Privacy Policy                  

 [last updated April 2023]

We take pride in our clear and transparent business practices. We respect your right to privacy and have developed this privacy policy so know what information we collect about you, who we share this information with, how we store it and what your rights are.

I am Samantha Seghers, trading as “Mindfully More Japan”. Any reference to ‘I’ ‘we’, ‘our’, ‘us’ or similar words includes Mindfully More Japan and its business, owners, employees, agents, organisers, associates, successors and assigns. You can contact us by:

Email: MindfullyMoreJapan@gmail.com

When we talk about ‘you’, ‘user’ or ‘your’ in our terms and conditions, we mean you, the user of our services or visitor to our website. 

'Personal information' is information that directly identifies you, such as your name and email address, or data that could be used, on its own or in combination with other data, to identify you.

In general, we only use your personal information for the delivery of our services and to send you information about our services. We never sell or giveaway your personal information. 

This privacy policy applies to both our website at SamSeghers.com and our physical business.

1.     Staying Anonymous

You can browse our online website anonymously (although cookies may identify your IP address). However, if you request or sign up for/purchase any of our services, you will need to identify yourself and at that point we will start collecting your personal information. If you do not give personal information to us, it will affect our ability to provide you with requested information or to deliver our products or services.

2.     Collecting general personal information

At all times we try to only collect the minimum information we need to keep you updated about our progress (for tours, retreats, events etc) or to provide our services requested by you. 

The main way we collect personal information about you is when you give it to us, for example:

• when you contact us

• when you submit information to our website

• when you talk with us in person

• when you ask for access to information we hold about you

We may process the following categories of personal information about you:

Communication data: which includes any communication that you send to us. This might be when you request information, join our mailing list or when you contact us through the contact form on our website, through email, text, social media messaging, social media posting or any other communication that you send us. If you sign in using social media, we receive (by your consent) additional information such as your profile picture and social profile ID. We process this data for the purposes of communicating with you, for record keeping and for the establishment, pursuance or defence of legal claims. Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interests which in this case are to reply to communications sent to us, to keep records and to establish, pursue or defend legal claims.  

Customer Data: which includes data you give to us when you purchase goods and/or services from us including any of our classes, tours or events. This will include basic information about you and also the information we require for billing purposes such as your name, title, billing address, delivery address email address, phone number, contact details, purchase details and your card details (last digits only). We use Stripe as a third party service for processing payments and we do not receive or store your full card payment information when you make payments on-line. We process this data to supply the goods and/or services you have expressed an interest in or purchased and to keep records of such transactions. Our lawful ground for this processing is the performance of a contract between you and us and/or taking steps at your request to enter into such a contract and our legitimate business interest of keeping records for accounting purposes.

User Data: which includes data about how you use our website and any online services together with any data that you post for publication on our website or through other online services. We process this data to operate our website and ensure relevant content is provided to you, to ensure the security of our website, to maintain back- ups of our website and/or databases and to enable publication and administration of our website, other online services and business. Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interests which in this case are to enable us to properly administer our website and our business.

Technical Data: which includes data about your use of our website and online services such as your IP address, your login data, details about your browser, length of visit to pages on our website, page views and navigation paths, details about the number of times you use our website, time zone settings and other technology on the devices you use to access our website. The source of this data is from our analytics tracking system. We also use our own cookies for functions such as checking if you are logged in and which products you have access to. We process this data to analyse your use of our website and other online services, to administer and protect our business and website, to deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you and to understand the effectiveness of our advertising.  Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interests which in this case are to enable us to properly administer our website and our business and to grow our business and to decide our marketing strategy.

Marketing Data: which includes data about your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences. We process this data to enable you to partake in promotions (if any), to deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of this advertising.  We also use cookies to track where sales on our website come from so we can attribute sources of sales (if applicable). Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interests which in this case are to study how customers use our products/services, to develop our products, to grow our business and to decide our marketing strategy.

We may use Customer Data, User Data, Technical Data and Marketing Data to deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you and to measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve you. We may use cookies and tracking pixels (eg Facebook pixels) for retargeting to do this.  Our lawful ground for this processing is legitimate interests which is to grow our business. We may also use such data to send other marketing communications to you. Our lawful ground for this processing is either consent or legitimate interests (namely to grow our business).

Marketing Communications: Our lawful ground of processing your personal data to send you marketing communications is either your consent or our legitimate interests (namely to grow our business). Sometimes we may recommend sharing your information with a third party for their marketing purposes. Before we share your personal data with any third party for their own marketing purposes we will get your express consent.

You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you. You can also email us at MindfullyMoreJapan@gmail.com to request your details be removed from our marketing list. If you opt out of receiving marketing communications, this opt-out does not apply to personal data provided for other transactions such as purchases. 

We may also use your personal information to carry out some automated decision making about you. For instance, our email manager may monitor which mails you open and use this information to automatically manage future emails you receive. Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interests which in this case are to study how customers use our products/services and to grow our business.

3.     Collecting information from third parties

As discussed above, we collect personal information about you when you give it to us and when it is collected by our website however we may also collect personal information that is given to us or available to us by a third party (for example, information that you have made available on a public platform like a discussion site).  We may receive data from third parties such as analytics providers and advertising networks like Google and Facebook. 

We may provide links to other websites or use social networking services such as Twitter and Facebook to communicate with the public about our services. These sites have their own privacy policies. When you communicate with us using these services we may collect your personal information if you post it. The social networking service will also handle your personal information for its own purposes.

This information forms part of the personal information described in this policy. We will not intentionally collect personal information that is unintentionally disclosed.

4.     Collecting sensitive information

To enable us to safely deliver our services (in particular, yoga and massage), it may be necessary for us to collect and store medical information about you. For example, if you have a medical condition that may impact on your ability to practise yoga, it is important that we know about the medical condition prior to the yoga class and keep a record of this information. 

If we do collect sensitive information, we will take steps to appropriately protect the sensitive information we do receive. For example, our paper copy forms are stored in a locked cabinet and our local electronic stored data is password protected. 

5.     Sharing your sensitive medical information

Your sensitive medical information will be shared with third parties as follows:

·      If you are on a tour or retreat or attending a yoga class, or similar, your medical information will be shared with the person or people providing the service. For example, the presenter, teacher or cover/substitute teacher. 

·      If we refer you to a third party for additional therapy, we will share your information with the third party with your consent.

·      We will disclose your medical information if there is an emergency which we feel warrants disclosing your medical or other information. For example, if you were suddenly unwell at a yoga class and we call the paramedics, we will tell the paramedics all medical information we hold about you as well as your name, date of birth etc.

Other than the above, we will not share your medical information without your consent. 

6.     Sharing your personal information 

We may disclose your personal information, as a legitimate business interest, to:

·      Other companies in who provide services to us, like accommodation providers.

·      Third party suppliers we engage to provide services which involve processing data on our behalf, for example IT and system administration services, website developers. In this case, we will require them to use that information only for the purpose of providing the services we have requested, and in compliance with the provisions of this privacy policy (or equivalent standards).

·      Payment third parties if there is a dispute over a payment. For example, if Stripe contacts us regarding a dispute over a payment, we will provide Stripe with requested information and billing details on our system etc to allow the payment dispute to be resolved. 

·      Professional advisers including accountants, lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers for the compliant operation of our business.

·      Government bodies that require us to report processing activities.

·      Third parties where we are required to in accordance with the law. We reserve the right to fully co-operate with any law enforcement authorities or court order requiring or requesting us to disclose the identity or other usage details of any user of our online services, or in accordance with a properly executed court order, or as otherwise required to do so by law.

7.     Summary of Use

In summary, as a legitimate business interest, the personal information we collect about you is used:

·      to verify your identity

·      to enable you to use our services

·      to process orders, subscriptions and enquiries

·      to provide you with information about products and services that may interest you 

·      to provide you with personalised service or special opportunities

·      to allow you to participate in interactive features of our online services

·      to run competitions, prize draws, and promotions (if any)

·      to facilitate our internal business operations 

·      to improve our products or services and in planning new products or services

·      to conducting market research surveys in relation to our services

·      to monitor compliance with our terms and conditions

·      to arrange a tour, retreat, function or similar. For example, if you are travelling with us internationally, we will provide a copy of your passport to each hotel we book on your behalf, if we are travelling in Japan, we will provide your passport details to purchase your Japan Rail Pass.

8.     Children’s privacy

Our services are not generally designed to be used by minors under the age of 18 and we do not intend to collect information about minors. 

We will make reasonable endeavours to delete any details of users under the age of 18 years where a parent or guardian has notified us that any such details have been obtained. By providing us with your data, you warrant to us you are over the age of 18. If you do bring children to our services, for example yoga, and we do need to collect personal information about them, we will require a legal guardian to provide the information and consent to it’s collection and use. 

9.     Testimonials

If you provide us with a testimonial, you give us your consent for the use of your name, service used and the date to be displayed on our website or in our other marketing material, together with the content of the testimonial that you provide. By giving your consent, you agree we may store and use this information for the period of time the testimonial remains relevant to our business. You may withdraw your consent. Our grounds for processing this information are our legitimate business interests and your consent. 

10.  How we use Cookies and other identifiers

We use a range of tools provided by third parties including search engine browsers and our web hosting company, to collect or view website traffic information. These sites have their own privacy policies. We also use cookies and session tools to improve your experience when accessing our websites and tracking cookies or remarketing pixels for analytical and advertising purposes. 

Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. Some website features may not function properly without cookies.

The kind of information that can be collected includes:

·      device specific information such as mobile network information

·      server logs including your IP address, the times you use our services and system activity

·      location information including IP address, GPS, and Wi-Fi access points

·      local storage availability

We use the information to help to track your use of our online services to improve your user experience and the quality of our services.  

To find out how to opt out of tailored advertising please check the options available here - http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/. 

11.  Security and overseas recipients

We use safe practices and appropriate password protection for our systems and aim to ensure our third-party providers use similar care with your personal data. No security measures are 100% safe however and your data is stored with us at your own risk.We take reasonable steps to protect all personal information within our direct control from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, unlawful or accidental destruction, modification or disclosure. To prevent unauthorised access or disclosure we use respected hosting services, firewall and other electronic security procedures and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect from you.

We have procedures in place to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach if we are legally required to.

We rely on third party providers to store the information you have provided to us securely and your data will cross international borders. Not all countries have the same level of privacy protection as Australia and you acknowledge and agree to our transferring of your personal data across international borders in this way. We will do our best to ensure your data is protected to a similar standard as set out in this policy by using third party providers with similar privacy protections. 

We use the following third-party providers:

Stripe (payments)- Stripe include in their privacy policy that they maintain organisational, technical and administrative measures designed to protect against unauthorised access, destructions, loss, alteration or mis-use of data. If you are in the EU, Stripe certifies to the EU-US Data Shield for the transfer of your data to the US. Their privacy policy sets out how they store and manage data and you can read it at https://stripe.com.au/privacy

MoonClerk (payment manager) – MoonClerk include in their privacy policy they maintain commercially reasonable administrative, technical and physical procedures to protect your information from unauthorised access and accidental loss or modification. You can find their complete policy at https://moonclerk.com at privacy and terms of service.

Mail Chimp (email manager) – Mail Chimp have servers and offices located in the United States and are committed to the protection of stored data. They include in their privacy policy that they (and their subcontractors) will comply with the standard of the Australian Privacy Act for the storage of data on their US based servers and in the cloud. If you are in the EU, Stripe certifies to the EU-US Data Shield for the transfer of your data to the US. You can read their full policy at https://mailchimp.com/legal/privacy. 

All hard copy files are stored in Japan. 

12.  Data retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. 

When deciding what the correct time is to keep the data for we look at its amount, nature and sensitivity, potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure, the processing purposes, and if these can be achieved by other means and legal requirements.

For tax purposes the law requires us to keep basic information about our customers (including Contact, Identity, Financial and Transaction Data) for some time even after they stop being customers.  

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

13.  Accessing and correcting your personal information – Your legal rights

Under data protection laws you have rights (depending on your country of origin) in relation to your personal data that include the right to request access, correction, erasure, restriction, transfer, to object to processing, to portability of data and (where the lawful ground of processing is consent) to withdraw consent.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us at MindfullyMoreJapan@gmail.com for assistance.

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive or refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response. For record keeping purposes, we will record and store all information exchanged during an exercise of your rights under this clause. 

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you.

If you request to have your information erased (also known as the right to be forgotten), we will, if appropriate, delete your personal information from our active business operating system. Your personal information will however continue to be stored within our backup(s) as we are unable to delete specific items from our backup. It will be deleted at the next scheduled backup deletion. We will keep a log of your request to be forgotten so that, should our backup be used to restore our operating system while your personal information is still stored, your personal information will again be removed from our active system upon restoration. 

14.  Problems?

If you have any concerns about our use of your personal information, please let us know what the problem is in writing to MindfullyMoreJapan@gmail.com. We will do our best to help and will respond to your concerns within 30 days.  

If, after lodging a complaint with us, you are not happy with how we managed your concerns, you can contact the Australian Privacy Commission, available at http://www.oaic.gov.au. If you are outside of Australia, you should contact the Information Commissioner’s Office in your country. For instance, in the UK contact the Information Commissioner Office at www.ico.org.uk.   

15.  Updates

We regularly review and may update our privacy policy from time to time. The updated provisions will apply from the date they are posted on our website, so we recommend that you re-visit this privacy policy when you use our online services.

End. 

Cookie Policy

[Last updated July 2018]

1.     Use of Cookies and Other Tracking Devices

Mindfully More Japan uses cookies and similar tools across our website to improve performance and enhance your experience. This policy explains how we do that.

2.     What are cookies?

Cookies are small text files a website may put on your computer or mobile device when you first visit a site or page. The cookie helps that website, or another website, recognize your device the next time you visit. Web beacons or other similar files do the same thing. We use the term “cookies” in our terms and conditions to refer to all files that collect information in this way. Cookies can serve many functions. For example, they may help us remember your username and preferences, analyse how well our website is performing, or even allow us to recommend content we believe will be most relevant to you.

Certain cookies contain personal information. For example, if you select “remember me” when logging in, a cookie will store your username. Most cookies won’t collect information that identifies you personally and will instead collect more general information such as how you arrive at and use our websites or your general location.

If you would like to check or change the types of cookies your system accepts, this can usually be altered within your browser settings. You can block cookies at any time by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies. By not blocking cookies and continuing to browse, you are authorising the use of cookies. If you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all parts of our website.

3.     What sort of cookies does Mindfully More use?

We use cookies to track your use of our website. This enables us to understand how you use the site and track any patterns of usage. This helps us to develop and improve our website and identify products or services you might like. 

4.     Generally, cookies are in the following categories:

Essential Cookies. Some cookies are essential for the operation of our website. For example, some cookies allow us to identify subscribers and ensure they can access the subscription-only pages. If a subscriber opts to disable these cookies, they will not be able to access all the content to which their subscription entitles them.

Performance Cookies. We use other cookies to analyse how our visitors use our websites and to monitor website performance. This allows us to provide a high-quality experience by customizing our offerings and quickly identifying and fixing any issues that arise. For example, we might use performance cookies to keep track of which pages are most popular, which method of linking between pages is most effective, and to determine why some pages are receiving error messages. We might also use these cookies to highlight articles or site services that we think will be of interest to you based on your use of the website.

Functionality Cookies. We use functionality cookies to allow us to remember your preferences. For example, cookies save you the trouble of typing in your username every time you access the site. Cookies recall your customization preferences, such as which regional edition of the website you want to see when you log in. We also use functionality cookies to provide you with enhanced services such as allowing you to watch a video online or comment on a blog.

Behaviourally Targeted Advertising Cookies. Advertisers may use cookies to serve you with advertisements that they believe are relevant to you and your interests. For example, if you read a number of articles about yoga on Mindfully More Japan or on other sites, a sports goods company might infer you are interested in this topic and serve you with its advertisements for yoga mats or exercise wear. You might see advertisements like that on other sites you visit. These cookies do not, however, tell our advertisers who you are.

5.     Cookies can also be:

Session Cookies. These are only stored on your device during your web session and are automatically deleted when you close your browser. For example, there may be a session ID set that allows you to browse our website without having to log in to each individual page. 

Persistent Cookies. A persistent cookie is stored on your device and remains there when you close your web browser. For example we may use a cookie to remember your log-in information. The cookie is set by our website when you indicate you would like your user information remembered and is read by our website the next time you visit our website. 

6.     Does anyone else use cookies on Mindfully More websites?

We don’t currently enable automated advertising on our website. Advertisers sometimes use their own cookies to provide you with targeted advertising. For example, advertisers may use a profile they have built on sites you have previously visited to present you with more relevant advertisements during your visit to Mindfully More if we allowed automated advertising. We believe our users prefer to see advertisements that are more relevant to their interests. 

If you are based in the European Union and would like to learn more about how advertisers use these types of cookies or how to choose not to receive them, please visit www.youronlinechoices.eu. If you are based in the United States and would like to learn more, please visit www.aboutads.info/choices.

We also use or allow third parties to serve cookies that fall into the four categories above. For example, like many companies, we use Google Analytics to help us monitor our website traffic. We may also use third party cookies to help us with market research, revenue tracking, improving site functionality, and monitoring compliance with our terms and conditions.

7.     Can you block cookies?

You can set your browser to not accept cookies however If you choose to disable cookies, you may find that certain sections of our online services do not work properly. 

Cookies help you to get the most out of our online services. The first time you accessed our website you should have seen pop-up or an overlay explaining that by continuing to access our site you are consenting to our use of cookies and also recommending you ‘whitelist’ our email contact details. If you re-set your cookie setting or clear your browser history, that message should pop-up again. 

To find out how to opt out of tailored advertising and Google tracking please check the options available here - https://adssettings.google.com/authenticatedandhttps://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.  

8.     Do we track whether you open our emails?

Our emails may contain a campaign-unique “web beacon pixel” to tell us whether our emails are opened and to verify any click-throughs to links or advertisements within the email. We may use this information for purposes including to determine which of our emails are more interesting to users, to query whether users who do not open our emails wish to continue receiving them, and to inform our advertisers (in aggregate) how many users have clicked on their advertisements. The web beacon pixel is deleted when you delete the email. If you do not wish the pixel to be downloaded to your device, you can elect to receive emails from us in plain text rather than HTML.

9.     More Information

For useful information about how businesses use cookies, visit www.allaboutcookies.org. 

End.