Privacy
Last updated 13 November 2026.
In short
Your photographs stay on your computer while you design; we never see them unless you share spreads to the Shelf. We keep only what we need to run your account, sell your PDF and reply to you. We don’t sell your information, and we only email you news if you ask us to.
1. Who is responsible for your information
VAR Limited (var.studio), Room 804, 8/F Prosperity Centre, 982 Canton Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong, is the controller of your personal information. We follow the UK General Data Protection Regulation and Hong Kong’s Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance. Contact us about privacy at hello@zinehouse.studio.
2. What stays on your computer
The studio keeps your photographs and projects in your browser’s storage, on your own computer. They aren’t uploaded while you work, and we can’t see them. A project file you save stays wherever you save it. If you clear your browser’s storage, unsaved projects are gone, so save a project file as a backup.
The one exception is the Shelf. If you share a zine there, small preview images of the spreads you choose are uploaded so others can see them. Your full-size photographs and the PDF never are.
3. What we collect, and why
| What | Why | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Your email address, when you make an account | To sign you in and send you messages about your zines | Contract |
| A record of which zines you’ve paid for, and when you first exported them | So you can download them again, and use your 30 days to fix them | Contract |
| Payment details: name, email, country, amount | Collected by Stripe, which sends us a record of the sale. We never see your card details. | Contract, and legal obligation (tax records) |
| Shelf entries: preview images, title, name, words and links you add | To show your zine on the Shelf | Consent. You can remove an entry at any time. |
| Messages you send through Help or Custom zines | To reply to you | Legitimate interest |
| Newsletter sign-ups | To send the newsletter you asked for | Consent. Unsubscribe from any email. |
| Site statistics from Cloudflare Web Analytics: pages visited, where visitors came from, rough location by country, type of device and browser | To see which pages help people, and improve them. Collected without cookies and without identifying you. | Legitimate interest |
| Error reports from the studio: what went wrong, browser and device type | To find and fix problems. They don’t include your photographs. | Legitimate interest |
We don’t use your information for advertising, and we don’t sell it.
4. Who we share it with
We use a few services to run Zine House. Each handles your information only on our instructions: - website and studio hosting: Netlify; - accounts, database and Shelf images: Supabase; - payments, as merchant of record: Stripe. For your payment, Stripe is also responsible for your information in its own right, under its own privacy notice; - sign-in and account emails: Postmark; - the newsletter: MailerLite; - site statistics, without cookies: Cloudflare Web Analytics; - error reports, if we use an error-report service: we’ll name it here before we do.
We’ll share information if the law requires it, for example with tax authorities.
5. Information sent outside the UK
VAR Limited is based in Hong Kong, and some of these services store information outside the UK, for example in the EU or the US. Where information leaves the UK, we rely on UK adequacy regulations or the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum. Messages about Hong Kong projects are read by our partner in Hong Kong.
6. How long we keep it
- Account: until you delete it.
- Payment records: seven years, for tax and accounting.
- Shelf entries: until you remove them or delete your account.
- Messages: 12 months after our last reply, unless they become a custom project.
- Newsletter: until you unsubscribe.
- Site statistics: Cloudflare keeps only totals, which don’t identify anyone.
- Error reports: 90 days.
7. Your rights
You can ask us for a copy of your information, ask us to correct or delete it, object to how we use it, or withdraw your consent. Email hello@zinehouse.studio and we’ll reply within a month. If you’re not happy with our answer, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk, or in Hong Kong to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data at pcpd.org.hk.
8. Age
You must be 18 or over to have an account or buy from Zine House.
9. Changes
We’ll update this page when anything changes and show the date at the top. If a change matters, we’ll email account holders first.