Privacy policy

Last updated: 3 November 2026

This privacy policy explains how Thea Gouverneur BV, trading as Thea Gouverneur Since 1959 ("we", "us", "our"), collects and uses your personal data when you visit theagouverneur.com, buy from us, or contact us. We are the data controller for this personal data under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and, for customers in the United Kingdom, the UK GDPR.

1. Who we are

Thea Gouverneur BV
Hoofdstraat 78A, 2171 AV Sassenheim, the Netherlands
Chamber of Commerce (KVK) number: 27308293
Email: support@theagouverneur.com
Phone: +31 (0)252 214 453

We have not appointed a Data Protection Officer. For any question about your personal data, email us at support@theagouverneur.com.

2. What personal data we collect

Depending on how you use our website and services, we may collect:

  • Contact and delivery details: your name, billing and shipping address, email address and phone number.
  • Order and payment details: the products you order, return or exchange, order amounts, payment method and payment status. Card payments are handled by our payment providers; we never see or store your full card number.
  • Account details: if you create a customer account, your login details, order history and preferences.
  • Communications: messages you send us by email, through our contact form, by phone or via WhatsApp, and our replies.
  • Reviews and loyalty: reviews you write about us and, if you join our rewards programme, your points balance and activity.
  • Marketing preferences: whether you have signed up for our newsletter and how you interact with our emails.
  • Device and usage data: your IP address, browser and device type, approximate location, and the pages you visit, collected through cookies and similar technologies (see section 6).

We get this data directly from you, automatically when you use our website, and from partners such as payment providers, shipping carriers (for delivery updates) and marketplaces such as Etsy when we process an order you placed with us there.

3. Why we use your data and our legal basis

We only use your personal data when the law allows it. For each purpose, the legal basis is shown in brackets.

  • Processing and delivering your order, including payment, shipping, returns, refunds and order updates (performance of our contract with you).
  • Managing your customer account (performance of our contract with you).
  • Answering your questions and handling complaints (performance of our contract with you, or our legitimate interest in helping you).
  • Keeping our accounting and tax records and meeting other legal obligations, such as consumer law (legal obligation).
  • Preventing fraud and keeping our website and payments secure (our legitimate interest in protecting our business and our customers).
  • Sending our newsletter (your consent). If you have bought from us, we may also email you about similar products (our legitimate interest). You can unsubscribe at any time through the link in every email.
  • Inviting you to review your purchase on Trustpilot after an order (our legitimate interest in collecting honest customer feedback). You can opt out at any time.
  • Running our rewards programme, if you choose to join (performance of our contract with you).
  • Understanding how our website is used and showing relevant ads through analytics and marketing cookies (your consent, which you can withdraw at any time).

We do not make decisions about you based solely on automated processing that have legal or similarly significant effects on you.

4. Who we share your data with

We only share your personal data where needed for the purposes above. Most of these companies act as our processors: they handle data on our behalf and under our instructions, under a data processing agreement. Some (such as PayPal, shipping carriers, Trustpilot and Meta/WhatsApp) also act as independent controllers and are responsible for their own use of your data under their own privacy policies.

  • Our online store platform: Shopify, which hosts our website and checkout (see section 5).
  • Payment providers: Shopify Payments (with its payment partners) and PayPal.
  • Fulfilment and shipping: GoedGepickt (our warehouse and order management system); shipping carriers such as PostNL, DPD, Royal Mail and USPS; Amazon, which ships some orders from its warehouses in the UK and US (Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfillment); and Zonos, which calculates import duties and taxes for international orders.
  • Customer service and messaging: Freshdesk (Freshworks) for handling customer service emails, WhatsApp (Meta) if you contact us that way, and Shopify's email and messaging tools.
  • Reviews and rewards: Trustpilot (review invitations and reviews) and Smile.io (our rewards programme).
  • Website services: translation and currency-conversion tools (Weglot and Hextom) and a backup service (BackupMaster) that keeps secure copies of our store data.
  • Advertising and analytics partners, such as Google, only if you have accepted marketing or analytics cookies.
  • Professional advisers and authorities: our accountant, and government authorities or courts where we are legally required to share data.
  • A buyer or successor if our business, or part of it, is sold or merged.

We do not sell your personal data for money. Some privacy laws (for example in certain US states) treat sharing data for targeted advertising as a "sale" or "share". You can opt out of this here. If you visit our website with the Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal enabled, we treat this as an opt-out request for that browser and device, and for your account if we can link it to you. We do not respond to other "Do Not Track" signals.

5. Our relationship with Shopify

Our store is hosted by Shopify, which processes personal data about your use of our website in order to provide and improve its services to us. To help protect, grow and improve our business, we use certain Shopify features that combine data from your interactions with our store with data from other merchants and from Shopify. For those features, Shopify is responsible for the processing of your personal data, including for responding to requests to exercise your rights. To learn more, see the Shopify Consumer Privacy Policy. You can also exercise certain rights directly with Shopify through the Shopify Privacy Portal.

6. Cookies

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies. We use:

  • Strictly necessary cookies, which make the website work, for example to keep items in your cart, run the checkout, keep you logged in and remember your cookie choices. These do not need your consent.
  • Analytics cookies, which help us understand how visitors use our website so we can improve it.
  • Marketing cookies, which are used by us and our advertising partners to show you relevant ads on other websites and to measure how well our ads work.

We only place analytics and marketing cookies if you agree to them in our cookie banner. You can change your choice at any time through the cookie settings on our website or by deleting cookies in your browser.

7. International transfers

Some of the companies we work with, including Shopify, store or process data outside the European Economic Area (EEA), for example in Canada and the United States. When we transfer personal data outside the EEA or the UK, we make sure it is protected, either because the country has an adequacy decision from the European Commission (such as Canada, or US companies certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework), or by using the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses (or the UK equivalent). If you order a delivery to a country outside the EEA, we share your delivery details with the carriers needed to get your order to you.

8. How long we keep your data

  • Orders, invoices and payment records: 7 years, as required by Dutch tax law.
  • Customer account: until you delete your account or ask us to delete it. Order records we must keep for tax purposes are then kept for the remaining legal period.
  • Customer service messages: up to 2 years after your question has been resolved, unless they form part of our order records.
  • Newsletter: until you unsubscribe. After that, we keep only your email address on a "do not email" list so that we do not contact you again.
  • Rewards programme: for as long as you are a member.
  • Cookies: for the period set for each cookie, which you can view and clear in your browser settings.

9. How we protect your data

Our website uses an encrypted (HTTPS) connection, and payments are processed by Shopify, which meets the PCI DSS Level 1 security standard for card payments. Access to customer data within our company is limited to people who need it for their work. No system is completely secure, so please do not send sensitive information to us through unsecured channels. If a data breach occurs that is likely to put your rights at risk, we will inform you and the relevant authority as required by law.

10. Your rights

Under the GDPR and UK GDPR you have the right to:

  • Access the personal data we hold about you and receive a copy.
  • Correct personal data that is inaccurate or incomplete.
  • Delete your personal data ("right to be forgotten"), unless we must keep it by law.
  • Restrict our use of your personal data in certain situations.
  • Data portability: receive the data you gave us in a commonly used, machine-readable format, or have it sent to another company.
  • Object to our use of your data based on our legitimate interests, and to direct marketing at any time.
  • Withdraw your consent at any time, where we rely on consent. This does not affect processing that took place before you withdrew it.

Depending on where you live, for example in certain US states, you may have similar rights to know, delete, correct and opt out.

To exercise your rights, email support@theagouverneur.com. This is free of charge. We may ask you to confirm your identity before we act on your request. We will respond within one month; if your request is complex, we may extend this by up to two more months and will tell you why. You may also use an authorised agent to make a request for you; we will then ask for proof that you have authorised them. We will not treat you differently for exercising your rights.

11. Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we handle your personal data, please contact us first so we can try to resolve it. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection authority. In the Netherlands, this is the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (Dutch Data Protection Authority). If you live in another EU country, you can contact your local data protection authority. In the UK, you can contact the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

12. Children

Our website is not intended for children under 16, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from them. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has given us personal data, please contact us and we will delete it. We do not have actual knowledge that we "sell" or "share" the personal data of anyone under 16.

13. Links to other websites

Our website contains links to other websites and social media, such as Facebook and Instagram. We are not responsible for how those websites handle your personal data. Please read their privacy policies before sharing information with them.

14. Changes to this policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time, for example when we start using a new service or when the law changes. We will post the updated version on this page and change the "Last updated" date at the top. If the changes are significant, we will let you know in a clear way, for example on our website or by email.

15. Contact

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or how we use your personal data, please email us at support@theagouverneur.com or write to Thea Gouverneur BV, Hoofdstraat 78A, 2171 AV Sassenheim, the Netherlands. You can find all our company details on our contact information page.