Privacy
This page explains, in plain English, what data we collect, what we do with it, how long we keep it, and what you can ask of us.
Who we are
RGBloom Ltd, registered in England and Wales. Company No. 17236942. Registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (registration ZC155495). Registered office: Unit 2 Hazlewell Court, Bar Road, Cambridge, CB23 8DS, UK.
What we collect, and when
Until you start ordering, we collect nothing about you, unless you choose to send us a problem report.
While you're designing, your photos and your book live on your own device, in your browser's own storage - not on our servers. We set no cookies, run no tracking pixels or third-party analytics, and keep no record of who visits the site or what any one person looks at. What we do keep on your device is your own book and your own settings (like the theme you picked); none of it identifies you or tracks you, and your book isn't sent to us until you order. That's why you'll never see a cookie or consent banner here - there's nothing to consent to.
The editor also notes where the faces are in each photo, so it doesn't crop through them. That happens on your device too. It doesn't work out who anyone is, and it isn't sent to us.
Phones often hide where a photo was taken inside the file itself. The editor removes that as each photo is added, so it isn't in the photos you send us when you order.
When you place an order, the editor sends us:
- Your book, and all photos you use in it.
- The address(es) you'd like the book(s) sent to.
- Your email - but only if you choose to give it. It's optional.
- Your payment, which is handled by Mollie inside their own form. We never see your card details, and Mollie doesn't ask you for an email address to pay.
That's the whole list.
Only from when you start the ordering process, we may view your book and photos - to check the printing and put right anything that's gone wrong.
Before that, we can't: nothing has left your device. From the moment your photos begin uploading (the site tells you when that is), your book sits on our server so we can print and post it, and a person here may look at it to make sure it comes out right. All of it is deleted within 30 days - see below.
After an order is placed, we ask one optional question - how you heard about us. You can answer it or ignore it. If you choose "somewhere else" and write a note, that note is kept with your order and deleted on the same 30-day clock as the rest; otherwise your answer only adds one to an anonymous count (below).
We also keep a few anonymous counts to help us run the business - roughly which parts of the country orders go to, what kind of device they were placed from, and how people heard about us. We also count how many times each page of the site and the blog is viewed each day, and, separately, which websites visitors arrive from (just the site's name, such as a newspaper that linked to us). Nothing in them is linked to you or your order, and they hold no names, addresses or IP addresses. It's counting after the fact ("twelve orders this week, mostly from phones"), not tracking who visits.
When you order, we also note how long each part took you: making the book, from when you started it to your last change, split at the moment your first photo arrived (dates your book already keeps for itself), and then filling in the order and paying, from when each step reached us. They're a few numbers with no name or address attached, and they tell us where people spend their time.
While you design, the editor tells us one thing: that a book was started. The first time you open the photo picker, add photos, or choose to explore the editor in a new book, it adds one to a daily count of books started, noting which of those three it was. It sends nothing about you, your book or your photos, saves nothing on your device to do it, and measures nothing you do after that. We use it to see how many of the books people start end up being ordered.
We never ask for your phone number, and your name and email address are optional.
Transferring photos from your phone
If you transfer photos from your phone to the editor on your laptop using the QR code, those photos go directly from one device to the other where the network allows. If a direct route isn't possible, they pass through our server in memory only - never written to disk, never seen by anyone, gone the moment the transfer finishes.
The RGBloom app for iPhone and Android
The app is this website with a few extras only an app can do. Everything above applies to it unchanged: your book and photos stay on your phone while you design, and leave it only when you order. When you tap Add photos, your phone's own photo picker opens, and the app receives only the photos you choose.
Finding photos by date
If you'd like, the app can look through your photo library for the photos taken between dates you pick. It explains this first, and only if you tap Allow does your phone ask for permission. Saying no changes nothing else. The search happens on your phone, and nothing about your library is sent to us. You can take the permission back at any time in your phone's Settings.
Choosing who a book is about
The app can also recognise the people in your photos, so you can choose who a book is about and it picks their photos. To do that it finds the faces in your photos and works out which ones belong to the same person. All of this happens on your phone. What it works out stays in the app's own storage there: it isn't backed up, and it isn't sent to us or anyone else, either while you design or when you order. The part of the app that does this has no connection to the internet at all.
On an iPhone that keeps some of your photos only in iCloud, your phone may download the ones from the dates you're choosing, so it can look at them, just as it does when it shows them to you. That's between your phone and Apple; nothing goes to us. On an iPhone it only works while the app is open, and carries on where it left off next time.
Recognising faces is sensitive, so it's off until you turn it on, after an explanation from us. You can turn it off whenever you like ("Turn off and forget faces"), which deletes everything it worked out. Uninstalling the app deletes it too.
Finding your trips
If you'd like, the app can also find your trips, so a holiday becomes a book in a tap. To do that it reads where each photo was taken and turns it into a country, or in the UK the nearest town, using place data that comes with the app. All of this happens on your phone. Only the country or town is kept, in the app's own storage there: never the exact location, never backed up, and never sent to us or anyone else.
It's off until you turn it on, and "Turn off trips" deletes everything it worked out. UK town names are adapted from GeoNames, under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence.
Sharing photos into the app
You can send photos to RGBloom from your phone's Photos or Gallery app with Share. The app keeps them in its own storage until you choose a book for them, or discard them. Nothing is sent to us.
If you send us a problem report
If something isn't working, the "Having trouble?" link at the foot of every page opens a browser check. It sends us nothing unless you press Send, and it shows you everything it would send first: your name and a note, if you choose to add them, and technical details about your browser and device - which browser it is, the screen size, how much storage the site is using, how many books and photos are saved (as numbers only), how your last photo import went (as numbers, with any error it hit), in our app its version and whether it may see your photos, and a random code the page makes up so we can tell two browsers on one device apart. It never includes your books, your photos or their names.
A report isn't part of an order, so it isn't on the 30-day clock. We keep reports while they help us fix problems, and delete them by hand. If you'd like yours deleted, contact us at privacy at rgbloom dot com and we'll do it.
How long we keep it
Within 30 days of your order, we delete your book, your photos, and your name, address and email address.
After that window there's no way for us to find your order - by design.
The exception is the accounting record we're legally required to keep for HMRC: the order ID, the date, the amount, and the payment reference for the transaction. That's the entire accounting record. It doesn't include your name, address, or anything you wrote in the book. The anonymous counts described above stay too, since there's nothing in them about you.
Who else sees your data
We use a small number of other companies to do specific things:
- Mollie (Netherlands) - takes your payment.
- Proton Mail (Switzerland) - sends your order confirmation email, if you gave us an email address.
- Allstar Services Ltd (UK) - our printers. Receive the PDF and your shipping address(es).
- Royal Mail (UK) - delivers your book. Receives the name and address it's going to, so it can print a postage label and give us a tracking number.
Each of these has a data processing agreement with us that limits what they can do with your data. None of them are used for marketing or analytics. We don't sell, share, or rent your data to anyone else.
Where the data lives
Our server is in the UK, in a data centre run by our hosting provider under a data processing agreement. Mollie and Proton have their own data flows, but the personal data they handle for us either stays in the UK or is covered by the UK's adequacy arrangements with the EU (Mollie) and Switzerland (Proton).
So that a problem at that data centre can't lose an order before it's printed, we also keep a backup copy of each paid order in a second data centre, in France, run by the same hosting provider. It's encrypted on our server before it goes, with a key we keep offline, so the backup is unreadable to anyone else, and it's deleted after 7 days. France is covered by the UK's adequacy arrangements with the EU. We don't knowingly send your data anywhere else.
Your rights
Under UK GDPR you can ask us to:
- Tell you what data we hold about you.
- Correct anything that's wrong.
- Delete it - the 30-day window already does most of this automatically.
- Send your data to you in a portable format.
- Restrict or object to how we use it.
Email privacy at rgbloom dot com and we'll reply within a month - usually much sooner. We won't ask why.
You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk if you're unhappy with how we've handled your data.
A note on photos of other people
Photos in your book sometimes contain other people. Under UK GDPR those other people are data subjects too, even though they aren't RGBloom's customers. We rely on you to have any permissions you need from the people you photograph. We mention it so the position is clear. If you use the app to recognise the people in your photos, their faces are looked at on your phone only, as above, and nothing about them reaches us.
Because we delete your book and photos 30 days after the order date, requests about specific photos almost always end up answered with "we've already deleted that." If a faster deletion is wanted, contact us at privacy at rgbloom dot com and we'll do it the same day.
If something goes wrong
If something goes wrong with the data - an outage, a mistake, anything that puts your information at risk - we'll tell the Information Commissioner's Office within 72 hours, as required, and tell anyone who has been affected as soon as we sensibly can. We'll say what happened, what data was or wasn't affected, and what we're doing about it.
Changes to this page
If we change this page in a way that materially affects what we do with your data, we'll keep the previous version available on request from privacy at rgbloom dot com.