Privacy policy
Last updated: 29 October 2026
This policy explains how Layers Active Ltd uses your personal information when you visit layersactive.com, join our email list, buy from us or get in touch.
At a glance
- Who we are. Layers Active Ltd, a small UK company that sells grip socks. For anything about your information, email hello@layersactive.com.
- Your order. We use your name, address and email address to take, deliver and look after your order. We keep order records for 6 years, because the tax rules require it.
- Emails. We send news and offers only if you join our list or tick the box at checkout. Our emails let us see when they are opened and which links are clicked. Every email has an unsubscribe link.
- Reviews. If you review a pair, we publish your rating, your words, any photos or videos and the name you choose. Never your email address.
- Cookies. Analytics and advertising cookies run only if you say yes. You can change your mind at any time with Cookie settings at the bottom of every page.
- Adverts. If you accept marketing cookies, Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and TikTok learn what you do in our shop, so they can measure our adverts and show them to you and to people like you.
- Sharing. We don't sell your information. We share it with the companies that help us run the shop. Some are outside the UK, and your information is protected there as UK law requires.
- Your rights. You can ask to see, correct or delete your information, and you can complain to us or to the ICO.
1. Who we are
Layers Active Ltd is the controller of your personal information. That means we decide how it is used and we are responsible for it.
- Registered in England and Wales, company number 16663393
- Registered office: 20 Percy Street, London W1T 1DZ, United Kingdom
- Registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), number ZC224174
- Email: hello@layersactive.com. Please put "Privacy" in the subject line.
2. What we collect
When you buy from us
- Your name, email address, delivery and billing addresses, and your phone number if you give it.
- If you send a gift, the name and address of the person receiving it.
- What you ordered and paid, any discount code you used, and your messages about the order.
- Your card or wallet details go straight into Shopify's checkout, where they are handled by Shopify Payments and the wallet you choose (such as Shop Pay, Apple Pay or Google Pay). We never see your full card number.
When you join our email list
- Your email address, when you joined and which form you used.
- If you came from one of our links or adverts: where the link was posted, the name of the advert and where it was shown (for example, Instagram Stories). We take these from the web address of the link you followed, or the site you came from, and save them as short tags on your customer record, such as "src-instagram". If you haven't accepted marketing cookies, we only read them from the page you are on when you join.
When you use our site
- Your IP address, browser and device type, and a rough location worked out from your IP address.
- If you accept analytics or marketing cookies, also the pages and products you view, what you add to your bag, whether you check out, the site or link you came from, and cookie identifiers.
When you contact us, or create an account
- Your name, your email address or Instagram name, what you tell us and any photos you send. If you message us on Instagram, Meta also handles that message under its own privacy policy.
- If you tag us on Instagram, we can see your post. We will ask before we share it.
- If you create an account (it's optional): your name, email address and the orders linked to it.
When you leave a review
- If you review a pair through the link in our email (a page Klaviyo runs for us): your star rating, what you write, any photos or videos you add, the name you choose to show and your email address. The review is linked to your order, so we know which pair it is about.
- We publish your rating, words, photos or videos, chosen name, the pair and the date on our product pages, marked as a verified buyer, and we may reply in public. We never publish your email address.
- We publish every genuine review, good or bad. We only hold one back if it is abusive, isn't about our socks, or includes someone else's personal details.
From other companies
- Shopify: the results of fraud checks on your order, and your details if you use Shop Pay.
- Royal Mail: updates on your delivery.
- Klaviyo: whether you opened our emails and which links you clicked.
- Meta and TikTok: reports on how our adverts perform. These are totals and don't tell us who you are.
We don't ask for sensitive information, such as details about your health. Please don't send it to us.
We need your name, delivery address and email address to take and deliver an order. Without them we can't sell to you. Everything else is up to you.
3. How we use it, and our lawful bases
The law says we need a lawful basis for each thing we do with your information. These are ours.
| Lawful basis | What we use it for |
|---|---|
| Contract | Taking payment, delivering your order, sending order and delivery emails, and handling cancellations, returns, refunds, faulty items and your questions about an order. We need to do these things to sell to you. |
| Legal obligation | Keeping order and payment records for HMRC and our accounts, and sharing information with authorities when the law requires it. |
| Consent | Sending you marketing emails, if you joined our list or ticked the box at checkout. Counting visits with Shopify's analytics, and measuring and showing our adverts on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok (you choose these in our cookie banner). |
| Legitimate interests | Seeing whether you open our emails and which links you click, and choosing which emails you get (for example, no first-order offer once you have ordered, or a reminder about pairs left in your bag), so our emails are useful to you. Recording which of our links or adverts brought you to our list, so we know which adverts are worth paying for. Publishing the reviews you choose to write, so other people can see what customers think of our socks. Answering questions that aren't about an order, to look after our customers. Running the site, remembering your choices, preventing fraud and keeping our shop and accounts secure. Dealing with legal claims. |
| Recognised legitimate interest | Helping the police or another public body with a crime, when they ask us. UK law makes this a lawful basis in its own right. |
Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have weighed them against your interests and rights, and we are satisfied that ours are not outweighed. You can object at any time (see section 11).
4. Emails from us
Joining. You can join with the form at the bottom of every page, the small sign-up card, or the box at checkout. Your sign-up is saved in Shopify and copied to Klaviyo, which sends our emails. The first is a welcome email with your 20% code.
What we send. News of launches, new colours and offers.
Opens and clicks. Our emails contain a small tracking image and tracked links, so we can see whether you opened an email and which links you clicked. This shows us which emails are useful to you (see section 3). To stop open tracking, turn off images in your email app, or unsubscribe.
Leaving. Use the unsubscribe link in any email, or email us. We then keep your email address on a "do not email" list, so we don't contact you again by mistake.
Order emails. Order confirmations and delivery updates are part of your order. You get them whether or not you are on our list.
Bag and checkout reminders. If you put pairs in your bag or start a checkout and don't finish, we may send you a reminder of the pairs you chose, with a link back to your bag. We send these only if you have agreed to our marketing emails. We know what was in your bag only if you accepted analytics or marketing cookies (see section 6), or from your checkout once you have typed in your email address.
Review requests. About a week after your order arrives, we may email to ask how you're finding your pairs, with one reminder a week later if you haven't left a review. We send these only if you have agreed to our marketing emails. Leaving a review is up to you, and there is no reward for it.
5. Adverts on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok
We advertise on Facebook and Instagram, which are run by Meta, and on TikTok. None of what follows happens unless you accept marketing cookies.
What they receive. The Meta Pixel and the TikTok Pixel on our site record what you do in our shop: the pages and products you view, what you add to your bag, when you start checkout and when you buy. Shopify's official Facebook & Instagram app and TikTok app also send these events from Shopify's systems (Meta's Conversions API and TikTok's Events API). With the events we send details that help them match your visit to an account: your email address and phone number, and for Meta also your name, town, postcode and country. These are scrambled (hashed) before they are sent. Your IP address, browser details and cookie identifiers are sent too, unscrambled.
What they do with it. Meta and TikTok use it to tell us how our adverts perform, to show our adverts to you and to people with similar interests, and to improve their own advertising systems. If you have an account with them, they link it to what they already know about you. This is profiling. It affects which adverts you see. It has no legal or similarly significant effect on you.
Who is responsible. We and Meta Platforms, Inc., and we and TikTok (TikTok Technology Limited and TikTok Information Technologies UK Limited), are joint controllers for collecting this information on our site and sending it. That means we tell you about it and ask for your consent, and you can use your rights with us or with them. Matching it to accounts and measuring our adverts is done for us. For everything else, such as building audiences and improving their advertising, Meta and TikTok decide how the information is used and are responsible for it under their own privacy policies:
Your choice. Change it at any time with Cookie settings at the bottom of every page. You can also manage your ad settings in your Facebook, Instagram and TikTok accounts.
6. Cookies and similar technologies
Cookies are small files a website saves in your browser. Our site also uses your browser's local storage and session storage, which work in a similar way, and pixels, small pieces of code from Meta and TikTok. This section covers all of them. The tracking image in our emails is explained in section 4.
Your choices
When you first visit, a small card asks you to choose:
- Accept all: essential, analytics and marketing.
- Essential only: only what the shop needs to work.
- See who and choose: switch Analytics and Marketing on or off. Essential is always on.
Until you choose, only essential cookies run. You can change your mind at any time with Cookie settings at the bottom of every page. We save your choice in the _tracking_consent cookie and in your browser's local storage, so we don't ask you on every visit. We never switch on Shopify's preference cookies: our shop has one language and one currency, so nothing needs them.
You can also block or delete cookies in your browser settings. If you block essential cookies, your bag and checkout won't work.
Reviews. The reviews on our product pages are loaded from Klaviyo's servers when you open a page. This sets no cookies and stores nothing in your browser, so it works whatever you choose. Like any website your browser loads, Klaviyo's servers receive your device's IP address.
Essential: always on
These make the shop work or remember a choice you made on our site. They don't track you for advertising. To remove them, clear your browser's data for our site.
| Name | Set by | What it does | How long it lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
| _shopify_essential | Shopify | Keeps the shop working, including your session, checkout and security checks | 1 year |
| cart | Shopify | Remembers what is in your bag | 2 weeks |
| cart_currency | Shopify | Starts a new, empty bag in the same currency after you check out | 2 weeks |
| localization | Shopify | Remembers your country for prices and checkout | 1 year |
| _tracking_consent | Shopify | Remembers your cookie choices | 1 year |
| discount_code | Shopify | Holds a discount code from a link you followed, ready for checkout | Until you close your browser |
| shopify_pay | Shopify | Signs you in to Shop Pay if you have used it with us before | 1 year |
| __Host-Http-shop_binding, login_with_shop_finalize | Shopify | Let you sign in with Shop | 3 hours; 5 minutes |
| storefront_digest | Shopify | Remembers that you entered the password while our shop is password-protected | 1 year |
| _shopify_test | Shopify | Checks that your browser accepts cookies | 1 minute |
| layers-consent (local storage) | Layers Active | Remembers your cookie choice | Until you clear your browser's storage |
| layers-list-joined (local storage) | Layers Active | Remembers that you joined our list, so the sign-up card doesn't appear again | Until you clear your browser's storage |
| layers-list-seen (local storage) | Layers Active | Remembers when the sign-up card last appeared, so it stays away for 14 days | Until you clear your browser's storage |
| la_from_email (session storage) | Layers Active | Notes that you came from one of our emails, so we don't show you the sign-up card | Until you close the tab |
Analytics: only if you say yes
Shopify's analytics show us how many people visit, which pages they view and where they came from, so we can improve the shop.
| Name | Set by | What it does | How long it lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
| _shopify_y | Shopify | Recognises returning visitors | 1 year |
| _shopify_s | Shopify | Groups the pages you view into one visit | 30 minutes, renewed as you browse |
| _shopify_analytics | Shopify | Analytics for the shop and checkout | 1 year |
| _landing_page, _orig_referrer | Shopify | Record the first page you visited and the site you came from | 2 weeks |
| shop_analytics | Shopify | Analytics for Shop, Shopify's shopping app | 1 year |
Marketing: only if you say yes
These let Meta and TikTok recognise your browser, so they can measure our adverts and show them to you and to others.
| Name | Set by | What it does | How long it lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
| _shopify_marketing | Shopify | Marketing data for the shop and checkout | 1 year |
| la_src, la_ad, la_pl (session storage) | Layers Active | Remember which of our links or adverts brought you here, so we can note it if you join our list | Until you close the tab |
| _fbp, _fbc | Meta (Facebook, Instagram) | Recognise your browser and note the advert you clicked, so Meta can measure our adverts and show them to the right people | 90 days |
| _ttp, ttclid, ttcsid, _tt_enable_cookie | TikTok | Recognise your browser and note the advert you clicked, so TikTok can measure our adverts and show them to the right people | Up to 13 months |
Shopify may set a few other essential cookies during checkout. Shopify lists all its cookies at shopify.com/legal/cookies. If you are logged in to Facebook, Instagram or TikTok in the same browser and accept marketing cookies, those companies may also read their own cookies when our pixels run, such as Meta's fr cookie and TikTok's _ttp and _pangle cookies. Their cookie policies explain these.
7. Who we share it with
We share only what each company needs to do its job. Most of them work for us and may use your information only on our instructions. Where a company also uses it for its own purposes, we say so.
- Shopify (Shopify International Limited, Ireland) runs our shop, checkout and order emails, takes payments through Shopify Payments and gives us sales and site analytics. Shopify also uses some information for its own purposes, such as Shop Pay, fraud prevention and improving its services. See the Shopify Consumer Privacy Policy. To ask Shopify directly about what it holds, go to privacy.shopify.com.
- Klaviyo (Klaviyo, Inc., US) holds our email list, your orders, any checkout you don't finish and, if you accepted cookies, what you add to your bag. It sends our marketing emails, including bag and checkout reminders, and collects and hosts our product reviews.
- Meta and TikTok, if you accept marketing cookies. See section 5.
- Payment processors. Card payments through Shopify Payments are handled by regulated payment processors, such as Stripe. They may also use payment details for their own fraud checks and legal duties. If you pay with Shop Pay, Apple Pay or Google Pay, that provider also handles your payment under its own privacy policy.
- Royal Mail receives your name, delivery address, and your email address or phone number for tracking updates. It uses them to deliver your parcel, as a controller in its own right. For orders outside the UK, it passes your details and what is in the parcel to postal services, carriers and customs in the destination country.
- Zoho, which hosts our email inbox, including your emails to us.
- Professional advisers, such as our accountant, lawyers and insurers, when they need it to advise us.
- Authorities, such as HMRC, the police or a court, when the law requires it.
- A buyer of our business, if we ever sell it. They would have to use your information in the same way.
8. Sending it outside the UK
Some of these companies are based, or hold information, outside the UK. Each transfer is protected as UK law requires. For a copy of these safeguards, email hello@layersactive.com.
| Company | Where your information goes | How it is protected |
|---|---|---|
| Shopify | Stored partly in Europe, and processed in Ireland, Canada, the US, Singapore and other countries where Shopify or its providers work | UK law recognises the EEA, and Canada for businesses covered by Canada's privacy law, as giving adequate protection. For other countries, Shopify uses standard contractual clauses with the UK's International Data Transfer Addendum. |
| Stripe | Ireland | UK law recognises the EEA as giving adequate protection |
| Klaviyo | The US | Klaviyo is certified under the UK-US data bridge, and its terms with us add standard contractual clauses with the UK Addendum |
| Meta | The US (Meta Platforms, Inc.) | Standard contractual clauses with the UK Addendum. Meta is not part of the UK-US data bridge. |
| TikTok | Ireland and the UK. Stored in the US, Malaysia and Singapore, with limited remote access from other countries, including China | Standard contractual clauses with the UK Addendum |
| Zoho | The Netherlands and Ireland, with access for support from other countries, including India | UK law recognises the EEA as giving adequate protection. Access from elsewhere is covered by standard contractual clauses. |
| Royal Mail | The UK. For orders abroad, postal services, carriers and customs in the destination country | Only what is needed to deliver the order you asked for. Royal Mail's overseas partners are bound by contracts to protect it. |
9. How long we keep it
| Information | How long we keep it |
|---|---|
| Orders, payments and refunds | 6 years after the end of the financial year the order falls in. HMRC requires this, and it also covers any claim about the order. |
| Your email sign-up | While you are subscribed. When you unsubscribe, we keep your email address on our "do not email" list, so we never email you again by mistake. If you haven't bought from us, we delete the rest of your sign-up details within 2 years. |
| Messages to us | 2 years after our last reply, or as long as the order record if they are about an order |
| Customer accounts | Until you ask us to close your account. Orders on it are kept as above. |
| Reviews | While they are published on our site. You can ask us to change or remove yours at any time. |
| Privacy requests and complaints | 3 years after we close them |
| Cookies and similar technologies | For the times shown in section 6 |
Meta keeps the event data it receives from our site for up to 2 years. TikTok and Shopify keep what they receive for their own purposes for as long as their own privacy policies say.
10. Keeping it safe
Our shop runs on Shopify, which encrypts information sent between your browser and the shop and meets the payment card industry's security standard (PCI DSS). Only the people who need customer information can see it, and our accounts are protected with strong passwords and two-step verification.
11. Your rights
You have the right to:
- see the personal information we hold about you and get a copy;
- correct anything that is wrong or incomplete;
- delete it, where there is no good reason for us to keep it (we must keep order records for tax);
- restrict how we use it, for example while we look into a complaint;
- move it: get the information you gave us in a common format, to use elsewhere;
- object to anything we do on the basis of legitimate interests. You can always object to marketing, and we will stop;
- withdraw your consent at any time: unsubscribe with the link in any email, and change your cookie choices with Cookie settings. This doesn't affect what we did before;
- ask for a person to review a decision made only by a computer that has a legal or similarly significant effect on you. We don't make decisions like that. Payment providers run automatic fraud checks, and very occasionally a payment is declined. If you think that was a mistake, contact us and a person will look at it with you.
To use any of these rights, email hello@layersactive.com. It's free. We reply within one month. If your request is complex, we may need up to two more months, and we will tell you why. If we need more information to confirm who you are or to understand your request, we will ask, and the month is paused until you reply.
To change or remove a review you have left, email hello@layersactive.com.
12. Complaints
You have the right to complain to us. If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal information, email hello@layersactive.com with "Privacy complaint" in the subject line. We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days, look into it without delay and tell you the outcome.
You also have the right to complain to the UK regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). From 30 September 2026 it becomes the Information Commission, still known as the ICO.
- Website: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint
- Helpline: 0303 123 1113
- Post: Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF
If you live in the EU, you can also complain to the data protection authority in your country.
13. Children
Our shop is for adults. You must be 18 or over to buy from us, and our email list is for adults too. If you think a child has given us their details, email us and we will delete them.
14. Changes to this policy
We update this policy when the way we use personal information changes, and we change the date at the top. If a change is significant, we will tell you, for example by email if you are on our list.
15. Contact us
Layers Active Ltd, 20 Percy Street, London W1T 1DZ, United Kingdom. Email hello@layersactive.com.