ThemeGuard merchant data-processing terms

Effective date: 26 October 2026

Parties and scope

These terms are offered by Sonothemes to the merchant using ThemeGuard. They describe processing of customer personal data for merchant-directed backup and recovery and form part of the service arrangement when accepted by the merchant. Merely publishing these terms does not establish that an individual merchant has accepted them. The merchant may request a documented agreement at hello@sonothemes.com before processing personal data.

The merchant acts as controller and Sonothemes as processor or service provider for customer data handled on the merchant’s instructions. These terms supplement the ThemeGuard privacy policy. They do not authorize processing beyond the merchant’s instructions or override mandatory law or Shopify’s applicable terms.

Processing instructions and duration

The subject matter is backup and recovery of store information chosen by the merchant. Processing consists of authenticated retrieval, transmission, device-side capture, encrypted working storage, export, verification, import, recovery and deletion. Processing continues for the requested operations and relevant connection, support and retention periods described in the privacy policy.

Data subjects may include the merchant’s customers, prospective customers, staff and people named in selected store content. Data can include customer identifiers, names, email addresses, telephone numbers, addresses, order history and information entered into selected store records. Special-category data is not requested as a separate feature; the merchant must avoid including it unless necessary and lawfully authorized.

Sonothemes will process customer personal data only on documented merchant instructions, including selections and explicit actions in ThemeGuard and additional written instructions agreed with Sonothemes. If a legal requirement compels other processing, Sonothemes will inform the merchant before processing unless the law prohibits notice. Sonothemes will inform the merchant if it considers an instruction to infringe applicable data-protection law and may pause the affected processing while the issue is resolved.

Merchant responsibilities and control

The merchant determines lawful purposes and instructions, provides required notices, establishes an applicable legal basis and applies customer rights and consent choices. The merchant grants only needed Shopify permissions, controls staff authorization and decides which data to capture and restore. The merchant manages archive passwords, exported copies and independent storage and verifies recovery coverage and destination licensing.

Before restoring historical information, the merchant must exclude data subject to later erasure or restriction and must not reinstate withdrawn marketing consent. A backup is not permission to disregard a subsequent customer choice or retention requirement.

Confidentiality, access and security

Sonothemes will restrict personal-data access to authorized people with a necessary operational role who are bound by confidentiality obligations. Sonothemes will maintain appropriate technical and organizational measures for the processing, including authenticated shop-scoped requests, HTTPS, encryption of stored connection credentials and access-audit payloads, encryption of personal-data archives, access logging and retention/deletion controls. Operator access must use individual accounts, strong passwords and multifactor authentication where available. These are continuing service requirements, not a claim of third-party certification.

Sonothemes will maintain incident-response procedures to identify, contain, investigate and remediate suspected security incidents. If Sonothemes becomes aware of a personal-data breach affecting processing under these terms, it will notify the affected merchant without undue delay and provide available information about the affected processing, likely consequences, response and contact, with updates as information becomes available. The merchant remains responsible for its own notifications, with Sonothemes’ reasonable assistance where required.

Providers and subprocessors

The merchant authorizes use of Cloudflare for the gateway, hosting, encrypted connection and audit storage, and security services described in the privacy policy. Shopify operates the merchant’s platform and receives authorized API and recovery operations. A merchant’s separately connected Google Drive is controlled through that merchant’s Google account; it is optional and used only where available and chosen. Sonothemes will impose applicable data-protection obligations on subprocessors engaged to process personal data on its behalf and remains responsible for their performance as required by law.

Before adding or replacing a subprocessor for merchant customer data, Sonothemes will provide advance notice through the app or an agreed merchant contact channel and allow a reasonable opportunity to raise a data-protection objection. If a valid objection cannot be resolved, the affected processing will be stopped or the affected service ended under the service arrangement. Changes will not silently expand the purposes of processing.

International transfers must comply with applicable transfer rules and required safeguards. These terms alone are not a substitute for any separately required standard contractual clauses or other lawful transfer mechanism. Sonothemes will provide relevant provider/transfer information on request.

Assistance, evidence and review

Taking account of the nature of processing and information available, Sonothemes will reasonably assist the merchant with data-subject requests, security obligations, breach response, impact assessments and consultations required by applicable law. Sonothemes will make available information necessary to demonstrate its obligations and allow and contribute to relevant audits or inspections by the merchant or an authorized auditor, with safeguards for confidentiality, other merchants’ data and system security. No independent certification or completed external audit is represented.

Return, deletion and termination

At the end of the service or on an authorized instruction, Sonothemes will delete or return personal data under its control as the merchant chooses, unless applicable law requires retention. Shopify uninstall/redaction notifications and the documented retention schedule remove relevant gateway records. Any legally required retained information will be restricted to that purpose.

Merchant-owned archives, browser/device copies and the merchant’s connected storage remain under the merchant’s control and must be returned or deleted by the merchant. Sonothemes will explain the available app controls and limitations. Uninstalling ThemeGuard does not erase independent downloaded archives, and Sonothemes cannot reset their passwords or remotely erase offline copies. Provider backup copies remain subject to the applicable protected deletion lifecycle.

Contact Sonothemes at hello@sonothemes.com for documented instructions, agreements or questions about these terms.