Privacy Policy

Last updated 12 September 2026

Who we are

Shaolyn Skateboards is a trading name of Shaolin Skateboards Limited, a private limited company registered in England and Wales under company number 11708722. We are the data controller for the personal data described here.

This policy covers everything we run under shaolynskateboards.com — the brand site, the web shop, the app download page — and the Shaolyn mobile app, which is used to book skateboard lessons with independent teachers.

Questions, requests or complaints: info@shaolynskateboards.com.

What we collect, and why

Your account

When you create an account we store your email address and the display name you choose. If you set one, we store a short bio and a profile photo. If you sign up with a password, we store only a one-way hash of it — never the password itself.

If you sign in with Google, Google tells us your Google account identifier, your email address, your name and your profile photo URL. We ask Google for nothing else: not your contacts, not your calendar, not your Drive, not your other Google data. We store the identifier so we recognise you next time, the email and name to create your account, and the photo URL so your profile has a picture. If an account with that email already exists, we link the two rather than create a second one. We never receive or store your Google password.

If you add a spot or a photo of one to the skate map, the photo is public to everyone using the app, shown with your display name. You or an admin can remove it at any time.

Lawful basis: performance of our contract with you.

Booking and paying for lessons

When you book we store the lesson time, duration, price, the meetup spot, any note you add, and the resulting booking status.

Payments are processed by Stripe. Your card details go directly to Stripe and never reach our servers. We hold a Stripe customer identifier so your payment can be matched to your booking, and Stripe tells us whether a payment succeeded, failed or was refunded. Teachers are paid through Stripe Connect; we retain a percentage of each lesson as a platform fee, stated in the app before you pay.

Lawful basis: performance of our contract; legal obligation for tax and accounting records.

Location

This is the most sensitive data the app handles, so it is worth being exact.

• Finding teachers. Before you grant location access we estimate your city from your IP address so the map is not pointing at nowhere. If you grant location access, your device position is used to centre the map and sort teachers by distance.
• Arriving at a lesson. Around the time of a confirmed lesson — and only then — the app shares your position with our server so that you and the other party are marked as arrived automatically once you are within 150 metres of the agreed spot. There is no manual check-in button. This is how we can tell whether a lesson happened, and it is what lets us refund you automatically if a teacher never turns up.
• What is stored. Each position we receive during that window is stored with its accuracy, the distance to the meetup spot and the time. It is kept with the booking record and deleted when that record is deleted. Our administrators can view this trail when investigating a disputed lesson or a refund.
• Live on the map. This is off by default. If you turn it on, you choose who can see you — nobody, teachers only, or everyone who is signed in — and whether they see your exact position or an approximate one. An approximate position is rounded to roughly 500 metres before it is stored on our server, so your exact position is never kept. Your position is only sent while the app is open on your screen, never in the background. Each position replaces the last, and it disappears about two minutes after the app stops sending. We keep no history of it.
• Apart from a lesson window, or while you have live sharing turned on, we do not collect your location. You can withdraw location permission at any time in your device settings; the automatic arrival check and live sharing will then no longer work for you.

Lawful basis: performance of our contract, and our legitimate interest in resolving disputes fairly.

Messages

Students and teachers can message each other about a booking. We store those messages so both parties can read them, and so we can investigate a complaint. They remain available for a period after the lesson and are deleted with the booking.

Teachers can also message other teachers directly, for example to meet up for a skate. Those messages are stored so both teachers can read them, and are deleted when either account is deleted.

Applying to teach

If you apply to teach we additionally collect your legal name, date of birth, skating experience, teaching biography, the area you cover, your meetup spots, your availability and your hourly rate.

Identity is verified by Stripe Identity. Your ID document and selfie are submitted to Stripe and are never stored on our servers. Stripe returns only the outcome: whether it passed, the verified name, whether you are over 18, and the document's country. We ask Stripe to delete the document and selfie it holds a set period after we reach a decision. Administrators reviewing your application see the outcome and your application details, not your documents.

Lawful basis: performance of our contract; legal obligation and substantial public interest in verifying the identity of adults teaching a physical activity.

The shop

For an order we store your email address, what you ordered, the shipping address you give and the order status. Payment is again handled by Stripe.

Notifications and technical data

If you allow notifications we store a push token for your device so we can tell you about booking requests, confirmations and reminders. Our servers keep ordinary web logs, which include IP addresses, for security and troubleshooting.

The website itself

Browsing shaolynskateboards.com requires no account and we do not try to identify you while you read it.

• No cookies, no analytics, no advertising trackers. The site sets no cookies of its own, and there is no Google Analytics, no pixel, no ad network and no third-party tracking of any kind. That is why you are not asked to dismiss a cookie banner — there is nothing to consent to.
• Your basket lives in your browser. The items you add and the shipping zone you pick are kept in your browser's local storage so the basket survives a reload. That stays on your device and is never sent to us until you check out; clearing your browser data removes it. It is cleared automatically once an order goes through.
• A graphics library is loaded from a public CDN. The rotating deck on the shop page uses three.js, fetched from jsDelivr. Your browser's request to them necessarily reveals your IP address and which page you are on. We send them nothing about you, and they set no cookies for us.
• Checkout happens on Stripe's site. Pressing Checkout hands you to Stripe Checkout on Stripe's own domain. The email address and shipping address you type there are given to Stripe, which returns them to us as an order record. Your card details are never on our site or our servers.
• Server logs. Our web server keeps ordinary access logs, including IP addresses, for security and troubleshooting.

Lawful basis: our legitimate interest in running a working, secure website and fulfilling orders.

Who we share it with

We do not sell your personal data and we do not use it for advertising. We share it only with the providers who make the service work:

• Stripe — payments, teacher payouts and identity verification.
• Google — only if you choose to sign in with Google.
• Expo — delivery of push notifications to your device.
• OpenStreetMap / Nominatim — turning a place name you type into coordinates.
• ipwho.is — the coarse city-level lookup described above.
• jsDelivr — the public CDN serving the shop page's 3D library.
• DigitalOcean — hosting of our servers and database.
• Law enforcement or regulators, where we are legally required to.

Some of these providers operate outside the UK. Where data is transferred abroad we rely on the safeguards those providers offer, such as the UK addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses.

Teachers and students necessarily see some of each other's information for a booking: display name, profile photo, the messages you send, and — during the lesson window — whether the other party has arrived.

How long we keep it

Account data is kept while your account exists. Booking, payment and order records are kept for as long as we need them for accounting and tax, which in the UK is normally six years. Location trails and messages are deleted with the booking they belong to. Identity documents are held by Stripe, not us, and are redacted on the schedule described above.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you can ask us to:

• give you a copy of the personal data we hold about you;
• correct anything that is wrong;
• delete your data, where we have no overriding reason to keep it;
• restrict or object to how we use it;
• send a copy to another provider.

Email info@shaolynskateboards.com and we will respond within one month. If you are unhappy with our answer you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

Children

Accounts are for adults. If a lesson is for a child, the booking must be made and attended by their parent or guardian. We do not knowingly collect data from children directly; tell us if you believe we have and we will delete it.

Changes

If we change this policy we will update the date at the top, and tell you in the app if the change is significant.

Company details

Shaolin Skateboards Limited, registered in England and Wales, company number 11708722. Registered office: 192 Bexley Lane, Sidcup, DA14 4JH, United Kingdom.