Privacy Notice

Introduction

This notice is to inform you of our policy about all information that we record about you. It sets out the conditions under which we may process any information that we collect from you, or that you provide to us. It covers information that could identify you ("personal information") and information that could not. In the context of the law and this notice, "process" means collect, store, transfer, use or otherwise act on information.

We take seriously the protection of your privacy and confidentiality. We understand that all visitors to our website are entitled to know that their personal data will not be used for any purpose unintended by them, and will not accidentally fall into the hands of a third party.

We undertake to preserve the confidentiality of all information you provide to us, and hope that you reciprocate.

Our policy is written to comply with UK data protection law (the UK GDPR, the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations), and with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) where it applies to you.

We never sell your personal information. We only share it with the service providers listed under Who we share information with, who process it on our behalf, or where the law requires us to.

Your rights over your personal information are explained under Your rights below.

The bases on which we process information about you

The law requires us to determine under which of six defined bases we process different categories of your personal information, and to notify you of the basis for each category.

If a basis on which we process your personal information is no longer relevant then we shall immediately stop processing your data.

If the basis changes then if required by law we shall notify you of the change and of any new basis under which we have determined that we can continue to process your information.

Information we process because we have a contractual obligation with you

When you download a product from our website, buy a product or service from us, or otherwise agree to our terms and conditions, a contract is formed between you and us.

In order to carry out our obligations under that contract we must process the information you give us. Some of this information may be personal information.

We may use it in order to:

• verify your identity for security/licensing purposes
• sell products to you
• provide you with our services
• provide you with suggestions and advice on products, services and how to obtain the most from using our tools and website

We process this information on the basis there is a contract between us, or that you have requested we use the information before we enter into a legal contract.

Additionally, we may aggregate this information in a general way and use it to provide class information, for example to monitor our performance with respect to a particular service we provide. If we use it for this purpose, you as an individual will not be personally identifiable.

We shall continue to process this information until the contract between us ends or is terminated by either party under the terms of the contract, and afterwards only for as long as described under Retention period for personal data.

Information we process with your consent

Some processing happens only if you agree to it. Our website does not use analytics, advertising or any other optional cookies, so we do not need to ask for your consent to them (see Cookies).

Sometimes you might give your consent implicitly, such as when you send us a message by e-mail to which you would reasonably expect us to reply.

Except where you have consented to our use of your information for a specific purpose, we do not use your information in any way that would identify you personally. We may aggregate it in a general way and use it to provide class information, for example to monitor the performance of a particular page on our website.

Where we rely on your consent, you may withdraw it at any time by contacting us via our website Contact page. Withdrawing consent does not affect your ability to use our website or services, and does not affect processing carried out before you withdrew it.

Information we process for the purposes of legitimate interests

We may process information on the basis there is a legitimate interest, either to you or to us, of doing so. Where we process your information on this basis, we do after having given careful consideration to:

• whether the same objective could be achieved through other means
• whether processing (or not processing) might cause you harm
• whether you would expect us to process your data, and whether you would, in the round, consider it reasonable to do so

For example, we may process your data on this basis for the purposes of:

• record-keeping for the proper and necessary administration of our business
• keeping our website, software downloads and licensing secure, and preventing fraud and abuse
• responding to unsolicited communication from you to which we believe you would expect a response
• protecting and asserting the legal rights of any party
• insuring against or obtaining professional advice that is required to manage organisational or business risk
• protecting your interests where we believe we have a duty to do so

You have the right to object to processing based on legitimate interests (see Your rights).

Information we process because we have a legal obligation

We are subject to the law like everyone else. Sometimes, we must process your information in order to comply with a statutory obligation.

For example, we may be required to give information to legal authorities if they so request or if they have the proper authorisation such as a search warrant or court order.

This may include your personal information.

Specific uses of information you provide to us

Information provided on the understanding that it will be shared with a third party

Our website allows you to post information with a view to that information being read, copied, downloaded, or used by other people.

Examples include posting a message in our forum.

In posting personal information, it is up to you to satisfy yourself about the privacy level of every person who might use it.

We do not specifically use this information except to allow it to be displayed or shared.

We store it as part of the forum, where it remains visible to others until it is removed.

Once your information enters the public domain, we have no control over what any individual third party may do with it. We accept no responsibility for their actions at any time.

You can ask us to delete personal information that you have posted, via our website Contact page. We will do so unless we have a legal reason to keep it, and will explain that reason if so.

Complaints regarding content on our website

Our website is a publishing medium. Anyone may register and then publish information about himself, herself or some other person.

We attempt to moderate user generated content, but we are not always able to do so as soon as that content is published.

If you complain about any of the content on our website, we shall investigate your complaint.

If we feel it is justified or if we believe the law requires us to do so, we shall remove the content while we investigate.

Free speech is a fundamental right, so we have to make a judgment as to whose right will be obstructed: yours, or that of the person who posted the content that offends you.

If we think your complaint is vexatious or without any basis, we shall not correspond with you about it.

Information relating to your method of payment

Payment information is never taken by us or transferred to us either through our website or otherwise. Our employees and contractors never have access to it.

At the point of payment, you are transferred to a secure page run by PayPal or Stripe, or you pay by bank transfer through Wise. That page may be branded to look like a page on our website, but it is not controlled by us. The payment provider processes your payment details under its own privacy notice, and tells us only what we need to complete your order, such as your name, email address, the product bought and the amount paid.

Sending a message to our support team

When you contact us, whether by telephone, through our website or by e-mail, we collect the data you have given to us in order to reply with the information you need.

We record your request and our reply in order to increase the efficiency of our business.

We keep personally identifiable information associated with your message, such as your name and email address so as to be able to track our communications with you to provide a high quality service.

Complaining

When we receive a complaint, we record all the information you have given to us.

We use that information to resolve your complaint.

If your complaint reasonably requires us to contact some other person, we may decide to give to that other person some of the information contained in your complaint.

We may also compile statistics showing information obtained from this source to assess the level of service we provide, but not in a way that could identify you or any other person.

Affiliate and business partner information

This is information given to us by you in your capacity as an affiliate of us or as a business partner.

It allows us to recognise visitors that you have referred to us, and to credit to you commission due for such referrals. It also includes information that allows us to transfer commission to you.

The information is not used for any other purpose.

We undertake to preserve the confidentiality of the information and of the terms of our relationship.

We expect any affiliate or partner to agree to reciprocate this policy.

Use of information we collect through our website

Cookies

Cookies are small text files placed on your device by your web browser. Similar technologies, such as your browser's local storage, work in the same way. We use only those that are needed for the website to work or that remember a choice you made. We do not use analytics or advertising cookies, so we do not show a cookie banner.

Essential. We remember whether you chose the light or dark theme (li-theme, kept in your browser). Signing in to the customer downloads area or the forum uses a session cookie to keep you signed in, and the forum uses a security cookie to protect its forms. Our payment providers may set cookies that are needed for payment when you use them.

Site search. Our site search is provided by Google and is loaded only on our search results page, when you search. Google may then set its own cookies, including ones it uses for advertising. If you would rather avoid this, you can search our site with any search engine by adding site:lightillusion.com to your search.

You can delete cookies at any time through your browser settings.

Personal identifiers from your browsing activity

Requests by your web browser to our servers for web pages and other content on our website are recorded.

We record information such as your geographical location, your Internet service provider and your IP address. We also record information about the software you are using to browse our website, such as the type of computer or device and the screen resolution.

We use this information in aggregate to assess the popularity of the webpages on our website and how we perform in providing content to you, and to keep the website secure. We do this on the basis of our legitimate interests.

If combined with other information we know about you from previous visits, the data possibly could be used to identify you personally, even if you are not signed in to our website.

Who we share information with

We use a small number of service providers to run our website and business. They process personal information only on our instructions, or, for payments, as independent providers under their own privacy notices:

• Google: the site search, which is loaded only on our search results page. When you search, your IP address and search terms are sent to Google, which may also set its own cookies.
• PayPal, Stripe and Wise: to take payments.
• YouTube and Vimeo: some pages and forum posts include videos. Nothing is loaded from YouTube or Vimeo until you press Play; YouTube videos then play in its privacy-enhanced mode.
• Our website hosting provider: to store and serve our website, forum and customer downloads area.
• The fonts and icons on our pages are served from our own website, not from third-party services. Images that older forum posts link from other websites are also copied to and served from our own website, so your browser does not contact those websites.

We may also disclose information where the law requires it, as described above.

Transfers outside the UK

Some of these providers, including Google, PayPal and Stripe, process information outside the UK, for example in the United States. Where they do, the transfer relies on recognised safeguards, such as UK adequacy regulations (including the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework) or standard contractual clauses.

Information we obtain from third parties

We sometimes receive data that is indirectly made up from your personal information from third parties whose services we use, such as order confirmations from our payment providers.

Your rights

You have the right to:

• be told how we use your personal information (this notice)
• 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 restrict how we use your information
• object to processing based on our legitimate interests
• receive information you gave us in a portable format, where processing is based on consent or a contract
• withdraw your consent at any time, without affecting your use of our website

Some of these rights have exceptions, for example where we must keep records for tax purposes. If one applies, we will tell you.

Access to your personal information

To obtain a copy of the personal information we hold about you, send us a request via the website Contact page.

We will respond within one month. There is normally no fee, although the law allows us to charge a reasonable fee, or to refuse, if a request is clearly unfounded or excessive.

Removal of your information

If you wish us to remove your personal information, you may contact us via our website Contact page.

If we remove information needed to provide a service, such as the details linked to a software licence, we may no longer be able to provide that service to you.

Verification of your information

When we receive any request to access, edit or delete personal identifiable information we shall first take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting you access or otherwise taking any action. This is important to safeguard your information.

Other matters

Encryption of data sent between us

Our whole website uses HTTPS, which uses a TLS certificate to verify our identity to your browser and to encrypt any data you give us.

Whenever information is transferred between us, you can check that it is done so securely by looking for a closed padlock symbol or other trust mark in your browser's URL bar or toolbar.

How you can complain

If you are not happy with our privacy policy or if you have any complaint then you can inform us via the website Contact page.

If a dispute is not settled then we hope you will agree to attempt to resolve it by engaging in good faith with us in a process of mediation or arbitration.

You also have the right to complain at any time to the UK Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint. If you live in the EEA, you can also complain to the data protection authority in your country.

Retention period for personal data

Except as otherwise mentioned in this privacy notice, we keep your personal information only for as long as required by us:

• to provide you with the services you have requested
• to comply with other law, including for the period demanded by our tax authorities
• to support a claim or defence in court

Compliance with the law

Our privacy policy has been compiled so as to comply with the law of every country or legal jurisdiction in which we aim to do business. If you think it fails to satisfy the law of your jurisdiction, we should like to hear from you.

Review of this privacy policy

We may update this privacy notice from time to time as necessary. The date at the top shows when it was last changed. The terms that apply to you are those posted here on our website on the day you use our website. We advise you to print a copy for your records.

If you have any question regarding our privacy policy, please contact us via the website Contact page.