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 anonymized 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.

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 forms

The contact form on this website is used by individuals requesting information or submitting comments. We keep contact form submissions for a certain period for customer service purposes, but we do not share information submitted through the form with any third party for marketing.

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.

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.

Analytics

We use the Google Analytics Reporting API to collects first-party cookies, data related to the device/browser, IP address and on-site activities to measure and report statistics about user interactions on the websites.

Who we share your data with

We do not share personal information with companies, organizations and individuals outside our organization without your consent.

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 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.

How we protect your data

We have implemented appropriate technical and organizational controls to protect your personal data against unauthorized processing and against accidental loss, damage or destruction. You are responsible for choosing a secure password when we ask you to set up a password to access parts of our sites or apps. You should keep this password confidential and you should choose a password that you do not use on any other site. You should not share your password with anyone else, including anyone who works for us. Unfortunately, sending information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data once with us, we cannot guarantee the security of any personal data sent to our site while still in transit and so you provide it at your own risk.

What data breach procedures we have in place

In the event of a security breach which as resulted or may result in the unauthorized access, use or disclosure to nonpublic personal information of our users, we will promptly investigate the matter. Such investigation will be without delay, consistent with (1) legitimate needs of law enforcement; (2) measures necessary to determine the scope of the breach; (3) and efforts to identify the individuals affected.