At CodeInk, we treat your data with the same precision and respect as we treat our art. We collect only what is necessary to create and deliver your piece, and we are transparent about how we use it.
This Privacy Policy describes how CodeInk ("we", "us", "our") collects, uses, discloses, and protects your personal information when you visit codeink.art, make a purchase, or communicate with us. It applies to all services offered through our website, which is hosted by Vercel.
If there is a conflict between our Terms of Service and this Privacy Policy, this Privacy Policy controls with respect to the collection, processing, and disclosure of your personal information.
Please read this policy carefully. By using our website or placing an order, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy.
1. Who We Are
CodeInk is an independent art studio operated as a sole proprietorship, based in Québec City, Québec, Canada.
Contact: info@codeink.art — Privacy Officer (Québec — Law 25): Carlos Alarcón, info@codeink.art
As a business based in Québec, Canada, we are subject to:
- The Loi modernisant des dispositions législatives en matière de protection des renseignements personnels (Law 25, Québec)
- The Loi sur la protection des renseignements personnels et les documents électroniques (LPRPDE, Canada)
- The Charte de la langue française (Québec)
Where we serve customers in the European Union or United Kingdom, we also comply with applicable provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
2. Personal Information We Collect
When we use the term "personal information", we mean information that identifies or can reasonably be linked to you. We may collect the following categories of personal information depending on how you interact with us:
- Contact details — your name, shipping address, billing address, phone number, and email address.
- Order & transaction information — items purchased, order history, returns, exchanges, cancellations, and commission details including coordinates, names, dates, or images you provide for personalized orders.
- Payment information — payment method type and transaction confirmation. CodeInk does not store or have access to your full credit card or banking numbers. All payment data is processed directly and securely by our payment processor, Stripe, which maintains its own security certifications (PCI-DSS Level 1). We only receive confirmation of a successful transaction.
- Communications — the content of any messages you send us via email, contact forms, or other channels.
- "See It On Your Wall" tool — if you use this feature, the photo of your wall you upload is processed entirely in your browser and is never sent to our servers. If you choose to download or receive your finished mockup, we collect the email address you provide, solely to send you a copy and to deter automated abuse of the tool.
- Basic server logs — our hosting provider (Vercel) automatically logs your IP address and request data for security and reliability, as is standard for any website. See Section 7 for exactly which analytics tools we use (if any) and how cookie consent works.
- Marketing preferences — whether you have opted in or out of marketing communications. For example, the optional checkbox in the "See It On Your Wall" tool, and the optional "remind me" checkbox in your cart, are both unchecked by default and represent a separate consent from using the site itself. If you use the cart reminder, we keep a snapshot of what was in your cart at that moment so we know what to remind you about.
3. How We Collect Your Information
We collect personal information from the following sources:
- Directly from you — when you place an order, submit a commission request, contact us, or sign up for our newsletter.
- Automatically — basic server logs from our hosting provider (Vercel), and analytics cookies only if you accept them via our cookie banner. See Section 7 for details.
- From our service providers — including Vercel (our hosting platform), Sanity (our content and data platform), our payment processor, and shipping carriers, who may share relevant data with us in order to fulfil your order.
- From third-party platforms — if you interact with our social media accounts on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, or Pinterest.
4. How We Use Your Personal Information
We use your personal information for the following purposes:
- Order fulfilment — to process your payment, produce your artwork, arrange shipping, send tracking information, and manage returns or replacements. Your phone number, when collected at checkout, is used only for delivery logistics and cross-border customs declarations — never for marketing.
- Commission management — to manage the full lifecycle of custom and personalized commissions, including file preparation, digital proof review, approval tracking, and production scheduling.
- Customer relationship management — to maintain your order history, respond to your inquiries, and provide customer support.
- Marketing and communications — to send you promotional emails, collection announcements, and updates about new designs, if you have opted in. You may unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send.
- Security and fraud prevention — to detect and prevent fraudulent transactions and protect the integrity of our services.
- Legal compliance — to comply with applicable laws, respond to legal requests, and enforce our Terms of Service.
- Financial record-keeping — to maintain transaction records as required by Canadian tax law (generally 7 years).
5. How We Share Your Personal Information
We do not sell your personal information. We may share it with trusted third parties only for the purposes described in this policy and subject to appropriate data protection agreements.
5.1 Service Providers & Technology Partners
The following third parties may receive or process your personal information on our behalf, each for the purpose listed:
- Vercel Inc. (USA) — Website hosting and application infrastructure for codeink.art.
- Sanity.io (USA) — Our content and data platform: stores product catalogue data, order records, custom design requests, and customer reviews. Access is restricted to authenticated CodeInk staff — no public, unauthenticated access to this data exists.
- Stripe Inc. (USA) — Payment processor. Stripe handles and stores all payment card data directly, via its own hosted checkout page; CodeInk does not access your full card numbers.
- Resend (USA) — Transactional email delivery (order confirmations, shipping updates, commission and contact replies). Resend does not send marketing email on our behalf beyond what you've explicitly opted into.
- Telegram FZ-LLC — We use a private Telegram bot as an internal notification tool so our team is alerted immediately when an order, commission request, or message comes in. This is an internal operations alert, not a channel we use to contact you.
- Canada Post / commercial couriers (e.g. Chit Chats) — Domestic and international shipping. Your name, address, phone number, and order details are shared to generate shipping labels, tracking, and customs declarations for cross-border shipments.
- Plausible Insights OÜ (EU) — Cookieless website analytics, if active. Does not receive or store any personal information tied to you individually.
- Google LLC (USA) — Google Analytics, only if active and only for visitors who accept analytics cookies via our cookie banner. See Section 7.
We do not run advertising campaigns or use advertising trackers. We may use Plausible and/or Google Analytics for site analytics — see Section 7 for exactly how each works and, for Google Analytics, how to opt out via the cookie banner.
6. Legal Bases for Processing (Québec & Canada)
Under Québec's Law 25 and Canada's LPRPDE, we process your personal information on the following bases:
- Contractual necessity — processing required to fulfil your order, produce your artwork, and deliver it to you.
- Legitimate interest — fraud prevention and improving our services, where these interests do not override your privacy rights.
- Consent — for marketing communications (e.g. drop alerts, cart reminders). You may withdraw consent at any time without affecting the lawfulness of processing before withdrawal.
- Legal obligation — retention of financial records as required by Canadian and Québec tax law.
7. Cookies & Tracking Technologies
CodeInk does not use advertising trackers of any kind — no Meta/TikTok/Pinterest pixels, nothing that follows you across other sites for retargeting. We may use one or both of the following analytics tools, described honestly below rather than as a generic list of things we might someday add.
Plausible Analytics is cookieless — it does not set any cookie, does not track you individually, and does not require consent under Québec's Law 25 or the GDPR. If active, it only ever reports aggregate page-view counts.
Google Analytics does set real cookies. If we enable it, a cookie banner appears the first time you visit, offering Necessary Only or Accept All. Analytics cookies stay off by default (a mechanism called Consent Mode) — nothing is set unless you click Accept All, and you can change your choice at any time via the Cookie Preferences link in the footer. As of this policy's last update, Google Analytics is not active on this site.
Your cart contents and light/dark theme preference are remembered using your browser's local storage, not cookies — this is always on because the cart and theme toggle can't work without it. This data stays on your own device, is never transmitted to CodeInk or any third party, and clearing your browser data will reset it.
8. Data Retention
We retain your personal information for the following periods:
- Financial and transaction records: 7 years — as required under Canadian tax law.
- Commission files and artwork proofs: 3 years after your order — for quality assurance and dispute resolution.
- Marketing preferences and email lists: until you unsubscribe, plus 1 year — for compliance verification.
- Support communications: 3 years — for dispute resolution.
When personal information is no longer required for its original purpose and the applicable retention period has expired, it will be securely deleted or anonymized.
9. International Data Transfers
CodeInk is based in Québec, Canada. Some of our service providers are located outside of Canada, including in the United States and other jurisdictions.
For Québec residents: Before transferring your personal information outside of Québec, we conduct a privacy impact assessment (évaluation des facteurs relatifs à la vie privée) as required by Law 25, and ensure that appropriate protections are in place equivalent to those provided under Québec law. Where applicable, we use contractual clauses or rely on the service provider's compliance certifications (such as GDPR compliance) as the basis for transfer.
For EU/UK residents: Where we transfer personal information outside of the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, we rely on recognized transfer mechanisms including the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses or equivalent instruments.
The primary jurisdiction to which your data may be transferred is the United States (Vercel, Sanity, Stripe, Resend, and Google LLC if you accept Google Analytics cookies).
10. Children's Privacy
Our services are not directed to individuals under the age of majority in their jurisdiction (18 in Québec). We do not knowingly collect personal information from minors. If you believe a minor has provided us with personal information, please contact us at info@codeink.art and we will promptly delete it.
11. Security
We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your personal information against unauthorized access, loss, or disclosure. These include:
- Secure HTTPS encryption across our entire website
- Payment processing exclusively through PCI-DSS certified processors
- Access to customer data restricted to authorized personnel only
- Regular review of our data practices and third-party service providers
Please note that no method of transmission over the internet or electronic storage is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security, and we encourage you not to share sensitive information through unsecured channels.
12. Your Rights
Depending on where you live, you have the following rights regarding your personal information. We will respond to all requests within 30 days (or sooner, as required by applicable law):
- Right to access — You may request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
- Right to correction — You may request that we correct inaccurate or incomplete information.
- Right to deletion — You may request that we delete your personal information, subject to our legal retention obligations.
- Right to portability — You may request that we provide your data in a structured, commonly used format.
- Right to withdraw consent — Where processing is based on consent (e.g. marketing emails), you may withdraw it at any time without affecting prior processing.
- Right to object — You may object to processing based on legitimate interest where your individual circumstances justify it.
- Right to lodge a complaint — If you are a Québec resident and believe we have not complied with Law 25 or your privacy rights, you may file a complaint with the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec (CAI), 575, rue Saint-Amable, bureau 1.10, Québec (Québec) G1R 2G4 — Telephone: 1-888-528-7741 — Website: cai.gouv.qc.ca. EU/UK residents may also lodge a complaint with their local data protection authority.
To exercise any of the above rights, contact us at info@codeink.art. We may need to verify your identity before processing your request. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights.
13. Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, legal requirements, or business operations. When we make material changes, we will update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page and, where required by law, provide you with additional notice.
We encourage you to review this policy periodically. Your continued use of our website after changes are posted constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy.
14. Contact Us
For any questions, concerns, or requests related to this Privacy Policy or your personal information:
📧 info@codeink.art
Privacy Officer (Québec — Law 25): Carlos Alarcón — 📧 info@codeink.art
We aim to respond to all privacy inquiries within 1–2 business days and to all formal rights requests within 30 days.
CodeInk — Drawn in Québec City, Canada. Every line tells a story. Every imperfection proves it's real.