop contacting you for direct marketing purposes

You can take these actions at any time by contacting us at lis@giraffecvs.co.uk. Giraffe CVs will acknowledge and respond to your request within 30 days. In the event of such a request, we may need to ask for certain information to confirm your identity to ensure data is only shared with you or at your explicit request.

Find out more about your rights at: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data- protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/

Aged 16 or under

Giraffe CVs is committed to protecting the privacy of children aged 16 or under. If you are aged 16 or under‚ please obtain your parent/guardian’s permission and forward this to us in writing before you share your personal information with us.

In the event of a data breach

Giraffe CVs has a sound understanding of the personal data we hold, where it is stored, who can access it, how to identify personal data breaches, and how to report and manage them if they occur.

Changes to this policy

This privacy policy may be updated or amended from time to time. Please review this page to stay up to date with any changes. When you use this website, you are agreeing to work in line with this policy.

DATA RETENTION POLICY

This policy details procedures for Giraffe CVs’ retention and disposal of records and information, and relates to both hard- and soft-copy documents.

Records are defined as all those documents which facilitate the business carried out by Giraffe CVs and which are then retained (for a set period) to provide evidence of its transactions and/or activities. These records may be created, received or maintained in hard copy or electronically.

Relationship with other policies

This policy has been drafted within the context of Giraffe CVs’ privacy policy.

Retention guidelines

Giraffe CVs will retain financial records of transactions for seven years following completion of services. Following this period, at the end of the financial year, files will be securely deleted or disposed of.

Information, including personal data, that you provide will only be retained for two years following your order, unless otherwise instructed by you.

We review our retention periods for personal information on a regular basis.

Safe disposal of records

Records identified for destruction will be permanently disposed of in accordance with reasonable processes.

Business closure

In the event of business closure, only transaction records will be stored for the defined retention period, then disposed of as outlined above.

Changes to this policy

This privacy policy may be updated or amended from time to time. Please review this page to stay up to date with any changes. When you use this website, you are agreeing to work in line with this policy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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