Privacy Policy
Our Privacy Policy is designed to tell you about our practices regarding the collection, use and disclosure of information that you may provide via this website. Whenever you use this site, you consent to the collection, use, and disclosure of that information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
What personal data we collect and why we collect it
Some areas of the site require you to actively submit information in order for you to benefit from specific features. You will be informed at each information collection point what information is required and what information is optional.
Some of this information may be personal (information that can be uniquely identified with you, such as your full name, address, email address, phone number etc.).
We only collect such information when you choose to supply it to us.
Information is also gathered without you actively providing it, through technologies such as Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and cookies. These methods do not collect or store personal information.
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
An anonymised string created from your email address (also called a hash) may also be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Media
If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.
Contact form
When visitors use the contact form on the site we collect the data shown in the contact form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help with spam detection.
Cookies
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
Our site advertisers also use cookies. These are used to deliver adverts more relevant to you and your interests. They can also also used to limit the number of times you see an advertisement as well as help measure the effectiveness of the advertising campaign. They remember that you have visited a website and this information is shared with other organisations such as advertisers. Quite often targeting or advertising cookies will be linked to site functionality provided by the other organisation.
You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. If you choose not to accept the cookie, this will not affect your access to the majority of information available on our website. However, you may not be able to make full use of our online services.
If you wish to alter your cookie settings, you can do this by adjusting your browsers settings.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website. Please be aware that this Privacy Policy does not apply to those websites and we encourage you to read the Privacy Policy of every website you visit.
Analytics
We use log files generated by our web servers to analyse site usage and statistics but the files do not identify any personal information. Log file analysis helps us to understand usage patterns on our website and to make improvements to our service.
Who we share your data with
Except as otherwise stated, we may use information you provide via this site to improve the content, to customise the site to your preferences, to communicate information to you (if you have requested it), for internal marketing and research purposes, and for the purposes specified in this Privacy Policy.
We do not disclose any information you provide via the site to any third parties except where you give us permission to do so. We will take all reasonable steps in accordance with our legal obligations to update or correct personally identifiable information in our possession that you submit via this site.
How long we retain your data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognise and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
What rights you have over your data
If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
Where we send your data
Visitor comments and contact form information may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
How we protect your data
We take all reasonable steps to protect any information you submit via our website, both online and offline, in accordance with legislation such as the UK Data Protection Act 1998.
We take all appropriate steps to protect your personally identifiable information as you transmit your information from your computer to our site and to protect such information for loss, misuse, and unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. We use leading technologies and encryption software to safeguard your data, and operate strict security standards to prevent any unauthorised access to it.
Additional information
We will post details of any changes to our Privacy Policy on the website to help ensure you are always aware of the information we collect, how we use it, and in what circumstances, if any, we share it with other parties.