Publishing Privacy and Cookies

Privacy Notice

Practical Action Publishing is committed to protecting your security and privacy. Any information you provide is stored securely, and is not accessible to other users of this site. Rest assured that any information you give to Practical Action Publishing will not be distributed to any other company outside of Practical Action Publishing except insofar as it is necessary for us to process your order, submission or information request.

We will only use the information that we collect about you lawfully (in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation 2018). GDPR is enforced and administered by the UK Information Commissioner’s Office. You can find more about your data protection rights atwww.ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/ We will ensure we have a legal basis to use your personal information for the other purposes mentioned in this policy (usually with your consent, further to a legitimate interests assessment, or because the use of your data is necessary to comply with a legal obligation).

You can read the complete Practical Action group privacy policy here 

What information we collect and how we might use your information

We collect information about you to process your book or subscription order and to provide you with the best possible service.  In order to process your payment we may, however, provide financial information to our distributor and to account processors (including Banks or payment gateways). We will not sell your information to another trader or business for the purposes of marketing or any other activity. You may notify us if you do not wish to receive any further marketing information from us. The type of information we will collect about you includes: name, address, phone number, email address, product download information and credit/debit card details (when required for payment). We do not store credit/ debit card details nor do we share customer details with any 3rd parties except for those processing information on our behalf. We only retain your credit or debit card information, or other financial information for as long as is required for us to process payments (the duration of the card verification). We do not accept credit card information via email or store them for later use. We do not collect sensitive information about you without your explicit consent.

We may use technology to track the patterns of behaviour of visitors to our site. Your IP address is used to help identify you and your shopping cart and to gather broad demographic information. Our website also uses session cookies (see below for more details) to maintain your shopping information (after you sign in and add items to your shopping cart), which are stored on your computer as long as you are in the store, or even if you leave the site for less than 20 minutes and return. Information is not shared between our websites.

We will endeavour to ensure the information we hold is accurate and up to date. You can check the information that we hold about you by emailing us at [email protected] If you find any inaccuracies we will delete or correct it promptly. If you would like to make a request to access the information we hold about you or to make a complaint about how your personal information has been used; please write to us at:

Post: Data Protection Officer, Practical Action, The Schumacher Centre, Bourton On Dunsmore, Rugby, CV23 9QZ or Email:[email protected]

The personal information which we hold on our customers is held securely in accordance with our internal security policy and the law. Practical Action Publishing is aware that countries outside the European Economic Area have differing approaches to data privacy laws, and that enforcement may not be as robust as it is within Europe’s borders.  We make every endeavour not to process data outside of the EEA without explicit consent, except for payment processing through the secure channels of our banking partners and data processing organisations that we work with in the USA. Organisations we work with who process personal information in the USA have verified their data processing standards meet the EU-US Privacy Shield, which sets out clear safeguards and transparency responsibilities for US-based organisations processing personal information from EU citizens.

We do not knowingly collect for company use any personal information of children under 18 without the consent of their parent or carer.

Security and Secure Shopping Verification

Practical Action Publishing guarantees that every transaction made at our online store will be safe. This means you are not liable for any unauthorized charges made to your credit cards as a result of shopping at our online store.

We use the industry standard Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption to ensure the highest security for credit card and personal details submitted to us over the Internet. This secure server software encrypts all of your personal information including credit or debit card number, name and address. The encryption process takes the characters you enter and converts them into bits of code that are then securely transmitted over the Internet. Our secure-server software encrypts all your personal information so that the information passed between your computer and our website cannot be read in the unlikely event that it is intercepted by someone else.

We are a member of the GlobalSign SSL network. For more information regarding this technology, you can click on the SSL padlock icon found on your browser software to verify our security and find out more.

Cookies Policy

Like most websites, we use data from our servers as well as cookies to get a better understanding of the way people use our websites. We don’t collect personal information that would identify you, unless you choose to share that with us. You don’t have to give any personal data to us – doing that is voluntary.

What are cookies?

A cookie is a small piece of data, which is stored on your device (eg. computer or mobile device).

We use cookies to collect anonymous data on how visitors use our website. We don’t store any information that would identify you personally in the cookies we create, but we do look at trends and patterns to try to improve your experience of using our website.

Accepting or blocking cookies

You don’t have to do anything to accept cookies, by continuing to use this site you are giving your consent to receive them. If you do want to block cookies, you need to do this by changing the settings in your browser to reject them from this site. Read more on how to block cookies.

How do we use this information?

We analyse trends and patterns in the data, so that we can improve your experience. It helps us to identify problems with the website and ensure we are giving users the information they need.

We don’t share any personal data that you supply, although we may share information about general user trends with our partners. We also don’t track user behaviour after you have left our site.

If you have any questions or comments about privacy or security, please contact us: [email protected] or[email protected]

This statement was updated in May 2018.