Privacy policy
Last updated: 26/10/2026
This policy explains what personal information we collect through this website and when you get in touch with us, what we do with it, and the rights you have over it.
1. Who we are
Sew & Sew Interiors is a partnership of Sharen Robinson and Suzanne Smith. We make curtains, blinds, upholstery and soft furnishings in our own workroom at Howe Street, near Chelmsford, and we offer interior design.
The partners, trading as Sew & Sew Interiors, are the controller of the personal information described in this policy. That means we decide how and why it is used, and we are responsible for looking after it.
- Address: Unit 6, The Courtyard, Warners Farm, Main Road, Howe Street, Essex CM3 1BL
- Email: info@sewandsewinteriors.com
- Phone: 01245 444907
- VAT registration number: 927793573
If you have any question about this policy or your information, email us at info@sewandsewinteriors.com.
2. What we collect and why
When you send us an enquiry
The enquiry form on our Contact page asks for the following.
| Information | Do you have to give it? | Why we ask |
|---|---|---|
| What you would like help with, and the type of property | Yes | To understand what you need |
| Whether the enquiry is for a home or a business. You do not enter this: the website works it out from the type of property you choose | Not asked | To pass your enquiry to the right person and reply in the right way |
| Whether you would like to visit our showroom | No | To arrange a visit, by appointment |
| How many rooms, and your timeline | No | To help us plan our reply |
| A description of the space | Yes | To understand your project |
| A rough budget | No | To suggest options that suit you |
| Photos or plans | No | To see the rooms, windows or furniture you are asking about |
| Your name and email address | Yes | To reply to you |
| Your company name | No | To know which business you are enquiring for |
| Your phone number | No | To call you, if you would prefer that |
| Where you're based (your postcode or project area) | Yes | To know where the project is |
| How you would like us to reply | No | To reply in the way you prefer |
Photos and plans. Please send pictures of the rooms, windows or furniture, not of people, and leave out anything you would rather we did not see, such as letters or documents. Photos taken on a phone can carry hidden details, such as where the photo was taken. We use your photos and plans only to understand your project. They are stored privately, not in the public part of this website, and we never publish them, here or anywhere else, without asking you first.
If you enquire for a business or a client, for example as a hotel manager or an interior designer, the information we hold about you is your name and work contact details, together with what you tell us about the project.
When you send the form, your enquiry is emailed to us, and the website keeps a backup copy of it, with any files you sent, for a short period (see section 6). The website also emails you a copy of what you asked about.
If the form cannot be sent because an answer needs correcting, and your browser is not running JavaScript, the website keeps what you typed (but not any files) for up to ten minutes, so that it can show you the form again with your answers filled in. It is deleted as soon as the form is shown to you again. If you leave the page instead, it is deleted in the website's next daily clean-up.
Keeping spam out. Before you send the form, a quick confirmation check runs in your browser. Your device does a small calculation that takes a person's browser a moment but makes sending spam in bulk slow and costly. The check comes from our own website: it sets no cookies and involves no other company. Once a check has been used, the website keeps a record of it for up to 20 minutes so that it cannot be used again. That record holds nothing about you. The form also has hidden checks that spot automated submissions.
To stop the form being sent over and over from one connection, the website counts how many enquiries arrive from each IP address in an hour. If more than five arrive, it asks you to phone or email us instead. It does not keep your IP address for this. It turns the address into a one-way code, using a key that changes every day, so the code cannot be turned back into your address or matched from one day to the next. It keeps that code for one hour and never stores it with your enquiry.
Our measuring guide
The form at the end of our measuring guide does not send anything to us. When you press "Send us these measurements", your browser opens our Contact page with the window type, your measurements and anything you typed under "Anything else" added to the page's web address, so that they appear in the enquiry form ready for you to check. Nothing reaches us unless you then send that form.
Because they are part of the web address, these details are also recorded in the server's technical records of visits (see "When you visit this website" below), and your browser may keep them in its history. That is why the guide asks you not to add your name, phone number or email address there. Our Contact page does not fill in any name or contact details from its web address.
When you email, phone or message us
If you contact us directly, we keep what you tell us, such as your name, contact details and the details of your project, so that we can help you.
When you visit this website
Like every website, the server that runs this site keeps technical records of visits, such as the IP address of the device, the type of browser, the page requested (including its full web address) and the time. These records are used to keep the website running and secure.
We do not use analytics or advertising tools on this website, and we do not track you from one website to another. The fonts on this website are stored on our own server, so no other company is contacted to display them.
The map on our Contact page
Our Contact page has a map showing where our showroom is. When the map comes into view, your browser fetches the map images from OpenStreetMap, a free map service run by the OpenStreetMap Foundation. To send you the images, the Foundation and the network provider it uses to deliver them receive your IP address and the address of the page you are on, and they may handle this outside the UK. We do not receive anything from them. You can read the OpenStreetMap Foundation's privacy policy. Our address and the "Get directions" link work without the map.
The "Get directions" link opens Google Maps in a new tab. Once you are on Google's site, Google's own privacy policy applies.
Links to Instagram and Facebook
Our website links to our Instagram and Facebook pages. These are plain links: nothing from Instagram or Facebook loads on our pages. If you follow a link, the privacy policy of that site applies.
3. Our lawful reasons for using your information
Data protection law says we must have a lawful reason for each use of your information. Ours are:
| What we do | Our lawful reason |
|---|---|
| Replying to your enquiry, giving a guide price and preparing a quotation | Taking steps you have asked for before entering into a contract with you. If you enquire for a business or a client, our legitimate interest in replying to business enquiries |
| Carrying out work you ask us to do | Performing our contract with you |
| Keeping the business records our accounts and tax require | Complying with the law |
| Keeping the website running and secure, including protecting our enquiry form from spam and misuse | Our legitimate interest in providing a safe, working website and keeping spam out of our enquiries |
| Showing the map on our Contact page | Our legitimate interest in helping you find our showroom |
| Dealing with complaints and any legal claims | Our legitimate interest in resolving them, and complying with the law |
Where we rely on our legitimate interests, we have weighed them against your rights, and you can object (see section 8).
4. Who we share it with
We do not sell your information, and we do not share it with anyone for their own marketing.
These service providers handle it for us, under contract, and only as we instruct:
- Hostinger, our website hosting provider (Hostinger International Ltd), which runs the server this website sits on and stores the backup copies of enquiry form submissions and the files sent with them.
- Our email provider, which sends the website's enquiry emails from our own mailbox, delivers them to our inbox and stores our email.
- DC Digital, the agency that builds and supports this website, which can access the website's systems and so may see stored enquiries while it maintains the site.
We may also share information if the law requires us to, or to protect our rights in a legal dispute.
5. Where your information is kept
We keep your information in the UK or the European Economic Area wherever we can. If one of our service providers ever needs to handle it outside these areas, we make sure safeguards approved under UK law are in place before it does.
6. How long we keep it
We keep your information only for as long as we need it.
- Enquiries that do not go ahead: we keep your enquiry and our emails with you for as long as we may reasonably need them to answer questions about the same project, and then delete them.
- The website's backup copy of your enquiry: deleted automatically after a short period, because the enquiry has already reached our inbox.
- What you typed into a form that could not be sent: used for up to ten minutes to show you the form again with your answers, then deleted, at the latest in the website's next daily clean-up.
- Spam protection: the one-way code made from your IP address is deleted after one hour, and the record of a used confirmation check after 20 minutes. Neither is ever kept with your enquiry.
- If you become a client: we keep the records we need about the work for as long as the law requires for our accounts and tax, and for as long as we may need them to deal with any questions about the work.
- Technical records of visits: kept by our hosting provider for the period it needs to run and protect the service, and then deleted.
7. How we keep it safe
This website uses an encrypted connection, so information you send through it is protected on its way to us. Files you upload are stored privately and cannot be reached through the public website. Only we, and the service providers named in section 4 where they need to, can see your information.
8. Your rights
You have the right to:
- ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you;
- ask us to correct information that is wrong or incomplete;
- ask us to delete your information;
- ask us to limit how we use your information;
- object to our using your information where we rely on our legitimate interests;
- ask us to send your information to you, or to another organisation, in a format that is easy to reuse, where this applies;
- withdraw your consent at any time, where we rely on your consent.
To use any of these rights, email info@sewandsewinteriors.com, phone 01245 444907 or write to us at the address in section 1. There is no charge. We will reply within one month, or tell you within that month if we need longer because your request is complex. We may ask you to confirm who you are before we act on a request.
9. Complaints
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please tell us first, by email to info@sewandsewinteriors.com or in writing to the address in section 1. We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days, look into it properly and tell you what we have found.
You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK's data protection regulator:
- Website: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint
- Phone: 0303 123 1113
- Post: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF
10. Changes to this policy
We will update this policy when the way we use personal information changes. The date at the top shows when it was last updated.