Sample programme, orders and adverse event reports · English
This covers the details we hold when you request or receive a Melanoir Black evaluation sample, the details we hold when you place an order for it, and the details we hold when you report an adverse event at melanoir.co.kr/report. The three are separate records and the rules for them differ, so each section says which one it is talking about. It is written plainly because you should be able to read it without a lawyer. The Korean privacy policy governs our other services; where the two differ for this programme, this page is the one that applies to you.
Who holds it
Controller
Melanoir Co., Ltd.410 Jeongseojin-ro, Seohae-gu, Incheon, Republic of Korea
SingaporeOur database and file storage are hosted in ap-southeast-1. If you are in the EU, the UK, or another region with transfer rules, your data leaves it when you send a sample request or an adverse event report.
Reports stored in
SingaporeAdverse event reports are held in the same place as everything else above. If you are in the United States, the EU, or the UK, your data leaves your country when you send one. Where the law requires us to report a serious adverse event, that report also goes to the US Food and Drug Administration, in the United States.
What we hold
Sample programme
When you request
Name, email, Instagram handle, countryOptionally studio name and a portfolio link. We look at the Instagram handle to decide whether to send a sample.
When you confirm
Your agreement to the four conditionsRecorded with a timestamp, so both sides can point to the same record.
When you evaluate
Your answers, and your photographsOptionally a link to footage or to a post you have already published.
What we hold
Adverse event report
An adverse event report is a separate record from the sample programme above. If you have never filed one, this second list does not apply to you. If you file at melanoir.co.kr/report, we hold this:
Who is reporting
Your country and your role — artist, client, or otherYour name and email are asked for but not required. You can file without them. We use them only to come back to you with questions, so leaving them out means we cannot ask any.
The product
The LOT number and the date the tattoo was done, where you know themThe LOT number is what ties a report back to a batch, so we ask for it insistently — but a report without it is still accepted. If you registered the product, you can instead give the email or order reference you registered with, and we recover the batch from that.
The event
The date symptoms appeared, and your description of what happenedFree text. Write it in your own words.
The outcome
Which of the listed outcomes appliedDeath, life-threatening, hospitalisation, disability, congenital anomaly, infection, significant disfigurement, medical intervention required. We assess each report against the statutory definition of a serious adverse event; the outcomes you tick are part of that assessment, not the whole of it.
Photographs
OptionalYou do not have to send any. Read the notice below before you do.
This is health information about an identifiable person, and the photographs are images of a person’s body. It is more sensitive than anything in the sample programme, and we hold it to a tighter standard: fewer people can see it, and it is not used for anything other than the purposes listed under “Why we hold it”.
ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHS
Photographs sent with a sample evaluation we keep exactly as you send them. We do not resize or re-compress, because colour is what we are reading and a compressed copy cannot be read for it.
That means the camera data travels with the file — typically the capture time and, if your phone records it, the location where the photograph was taken. On most phones that is your studio.
If you would rather we did not hold that, turn location off in your camera before shooting, strip it before sending, or write to us and we will strip it on our side.
Sample photographs sit in private storage. They are not published, not indexed, and not shared with anyone outside Melanoir.
Photographs sent with an adverse event report are handled the other way round. We are not reading them for colour, so there is no reason to hold the original file. They are resized and re-encoded in your browser, before upload. The capture time and the location never leave your device, and you do not have to ask.
They are images of a person’s body, and we treat them as that. They go into the same private storage, are seen only by the people handling the report, and are never used as marketing or reference material.
What we hold
Orders
An order record is separate again from the two above. If you have never ordered, none of this applies to you. Ordering is covered by the Terms of Sale, the shipping policy and the returns page; this section is only about the details.
When you order
Name, email, shipping address, phone number, quantityOptionally your Instagram handle, your studio name, and any note you add. The phone number is on the parcel because couriers and customs ask for one.
The order itself
Order number, unit price, shipping figure, total, destinationAnd the status of the order as it moves — pre-order, paid, preparing, shipped, cancelled, refunded.
What you confirmed
Your professional self-declaration, and your agreement to the sale termsEach recorded with the exact wording you agreed to (its version) and a timestamp. This product is sold for professional use only, and the record of your confirmation is what keeps that declaration meaningful on both sides.
Payment
Not your card detailsWe do not collect or hold your card, bank or PayPal login details at any point. PayPal handles the payment itself and we never see those details. What comes back to us from PayPal is a payment reference and its status, and that is what we store.
Dispatch
Courier name and tracking numberOnce an order has been sent. Held so you can be told where the parcel is, and so a seizure or return can be traced.
Why we hold it
Orders
To fill the order
Everything aboveA parcel cannot be addressed without an address, and a customs declaration cannot be made without a description and a value.
To keep the record
Your confirmationsThe professional declaration, and the version of the terms of sale you accepted — which cover import status, customs risk and refunds. Both sides should be able to point at the same wording later.
To keep the books
The order and payment recordKorean commercial and e-commerce law requires a seller to keep records of contracts, withdrawals and payments.
We do not sell your details, do not use them for advertising, and do not add you to a mailing list because you ordered.
Who else sees an order
Orders
PayPal
PaymentPayPal is the payment processor and an independent controller of what you give it directly. Your payment details are given to PayPal, not to us.
The courier
DeliveryName, address and phone number, because that is what goes on the label.
Customs authorities
The declarationIn the destination country, and in Korea on the way out. We declare shipments as what they are, at their actual value; this is a legal requirement and does not run on your consent.
Your order sits in the same place as everything else on this page — our database and file storage in Singapore. Orders are sent from the Republic of Korea, so your details also travel to Korea and to the destination country’s customs authority as part of shipping the parcel. Nothing else about an order is passed to anyone.
How long
Orders
Records of a completed sale — the contract, any cancellation, and the payment — are kept for 5 years, which is the period Korean e-commerce law sets for a seller. Records of consumer complaints and disputes are kept for 3 years on the same footing. A pre-order that never became a sale is deleted within 12 months of your asking us to, or of our closing it.
Asking us to delete an order record while that 5-year period still runs is the one place we will say no, and it is the same reasoning as the adverse event rule below: the length is set by statute rather than by us. Everything else still stands — a copy of what we hold, and a correction to it.
Why we hold it
Samples and reports
To decide
Whether to send you a sampleAnd to reach you either way. We reply to every request.
To improve the ink
Your answers and photographsThis is the whole point of the programme. It is why the sample is free.
To keep the record
Your confirmation of the conditionsThe sample is not registered for sale in your country. The record of what you agreed to is what keeps that lawful on both sides.
To trace a batch
What you tell us in an adverse event reportThe LOT number, the dates, and your description. A batch question shows up across reports before it is visible in any single one.
To report to the FDA
Reports that meet the legal definitionWhere an event is a serious adverse event under 21 U.S.C. §364(5), we are required to report it to the US Food and Drug Administration within 15 business days of receiving your report (21 U.S.C. §364a(b)(1)). The FDA is a third party outside Melanoir, in the United States. This is a legal obligation. It does not run on your consent, and we cannot waive it if you ask us to.
To hold the rest
Reports that are not seriousThese are not submitted to the FDA. We still keep them, under the same retention rule set out below.
We do not sell your details, do not use them for advertising, and do not add you to a mailing list from this form.
If you are in the EU or the UK: for adverse event reports we rely on compliance with a legal obligation, and the establishment or defence of legal claims. We are not relying on your consent, so withdrawing consent does not end our holding of the report.
How long
Samples and reports
Requests we decline are deleted within 12 months. Records for samples we actually sent are kept while the programme runs and for 3 years after, because product safety records have to outlive the product batch. Ask us to delete yours earlier and we will, unless we are required to keep a specific record.
Adverse event reports run on a separate and longer clock. We are required to keep records of them for 6 years (21 U.S.C. §364a(e)(1)). It is the same reasoning as the line above — a safety record is no use if it expires before the batch does — except that here the length is set by statute rather than by us, and 6 years is the figure, not 3.
That 6-year rule covers every adverse event report, not only the serious ones, and it applies whether or not the report was submitted to the FDA.
What you can ask for
A copy of what we hold. A correction. Deletion. That we stop using it. One email to official@melanoir.co.kr covers all of it — there is no form and no account to log into. We answer within 30 days. This applies to all three kinds of record on this page, orders included; if you are in the EU or the UK, the rights set out here are the ones you have under the GDPR, and they cover your order record as much as anything else.
Deletion has one limit, and it is worth stating plainly. We cannot delete an adverse event report while the 6-year retention above still runs, and we cannot pull back a report already submitted to the FDA. Everything else still stands for those records — you can ask for a copy of what you filed and for a correction to it.
If you are in the EU or the UK and you are not satisfied with how we handled a request, you can complain to your national data protection authority.
Adverse reactions
Separate channel
Seek medical care first — reporting to us is not a substitute for it.
Then report it at melanoir.co.kr/report. The form asks for the LOT number, the dates, what happened, and which outcomes applied, because that is what lets us trace a problem back to a batch and what a report to the FDA has to contain. If the form will not work for you, write to official@melanoir.co.kr and we will take the report by email instead.
Anyone can file — the artist, the client, or someone reporting for them, with or without giving a name. You do not need to have received a sample from us. What we do with the report, where it is stored, and how long we keep it are all set out in the sections above.