Privacy policy

The privacy of your data — and it is your data, not ours! — is a big deal to us. In this policy, we layout: what data we collect and why; how your data is handled; and your rights to your data. We promise we never sell your data: never have, never will.

What we collect and why

Our guiding principle is to collect only what we need. Here’s what that means in practice:

Identity & access

When you register an account with Control Shift Escape, we typically require your name, email address, and billing or shipping address. This is needed for us to process your purchases, provide you updates or information regarding your purchases and or account, and most importantly, ship or deliver your purchases and provide you the best possible support when required. We’ll never sell your information to third parties, and we won’t use your name or company in marketing statements without your permission either.

Billing and shipping information

When you make a purchase on Control Shift Escape, we ask for your billing and or shipping address. Oftentimes these may be the same. The payment of your order is passed directly to our payment processor and doesn’t ever go through our servers. We store a record of the payment transaction including your billing and shipping address. This is for account history, invoicing, and billing support.

We also pass on your billing or shipping address, whichever you have decided to use for the delivery of your product to our courier provider. Like all courier services out there, they typically need your name, contact number, and address for delivery.

Website interactions

If you've accepted our cookie agreement we'll track some analytics such as the pages you visit, page load timing, and which website referred you for statistical purposes like conversion rates and to test new designs. We also track specific link clicks to help inform some design or marketing decisions. This web analytics data is tied to your IP address or user account if applicable.

Cookies

A cookie is a small amount of information that’s downloaded to your computer or device when you visit our Site. We use several different cookies, including functional, performance, advertising, and social media or content cookies. Cookies make your browsing experience better by allowing the website to remember your actions and preferences (such as login and region selection). This means you don’t have to re-enter this information each time you return to the site or browse from one page to another. Cookies also provide information on how people use the website, for instance, whether it’s their first time visiting or if they are a frequent visitor.

We use the following cookies to optimize your experience on our Site and to provide our services.

Cookies Necessary for the Functioning of our website

Name Function
_ab Used in connection with access to admin.
_secure_session_id Used in connection with navigation through a storefront.
cart Used in connection with shopping cart.
cart_sig Used in connection with checkout.
cart_ts Used in connection with checkout.
checkout_token Used in connection with checkout.
secret Used in connection with checkout.
secure_customer_sig Used in connection with customer login.
storefront_digest Used in connection with customer login.
_shopify_u Used to facilitate updating customer account information.

Reporting and Analytics

Name Function
_tracking_consent Tracking preferences.
_landing_page Track landing pages
_orig_referrer Track landing pages
_s Shopify analytics.
_shopify_s Shopify analytics.
_shopify_sa_p Shopify analytics relating to marketing & referrals.
_shopify_sa_t Shopify analytics relating to marketing & referrals.
_shopify_y Shopify analytics.
_y

Shopify analytics.
_ga

Google analytics
_gid

Google analytics
_ga_<container-id>

Google analytics

 

The length of time that a cookie remains on your computer or mobile device depends on whether it is a “persistent” or “session” cookie. Session cookies last until you stop browsing and persistent cookies last until they expire or are deleted. Most of the cookies we use are persistent and will expire between 30 minutes and two years from the date they are downloaded to your device.

You can control and manage cookies in various ways. Please keep in mind that removing or blocking cookies can negatively impact your user experience and parts of our website may no longer be fully accessible.

Most browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can choose whether or not to accept cookies through your browser controls, often found in your browser’s “Tools” or “Preferences” menu. More information on how to modify your browser settings or how to block, manage or filter cookies can be found in your browser’s help file or through such sites as www.allaboutcookies.org.

Do Not Track

Please note that because there is no consistent industry understanding of how to respond to “Do Not Track” signals, we do not alter our data collection and usage practices when we detect such a signal from your browser.

Voluntary correspondence

When you write Control Shift Escape with a question or to ask for help, we keep that correspondence, including the email address or phone number, so that we have a history of past correspondences to reference if you reach out again in the future.
We also store any information you volunteer like surveys or through form submissions.

Information we do not collect

We don’t collect any characteristics of protected classifications including age, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or physical and mental abilities or disabilities. You may however provide some of this data voluntarily via email correspondence which is subsequently stored as described in “Voluntary Correspondence” above, however, such data is never used or referred to.


We also do not collect or use any biometric data even if provided voluntarily, such as through your email signature or social media platforms.

Your rights with respect to your information

  • Right to Know. You have the right to know what personal information is collected, used, shared, or sold. We outline both the categories and specific bits of data we collect, as well as how they are used, in this privacy policy.
  • Right of Access. This includes your right to access the personal information we gather about you, and your right to obtain information about the sharing, storage, security, and processing of that information.
  • Right to Correction. You have the right to request the correction of your personal information.
  • Right to Erasure / “To Be Forgotten”. This is your right to request that your personal information be erased from our possession. Fulfillment of some data deletion requests may prevent you from using our website. In such cases, a data deletion request may result in closing your account.
  • Right to Complain. You have the right to make a complaint regarding our handling of your personal information with the South African regulator.
  • Right to Restrict Processing. This is your right to request restrictions on how and why your personal information is used or processed.
  • Right to Object. You have the right to object to how or why your personal information is processed.
  • Right to not be subject to Automated Decision-Making. You have the right, under certain circumstances to object and prevent any decision being made solely based on automated processes.

How we secure your data

All data is encrypted via SSL/TLS when transmitted from our servers to your browser.

Location of site and data

Our website is hosted on Shopify and as such any data provided through our website is stored on Shopify servers to place and fulfill your order, keep historical records, and manage your marketing consent.

Details about your order including some information you provide are synchronized or shared with the following cloud-based platforms:

  • Xero - Accounting
  • Flodesk - Email Marketing Service Provider
  • Hubspot - Customer Management System
  • Mintsoft - Warehouse Management System

When you review a product on our store, the information you provide in the review form such as email address, name, media, review text, and order history are shared with our cloud based product review partner Judge.me.

Companies we share your data with

Select information required for the fulfillment of your order is shared with the following third-party companies.

We commit to resolving all complaints

In compliance with the South African Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), we commit to resolving complaints about your privacy and our collection or use of your personal information.

Should you have any inquiries or complaints regarding this privacy policy please contact us:

Email

  • support@ctrlshiftesc.co.za

Mail

  • Control Shift Escape
  • P.O Box 238
  • White River, Mpumalanga
  • South Africa
  • 1240

Changes

We may update this policy as needed to comply with relevant regulations and reflect any new practices.

Whenever we make a significant change to our policies, we may also announce them via email.


This policy was last updated on 27 April 2022.


Control Shift Escape policies are open source, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Adapted from the Basecamp open-source policies / CC BY 4.0.