Privacy

1. What we collect

When you join: your name, email address, and postal address. Payment details go directly to Stripe — they never touch our systems and we never see your card number.

When you buy a pair membership: your penpal’s name, email and postal address, which you provide. See section 3, which is about them rather than you.

As your membership runs: a record of which deliveries have been sent to you, and any correspondence between us.

When you visit the site: nothing. There are no cookies, no analytics, no advertising pixels, and no tracking of any kind.

2. Why we hold it

• Your address — to post your deliveries. There is no other way.
• Your email — to sign you in, tell you when a delivery ships, warn you before a renewal, and answer you when you write.
• Your order history — so we know what we owe you and you can see what you’ve had.

We do not use your information for advertising, and we do not build a profile of you.

3. If someone bought you a pair membership

The pair membership lets one person pay for two. That means we may hold your name, email and postal address because a friend gave them to us, not because you did.

We ask them to confirm they had your permission. If they didn’t, or you’d rather we didn’t hold your details, tell us and we will delete them. You are not obliged to accept a membership you didn’t ask for.

4. Who else sees it

Only these, and only for the reason given:

• Stripe — processes payments and holds your card details. We see the last four digits and nothing more.
• Cloudflare — hosts the site and the database where your membership record lives.
• The postal carrier — receives your name and address, printed on the envelope, because that is how post works.
• Google Fonts — the site loads two typefaces from Google, which means Google receives your IP address when a page loads. We’d rather it didn’t, and we may move to hosting the fonts ourselves.

We never sell your information, and we never share it for anyone else’s marketing.

5. Cookies

This site sets none. No consent banner is needed because there is nothing to consent to.

Stripe’s payment pages, which are on Stripe’s own domain, use cookies necessary to process a payment securely. That is governed by Stripe’s privacy policy.

6. How long we keep it

Your membership record is kept while you are a member and for a reasonable period afterwards, so we can answer questions about past orders and meet our tax and accounting obligations. Ask us to delete it and we will, except where we’re required to keep records of a transaction.

7. Your choices

• See what we hold — ask, and we’ll tell you.
• Correct it — addresses and names are editable from your account.
• Delete it — ask, and we will, subject to records we must keep.
• Stop emails — every email has an unsubscribe link, except the ones we must send about an order you’ve placed.

If you are a California resident, the CCPA gives you rights to know, delete, and opt out of sale. We do not sell personal information, and we will not treat you differently for exercising any of these rights.

8. Children

The Society isn’t aimed at children, and we don’t knowingly collect information from anyone under 13. If you believe we have, tell us and we’ll delete it.

9. Keeping it safe

Your details are held in an encrypted database. Payment details never reach us at all. No system is perfect, but we hold as little as possible, which is the most reliable protection there is.

10. Changes

If we change this policy in a way that materially affects you, we’ll email you before it takes effect.

11. Contact

Any question about your information — write to us.