Privacy

Privacy policy

In short: we only collect what we need to answer you, make your painting or send your order. We never sell your information. You can ask to see, fix or delete it at any time by emailing seb@sebgowerart.com.

Who we are

Seb Gower Art is the studio of New Zealand painter Seb Gower. This policy covers this website and the shop at shop.sebgowerart.com. We follow the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020, and we respect the privacy rights of people in other countries too, including the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United States.

What we collect and why

Commission enquiries

If you ask about a commission, we collect your name, your email address, your answers about size, framing and subject, any notes, and any photos you choose to attach. We use these only to reply to you and to plan your painting. The form is sent to the studio by email through our email provider, Resend. If the form cannot send, it opens your own email app instead, and your message goes from your own email account.

Emails and messages

If you email us or message the studio on WhatsApp or social media, we keep your message and contact details so we can reply and keep track of your enquiry.

Shop orders

Prints and merchandise are sold through our Shopify shop. When you order, Shopify collects your name, contact details, delivery address and order details. Payment card details are handled by Shopify and its payment partners. We never see or store your full card number. To make and post your order, we share the details needed with our print and fulfilment partners, which may include Printful, Printify and Creativehub. They use your details only to make and deliver your order.

Website use

Like most websites, our hosting provider, Vercel, keeps basic technical logs such as IP address, browser type and the pages requested. These help keep the site secure and working. This site does not use advertising cookies. If you change the reading options on a replay transcript, your choice is saved in your own browser so it is remembered next time. That setting never leaves your device.

Links from this site to the shop add three notes to the address: utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign. They tell Shopify which page the visit came from. We do not add a separate tracker or an advertising cookie for that.

Videos, music and social posts

Replays from YouTube, posts from Instagram and Facebook, and the Spotify studio playlist only load when you press play or choose to load them. Once loaded, those services may set their own cookies and collect information under their own privacy policies. YouTube videos use YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode. Each one also has a direct link if you would rather view it on the original site.

Links to other sites

Some pages link to other sites, such as shops or news articles. If you follow a link, that site's own privacy policy applies.

How we use and share your information

We use your information only for the reason you gave it to us, such as answering an enquiry, making a commission or delivering an order.
We never sell or rent your personal information, and we do not share it for advertising.
We share it only with the services that help us run the studio, as described above, or when the law requires it.
We will only send you marketing emails if you have agreed to them, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Where it is stored and how long we keep it

Some of the services we use store information outside New Zealand, for example in the United States. We choose well known providers that protect personal information to a standard comparable to New Zealand law. We keep commission and order records for as long as we need them to look after you and to meet tax and accounting rules, and we delete or securely store them after that.

Keeping it safe

This site is served over a secure HTTPS connection. We take reasonable steps to protect your information from loss, misuse and unauthorised access, and we limit access to the people who need it.

Your rights

Under the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020 you have the right to ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, and to ask us to correct it. We will reply within 20 working days.

If you live in the European Union or the United Kingdom, the GDPR also gives you the right to ask us to delete your information, limit or object to how we use it, or receive a copy to take elsewhere. We rely on your consent, or on what is needed to answer you or fulfil your order, to use your information.

If you live in California or another US state with a privacy law, you have the right to know what we collect, to ask us to delete it, to correct it, and to opt out of its sale or sharing. We do not sell or share personal information, and we will never treat you differently for using these rights.

To use any of these rights, email seb@sebgowerart.com. We may need to check who you are before we share anything.

The New Zealand privacy principles

The Privacy Act 2020 sets out 13 information privacy principles. In plain terms, we:

only collect information we need for a clear purpose,
collect it from you directly wherever we can,
tell you why we are collecting it and who will see it,
collect it in a fair way that does not intrude on you,
keep it secure,
let you see the information we hold about you,
correct it if you ask,
check it is accurate before we use it,
do not keep it longer than we need to,
use it only for the purpose it was collected for, unless an exception applies,
only share it when it is allowed,
only send it overseas where it will be protected to a comparable standard, and
do not use government identifiers, such as your IRD number, to identify you.

Children

This site is not aimed at children under 16, and we do not knowingly collect their information. If you think a child has sent us information, let us know and we will delete it.

Questions or complaints

If you have a question or a concern, email seb@sebgowerart.com and we will do our best to put it right. If you are not happy with our answer, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner in New Zealand. If you are in the EU or UK, you can also contact your local data protection authority.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we will update it here and change the date below.

Last updated 5 November 2026.