Privacy policy

Last updated: August 30, 2026

1. Who is responsible for your information

Bellwove is a private life-story and memoir studio. Bellwove is a brand operated by 普宁市流沙金恒盈信息咨询服务部（个体工商户）, an individual industrial and commercial household registered in Guangdong, China (Unified Social Credit Code 92445281MAKJC1957P).

The legal operator decides how personal information is used for Bellwove's services and is the personal information processor, controller, or equivalent responsible organization under applicable law.

Privacy questions, data requests, and complaints may be sent to zexinzhao9999@gmail.com or +86 197 0296 5621. Registered address: 普宁市流沙北街道普宁轻纺织城展销中心二楼212号, Guangdong, China.

2. Scope

This policy applies when you visit bellwove.com, contact Bellwove, subscribe to marketing, purchase or participate in a project, contribute to another person's project, or receive a digital or physical edition. A project-specific privacy and recording notice may provide additional details before an interview or before private materials are sent to a new production provider.

3. Information Bellwove may process

Depending on your interaction, Bellwove may process:

  • contact, account, billing, delivery, preferred-language, time-zone, order, payment-reference, consent, and customer-support information;
  • website and device information such as IP address, browser, referring page, approximate location, cookies, cart activity, marketing preferences, and security logs;
  • interviews, calls, voice notes, audio recordings, transcripts, text chats, emails, questionnaires, and editorial notes;
  • photographs, captions, letters, diaries, certificates, family trees, family records, and other materials you choose to provide;
  • names, relationships, dates, locations, migration histories, work, education, family events, memories, and other life-story details;
  • drafts, edits, translations, comments, approvals, layouts, covers, digital editions, print-ready files, and final archives; and
  • printing specifications, dedications, recipients, delivery addresses, customs information, and photographs supplied to document a damaged physical order.

Life stories can contain sensitive information, including health, disability, ethnicity, beliefs, political views, sexual orientation, financial circumstances, allegations, identity records, precise locations, or information about children. Please provide only material that is relevant to the agreed story.

4. Information about relatives and other people

A project may mention or depict relatives, friends, colleagues, and other people. The commissioning client must have a reasonable right to provide the material and should notify contributors and identifiable living people where required. Bellwove may request direct consent, anonymise or omit material, or pause affected work when privacy, confidentiality, copyright, safety, or permission is uncertain.

Bellwove will not knowingly interview or record a child without verifiable permission from a parent or legal guardian and, where appropriate, the child's own agreement. Purchasers and people entering project agreements must be at least 18 years old.

5. Purposes of processing

Bellwove uses information to answer inquiries; plan and price projects; arrange and conduct interviews; transcribe, organise, write, edit, translate, proofread, and design stories; manage permissions and revisions; produce digital editions; coordinate optional printing and delivery; process payments; provide support; prevent fraud; secure systems; maintain required business records; handle disputes and legal requests; and send marketing only when there is a valid opt-in or other lawful basis.

Depending on the person, purpose, and applicable law, Bellwove relies on steps requested before a project and performance of a contract; consent for activities such as recording, optional marketing, sensitive information, or a provider transfer where consent is required; compliance with legal obligations; and necessary interests in operating, securing, supporting, and improving the service where those interests do not override an individual's rights.

Bellwove does not exchange private memoir materials for money or rent them to others. Shopify may classify some advertising or analytics disclosures as a “sale,” “sharing,” or targeted-advertising activity for regional privacy and opt-out purposes; those disclosures are controlled through Shopify's applicable consent and data-sharing settings. Bellwove does not publish a client's or participant's identity, voice, quotation, story, photographs, book pages, testimonial, or case study without separate written permission identifying what may be used and where.

6. Recording and sensitive information

Bellwove records an interview only after participants have been told that recording will occur, the reason for it, and how it will be used, and after any consent required by law has been obtained. A participant may ask to pause or stop a recording.

Where sensitive information is needed, Bellwove will explain the purpose and likely effect and obtain separate or explicit consent when required. Refusing optional processing will not affect unrelated services, although it may prevent that material from being included in the story.

7. Human editorial work, transcription, and AI-assisted tools

Finished Bellwove work is reviewed by a human editor. Bellwove may use transcription, translation, document-processing, or AI-assisted tools for a defined project step only under privacy and confidentiality controls.

When a project requires private materials to be sent to a transcription, AI, storage, or production provider not already identified to the client, Bellwove will identify that provider before transfer where required by law or the project's privacy arrangements. The notice will include the practical information then available about the provider, purpose, information involved, processing location, retention, human review, and model-training or product-improvement terms. Bellwove will obtain separate consent for the provider or cross-border transfer where required.

Bellwove will not use private client materials to train Bellwove or third-party public or general-purpose models unless affected people give a separate, optional, specific written consent.

8. Current website and business providers

Bellwove limits each provider to the information reasonably needed for its task. Current store services include:

  • Shopify for the website, checkout, orders, security, privacy controls, and store hosting. Shopify and its subprocessors may process information in countries where they operate, including outside the client's country;
  • PayPal, the payment provider shown at checkout, for payment and fraud-prevention information;
  • Shopify Digital Products for agreed digital-file delivery;
  • Google Drive for storage or link-based handover of agreed project and digital-delivery files;
  • Omnisend for affirmative email subscriptions, automated service or marketing messages, and its consent-controlled web pixel;
  • Google Gmail for monitored project and customer-service correspondence.

Printing, binding, shipping, calling, conferencing, secure file-transfer, storage, transcription, translation, and AI-assisted providers vary by project. Bellwove will identify providers receiving private project material before that transfer when applicable law or the project's privacy arrangements require it.

Professional advisers, contractors, regulators, courts, and law-enforcement bodies may receive limited information when reasonably necessary for confidentiality-bound work, legal compliance, safety, or the establishment or defence of legal claims.

9. Cookies, pixels, and marketing

Shopify's consent banner and privacy settings control non-essential website technologies in the regions where they apply. Omnisend's marketing and analytics technology is subject to the applicable consent and opt-out settings. You can use the cookie banner or Bellwove's data-sharing opt-out page at https://bellwove.com/pages/data-sharing-opt-out where available.

Marketing subscription is separate from purchasing or contacting Bellwove. Marketing messages include an unsubscribe route. Unsubscribing does not stop essential messages about an inquiry, order, interview, approval, security issue, delivery, or privacy request.

10. International processing

Bellwove operates from China and serves clients in different countries. Information sent to Bellwove may be processed in China, while Shopify and some other providers may process it in the United States or other countries.

Before a cross-border disclosure where separate notice or consent is required, Bellwove will identify the overseas recipient, contact route, purpose, method, information categories, location or retention arrangement, and the way an individual may exercise rights. Bellwove will use appropriate contractual, organisational, and technical safeguards and will not treat general acceptance of website terms as a substitute for separate cross-border consent when the law requires one.

11. Retention and deletion

Unless a shorter or longer period is agreed for a particular project, Bellwove uses the following standard target schedule and periodically reviews whether information is still needed:

  • inquiries that do not become projects: 12 months after the last meaningful contact;
  • raw recordings, supplied source materials, transcripts, and working drafts: through the project and 180 days after final delivery;
  • final digital and print-ready files: 12 months after delivery for replacement and support;
  • temporary files held by printing or production partners: deletion or return requested within 90 days after confirmed delivery;
  • marketing profiles: until consent is withdrawn or the address has been inactive for 24 months, followed by a minimal suppression record for 3 years;
  • contracts, order and payment references, processor records, consent records, and dispute records: at least 3 years after the transaction or project, or longer where tax, accounting, limitation, or other law requires it; and
  • deleted material remaining in routine backups: retained and removed according to each provider's normal backup cycle, which may vary.

When the applicable retention period ends, Bellwove aims to delete or irreversibly de-identify information through its active systems and provider workflows unless continued preservation is legally required. Material in routine backups is removed through the provider's normal backup cycle. Bellwove is not a permanent backup service; clients should securely keep their final files and source materials.

12. Security

Bellwove uses proportionate access controls, account security, secure transfer methods, data minimisation, confidentiality duties, provider review, and deletion procedures. Only people who need information for an approved task should receive it. No online system is completely secure; Bellwove will notify affected individuals and authorities of a reportable incident as required by law.

13. Your rights

Depending on applicable law, you may ask Bellwove to explain processing; confirm whether information is held; provide access or a copy; correct, delete, restrict, or transfer information; withdraw consent; object to certain processing; opt out of marketing; identify overseas recipients; or handle a complaint. A relative or authorised person may have rights concerning a deceased individual where law permits.

Send a request to zexinzhao9999@gmail.com with your name, relationship to the project, the requested action, and enough information to locate the record. Bellwove may verify identity and authority without asking for passwords or full payment-card data. Bellwove will respond within the period required by applicable law and explain any lawful limitation.

14. Changes and complaints

Bellwove may update this policy when services, providers, or legal requirements change. A material change affecting an existing project or consent will receive additional notice and renewed or separate consent where required.

Privacy or data-security complaints may be sent to zexinzhao9999@gmail.com. You may also complain to the competent privacy, data-protection, consumer, or market-regulation authority for your location. Nothing in this policy limits rights that cannot lawfully be waived.