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Cookies are tiny text files stored on your computer when you visit certain web pages. They are designed to hold small amounts of information. This information can be both specific to the website you’re visiting and to you.
The information contained within cookies can be used by the website you are visiting to enhance your experience, for example remembering what items have been added to a basket when moving from one page to another. The information can also be used for ‘remarketing’ purposes – which means to show you different products, offers, and services based on what you appear to be interested I through approved advertising partners such as Google.
To find out more, please check What are cookies (please note that we aren’t responsible for the content of external websites).
Gear4music use cookies to improve your experience on our website and to show you personalised offers and advertising across the web through our selected 3rd party partners.
If you disable cookies, that will mean that no information will be collected via cookies, however your experience of using our website will not be to its full potential and certain areas and features of the website may not behave as expected.
Most browsers have cookies enabled. See the ‘How do I manage my cookies?’ section to learn how to turn them on or off should you need to.
If you wish to manage which cookies you are happy to accept from Gear4music you can do so by using the button below. A pop-up will appear allowing you to opt in and out of any cookies that are not strictly necessary for the basic functioning of this website:
In addition to this, you are able set your browser to block cookies for any site you visit. Please check your browser for instructions on how to do this. You can refer to this information which explains how you can turn off cookies in each of the major web browsers.
We use a range of approved 3rd party advertising partners to show a selection of relevant products and offers, based on what you have viewed on the Gear4music site, when you visit other websites that display advertising.
The adverts you see may not be exactly the same products viewed on Gear4music’s website, they may be alternative styles and colours as well as other products deemed relevant to you. The technology behind tailoring these adverts to you is based on the use of cookies.
You can choose to opt out of this type of advertising permanently for each of the following channels:
Links will all open in a new window, Gear4music aren’t responsible for the content of external websites.
If you delete your cookies, we won't know that you've opted out, because the way in which we register that you've opted out is through a cookie; so the banners may reappear when you visit some other websites.
Learn more about cookies set by other companies on Your Online Choices.
If you'd like to learn more about cookies in general and how to manage them, please visit aboutcookies.org. If you'd like to opt out of cookies, please go to the Network Advertising Initiative website (opens in a new window, we aren't responsible for the content of external websites
Below is a list of necessary 1st party cookies Gear4music set when you visit our website and why they are used. These cookies cannot and should not be disabled as they are integral to the website functioning:
| Name of Cookie | Why we use them | Expiry |
|---|---|---|
| Browser_token | This uniquely identifies the browser. This lets us detect malicious activity and keep data like the user’s basket, even when the session has expired | 10 years |
| Browser_token_us | This uniquely identifies the browser. This lets us detect bots and keep data like the user’s basket, even when the session has expired. This cookie is only active on Gear4music’s US domain. | 10 years |
| G4m_session_v2 | This enables the website to behave correctly during a customer’s visit. For example, it ensures that the basket and checkout work correctly. | 1 year |
| G4m_session_v2_us | This enables the website to behave correctly during a customer’s visit. For example, it ensures that the basket and checkout work correctly. This cookie is only active on Gear4music’s US domain. | 1 year |
| User_device_preference | This stores the user’s preference as to whether the mobile or desktop website should be displayed. | 1 day |
| lastRskxRun | Used by Riskified for fraud profiling and prevention. | 10 years |
| rCookie | Used by Riskified for fraud profiling and prevention. | 10 years |
| rskcRunCookie | Used by Riskified for fraud profiling and prevention. | 10 years |
If you visit a web page on our site that contains embedded content such as YouTube, you may be sent cookies from these websites. Gear4music don't control the setting of these cookies, so please check the third-party websites for more information about their cookies and how to manage them.
Where possible, we've supplied a link to the third-party website for further information (Please note that we aren't responsible for the content of external websites).
If you wish to manage whether or not you wish to accept these cookies from Gear4music you can do so by using the button below. A pop-up will appear allowing you to opt in and out of any cookies that are not strictly necessary for the basic functioning of this website:
If you'd like to opt out being shown personalised advertising from 3rd parties in general, please go to the Network Advertising Initiative.
| Name of Cookie | Why we use them | Expiry | _ga | A unique identifier for a user. The data is sent to Google Analytics. This helps us understand how much traffic Gear4music is receiving and how the website is being used. More information can be found here | 2 years |
|---|---|---|
| _gac_UA-334226-1 | This contains campaign related information for the user which is shared across Google Analytics and Google AdWords. | 90 days |
| _gat_gtag_UA_334226_1 | Used by Google Analytics to throttle requests to their service in the event of spam attacks. | 1 minute |
| _gid | A unique identifier for a user that is sent to google analytics. This helps us understand how much traffic Gear4music is receiving and how the website is being used. | 1 day |
| AddressOverrideInteraction | Tells the website the user has interacted with the address form during purchase which helps the website decide if the form should be shown. | Session length |
| g4m_default_country | This stores a customer’s default country and language. | 30 minutes |
| _asc | Used to collect information on customer behaviour, instructions for opting out can be found here | 30 minutes |
| _auc | Used to collect information on customer behaviour, instructions for opting out can be found here | 1 year |
| _fbp | Used by Facebook to track visits across different websites. | 3 months |
| _gcl_aw | Used by Google AdSense for experimenting with advertising efficiency and effectiveness across websites using their services. | 3 months |
| Affc | Used to provide affiliate conversion tracking. | 1 month |
| cto_bundle | Used for targeted adverts. here | 13 months |
| cto_idcpy | Used for targeted adverts. here | 13 months |
| cto_Iwid | Used for targeted adverts. here | 13 months |
| _aw_sn_* | Used for targeted adverts. here | 12 months |
Gear4music is fully committed to respecting your privacy and protecting any information you provide. We only use the information you provide to process orders you may place at a Gear4music website, notify you when important changes are made to our service, and occasionally tell you about relevant products or services we are offering in line with our direct marketing rules and your communication preferences.
We will not pass your personal details to third parties for marketing or research purposes. Please note that we may retain any data that you provide on this website, even if you do not complete your registration by clicking 'Register new account'. Such contact details and data may be used to contact you to enquire why you did not complete your registration. You have the right to access your personal data and the right to correct, block and delete it at any time.
Our primary goal in collecting personal information from you is to provide you with a smooth, and efficient experience while using our website. This allows us to provide services and features that meet and exceed your expectations.
To register as a customer, where you will be required to provide us with your contact information and some other information required to process any orders you place with us.
When you access our Websites via any means or make a purchase through the Website, we may collect, store and use certain of your personal information in line with this policy. To register or make a purchase on the Websites, we ask for your:
When you make a purchase, our payment service providers will also collect and process your credit card or other payment details. If you contact us, we may also keep a record of that correspondence.
The information that we collect from you (including any Personal Data) may be transferred to, and stored at, various destinations. This will not include destinations outside the European Economic Area (EEA). It may be processed by staff operating at various locations outside the EEA who work for us, or for one of our website development, website penetration testing (also known as “ethical hacking”), hosting, connectivity or telecommunications service providers. By providing us with your information (including Personal Data), you agree to this transfer, storing and processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not always completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your Personal Data, we cannot guarantee the security of your information before transmission to our Website; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.
We only use information you provide to process orders you may place at a Gear4music web site. We will keep this information as long as it is necessary under your warranty agreement, under EU and national consumer rights regulation or until relevant storage requirements from financial and tax authorities expire. When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal information, we will either delete or anonymise it or, if this is not possible (for example, because your personal information has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your personal information and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.
If you gave us your consent to inform you about our exclusive offers and discounts, we will store your details until you ask us to opt out from our direct marketing or until you exercise your right to withdraw your consent to our processing of your Personal Data in any other form.
We use the information collected from you to process your order. By submitting an order your personal details will be shared with the sales, customer service and warehouse fulfilment teams at Gear4music. We also need to share your data with the relevant third-party courier companies to deliver the order to your choose delivery address.
Our legal basis for collecting and using the personal information described above will depend on the personal information concerned and the specific context in which we collect it. However, we will normally collect personal information from you only:
In some cases, we may also have a legal obligation to collect personal information from you. If we ask you to provide personal information to comply with a legal requirement or to perform a contract with you, we will make this clear at the relevant time and advise you whether the provision of your personal information is mandatory or not (as well as the possible consequences if you do not provide your information). Similarly, if we collect and use your personal information in reliance on our legitimate interests (or those of any third party), we will make clear to you at the relevant time what those legitimate interests are.
When you register as a new customer on the Gear4music website you have the opportunity to sign up for exclusive offers and discounts by email. By providing your consent Gear4music will send to your registered email address our regular sales newsletter and special offers, discounts and competitions. You can always opt-out later by either: logging into your account and changing your communication preferences, clicking on the “unsubscribe” link on the bottom of our emails, or contacting our customer service department. Please note, the opt-out excludes essential service messages such as order confirmation and dispatch emails.
If you registered an account before we had the opt-in box at registration you instead had chance to opt-out from our marketing emails in compliance with the UK Data Protection Act 1998 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003. As you bought something from us, gave us your contact details, and did not opt-out of marketing messages, we believe you have a legitimate interest in our products and services and are happy to receive marketing from us about similar products or services even though you haven’t specifically consented. Consequently, we will continue sending you emails and we will, of course, process your data in line with the processing principles under the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and of course, you can opt out at any time.
Gear4music will never sell your data to any third party. But we may disclose your personal information to third parties when permitted by law including:
(a) with your consent.
(b) to our suppliers in order for them to help us provide our services to you, this includes:
These suppliers’ use of your personal data may be subject to their own privacy policies, which are available on their websites, and which we suggest you familiarise yourself with in the relevant circumstances set out above.
(c) if we are under a duty to disclose or share your information in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our Terms and other agreements; or to protect our rights, property, or safety, our users, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.
You can edit any of the information in your Account. It is your responsibility:
You have certain rights under the Data Protection Laws, including:
Should you wish to exercise any of the above rights, please contact our Group's Data Protection Officer:
Data Protection Officer
Gear4music Limited
Holgate Park Drive
York
YO26 4GN
United Kingdom
Email: [email protected]
If you exercise any of the above rights, then we will action your request as soon as reasonably practicable and, in any event, within one month.
Our Website may contain links to enable you to visit other websites which may be of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our Website, we do not have any control over other websites. Therefore, we aren't responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites.
We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time, so please review it frequently
Following an order, the Trusted Shops Trustbadge is incorporated into the Gear4music web page in order to display our Trusted Shops trustmark for customers and the eventually collected reviews, as well as the Trusted Shops product offer. In balancing the various interests, this serves to safeguard our legitimate prevailing interests in an optimised marketing of our offer. The trustbadge and the services advertised are an offer of Trusted Shops GmbH, Subbelrather Str. 15C, 50823 Köln, Germany.
Whenever a trustbadge is called up, the web server automatically stores a so-called server log file which contains, for example, your IP address, the date and time of retrieval, the data volume transferred and the requesting provider (access data), and documents the retrieval. This access data will not be evaluated and will be automatically overwritten seven days after your visit to the page. Other personal information will only be transferred to Trusted Shops if you decide, after completing an order, to use Trusted Shops products or have already registered for their use. In this case, the contractual agreement between you and Trusted Shops applies.
Gear4music offers the opportunity for companies, institutions and educational establishments to open a trade account or an education account. These institutional accounts are not personal accounts but are linked to the relevant legal entities to which they belong. We encourage individual employees of these institutions to provide as few personal details as possible, but wherever the data of a named individual is used, that data is personal and the general rules of Section 2 of this policy apply.
For the fulfilment of our contract with the relevant institution and with the legitimate interest of data verification and an effective business relationship with the account holder, it might be necessary to share personal information held on the institutional account with other people and departments of the same institution. Even if Gear4music aims to communicate solely with any registered main contact person, it can at its discretion, and after appropriate ID verification, also deal with other members of the account-holding institution. If an individual wants to object to this data sharing, they should do so by immediately contacting Gear4music after opening an institutional account, Gear4music may change the institutional account to a personal account to protect the individual’s privacy.
Institutional account holders must always keep their contact information up to date and must inform Gear4music immediately if registered members of staff change or leave their employment.
This section describes what information is collected by Gear4music from candidates, and how that information is used by Gear4music. This section is solely applicable to job applications and other recruitment activities and is not relevant for other users of the website or Gear4music customers in general.
When you apply for a job with us (whether via the Website or otherwise), we collect and store certain pieces of Personal Data and other information relating to you, including:
We also collect and store information relating to when and how you use the Website, including (but not limited to) activity data, location data, weblogs and other communication data, although we do not knowingly collect any Personal Data as part of these activities.
Depending on the role, Candidates will be asked to consent that their personal information will be used for the purpose of employment screening. Further details will be given in the consent declaration and its supporting documents. Gear4music is working with Easyweb ATS Ltd, which will process the data in accordance with its privacy policy which can be viewed here.
The information that we collect from you (including any Personal Data) may be transferred to, and stored at, various destinations. This will usually not include destinations outside the European Economic Area (EEA). It may be processed by staff operating at various locations outside the EEA who work for us, or for one of our website development, website penetration testing (also known as “ethical hacking”), hosting, connectivity or telecommunications service providers. By providing us with your information (including Personal Data), you agree to this transfer, storing and processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy. Our recruitment portal is operated by EasyWeb Group (a trading style of Verticality Ltd,) with registered address at 15-17 Strixton Manor Business Centre, Strixton, Northamptonshire, NN29 7PA, United Kingdom. The company is ISO 27001 certified and all application and data is hosted on severs in the UK with documents also stored with Amazon Web Services in Ireland.
Personal Data will be stored on our own servers in the UK. We also use data storage services of Livedrive Internet Ltd., with registered office at The Battleship Building, 179 Harrow Road, United Kingdom, W2 6NB, Livedrive will not transfer the files containing your Personal Data outside the EEA and has implemented appropriate technical and organisational security measures designed to protect our files against accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure, unauthorised access, and other unlawful or unauthorised forms of Processing, in accordance with applicable UK and European law.
Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not always completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your Personal Data, we cannot guarantee the security of your information before transmitted to our Website; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.
If you apply for a role at our Manchester Office, the recruitment team will use data management services of Trello, Inc., with offices at 55 Broadway, 25th Floor, New York NY 10006. All data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Trello services are hosted on Amazon Web Services’ (“AWS”) EC2 platform. The physical servers are located in AWS’s secure data centres. Data content can also be found in Trello backups, stored in AWS EC2, S3, Glacier, and GCS. Trello is PCI-DSS certified and is a participant in the U.S. Department of Commerce's EU-U.S. Privacy Shield program and has certified that they adhere to the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Principles. Trello, Inc. is subject to the investigatory and enforcement powers of the Federal Trade Commission.
We use the information collected from you to process your job application. By submitting a job application your personal details will be shared with the Recruitment Team at Gear4music, including any Hiring Managers involved specifically in the decision-making process. We promise to treat your personal information confidentially and only share it with authorised personnel involved in the recruitment activity.
The lawful basis for processing your personal data is based on a legitimate interest - we need to capture this information in order to consider and process your job application.
We may also use your anonymised data to analyse recruitment activity, trends, and look at improving recruitment activity and processes moving forward.
You can edit any of the information in your Account. It is your responsibility:
You have certain rights under the Data Protection Laws, including:
By agreeing to the terms of our Privacy Policy, you consent to the collection, storage, processing and sharing of your Personal Data and other information on the basis set out above.
If you are working for the police or another public authority and need information from us for the prevention or detection of crime, the apprehension or prosecution of offenders, or the assessment or collection of tax or duty; please contact our Data Protection Officer directly under [email protected]
Please state the name, public authority and contact details of the relevant officer making the request. For a quicker identity check, the police officer badge number is also helpful. Please explain the information which is sought and why in as much detail as possible. If we should not inform the relevant data subject about your request, please advise accordingly and give the reason. We will deal with your request as quickly as possible. Please understand that requests made in languages other than English, German, Swedish or French will take longer to process. Requests from law authorities outside the EU or EEA may take longer due to additional consultations with the UK authorities.
Considering its data processing activities Gear4music Limited and Gear4music (Holdings) plc are subject to the GDPR and accordingly appointed Gear4music GmbH (seat: Lahnstr. 27, 45478 Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany) as its EU representative.
The competent supervisory authority for EU/EEA requests is the Landesbeauftragte/r für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit Nordrhein-Westfalen .
Considering its data processing activities Gear4music GmbH and Gear4music Sweden AB are subject to the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018 and accordingly appointed Gear4music Limited (seat: Holgate Park Drive, York, YO26 4GN, United Kingdom) as its UK representative.
The competent supervisory authority for UK requests is the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) .
In line with the TRADE AND COOPERATION AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE EUROPEAN UNION AND THE EUROPEAN ATOMIC ENERGY COMMUNITY, OF THE ONE PART, AND THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND, OF THE OTHER PART, the EU will allow personal data to flow freely from the EU (and EEA) to the UK, until adequacy decisions have been adopted, for another six months after the end of the transition period. The UK has, on a transitional basis, deemed the EU and EEA/EFTA States to be adequate to allow for data flows from the UK.
Gear4music will continue monitoring the situation and if needed put in place alternative transfer mechanisms, to safeguard against any interruption to the free flow of EU to UK personal data. Gear4music is fully committed to providing data protection and privacy framework governed by EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Switzerland's revised Federal Act on Data Protection for individuals who are located in a European Union member state (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden), in a European Economic Area country (Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway) or Switzerland.
Gear4music operates a call recording and live monitoring system within our Customer Services Department. This is currently for our UK & ROI customers only. We have not yet implemented this for our international call centre.
What personal data will we collect?
When a customer telephones our UK and ROI Customer Services Department we will collect the following personal data on our call recording system:
If you make a purchase over the phone, the call recording is paused whilst you provide your payment card details. Once the transaction is complete, the recording will re-start.
Why do we need call recordings?
The recorded calls are primarily used for training and monitoring purposes, but we will also use the call recordings for the following purposes:
What is our lawful ground for collecting and sharing personal data?
Legitimate Interests - The recording of calls is necessary to protect the interests of you, our staff or both for the purposes set out in the section above.
Who might we share your data with?
We will not normally need to share your personal data with anyone outside of Gear4Music. However, there may be certain circumstances where we are required or permitted, under Data Protection legislation, to disclose your personal data when we have a legal obligation to do so, such as for:
How long are recordings kept?
All recordings are kept for 90 days before being securely destroyed unless we are required to keep a call for an investigation or other legal reason.
What are my rights?
You have the right to:
Gear4music will deliver targeted advertising via Google to customers who provide their consent. When we run a promotional campaign, these adverts will be matched to existing Gear4music customers who have recently browsed the same or similar items to those in the current promotion, and to get the best price on items they are interested in by being notified of relevant promotions.
Why do we need targeted advertising?
What personal data will we collect/share?
When a customer consents to targeted advertising, the following information will be securely shared with Google Ads:
This data will then be matched with existing customer information held by Google. The data will be hashed (an industry standard of pseudonymisation) as soon as possible, and raw customer data will be held by Google for less than 48 hours.
What is our lawful ground for collecting and sharing personal data?
Consent. When creating an account or placing an order with Gear4music, you will be given an option to consent to targeted advertising with Google Ads. We will only share the data of customers who have consented to this type of marketing (i.e., we are not relying on a 'soft opt-in', and opting into our direct e-mail marketing is a separate process that has no effect on advertising through Google Ads). Existing customers who have previously opted into e-mail marketing will also be sent an e-mail inviting them to opt into Google Ads marketing – again, only customers who actively consent to this type of marketing will have their data shared in this way.
What are my rights?
You have the right to:Gear4music shares the names and e-mail addresses of customers with trusted review company Trustpilot, so that customers can be invited by e-mail to leave a review of their Gear4music orders.
What personal data will we collect/share?
When a customer places an order with Gear4music, the following information will be securely shared with Trustpilot:
The customer can then provide further information while registering on Trustpilot’s website if they choose to proceed.
Why do we need Trustpilot reviews?
It is very helpful to both Gear4music and our customers to allow customers to leave an honest and public review on Trustpilot for the following reasons:
What is our lawful ground for collecting and sharing personal data?
Legitimate Interests – Inviting customers to leave reviews after their purchase is necessary for us to provide the best possible service, and for the further purposes set out in the section above.
How long is the data kept by Trustpilot?
The name and e-mail address are kept by Trustpilot for no longer than six months.
What are my rights?
You have the right to: