Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy applies even if you have purchased via a third party (such as a stockist, trade book holder or professional contractor) where we dispatch your Farrow & Ball goods on their behalf.

Farrow & Ball is committed to protecting your privacy and takes its responsibilities regarding the security of customer information very seriously. This privacy policy explains what personal data we collect about you, how and why we use it, who we disclose it to, and how we protect your privacy.


1. Who is responsible for your data

Our Privacy Policy applies to the personal data that Farrow & Ball collects and uses.

References in this Privacy Policy to “Farrow & Ball”, “we”, “us” or “our” mean Farrow & Ball Limited (a company registered in England and Wales with registration no 00999927 and registered office at 33 Uddens Trading Estate, Wimborne, Dorset, BH21 7NL). We control the ways your personal data are collected and the purposes for which your personal data are used by Farrow & Ball and are the “data controller” for the purposes of the UK Data Protection Act 1998, EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), PCI-DSS, and European data protection legislation.

We also comply with the principles of the US Electronic Communications Privacy Act (18 USC §2510) and the Canadian Privacy Act and Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) although our data is processed and hosted within the legal jurisdiction of England and Wales.

Farrow & Ball Limited is registered on the ICO Data Protection Register; Registration Number Z3256296.

2. Purpose and Lawful Basis for processing your data

We have three purposes for processing your personal data:

To complete the sale of products to you and the carrying out of any logistics for delivery or return of goods. This purpose allows Farrow & Ball to lawfully process your data for legitimate interests (GDPR 6F) and our legal obligations to your country’s tax and revenue authorities.
To inform, inspire and engage with relevant, personalised content about our colours, products and services. This purpose means that Farrow & Ball continually give you the provision to withdraw consent to process your data for communication, education and marketing purposes (GDPR 1). Without your consent, Farrow & Ball will not process your data for this purpose.
To determine shopping trends and conduct anonymised customer insight. This purpose allows Farrow & Ball to state a legitimate interest (GDPR 6F) to combine the shopping history of many customers to identify trends and ensure we can keep up with demand or develop new products/services. This includes linking guest and account purchases in statistical analysis. All trends reports can not track back to individual customer sales and we protect your individual orders.
The purpose and lawful basis for processing your data may change from time to time, where this policy will be updated.

3. Consent

Since GDPR & DPA 2018 was introduced on the 25th May 2018, your granting of consent is a protected right. We will provide clear, unticked boxes to opt in or out out (as relevant to the transaction being undertaken, and whether you are an existing customer or new) of marketing communications. The guidelines for this are set out in the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) which operates alongside GDPR & DPA 2018. You will be given further opportunities to change your opt-in statuses in all subsequent emails.

We will keep your given consent on file for a period of up to 7 years from the last change before checking if your consent is still valid. This is in line with our average customer project cycle. We will not contact you if you have withdrawn consent, but you can grant or withdraw your consent at any time. We are still working on making this self-serve at www.farrow-ball.com, but in the meantime you can visit a showroom, call our Customer Service team (Tel. +44 (0)1202 876141) or send an email to data.protection@farrow-ball.com and express your preference to not receive marketing communications.

At 7 years we will write to you by email or post, depending on your preferences, with a statement of consent and your current choices. We will then send a reminder email after 30 days if no contact has been received. If this is not responded to then we will take that your granting of consent is still valid.

We will also include the opportunity to unsubscribe or withdraw consent on all marketing emails.

4. Personal data we collect about you

When using the term “personal data” in our Privacy Policy, we mean information that relates to you and allows us to identify you, either directly or in combination with other information that we may hold. Your personal data may include for example your name, your contact details, information relating to your purchase (e.g. your order references) or information on how you use our website, in-store Wi-Fi, and apps or how you interact with us.
We collect some personal data from you, for example when you purchase from us, use our website or our app, use our services or contact us. We may also receive your personal data from our suppliers who provide services to you on our behalf, our partners when you show interest our products through them, for example our partnered retailers who offer you the chance to match our paint and wallpaper to their products. If you purchase paint or wallpaper on behalf of someone else, you must have their consent to use their personal information.

For more information on the parties who may share your personal data with us, please see section 7 below

Categories of data we collect

We may collect and process the following categories of information about you:

Category of Data collected / held When we process such data
name and surname and your contact details
(email address, telephone number and postal address)
When you create an account on our website
When you purchase our products 
When you engage one of our colour consultants
When you sign up for our in-store Wi-Fi
When you take part in our competitions,
When you attend our events and talks, or
When you choose an offer we make available on our website
When we undertake market research when you have consented to be included in phone, email or workshop surveys
When you apply for roles within F&B
Information about your transaction, including your payment card details When you purchase our products or services
Information related to your home and our services in connection with your home (e.g. property style, number of rooms, type of project)  When you use our colour consultancy / advice
When you use our services in-store
Anonymised information related to your demographic profile (for example, deciding new opportunities for new Farrow & Ball showroom or stockist) When you choose to allow this information to inform our analysis while creating an account or through managing your preferences
Information about your purchases of our partners’ products and services  When you purchase such products or services
The communications you exchange with us (for example, your emails, letters, calls, or your messages on our online chat service) When you contact Farrow & Ball or you are contacted by us
Your social media account ID

When you interact with us on social media
When you use your social media account to use our guest Wi-Fi (alternative available)

When we target social media posts

Your posts and messages on social media directed to Farrow & Ball  When you interact with us on social media 
Your feedback When you reply to our requests for feedback or participate in our customer surveys
Your preferred shopping locations When you choose to provide this information while creating an account or through managing your preferences
Information about how you use our website or our mobile app, such as your searches for products

When you navigate on our website or when you use our mobile app

When you partially or fully complete a checkout online

Sensitive personal data

Information that could reveal your racial or ethnic origin, physical or mental health, religious beliefs or alleged commission or conviction of criminal offences is considered “sensitive personal data” under the UK Data Protection Act 1998 and other data protection laws. We do not collect this data from customers.

In the event of you applying for and being successful in gaining a role within Farrow & Ball, we will collect this data as part of your contract of employment, and we have a Privacy Policy Addendum to cover employees. If you have not been given this, it can be requested by emailing data.protection@farrow-ball.com or contacting HR.

5. How and why we use your personal data

We use your personal data for the following purposes: 

To manage your orders and provide our services to you 
When you purchase from us, or seek advice, we use your information to perform our services in relation to your purchase or enquiry, for example to provide you with product, tailor specific advice to your project’s needs or change bookings for consultancy appointments.  

To communicate with you and manage our relationship with you 
Occasionally we may need to contact you by email and/or telephone for administrative or operational reasons, for example in order to send you confirmation of your purchases and your payments, to inform you about your consultancy appointments, to notify you when backordered products are available or to advise you of disruption and changes to your appointments and deliveries. If you are using our mobile app, we may also send you app notifications for these purposes. 

Please be aware that these communications are not made for marketing purposes and as such, you will continue to receive them even if you opt-out from receiving marketing communications. 

We will also use your personal data if we contact you after you have sent us a request, filled in a web-form through our website or contacted us on social media.  

Your opinion is very important to us, so we may send you an email or SMS to seek your feedback. 

We will use the communications you exchange with us and the feedback you may provide in order to manage our relationship with you as our customer and to improve our services and experiences for customers.  

To personalise and improve your customer experience 
We may use your personal data in order to tailor our services to your needs and preferences and to provide you with a personalised customer experience. For example, if you inform us about your preferred products, colours or style we will be able to send you inspirational tips and ideas relevant to your interests. 

We may also collect information on how you use our website, which pages of our website you visit most, which colours, finishes or product you search for and what products you buy, in order to understand what you like. We may use this information to tailor the content and offers that you see on our website and, if you have agreed to receiving marketing communications, to send you relevant messages that we think you like.   

If you are in the process of making a purchase under your account and you leave our website before your order has been placed, we may contact you in order to help you easily complete your purchase.    

To inform you about our news and offers that you may like 
We may send you marketing communications, if you have indicated that you are happy to receive these, for example when you create an account on our website or purchase from us in-store and you explicitly agree to receive such communications. You can also request us to send you marketing communications through managing your preferences in your account.  

If you are happy to receive marketing communications, we will provide you with news from us such as new products that you may be interested in or services that you may like. In addition, if you are happy to receive marketing communications, we may send you communications that include the promotion of our partners’ products and services that may be related with your purchase history.  

Please note that we do not share your contact details and other personal data with other companies for marketing purposes, unless we have obtained your consent to do so (for example when showing an interest in The Rug Company products in our stores). 

If you do not want to receive marketing communications from us, you can simply tell us so by clicking the relevant box before confirming your booking. You can also choose to opt out from receiving marketing communications at any time, by clicking on the relevant unsubscribe link at the bottom of any marketing related email you may receive from us.   

If you have a Farrow & Ball online account, you can easily manage your marketing preferences through your account and you can at any time opt out from receiving marketing communications, by clicking on the “Contact Preferences” section of your account. 

If you prefer, you can also call our Customer Service team and express your preference to not receive marketing communications (Tel. +44 (0)1202 876141) or send an email to data.protection@farrow-ball.com with the header “Unsubscribe”. We ask that you allow 5 working days to complete any unsubscribe request 

To improve our services, fulfil our administrative purposes and protect our business interests  
The business purposes for which we will use your information include accounting, billing and audit, credit or other payment card verification, fraud screening, security and legal purposes, statistical and marketing analysis, systems testing, maintenance and development.  

To comply with our legal obligations, for example, our obligation to provide your information to local police agencies. 

6. Requesting access to your personal data

You have a right to request access to the personal data that we hold about you. This could include purchase information relating to products and services.
If you would like to request a copy of your personal data, please visit our dedicated page for more information: https://www.farrow-ball.com/en/policy/datarequest.
If you have questions in relation to your personal data, please contact us at: data.protection@farrow-ball.com.

7. Right to be forgotten

You have a right to be forgotten and have data erased and / or stop being processed where the personal data is no longer necessary for the purpose of collection, you withdraw consent, when you object to the processing or to comply with a legal obligation.

We will not erase your records as we need to maintain your transactional data for our legal obligations to the local tax and revenue authorities. What we will undertake is to anonymise your records, overwriting your personal data with fictional names, addresses and emails. Once this has been done it will be impossible to restore a single customer, and a new customer registration will be required.

We have a number of security and governance protections in place that will be excluded from your right to be forgotten:

Encrypted system backups, held for up to 10 years. It is practically impossible to alter these backup files
Our anti-spam and email gateway. We maintain email archiving for security reasons, and your info may be kept in this archive. Access to this gateway is limited to named data controllers for Farrow & Ball.
If you have questions in relation to your personal data, please contact us at: data.protection@farrow-ball.com.

8. Right to restrict processing

You have a right for your personal data to be stored but not processed. This is achieved through the withdrawal of consent.
If you have questions in relation to your personal data, please contact us at: data.protection@farrow-ball.com.

9. Rights related to automated decision making including profiling

You have a right to be excluded from automated decision making. Farrow & Ball have a number of different customer and consumer types who we personalise experiences for. These include home decorators, interior designers, professional painter and decorators, stockist owners and more. Our personalisation of your experience is achieved through automating profiling based on purchase behaviours and information shared.
You can select your preference at our contact preference centre, but opting out of this, you will not be able to receive any personalised inspiration or communications
If you have questions in relation to your personal data, please contact us at: data.protection@farrow-ball.com.

10. Security of your personal data

We are committed to taking appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against unauthorised or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction or damage to personal data. When you provide your personal data through our website, stores or our mobile app, this information is transmitted across the internet securely using high-grade encryption.

Furthermore, Farrow & Ball is a PCI DSS compliant organisation. This means that we adhere to high security standards in order to protect your payment card details when you are sending us this information.
As described in this Privacy Policy, we may in some instances disclose your personal data to third parties. Where Farrow & Ball discloses your personal data to a third party, we require that third party to have appropriate technical and organisational measures in place to protect your personal data; however, in some instances we may be compelled by law to disclose your personal data to a third party, such as local police agencies, and have limited control over how it is protected by that party.

The information that you provide to us will be held in our systems, which are located on our premises or those of an appointed third party. We may also allow access to your information by other third parties who act for us for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy or for other purposes approved by you. Your personal data may be accessed by and processed outside the European Economic Area (the European Economic Area being the European Union and Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, also referred to as the “EEA”) - including by staff operating outside the EEA who work for us or for one of our suppliers or agents (this includes staff engaged in, among other things, the fulfilment of your booking, ground handlers, and the provision of support services). Where your personal data are transferred outside of the EEA, we require that appropriate safeguards are in place.

We will retain your personal data for as long as we need it in order to fulfil our purposes set out in this Privacy Policy or in order to comply with the law, but for a period no more than 10 years.

11. Cookies or other tracking technologies

In order to improve our services, to provide you with more relevant content and to analyse how visitors use our website and app, we may use technologies, such as cookies, pixels or tracking software. Please be aware that in most cases we will not be able to identify you from the information we collect using these technologies.

For example, we use software to monitor customer traffic patterns and website usage to help us develop the design and layout of the website in order to enhance the experience of the visitors to our website. This software does not enable us to collect any personal data. In addition, in order to understand how our customers interact with the emails and the content that we send, we use pixels that allow us to know if the emails we send are opened or if the content of our emails is displayed in text or html form.

We also use cookies in our website, mobile app or in our emails. Cookies are small pieces of information stored by your browser on your computer's hard drive. They enable you to navigate on our website or app and allow us to provide features such as remembering aspects of your last flight search to make subsequent searches faster. You can delete cookies if you wish; while certain cookies are necessary for viewing and navigating on our website or app, most of the features will be still accessible without cookies. For more information on how we use cookies and how you can remove them, read our Cookie Policy.

In store, we use our Wi-Fi solution to provide statistics on how many visitors we have, how long they spend in store and what parts of the store are visited. This does not depend on the use of guest Wi-Fi and this data does not have any personal identifying information within it.

12. Sharing your personal data

Your personal data may be shared with other companies within our Group. It may also be disclosed to a third party who acquires us, a member of our Group or substantially all of our assets.

We may also share some of your personal data with, or obtain your personal data from, the following categories of third parties:

Suppliers providing services to us in order to help us run our business and improve our services and your customer experience.
We may for example share your personal data with the companies who provide deliveries for us. We may also disclose your information to the companies who help us get your feedback on our services. At Farrow & Ball, we select very carefully our suppliers who process your personal data on our behalf and require that they comply with high security standards for the protection of your personal data.

Credit and debit card companies
Farrow & Ball shares some of your personal data, which includes information about your method of payment and purchase value, to the credit or debit card company that issued the card you used to make your booking. In order to ensure the security of your transactions and prevent or detect fraudulent transactions, we may also share your information with our fraud screening partner.

Our partners who offer home decoration / furnishing related products and services on our website, promote offers or co-organise competitions
From time to time, we make certain third party offers available through our website or we publish competitions co-organised by third parties. If you choose to purchase products or services offered on our websites by third parties (for example rugs, flowers, other Dorset premium businesses), accept offers or participate in a competition, some of your personal data, such as your contact details and your billing information, may be directly collected by or disclosed to that third party.

Authorities
We may disclose your personal data when this is required by the law of any jurisdiction to which Farrow & Ball may be subject.

Through our website we provide links to third party websites which are subject to separate Privacy Polices. Please be aware that this Privacy Policy does not apply to such websites and Farrow & Ball is not responsible for your information that third parties may collect through these websites.

13. Receiving your personal data from customers

Farrow & Ball supply paint and wallpaper direct to consumer, but also wholesale to Paint and Wallpaper Stockists, Designers and Painters/Decorators/Contractors (3rd party data controllers). They may place orders with Farrow & Ball (data processor) to be shipped direct to your home or chosen location. We employ data processing agreements to cover this activity and all 3rd party data requests should be passed to the relevant 3rd party data controller.

14. Updates to our Privacy Policy

We may make changes to this Privacy Policy from time to time we will update the Privacy Policy and we will publish on our website any new version of this Policy.

15. Contact information

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcomed and should be addressed to data.protection@Farrow-Ball.com.