Privacy Policy

Summary of key points

What do we collect?

The contact and session details you give us when you inquire or book, the photographs we make of you, and basic technical and usage information from your visit to our website.

Do we collect sensitive information?

We don’t ask for it. If you tell us something like a due date to plan a maternity session, we use it only to schedule and plan your session.

Do we sell your information?

No. We never sell personal information.

Who do we share it with?

Only the service providers that help us run the business, such as our booking system, gallery host, website host, and analytics and advertising tools. Learn more.

What are your rights?

You can ask to see, correct or delete your personal information, and withdraw your consent. Learn more.

1. What information we collect

In short: the information you give us, the photographs we make, and basic information from your browser.

Information you give us

When you send an inquiry, book a session or communicate with us, we may collect:

• your name, email address and phone number
• details about your session or event, such as your wedding date and venue, the people to be photographed, or your due date for a maternity session
• billing details and your booking and payment history (card payments are handled by our payment processor; we do not store full card numbers)
• your contact preferences and anything else you choose to tell us

Please make sure the information you give us is accurate, and let us know if it changes.

Photographs

Photographing people is our work, so we create and store images of you and anyone else in your session. See Your photographs.

Information collected automatically

When you visit our website, we automatically collect certain technical information, such as your IP address, browser and device type, operating system, referring website, approximate location based on your IP address, the pages you view and the actions you take. This information does not directly identify you. We use it to keep the website working and secure, and to understand how visitors use it.

2. How we use your information

In short: to answer your inquiry, deliver your session, and run and improve our business.

• To respond to your inquiry and share information about our services.
• To plan, book and deliver your session, including scheduling, contracts, invoices, payments and gallery delivery.
• To send you administrative messages, such as booking confirmations, reminders and changes to our terms.
• To understand and improve our website through analytics.
• To advertise our services, including measuring whether our ads lead to inquiries. See Cookies, analytics and advertising.
• To comply with the law, including tax and accounting obligations, and to protect our rights.
• To protect someone’s vital interests, such as preventing harm.

3. Legal bases for processing

In short: we only process your information with your consent or another valid legal reason.

If you are in Canada

We process your personal information with your express consent (for example, when you fill in our inquiry form) or implied consent where it can reasonably be inferred. You can withdraw your consent at any time. In limited cases, Canadian law allows us to process information without consent, for example to detect and prevent fraud, to comply with a subpoena, warrant or court order, or where the information is publicly available as specified by regulation.

If you are in the EU or UK

Under the GDPR and UK GDPR, we rely on the following legal bases:

• Consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
• Performance of a contract, to deliver the session you booked or to take steps at your request before booking.
• Legal obligations, such as tax and accounting requirements.
• Vital interests, to protect someone’s safety.

4. When and with whom we share information

In short: only with the service providers that help us run the business, and never for sale.

We share personal information with trusted service providers who process it on our behalf, including:

• Booking and client management (our CRM, inquiry forms, contracts and invoicing)
• Payment processing
• Online gallery delivery and print ordering
• Website hosting and security (Cloudflare)
• Email delivery
• Analytics and advertising (Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity, Google Ads and Meta). See section 5.
• Retouching and editing contractors, who receive your images only to edit them

Some of these providers store data outside Canada, including in the United States, where it may be subject to local laws.

We may also disclose information if required by law, or in connection with a merger, sale or transfer of all or part of our business. We do not sell personal information.

5. Cookies, analytics and advertising

In short: we use cookies and similar tools to understand our website traffic and measure our advertising.

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies. Some are needed for the site to work. Others help us understand how visitors use the site and whether our advertising leads to inquiries:

• Google Analytics tells us how visitors find and use our website. You can opt out with the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on.
• Microsoft Clarity records how visitors move through our pages (clicks, scrolling and page layout) so we can find and fix parts of the site that are hard to use. It masks text you type into fields. See the Microsoft Privacy Statement.
• Google Ads measures whether visitors who clicked our ads went on to send an inquiry. You can manage ad personalisation in your Google ad settings.
• The Meta Pixel (Facebook and Instagram) measures the results of our ads and may be used to show our ads to people who have visited our site. You can manage this in your Meta ad preferences.

Most browsers let you block or delete cookies. If you do, parts of our website may not work as intended. For more about how Google uses data, see the Google Privacy & Terms page.

6. Your photographs

In short: your images are stored securely and shared only as your agreement allows.

Images from your session are stored securely and delivered to you through a private online gallery. We use your images for marketing, such as on our website or social media, only as permitted by your session agreement. If you would like us to stop using an image of you in our marketing, email us and we will remove it from our own channels going forward.

7. How long we keep your information

In short: only as long as we need it, unless the law requires longer.

We keep personal information only as long as needed for the purposes in this policy, or longer where required by law, for example for tax and accounting records. We keep client images and gallery files for as long as described in your session agreement. When we no longer need your information, we delete or anonymise it, or, where that isn’t possible (for example, in backups), we store it securely and isolate it until it can be deleted.

8. How we keep your information safe

In short: we use reasonable safeguards, but no system is perfectly secure.

We use reasonable organisational and technical measures to protect your personal information. However, no transmission over the internet or storage system can be guaranteed to be 100% secure, so we cannot promise that unauthorised third parties will never gain access. Please take care when sending information online.

9. Children and minors

In short: we photograph children only with a parent or guardian’s consent.

Our family and maternity sessions often include children. We collect information about a child, including their photographs, only from and with the consent of their parent or guardian, and only to deliver the session. We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from anyone under 18 through our website, and we do not market to children. If you believe a child has sent us personal information without a parent or guardian’s consent, email us at info@markeadiephotography.com and we will delete it.

10. Your privacy rights

In short: you can ask to see, correct or delete your information, and withdraw your consent.

Depending on where you live, including Canada, the EEA, the UK, Switzerland and some US states, you may have the right to:

• ask for access to, and a copy of, the personal information we hold about you
• ask us to correct or delete your personal information
• withdraw your consent at any time
• object to or restrict certain processing, and, where applicable, request data portability

To make a request, email info@markeadiephotography.com. We may need to verify your identity before acting on a request, and we will respond in accordance with applicable law. Withdrawing consent does not affect processing already carried out, or processing based on another legal ground.

Marketing emails: you can unsubscribe at any time using the link in any marketing email, or by emailing us. We may still send service messages about an active booking.

Complaints: if you are in Canada and are not satisfied with how we have handled your information, you can contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. If you are in the EEA or UK, you can complain to your local data protection authority or the UK Information Commissioner’s Office. In Switzerland, you can contact the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner.

11. Do-not-track signals

Some browsers offer a do-not-track (DNT) setting. There is no agreed standard for recognising DNT signals, so our website does not currently respond to them. If a standard is adopted that we must follow, we will update this policy.

12. United States residents

In short: residents of certain US states have additional rights over their personal information.

If you live in a US state with a consumer privacy law (such as California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia or others), you may have the rights described in section 10, plus the right to opt out of targeted advertising, and the right not to be discriminated against for exercising your rights.

Categories of personal information we have collected in the past 12 months

Approximate location is inferred from IP addresses only, not from your device. If you share a pregnancy due date to plan a maternity session, we use it only for scheduling and do not use it to infer anything about you.

Sale and sharing

We do not sell personal information. Our use of the Google Ads and Meta advertising tools described in section 5 may be considered “sharing” for targeted advertising under some state laws. To opt out, email info@markeadiephotography.com, or use the Google and Meta ad settings linked in section 5.

Appeals

If we decline to act on your request, you may appeal by emailing info@markeadiephotography.com. We will reply in writing with our decision and reasons. If your appeal is denied, you may contact your state attorney general. You may also use an authorised agent to make a request on your behalf, with your written permission.

13. Updates to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The “Last updated” date at the top shows when it last changed. If we make material changes, we may notify you by posting a notice on our website or contacting you directly.

14. How to contact us

If you have questions about this policy, or want to review, update or delete your personal information, contact us: