Privacy Policy

This page explains what happens to your details when you use this website. It is deliberately short, because this site does very little with your information — there is no shop, no customer account, no tracking and no advertising on it.

The short version

The personal information we get from this website is what you type into one of its forms and send to us, along with the IP address it was sent from. The one other thing is the heart button on The Wall: when you tap it, our server keeps a short-lived scrambled code made from your connection's address, purely to stop anyone hammering the button — it is gone within about two days (details below). Staff sign-in attempts are handled the same way. If you never use a form, tap a heart or try to sign in to our staff area, you never give us anything.

Who is responsible for your information

The Bean Box Coffee Co, 55 Aungier Street, Dublin 2, D02 CX54, Ireland, is the data controller for the information described here.

For anything to do with your information — questions, corrections, or asking us to delete it — email info@thebeanboxcoffeeshop.com.

What we collect, and when

Only when you choose to send it. Each form on the site collects the following:

• Contact form — first name, last name, email address and your message.
• Event booking — your name, company (optional), email address, phone number (optional), the type of event, rough headcount, date, venue and any notes you add.
• Barista training enquiry — your name, email address, phone number (optional), your current level, when you are looking to train, and any notes.
• Franchise enquiry — your name, email address, phone number (optional), your background, the type and area of location you have in mind, your budget range, and any notes.
• Job application — your first name, surname, email address, the role you are going for, what you tell us about yourself, and your CV file.

Apart from the IP address and time noted on each email (see below), the forms collect nothing else, and none of them are pre-filled or linked to each other. Tapping a heart on The Wall is covered separately below.

What we do with it

Every form does the same thing: it sends the details straight to our info@thebeanboxcoffeeshop.com mailbox as an email, so a human can read it and get back to you. That is the whole purpose.

Each of those emails also notes the IP address it was sent from and the time, so we can recognise abuse if the forms are ever flooded. It is kept with the email, for the same time as the rest of your enquiry.

Submissions are not saved into a database or a file on the website. They exist only as emails in our mailbox. (The photos on The Wall and their heart counts are stored on our web host — but nothing you send through a form is.)

Your CV is attached to that email and the uploaded copy is deleted from the web server immediately after it is sent. It is never stored in a public folder and is never downloadable from this website.

We only use your details to reply to you and deal with what you got in touch about. We will not add you to a mailing list off the back of a form.

The Wall: photos and hearts

The photos on The Wall are put up by our own staff. Visitors can't upload photos or leave comments — the words on each photo are ours.

If you're in a photo and want it gone, email info@thebeanboxcoffeeshop.com and we will delete it for good — not just take it off the page — usually the same day. Our staff are asked to only post people who are happy to be in the picture, and never a child's face without a parent's say-so. When a photo leaves The Wall, the copies the site shows publicly are deleted straight away, though a browser that had already loaded it can keep showing its saved copy for up to a day.

Our staff can also take a photo down without deleting it, so they can put it back up later. A photo that has been taken down, has not been put up yet, or is sitting in the bin is kept privately — in the password-protected staff area and in our backups, never shown to the public — until it is deleted for good (see How long we keep it). Once a photo is deleted, copies can still remain in backups — our web host's routine ones, and an off-site copy we keep so the photos can't be lost — until those backups roll over.

Hidden information is stripped. Every photo is re-made from scratch before it goes up, which removes the hidden details phones attach to pictures — including where it was taken and what took it. The original file is never kept.

Hearts. When you tap the heart on a photo, we add one to its count — no name, no account, nothing that says who you are. Your browser remembers which photos you've hearted (see Storage in your browser), and that list stays on your device.

To stop one connection hammering the button, our server keeps a short code for the day. It is made by scrambling your connection's IP address (for IPv6, only the network part of it) together with a secret key, and it is stored alongside which photos it hearted and how many times. We use it for one thing: limiting how many hearts a single connection can give a photo in a day, and how fast hearts can be sent.

That code is pseudonymous, not anonymous: while the key exists, someone holding our database could in principle work back from the code to the address. That is why each key only lasts its day. Soon after midnight (Irish time) it is deleted — normally by the first visit to our homepage, or by the first heart or staff sign-in attempt if one comes sooner — and a fresh key is only made when one is next needed. Once a day's key is gone, that day's codes can no longer be traced to anyone, and the codes themselves are deleted within about two days. After that, all that is left is each photo's number of hearts per day, with nothing about who gave them. The codes and the key are left out of our own backups, but like everything on the server they can appear in our web host's routine backups until those roll over.

Instagram photos on this site

The Instagram grid near the bottom of the homepage shows our own posts. Your browser never connects to Instagram (run by Meta) while you are on our pages, and nothing about you is sent to Meta: our server talks to Instagram on its own account, not on yours. Each tile is an ordinary link — click one and you are on Instagram, where Meta's own privacy policy applies.

The live grid. About once an hour — each check is usually set off by someone visiting the homepage — our server asks Instagram for our latest 25 posts and shows the newest six we have chosen to show. For each post in that answer it stores the caption, a short description for screen readers made from the caption, and the link. For the posts it may show, it also keeps its own copy of the picture, re-made from scratch so that only the image itself is kept. A post whose caption mentions a price or a deal is held back until we say it can go up, and no picture is kept for it until then. Pictures are fetched again once they are a day old, so if we change a post on Instagram — take a photo out of an album, say — the site catches up within about a day.

When a post goes. Each check keeps only what Instagram still lists among our latest 25. A post it no longer lists — because we deleted or archived it, or newer posts have pushed it out — loses its picture, caption, description and link from our server at that check. (If Instagram ever answers with nothing at all, we treat that as a possible glitch on their side and wait for the next check, normally a couple of hours later, before deleting anything.) If we hide a post from the grid, our copy of its picture is deleted straight away. The one thing we keep about a post that has gone is any decision we made about whether it may appear here, recorded against Instagram's number for the post along with its type and date — no picture, no caption, no link — so that a post we hid stays hidden if it ever comes back. While our checks are running, one that hasn't reappeared in 90 days is forgotten.

If the checks stop working. If our server stops getting a good check — because our connection to Instagram has been cut, say, or the pictures keep failing to come through — the grid keeps the last good set for up to seven days, then goes back to the six saved posts described below. After 30 days without a good check, every copy of our posts on the server — pictures, captions, descriptions and links — is deleted, apart from the decisions just described. That happens at the first homepage visit or scheduled check after the 30 days. Disconnecting our Instagram account from this site deletes the same things straight away.

The six saved posts. Whenever the live grid isn't showing — it's switched off, not connected yet, not working or slow to load, or your browser doesn't run our scripts — the grid shows six of our posts that we saved by hand. They are part of the website itself: no check updates or removes them.

If you're in one of our posts and want it off this site, email info@thebeanboxcoffeeshop.com. A live one we hide, which deletes our copy there and then; one of the six saved posts we take off the site by hand. We do the same if we delete one of the saved six on Instagram.

Like everything on the server, the captions, descriptions and links we hold can also sit in backups — our web host's routine ones, and the off-site copy we keep of The Wall's database — until those roll over.

Staff sign-in

Our staff manage The Wall and the Instagram grid from a separate, password-protected part of the site. Signing in gives that staff member's own device one strictly necessary cookie, __Secure-bb_staff, which their browser only ever sends back to the staff area. It holds a random code that keeps them signed in — until they close the browser (and never for more than 12 hours), or, if they tick "Keep me signed in", for up to 60 days after they last used it. Signing out deletes it.

A staff member's phone also keeps small notes in its local storage: bb-staff, so that their own hearts on the public page are not counted, and bb-staff-a2hs, which remembers they have seen the tip about adding the staff page to their home screen. Visitors never receive the cookie or either note.

Failed sign-in attempts are counted per connection with the same kind of short-lived scrambled code as the heart button, to stop password guessing, and are deleted within about two days. Visits to the page Instagram sends us back to when we connect our account are counted the same way, for the same reason. Our server's error log notes that a sign-in failed and how many times, never the address or the code.

Why we are allowed to use it

• Enquiries, event bookings, training and franchise questions — our legitimate interest in responding to someone who has contacted our business, and in taking steps to enter into a contract where you are asking us to quote for something.
• Job applications — taking steps at your request before entering into an employment contract.
• Photos on The Wall — our legitimate interest in showing what goes on in our cafés. Our staff are asked to only post people who are happy to be in the picture, and anyone can ask for a photo of them to come down at any time.
• Our Instagram posts — our legitimate interest in showing our own posts on our own website. Anyone in one can ask for it to come off this site at any time.
• Spam protection and keeping the site up — our legitimate interest in stopping abuse of the forms and the heart button, and in keeping the staff sign-in secure.

How long we keep it

• Enquiries, bookings and general correspondence — kept in the mailbox while we are dealing with your enquiry and for our normal business records, and deleted within 24 months at the latest.
• Unsuccessful job applications — CVs and application emails are deleted within 12 months. If you want yours removed sooner, email us and we will do it.
• Heart-button and sign-in codes — deleted within about two days.
• Photos on The Wall — on the site for as long as they are up. A photo our staff take down to maybe use again, or upload but do not put up, is kept privately (see The Wall) until they bin it. Anything in the bin is deleted for good, along with its daily heart totals, 30 days after it was binned — in practice within a day after that, because the clean-up runs with the first visit to our homepage each day. If you ask us to remove a photo of you, we delete it for good, with its heart totals, usually the same day, rather than just taking it down.
• Copies of our Instagram posts — only while Instagram still lists the post among our latest 25: deleted at the first check that no longer finds it, and every copy after 30 days without a good check (details above). The six saved posts stay until we take one down by hand.

Who else can see it

Three parties, all because they run the plumbing:

• Google Ireland Limited (Google Workspace) — hosts the info@ mailbox the forms email into, and the occasional alert the site emails us about itself.
• Hostinger — hosts this website, the photos on The Wall, our copies of our Instagram posts and the small scripts that send the emails.
• The developer who looks after this website for us — can access the web host to keep it running, and keeps the off-site backup of The Wall's photos and database.

None of them uses your details for their own purposes. Nobody else gets your information unless we are legally required to hand it over. Meta is not on this list because your browser never talks to it — see Instagram photos on this site.

Server logs and spam protection

Like any website, our host keeps standard web server logs — IP address, time, which page was requested, and browser type. These are generated by the hosting company for security and troubleshooting, and we do not use them to identify or track individual visitors.

To stop the forms being used to send bulk spam, the form script counts recent submissions from the same connection. It keeps a small file named with a scrambled code — not the address itself — holding the times of that connection's recent submissions, and only the last hour counts. The code is made from the IP address together with a secret key that is kept on our server and never leaves it, so the code alone cannot be turned back into an address. Because we hold the key, the code is pseudonymous rather than anonymous, and we treat it as personal data. Old times are cleared out the next time the same connection sends a form, and files left unused for more than two hours are deleted by a clean-up that runs every so often as the forms are used — so in a quiet spell one can stay on the server for longer than that.

If a form's hidden spam trap is set off, the log records the first few characters of that same code and the rough shape of what was typed (for example, "looks like a web address") — never the text itself.

The heart button and the staff sign-in use their own, separate limiter with the daily-changing key described above.

Storage in your browser

No cookies for visitors. The site may keep two small items in your browser. Neither contains personal information, and neither is sent to us:

• bb-splash-seen (session storage) — purely so the opening animation does not replay every time you move between pages. Your browser clears it when you close the tab.
• bb-liked (local storage) — the list of photos you've hearted on The Wall, so their hearts stay filled when you come back. It is only created when you tap a heart, holds photo IDs and nothing else, and stays until you clear this site's data in your browser settings.

Staff devices keep a little more — see Staff sign-in.

Links to other sites

This site links out to Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Google Maps, Deliveroo and our gift voucher provider. Those are ordinary links — nothing loads from them while you are on our pages, and we do not pass them any of your details. Once you click through, that company's own privacy policy applies, not ours.

Your rights

Under the GDPR you can ask us to:

• tell you what information we hold about you, and give you a copy
• correct anything that is wrong
• delete it
• restrict or object to how we are using it
• send it on to someone else in a portable format

Email info@thebeanboxcoffeeshop.com and we will sort it. There is no charge, and we will come back to you within one month.

Hearts work differently. The only record of who tapped a heart is the short-lived code described above. While it exists — about two days at most — it could be matched to your connection if you told us your IP address, and if you ask, we will delete it. After that, nothing we keep links a heart to anyone.

If you are not happy with how we have handled it, you can complain to the Irish Data Protection Commission at dataprotection.ie.

Children

This site is not aimed at children and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 16 through it. If you think a child has sent us something through a form, email us and we will delete it.

Our staff are asked not to put a child's face on The Wall without a parent's say-so. If one slips through, email us and it comes down.

Changes to this policy

If we change how any of this works — for example if we ever add an online shop — we will update this page and change the date below.