Privacy Policy

This privacy policy outlines your rights and provides transparency on data collection under the United Kingdom Data Protection Act 2018 (or later).

Updated 19 June 2023 – Additional clarification.

Mandatory data collected

  • IP address
  • Browser user agent
  • Page requests
  • Referrer
  • Device type
  • Screen resolution
  • Operating system

This information is required for site operation, security and other legitimate interests.

Optional data collected

  • Name
  • E-mail address
  • Website URL
  • Hashed password (for registered users)
  • Comments
  • Uploaded files (for registered users)
  • User profile data (for registered users)
  • Received e-mail communications

Data Controller

The data controller for this website can be contacted at the following email address.

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, along with the mandatory data.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the third party Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Comments are currently disabled.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on the site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in a cookie. 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 or until you clear them yourself.

If you visit the login page, 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 option 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.

Analytics

We use the Matomo analytics software for user analytics, all collected data is stored on this server and is not shared with any third party.

CAPTCHA

This website implements Google reCAPTCHA, this is necessary for security and to reduce spam, it is required when logging in.

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 in most cases.

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.

Password Reset

If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.

Data Sharing

No data is shared with third parties or transmitted to any external server.

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on the website, we also store the personal information provided 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.

Data needed for security purposes may be stored indefinitely, user analytics raw data will be stored no longer than six months, anonymized reports may be stored indefinitely.

What rights you have over your data

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.

In order to submit a request we need a form of identifying data, such as IP address, or a request from your registered email account, if we do not have sufficient data to identify you then we will not be able to comply with your request.

Additional information

How we protect your data

The web server receives regular updates to minimize the risk of software bugs that may potentially be exploited, HTTPS (TLS 1.3/1.2) is required on this website, this provides maximum security, the certificate is provided by Let’s Encrypt.

What data breach procedures we have in place

In the very unlikely event of a security breach all registered users will be notified by email within 24 hours, in addition a notification will be displayed on the website to all visitors, some or all of the functionality of the website may be suspended while the breach is investigated.