What personal data we collect and why we collect it
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 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.
Subscribing To Our Mailing List
We promise to take the utmost care of your data, after all, you’re trusting us with your email address if you’re one of our subscribers. You’ll only ever be sent emails if you’ve asked to subscribe to our mailing list, and these emails will only ever be updates on new content that we’ve created. Each email will have the option to unsubscribe from the mailing list should you wish to do so. Your data will be stored safely online and won’t ever be sold or shared with the exception of competition winners. Should you enter a competition or giveaway on our site and win, your data may be shared with a third party (usually the competition sponsor) in order to get your prize to you.
Cookies
This site uses cookies – small text files that are placed on your machine to help the site provide a better user experience. In general, we use cookies to provide anonymised tracking data to third party applications like Google Analytics. This then allows us to understand what content you like reading and your preferences, so that we can make your browsing experience better.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. However, you may prefer to disable cookies on this site and on others. The most effective way to do this is to disable cookies in your browser. We suggest consulting the Help section of your browser or taking a look at the About Cookies website which offers guidance for all modern browsers.
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 tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
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 may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
