Legal
Privacy Policy
AlwaysOn is a Shopify app operated by Gakim Digital ("we", "us"). This policy explains what information AlwaysOn handles when a merchant installs it, why, and the choices merchants and their customers have. Questions: alwayson.hello@gmail.com.
Who this applies to
- Merchants: the owners and staff of Shopify stores that install AlwaysOn.
- Customers: people who shop at those stores. For customer information we act on the merchant's behalf; the merchant decides which customers may be emailed.
What AlwaysOn handles
From the merchant's Shopify store
Read through Shopify's API, with the permissions shown when the app is installed:
- Store details: name, domain, currency and time zone.
- The name and email address of the staff member who opens the app, from Shopify's session, to record who approved what.
- Products, collections, inventory and locations, to choose products to promote.
- Orders from the last 60 days, with line items, totals and refunds. Orders are linked to Shopify's customer ID only; AlwaysOn does not copy customer names, addresses or phone numbers.
About customers, when an email is prepared or sent
- The Shopify customer ID of each customer in an email's audience, the products picked for them, and a one-way keyed digest of their email address, used to honour unsubscribes and suppressions.
- The customer's email address, marketing consent and first name are read from Shopify just before each email is sent. The first name is used only to greet the customer ("Hi Amina,"). The email address and the email itself, including that greeting, are passed to our email provider for delivery. AlwaysOn does not store customer email addresses or names.
- Delivery events for each email (delivered, delayed, bounced, complained, unsubscribed, clicked) and orders placed within seven days of an email, to show the merchant what happened.
Set by the merchant
Sender name, reply-to address and business postal address used in emails; settings such as discounts and sending rules; and the merchant's plan status, read from Shopify. AlwaysOn never sees payment card details.
Operational data
Server logs with request IDs and error codes, kept for about a week. Logs exclude access tokens, API keys and customer email addresses.
How it is used
- To find promotion and recommendation opportunities in the store's own data and prepare emails for the merchant to approve.
- To send approved emails only to customers who agreed to marketing email in Shopify, with an unsubscribe link in every email, and to create discount codes the merchant approved.
- To report the orders that followed an email.
- To operate, secure and support the app, and to check the merchant's plan.
We do not sell personal information, use it for advertising, or use merchant or customer data to train AI models. AlwaysOn's emails are written from fixed templates.
Who we share it with
Only the service providers that run AlwaysOn, under their data-processing terms:
- Shopify: the source of store data, discount codes and billing.
- Resend: delivers emails, and receives the recipient's email address, the email content and delivery events.
- Microsoft Azure: hosts the application and its database in its South Africa North region (Johannesburg, South Africa).
We disclose information if the law requires it.
How long we keep it
- While the app is installed, data is kept to provide the service.
- Uninstall: sending stops and Shopify access credentials are erased. Shopify then asks apps to erase the store's data (about 48 hours later), and AlwaysOn deletes the store's synchronized data and marketing records when it receives that request.
- Customer deletion requests from Shopify remove that customer from orders and email audiences. A digest kept only to honour an unsubscribe may remain so the person is not emailed again.
- Backups are kept for up to 14 days and then deleted.
Security
Traffic is encrypted in transit (HTTPS). The database is encrypted at rest by the hosting provider, Shopify access tokens are additionally encrypted, and access to production systems is limited to the operator. Every request is checked to belong to the right store. If a breach affects personal information, we will notify affected merchants without undue delay and as the law requires.
Your choices and rights
- Merchants can stop sending at any time ("Let agents send" in Settings), uninstall the app, and ask us for access to, correction or deletion of their information at alwayson.hello@gmail.com.
- Customers can unsubscribe from any AlwaysOn email with its link, and can ask the store they shopped at to access or delete their information; Shopify passes such requests to AlwaysOn and we act on them.
- Depending on where you live (for example under the GDPR or Kenya's Data Protection Act), you may have further rights. Contact us to use them.
International processing
AlwaysOn's application and database run in Microsoft Azure's South Africa North region (Johannesburg, South Africa). Our email provider, Resend, sends emails from its European Union region (Ireland). Shopify and our providers may also process data in other countries, including the United States, with appropriate safeguards in their terms.
Changes
We will post changes here with a new effective date and, for material changes, notify merchants in the app or by email before they take effect.
Contact
Gakim Digital · alwayson.hello@gmail.com