We respect the privacy of every person who visits or registers with Wordery.com.
Wordery recognises that the privacy and security of your personal information is of the utmost importance.
This notice sets out what we do with your information and how we ensure its security. It also explains where and how we collect your personal information, as well as your rights over any personal data we hold about you.
This policy applies to you if you use our products or services online, over the phone or if you are interacting with us on social media.
1. Purpose of the notice
This privacy notice ('Privacy Policy') explains our approach to any personal information that we might collect from you or which we have obtained about you from a third party and the purposes for which we process your personal information. This Privacy Policy also sets out your rights in respect of our processing of your personal information.
This Privacy Policy will inform you of the nature of the personal information about you that is processed by us and how you can request that we delete, update, transfer it and/or provide you with access to it.
This Privacy Policy is intended to assist you in making informed decisions when using the Sites and our Services. Please take a moment to read and understand it. Please note that it should be read in conjunction with our Website Terms of Use.
Please also note that this Privacy Policy only applies to the use of your personal information obtained by us, it does not apply to your personal information collected during your communications with third parties.
2. Who are we and what do we do
The Sites and our Services are operated by Waterstones Booksellers Limited, but will mention "Wordery", "we", "us" or "our".
Waterstones Booksellers Limited is an English company with registered company number: 00610095 and whose registered office is at 203-206 Piccadilly, London, W1J 9HD.
Waterstones Booksellers Limited is the data controller responsible for your personal information and is registered at the UK Information Commissioner's Office with registration number: Z5320847
3. How to contact us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or want to exercise your rights set out in this Privacy Policy by managing your personal data, please contact us by:
- Online, visit our Contact Us page and use the self-service tool, which is available; or
- Email, addressed to privacy@waterstones.com; or
- Post, addressed to Data Protection Officer, Waterstones Head Office, 203-206 Piccadilly, London, W1J 9HD
- If you remain dissatisfied, you may contact the ICO.
4. What personal information do we collect and how do we use it
We may collect the following types of personal data from you, all depending on how you interact with us:
- Name and contact information (such as email address, postal address and telephone number)
- Order and payment information
- Wordery online account username/display name and password
- IP address and information about your browsing habits
- Social media handles
- Requests, reviews and opinions
- Any other personal data you may submit to us
Our primary goal in collecting personal information from you is to:
- Verify your identity;
- Help us improve our products and services and develop and market new products and services;
- Carry out requests made by you on the Sites;
- Investigate or settle inquiries or disputes;
- Comply with any applicable law, court order, other judicial process, or the requirements of a regulator;
- Enforce our agreements with you;
- Protect the rights, property or safety of us or third parties, including our other customers and users of the Sites;
- Provide support for the provision of our Services; and
- Use as otherwise required or permitted by law
In particular, we use your personal information for the following purposes:
4.1 Working with our affiliates
We work closely with our affiliates to ensure you are given greater choice and support – for example, if you order a product from Wordery, it may be fulfilled by Blackwell's if this means you will receive it more quickly, and Blackwell's or Waterstones may help Wordery to respond to customer enquiries (and vice versa).
Where identified below, we may receive your personal information from, or share your personal information with, Blackwell's and Waterstones.
We have an agreement which ensures that we share responsibility for handling your personal information in line with the Blackwell's Privacy Policy and the Waterstones Privacy Policy
4.2 Fulfilment of products and services
We collect and maintain personal information that you voluntarily submit to us during your use of the Sites and/or our Services, including registering on our Sites.
We use the contact and payment details you have provided to us so that we can fulfil the supply of products and services you have ordered from our Sites. This includes your purchase of products, your attendance at events hosted by us or our third party partners and the processing of returns and refunds.
Who do we share your personal information with for this purpose?
We will share your personal information with the following categories of third parties:
- To ensure that your order is fulfilled by the most appropriate affiliate according to stock levels;
- To verify card payments and process refunds - credit card companies and other payment providers;
- To deliver products and process returns - delivery and courier companies;
- Events - any applicable third party hosting the event; and third party ticketing companies such as Eventbrite.
- Competitions and prize draws - any applicable third party co-promoter (for example, a book publisher), prize supplier, facilitator or publicity platform.
What is our legal basis?
It is necessary for us to use your personal information to perform our obligations in accordance with any contract that we may have with you.
4.3 Customer support
Our Sites use various user interfaces to allow you to request information about our products and services: these include printed and electronic enquiry forms and a telephone enquiry service. Your contact information may be requested in each case, together with details of other personal information that is relevant to your customer service enquiry. This information is used in order to enable us to respond to your requests.
Who do we share your personal information with for this purpose?
We share responsibilities to provide online customer support with our affiliate, and in doing so may share your personal information.
What is our legal basis?
It is in our legitimate interest to use your personal information in such a way to ensure that we provide the very best customer service we can to you.
4.4 Customer insight and analysis
We analyse your contact details and other personal information that we collect about you such as your interests and demographic information together with personal information that we obtain from observing your interactions with our Sites, our email communications to you and/or with our products and services in our shops, such as the products and services you have purchased or viewed.
Where you have given your consent (where lawfully required), we use cookies, log files and other similar technologies to collect personal information from the computer hardware and software you use to access the Sites, or from your mobile. This includes the following:
- An IP address to monitor Sites traffic and volume;
- A session ID to track usage statistics on our Sites;
- Information regarding your personal or professional interests, demographics, buying habits, experiences with our products and contact preferences
Our web pages and e-mails contain cookies or pixel tags ("Tags"). Tags allow us to track receipt of an e-mail to you, to count users that have visited a web page, opened an e-mail and to collect other types of aggregate information. Once you click on an e-mail that contains a Tag, your contact information may subsequently be cross-referenced to the source e-mail and the relevant Tag.
In some of our e-mail messages, we use a click-through URL linked to certain websites administered by us (or on our behalf) and/or to certain third party websites (including certain event partner websites). If you decide to click through to the relevant URL, we or the relevant third party website operator (as applicable) may through the use of a Cookie track click-through data to assist in determining interest in particular topics and measure the effectiveness of these communications. Please note that to the extent that you click through to a third party website from our email, use of your data by the relevant third party will be subject to their own rules and policies.
Please note that any emails you receive from us may contain Cookies to help us to see if recipients have opened an email and understand how recipients have interacted with it. If you have enabled images, Cookies may also be set on your computer or mobile device.
If you do not wish to accept Cookies from any one of our emails, simply close the email before downloading any images or refrain from clicking on any URL links. You can also set your browser to restrict Cookies or to reject them entirely. These settings will apply to all Cookies whether included on websites or in emails.
In some instances, depending on your email or browser settings, Cookies in an email may be automatically accepted (for example, when you've added an email address to your address book or safe senders list). Please refer to your email browser or device instructions for more information on this.
The personal information described in this section is used to create profiles and insights about your shopping habits and the shopping habits of our other customers. By using this information, we are able to measure the effectiveness of our content and how visitors use our Sites and our Services. This allows us to learn what pages of our Sites are most attractive to our visitors, which parts of our Sites are the most interesting and what kind of offers our users like to see.
We also use this information to help us with the selection of future product and service lines and the design of our Sites and Services.
We also use this information for marketing purposes (see the marketing section below for further details).
Who do we share your personal information with for these purposes?
We share your personal information with a variety of third party service providers to assist us with customer insight analytics. These service providers are described in our Cookie Policy.
Some of our third party providers are located in the USA and their use of your personal information is governed by the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework as set forth by the US Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use and retention of personal information from European Union member countries and subject to enforcement by the Federal Trade Commission.
What is our legal basis?
Where your personal information is completely anonymised, we do not require a legal basis to use it as the information will no longer constitute personal information that is regulated under data protection laws. However, our collection and use of such anonymised personal information may be subject to other laws where your consent is required. Please see our Cookie Policy for further details.
Where your personal information is not in an anonymous form, it is in our legitimate interest to use your personal information in such a way to ensure that we provide the very best products and services to you and our other customers. We may also share your information (again, generally in aggregated form) with our affiliate, Foyles, for this purpose.
We will only use location data collected by us via our mobile application where we have your consent to do so.
4.5 Marketing communications
We carry out the following marketing activities using your personal information:
Email marketing:
We use information that we observe about you from your interactions with our Sites, our email communications to you and/or with our products and services in our shops (see the Customer Insight and Analysis section above for more details of the information collected and how it is collected) to send you marketing communications by email, where you have consented to receive such marketing communications.
Who do we share your personal information with for these purposes?
Typically, we do not share your personal information for this purpose, but from time to time we may share your personal information with event third parties with your consent. From time to time we may also share your personal information with our affiliates for this purpose (e.g. where we are undertaking a joint marketing campaign).
What is our legal basis?
Where your personal information is completely anonymised, we do not require a legal basis to use it for marketing analysis as the personal information will no longer constitute personal information that is regulated under applicable data protection laws. However, our collection and/or use of such anonymised personal information may be subject to other laws where your consent is required. Please see our Cookie Policy for further details.
Where your personal information is not in an anonymous form, it is in our legitimate interest to use your personal information for personalised marketing purposes.
We will only send you marketing communications via email where you have consented to receive such marketing communications.
Business administration and legal compliance
We use your personal information for the following business administration and legal compliance purposes:
- To comply with our legal obligations;
- To enforce our legal rights;
- Protect rights of third parties; and
- In connection with a business transition such as a merger, acquisition by another company, or sale of all or a portion of our assets
Who do we share your personal information with for these purposes?
We will share your personal information with professional advisers such as lawyers and accountants and/or governmental or regulatory authorities.
What is our legal basis?
Where we use your personal information in connection with a business transition, enforce our legal rights, or to protect the rights of third parties it is in our legitimate interest to do so. For all other purposes described in this section, it is our legal obligation to use your personal information to comply with any legal obligations imposed upon us such as a court order.
Where we share your sensitive personal information, we shall obtain your consent to do so.
Any other purposes for which we wish to use your personal information that are not listed above, or any other changes we propose to make to the existing purposes will be notified to you using your contact details.
In certain circumstances permitted by UK law, including under the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, we may rely on recognised legitimate interests where appropriate safeguards apply.
5. How do we obtain your consent
Where our use of your personal information requires your consent, you can provide such consent:
- At the time we collect your personal information following the instructions provided; or
- By informing us by e-mail, post or telephone using the contact details set out in this Privacy Policy
6. Our use of cookies and similar technologies
Our Sites use certain cookies, pixels, log files and other technologies of which you should be aware. Please see our Cookie Policy to find out more about the cookies we use and how to manage and delete cookies.
7. Third party links and services
Our Sites contain links to third party websites and services. Please remember that when you use a link to go from our Sites to another website or you request a service from a third party, this Privacy Policy no longer applies.
Your browsing and interaction on any other websites, or your dealings with any other third party service provider, is subject to that website's or third party service provider's own rules and policies.
We do not monitor, control, or endorse the privacy practices of any third parties.
We encourage you to become familiar with the privacy practices of every website you visit or third party service provider that you deal with and to contact them if you have any questions about their respective privacy policies and practices.
This Privacy Policy applies solely to personal information collected by us through our Service and does not apply to these third party websites and third party service providers.
8. How long do we keep your personal information for
We retain personal information only where there is a lawful basis and a defined business purpose to do so. Personal information is held no longer than necessary to meet those purposes, taking into account legal, regulatory, contractual, and operational obligations. When personal information is no longer required, it is securely deleted or anonymised.
9. Confidentiality and security of your personal information
We are committed to keeping the personal information you provide to us secure and we will take reasonable precautions to protect your personal information from loss, misuse or alteration.
We have implemented information security policies, rules and technical measures to protect the personal information that we have under our control from:
- Unauthorised access;
- Improper use or disclosure;
- Unauthorised modification; and
- Unlawful destruction or accidental loss.
All of our employees and data processors (i.e. those who process your personal information on our behalf, for the purposes listed above), who have access to, and are associated with the processing of personal information, are obliged to respect the confidentiality of the personal information of all users of our Services.
10. How to access your information and your other rights
You have the following rights in relation to the personal information we hold about you:
Your right of access:
If you ask us, we'll confirm whether we're processing your personal information and, if so, provide you with a copy of that personal information (along with certain other details). If you require additional copies, we may need to charge a reasonable fee.
Your right to rectification:
If the personal information we hold about you is inaccurate or incomplete, you're entitled to have it rectified. If we've shared your personal information with others, we'll let them know about the rectification where possible. If you ask us, where possible and lawful to do so, we'll also tell you who we've shared your personal information with so that you can contact them directly.
Your right to erasure:
You can ask us to delete or remove your personal information in some circumstances such as where we no longer need it or if you withdraw your consent (where applicable). If we've shared your personal information with others, we'll let them know about the erasure where possible. If you ask us, where it is possible and lawful for us to do so, we'll also tell you who we've shared your personal information with so that you can contact them directly.
Your right to restrict processing:
You can ask us to 'block' or suppress the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances such as where you contest the accuracy of that personal information or you object to us processing it. It won't stop us from storing your personal information though. We'll tell you before we lift any restriction. If we've shared your personal information with others, we'll let them know about the restriction where it is possible for us to do so. If you ask us, where it is possible and lawful for us to do so, we'll also tell you who we've shared your personal information with so that you can contact them directly.
Your right to data portability:
With effect from 25 May 2018, you have the right, in certain circumstances, to obtain personal information you've provided us with (in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format) and to reuse it elsewhere or to ask us to transfer this to a third party of your choice.
Your right to object:
You can ask us to stop processing your personal information, and we will do so, if we are; relying on our own or someone else's legitimate interests to process your personal information, except if we can demonstrate compelling legal grounds for the processing; or processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
Your rights in relation to automated decision-making and profiling:
You have the right not to be subject to a decision when it's based on automatic processing, including profiling, if it produces a legal effect or similarly significantly affects you, unless such profiling is necessary for entering into, or the performance of, a contract between you and us.
Your right to withdraw consent:
If we rely on your consent as our legal basis for processing your personal information, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time.
Your right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority:
If you have a concern about any aspect of our privacy practices, including the way we've handled your personal information, you can report it to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). You can find details about how to do this on the ICO website at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/ or by calling their helpline on 0303 123 1113.
11. Changes to this Privacy Policy
We may make changes to this Privacy Policy from time to time.
To ensure that you are always aware of how we use your personal information we will update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect any changes to our use of your personal information. We may also make changes as required to comply with changes in applicable law or regulatory requirements. We will notify you by e-mail of any significant changes. However, we encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically to be informed of how we use your personal information.
Complaints About Your Personal Data
If you have concerns about how Wordery collects, uses, stores or shares your personal data, you have the right to make a complaint to us.
We take privacy concerns seriously and have procedures in place to investigate and respond to data protection complaints in accordance with UK data protection law.
How to Make a Complaint
You can contact us using the details below:
Our contact form which can be found on our website: Contact Wordery
Please ensure that you use ‘Data protection Complaint’ in the subject field.
By Post:
Online Customer Services
48-51 Broad St
Oxford
OX1 3BQ
You do not need to use specific wording or formally label your concern as a “data protection complaint” for us to investigate it.
What Happens Next
We will:
- acknowledge receipt of your complaint as soon as reasonably practicable and, in most cases, within 48 hours;
- investigate your concerns appropriately and fairly;
- keep you informed where necessary during the process; and
- provide a response without undue delay.
We aim to provide a full response within 14 working days. During busier periods or where complaints are more complex, this may take up to 28 working days. Where this applies, we will keep you informed of progress.
In some cases, we may need to request additional information from you to help us investigate your complaint.
Your Right to Complain to the ICO
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you are unhappy with how we handle your personal data or your complaint.
You can contact the ICO using the details below:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Website: https://ico.org.uk
Telephone: 0303 123 1113
We would, however, appreciate the opportunity to address your concerns before you contact the ICO.