Privacy Policy
1. Introduction
I am committed to respecting and safeguarding the privacy of my Website visitors. I am the controller of the personal information processed via this Website. My following policy statement explains how I will treat your personal information. Any reference to “you” or “your” in this Privacy Policy means the person whose personal information is collected, used and processed by me.
2. Your Rights
I will only use your personal information in accordance with ‘The Data Protection Act 2018’ and the ‘General Data Protection Regulation’ (GDPR), which came into force on the 25th May 2018. It aims to protect EU citizens from privacy and data breaches. Under this regulation, citizens of the EU are given the right to knowledge and transparency into what personal data is collected and how it is stored. Further, they have the right to have their information removed from my database or that of my Website host Yola.
4. My Website Host Provider
My host Website provider is Yola, Inc. (https://www.yola.com). I am defined as a User of Yola and visitors to my Website are defined by Yola as User-of-Users. As such, you are advised to view their Privacy Policy, particularly in regard to their use of cookies and other tracking technologies and Users-of-Users Information and Data Retention.
5. Retaining Personal Information
Anyone who accesses information on my Website does so in the knowledge that they are accepting the following terms and conditions:
Under GDPR regulations, you have the right to obtain confirmation as to whether or not your personal data is being processed and if so the right to access the data and the information it contains. You also have the right to rectification of any inaccurate data and erasure of that data without undue delay.
On my ‘Contact Me’ page you are invited to contact me. If you wish to, this is done via Yola. If you decide to send me a message, comment, enquiry etc., about my artwork or underwater photography, this arrives as a submission via my host provider Yola so I don’t receive your email address. However, if you wish to receive a reply from me you are invited to include your name, email address and telephone number in with your message. If you wish to send these details, there is a checkbox to tick, checking that in so doing you agree to my Privacy Policy and Terms of Service as outlined on my Privacy Policy page.
When I receive such an email from you, clearly this may contain personal information such as your name contact details and any other personal details you choose to share with me. I will keep your email correspondence and personal details safe and never share your email address or the contents of your emails to any third party without your express consent. Nor will I sell, trade or otherwise transfer your personal identifiable information to outside parties. The only possible circumstances under which I may be required to release information is to comply with the law, to enforce my website policies or protect the rights of myself and others, and their property or safety. I also do not store your email address in my address book. Any email correspondence between us remains on my computer in a designated mailbox until you conclude our correspondence, or you ask me to delete it, whichever comes first. All these emails and their contents are then deleted. If I close my website any on-going communications and personal information will be immediately deleted.
6. Cookies and other Tracking Technologies.
The Website https://www.aboutcookies.org/ explains how you can delete and control the cookies that are stored on your computer.
My Website is built and published online with my host provider, Yola. They use cookies to ensure optimal browsing for my visitors. My Website is likely to receive traffic from the EU, particularly as some of my visitors are scuba divers from various European countries with whom I have dived and wish to view my underwater photographs. Websites that receive traffic from the EU are required by law to get visitors’ consent to use cookies. Therefore, I have added a cookie notification to my Website, which will display at the foot of the first page to my Website until my visitors accept my policy.
On visiting my Website an ‘Accept Banner’ appears as follows: ‘This Website uses cookies to ensure the best browsing experience. You may change your cookie preferences in your browser or device settings’ You can click the button to accept that my site uses cookies and if you do the banner will be dismissed. If you do not click the button, the banner will continue to display. Some of these cookies are what are called ‘Necessary Cookies’ because they allow you to navigate around my Website and use its features so if you do not accept them, it may affect your access to certain parts of my Website and its overall performance.
‘Performance Cookies’ are small files that a Website or service provider transfer onto your computer hard drive through your Web browser (only if you select to allow by clicking the accept button). This allows the Website or service providers’ systems to recognise your browser and capture and record certain information about the areas of the Website you visit; time spent there and to identify any issues you encounter to help improve the performance of the site. Through these cookies and other tracking technologies, Yola stores and processes certain aggregated and personal information of people who visit my site. This allows Yola to send me a monthly analytical report on my site traffic. This monthly report is sent to me as purely anonymous aggregated numerical data.
As cookies are not used by me but are used by my host service provider Yola, I quote from their Privacy Policy so you are aware of their policy on use and protection of your data:
Use of Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies
“Yola, together with its marketing, analytics and technology partners, uses certain monitoring and tracking technologies (such as cookies, beacons, pixels, tags and scripts). These technologies are used in order to maintain, provide and improve their Services on an ongoing basis, and in order to provide their Visitors, their Users and their Users-of-Users with a better experience. For example, thanks to these technologies, they are able to maintain and keep track of their Visitors’ and Users’ preferences and authenticated sessions, to better secure their Services, to identify technical issues, user trends and effectiveness of campaigns, and to monitor and improve the overall performance of their Services.”
Yola, (2018) ‘Privacy Policy’ Section 9, online at https://www.yola.com/privacy-policy accessed 30/05/2018, Yola, Inc.
If you are a visitor to my Website, Yola defines you as a ‘User-of-User’. As such, please read the following statement from Yola about ‘User-of-Users’. You will notice that Yola states that if any visitor to my site wishes to have their personal information removed from Yola’s data base then he or she has to inform me, and I forward their request to Yola who then have 30 days to respond. I will then forward Yola's response to my visitor.
Users-of-Users’ Information
“Yola has no direct relationship with the individual Users-of-Users whose Personal Information it processes. If you are a visitor, user or customer of any of our Users, and would like to make any requests or queries regarding your Personal Information, please contact such User(s) directly. For example, if you wish to access, correct, amend, or delete inaccurate information processed by Yola on behalf of its Users, please direct your query to the relevant User (who is the “Controller” of such data). If requested to remove any Users-of-Users’ Personal Information, we will respond to such request within thirty (30) days. Unless otherwise instructed by our User, we will retain their Users-of-Users’ Personal Information for the period set forth in Section 13 below."
Yola, (2018) ‘Privacy Policy’ Section 6, online at https://www.yola.com/privacy-policy , accessed 30/05/2018,Yola, Inc.
Data Retention
"We retain your Personal Information (as well as your Users-of-Users Information) as needed to provide you with our Services.We may continue to retain such Personal Information even after you deactivate your User Account and/or cease to use any particular Services, as reasonably necessary to comply with our legal obligations, to resolve disputes regarding our Users or their Users-of-Users, prevent fraud and abuse, enforce our agreements and/or protect our legitimate interests. For permanent deletion of your data please email privacy@yola.com.”
Yola, (2018) ‘Privacy Policy’ Section 13, online at https://www.yola.com/privacy-policy , accessed 30/05/2018,Yola, Inc.
7. Age of Consent & Safeguarding
The content of my Website consists of my underwater photographs and photographs of my artwork, both of which are accompanied by explanatory text. As such it may be of interest to people of all ages who like to view and read about art, underwater creatures and marine environments. However, the legal age of consent for accessing Websites is 16 so anyone under 16 should not access this site without expressed permission from a parent, guardian, carer or teacher/instructor.
8. Accessing Other Websites Through Hyperlinks
On my Website there are opportunities to visit other Websites through hyperlinks. These Websites are not controlled by me so if you visit another website via mine, read the privacy policy on that website to find out what they do with your information as I am not responsible for the privacy policies and practices of third parties. My Privacy Policy only applies to my Website alone. I do not pass on any of your information to other websites. There are links from my Website to social networking sites, e.g Facebook. By visiting social networking sites through such links, you are accepting their privacy policies.
9. Changes to my Privacy Policy
If I make any changes to my privacy policy, these will be posted on this my Privacy Policy page and the Privacy Policy date will be updated. You should check this page occasionally to ensure you are happy with any changes to this policy.
Steve Pratchett updated 15th June 2018