Overview
Your privacy is important, and in order to help you protect it, this site collects very little information about you.
In summary:
- You are not asked for personal data except where it is needed – you can browse the site without providing any personal information at all, but if you wish to comment on my blog posts, you need to provide some very basic information.
- I will never share any of your personal information with any other entity, unless required to do so by English law.
- If you register with the site and complete the optional “Bio” section of your profile, this will be available to the Internet – it is your responsibility to ensure you don’t include any information you wish to keep private.
- When registering, you are given an indication of the “strength” of password you have input – a strong password will minimise the chance of someone else guessing your password, and then logging in to your account to post comments as if they came from you. As there is no reason for this password to protect anything sensitive held on the system, I have elected not to implement SSL on the site, since the performance degradation would exceed any potential privacy enhancement.
- Passwords are hashed on the server, but on logging in are passed across the Internet unencrypted – do not use a password that is important to you when registering with this site.
- The mailing list (for receiving updates) is a separate service, and as indicated on the registration page, the password you use for that service may be e-mailed to you from time to time – it is even more important that you do not use an important password when signing up for e-mail notifications.
- If you contact me using the contact form, the message you write will be repeated on the following page so you can print/save it. Beyond that, the only person who will see your e-mail address and the message is me – it will be delivered directly to my mailbox.
Additional information is provided below, but if you have any questions at all about this Privacy Policy, please feel free to contact me.
Website Visitors
Like the vast majority of websites, this system collects non-personally-identifying information made available to the server by your browser. This includes:
- Browser type;
- Browser capabilities (e.g. whether JavaScript is enabled, images can be displayed, etc.);
- Language preferences;
- Referring site (if applicable); and
- Date/time of each request to the server.
This information is used in aggregate to help me analyse the types of visitors making use of the site, and to improve the way it operates when you visit. I do not provide this information to anybody else, even in aggregate, unless required to do so by law.
This site also collects potentially personally-identifying information such as your Internet Protocol (IP) address (and/or the address of any proxy/gateway service you use). The IP addresses of users that log in are visible to me when administering the site, but as with the non-identifiable information above, I do not release this to anyone (except where required to by law), and it is not visible to the public.
Gathering of Personally-Identifying Information
If you wish to register on this site in order to post comments, for example, or to sign up to the mailing list, the system needs to gather a small amount of personally-identifiable information about you. Your username can be anything of your own choosing, but your e-mail address must be valid, and therefore potentially personally-identifiable. If you choose to enter any other information when registering (e.g. your “bio” and your website address), this will be visible to the Internet at large. In all cases, I only collect as much information as is needed to offer the services provided – it is your responsibility to ensure you do not enter any private information in fields that will be available to the public.
If you are uncomfortable about entering any of the required information, please do not register, and simply browse the site as an ordinary, unauthenticated user.
Aggregated Statistics
I collect statistics about the behavior of visitors to this website to help me identify any aspect of the site that could be improved, to ensure it is accessible to the browsers/platforms my visitors are using, and so on. None of these statistics, however, are published in public; they are available to me alone.
Third Party Services
I embed content from very few third parties, and use a minimal set of WordPress plugins plus the “Gravatar” functionality that is embedded in later versions of WordPress. There is, therefore, very little required interaction with third parties in your use of this site. If you wish to “Share” pages (e.g. via Facebook, Twitter, etc.), you will clearly be using third-party services, and I am not responsible for protecting your privacy with respect to those – please refer to the relevant privacy policy displayed on the third party websites for details as to how and why they process your personal data.
I also deliberately make minimal use of JavaScript on this site, preferring to use CSS for presentation, and it should function almost perfectly with JavaScript disabled. Please note, however, that the Google “+1” button and other share icons are constructed using JavaScript loaded from the social networks’ own servers – I do not provide any warranty or guarantee about the safety and integrity of third-party hosted scripts.
Protection of Certain Personally-Identifying Information
I may be based outside your home country – by using this site, you consent to my viewing such information as you provide to my server. I will never rent or sell potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information to anyone. As stated above, I would only disclose any information stored on the server as required by correctly-served legal instruments pursuant to English Law. There is one exception to this rule, however: I also reserve the right to disclose information to relevant authorities if I believe in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property, rights or safety of any party or the public at large.
If you are a registered user and have supplied your email address, I may occasionally send you an email to tell you about significant site updates or to ask for your feedback. This will rarely happen, so this kind of e-mail will be kept to a minimum. I make every reasonable effort to protect against the unauthorised access, use, alteration or destruction any information you have provided to the server.
Cookies
A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer; the visitor’s browser provides it to the website each time the visitor returns. This site uses cookies to help identify and track visitors using the site, and store any preferences related to the site. No third-party cookies or embedded applications are required in order to browse the site, and cookies stored by this site are not accessible to other sites. You are welcome to deny the use of cookies when using this site, but certain website functions may not operate correctly without at least “session” cookies being enabled.
Privacy Policy Changes
Although most changes are likely to be minor, I may change this Privacy Policy from time to time, at my sole discretion. I would encourage you to frequently check this page for any changes to the Privacy Policy. Your continued use of this site after any change in this Privacy Policy will constitute your acceptance of such change.