RHS Grow Privacy Policy

This privacy policy explains what personal information we collect about you and how it is used when you sign up and use the RHS Grow app and the RHS ChatBotanist feature in the app.

Types of personal data and purposes

Contact information

First name and last name - For registration, account creation and user verification.

Email address - For registration, account creation, user verification and app notifications and communications with you.

Phone number - For two factor authentication and user verification.

Postcode - To personalise care tips and weather alerts.

Location
Coarse location - Information that describes the approximate location of a user or device based on their IP address or postcode provided by the user.
User content
  • The user’s plant photos and videos added when performing a plant ID search so their photo is presented back to the user when they add plant to their collection.
  • The user’s questions submitted to the ChatBotanist.
  • The user’s feedback about the ChatBotanist.
Search history
Search history - Information about searches performed in the app to present to user previous searches.
Identifiers
User ID - Email address and password, used to identify a user or account

Device ID and Device Data - To identify user device while the app is being used, such as type of device operating system, available storage, browser type, software, plugins

IP address - Used for the identification of your internet service provider and location of your device to allow the transfer data over the internet.
 
Usage and engagement data

Product interaction analysis - Anonymised data generated by how you interact and use our app will be used for analytical purposes, including for improving My Garden and our plant identification service and for research and innovation in the areas of science and horticulture. 

This data will be collected using our website and app analytical tools, cookies and similar technologies, when the user launches app, taps, clicks, scroll information, views videos, uploads photos/videos. This data will be anonymised.

Marketing analysis - This non-identifiable pseudonymised data is collected via a third-party analytical software installed on your device through when you download the RHS Grow app. This data is used for the following purposes of: 

  • Measuring and analysing the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns by understanding which contributed to the download/installation of RHS Grow or other conversion metric (e.g. relaunch of Application)  
  • Measuring and analysing certain events and actions within our application or websites, such as in-app purchases made by end users 
  • Create smoother user experience and journey's to and within the RHS Grow app into the App, to be used in our wider marketing strategies  
  • Help us identify and protect against fraudulent behaviour related to our marketing campaigns.  

More information on our analytical tools, cookies and similar technologies can be found in our Cookies Policy. 
 

Diagnostics
Crash Data - Such as crash logs

Performance Data - Such as launch time, hang rate, or energy use

Other Diagnostic Data - To diagnose and fix the problem such as battery level and quality, and length of your network connections.
Preferences
Notification and marketing preferences - To allow user to opt-in or opt-out out notifications and marketing and for RHS to use this to send or stop notifications or marketing.

When and how do we collect personal data about you?

We collect personal data about you when you register to use the RHS Grow app and whilst you are using the app.

How will we use personal data about you?

Analytics
Using data to evaluate user behaviour, including to understand the effectiveness of product features, plan new features, or measure audience size or characteristics.
Product personalisation
Using user plant information added and information the user tells us about their garden added to generate and customise care tips (notifications) on how to look after a plant and other garden tasks.
App functionality
Such as to authenticate the user, enable features, prevent fraud, implement security measures, ensure server up-time, minimize app crashes, improve scalability and performance, or perform customer support.
Marketing
To market or promote our products and services and our charitable cause to you where you consent to it.
Artificial Intelligence learning
  • Training our AI tool that powers ChatBotanist to help our AI tool become more accurate and better at solving specific problems and to make our AI tool more helpful for people.
Our AI tool will not learn in real time from your interactions, instead your questions and answers generated by ChatBotanist will be anonymised and evaluated by a member of the RHS advisory team who will decide which questions and answers are appropriate to be used for the training of our AI tool.
Improving our services across our website and digital platforms

We will use anonymised feedback and the questions entered into ChatBotanist and the answers it generates for the purposes of understanding what our users need gardening help with, so that we can provide better gardening content on all our digital platforms.

Research and innovation in the areas of science and horticulture

We will use anonymised feedback and the questions entered into ChatBotanist and the answers it generates for the purposes of our scientific and horticulture research.

Legal basis for processing your Personal Data

We rely on contract-
  • For the management of your subscription for users who use our paid service.
We rely on consent for-
  • All marketing related activities
  • Notifications
  • Use of cookies or similar technology for tracking   
We rely on our legitimate interests for –
  • Analytics
  • Diagnostics
  • Using anonymised questions and feedback entered into ChatBotanist and the answers that it generates (for the above stated purposes)

Who we share your personal data with

We do not sell your personal data to any other organisations.

How we store your personal data

The data is stored in the RHS Grow database, as it is for the website, within the UK.

How long we will keep your personal data provided

We will keep your personal data provided on the app for 2 years following your following your  account is deactivation. You can request deletion for your data by emailing [email protected].

Right of access

You have the right to request a copy of the personal information that we hold about you at any time. If you would like a copy of some or all of your personal information, please email [email protected] or write to us at 80 Vincent Square, London SW1P 2PE.

You also have the right to request the data we receive from you is:

  • updated
  • deleted if you no longer wish to be part of the competition
  • restricted to certain processing.

​Changes to our Privacy Notice

We may update this Privacy Notice to ensure that it remains up to date and incorporate any new legal requirements.

How to contact us

If you have any questions about our Privacy Notice or about the information that we hold about you please contact [email protected].

You can find out more information on Data Protection on the Information Commissioner’s website- https://ico.org.uk/

This Privacy Notice was last updated on 26th January 2023.

Please read the main RHS Privacy Policy for more information on other service.

Get involved

The Royal Horticultural Society is the UK’s leading gardening charity. We aim to enrich everyone’s life through plants, and make the UK a greener and more beautiful place.