Last updated
08 Nov 2018
Me
This is the personal blog of Simon Scullion at the website address https://www.simonscullion.com
It’s just me and my ramblings.
The basics
I do not share personal information with third-parties nor do I store information collected about your visit to this blog for use other than to analyse content performance through the use of cookies, which you can turn off at any time by modifying your Internet browser’s settings.
I’m not responsible for the republishing of the content found on this blog on other Web sites or media without my permission.
This privacy policy is subject to change without notice, but I’ll try to share when I do.
What personal data I collect and why I collect it
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site I 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.
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
To assist with sending you requested information, I may provide a contact form to collect and store your email address. This may be provided by a third-party service and will be covered by their privacy policy. I will endeavour to indicate when using a third-party service and reference their privacy policy which outlines their use of your personal data and anonymised data.
You may opt out of the collection of your data by unsubscribing (we will remove your data) and contacting the third-party service using the instructions on their privacy page.
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, I 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, I 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.
STRICTLY NECESSARY COOKIES
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in my site. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms.
You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will then not work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.
FUNCTIONALITY & PERFORMANCE COOKIES
These cookies allow me to count visits and traffic sources so I can measure and improve the performance of the site. They help me to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site.
All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies I will not know when you have visited the site, and will not be able to monitor its performance. Without these cookies, certain functionality may become unavailable.
ADVERTISING/TRACKING COOKIES
These cookies are used to display relevant advertising to visitors, as well as to track the volume of visitors. They track details about visitors such as the number of unique visitors, number of times particular ads have been displayed, the number of clicks the ads have received, and are also used to measure the effectiveness of ad campaigns by building up user profiles. These are set by trusted third party networks, and are generally persistent in nature.
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 tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Analytics
I use Google analytics to record information about the pages a user has seen, for example the URL of the page, time of day, device used, etc. The information that I collect is anonymised and sent to Google Analytics for analysis.
Google Analytics mainly uses first-party cookies to report on visitor interactions on this website. Users may disable cookies or delete any individual cookie.
In addition, Google Analytics supports an optional browser add-on that – once installed and enabled – disables measurement by Google Analytics for any site a user visits. Note that this add-on only disables Google Analytics measurement.
Google Analytics also collects Internet Protocol (IP) addresses to provide and protect the security of the service, and to give website owners a sense of which country, state, or city in the world their users come from (also known as “IP geolocation”).
Jetpack
Please review the Automattic Privacy Policy, which covers this family of products.
Activity
This feature only records activities of a site’s registered users, and the retention duration of activity data will depend on the site’s plan and activity type.
Data Used: To deliver this functionality and record activities around site management, the following information is captured: user email address, user role, user login, user display name, WordPress.com and local user IDs, the activity to be recorded, the WordPress.com-connected site ID of the site on which the activity takes place, the site’s Jetpack version, and the timestamp of the activity. Some activities may also include the actor’s IP address (login attempts, for example) and user agent.
Activity Tracked: Login attempts/actions, post and page update and publish actions, comment/pingback submission and management actions, plugin and theme management actions, widget updates, user management actions, and the modification of other various site settings and options. Retention duration of activity data depends on the site’s plan and activity type. See the complete list of currently-recorded activities (along with retention information).
Data Synced (?): Successful and failed login attempts, which will include the actor’s IP address and user agent.
Carousel
Image views are only recorded if the site owner, has explicitly enabled image view stats tracking for this feature via the jetpack_enable_carousel_stats filter.
Data Used: If image view tracking is enabled, the following information is used: IP address, WordPress.com user ID (if logged in), WordPress.com username (if logged in), user agent, visiting URL, referring URL, timestamp of event, browser language, country code.
Activity Tracked: Image views.
Comment Likes
This feature is only accessible to users logged in to WordPress.com.
Data Used: In order to process a comment like, the following information is used: WordPress.com user ID/username (you must be logged in to use this feature), the local site-specific user ID (if the user is signed in to the site on which the like occurred), and a true/false data point that tells us if the user liked a specific comment. If you perform a like action from one of our mobile apps, some additional information is used to track the activity: IP address, user agent, timestamp of event, blog ID, browser language, country code, and device info.
Activity Tracked: Comment likes.
Contact Form
Data Used: If Akismet is enabled on the site, the contact form submission data — IP address, user agent, name, email address, website, and message — is submitted to the Akismet service (also owned by Automattic) for the sole purpose of spam checking. The actual submission data is stored in the database of the site on which it was submitted and is emailed directly to the owner of the form (i.e. the site author who published the page on which the contact form resides). This email will include the submitter’s IP address, timestamp, name, email address, website, and message.
Data Synced (?): Post and post meta data associated with a user’s contact form submission. If Akismet is enabled on the site, the IP address and user agent originally submitted with the comment are synced, as well, as they are stored in post meta.
Gravatar Hovercards
Data Used: This feature will send a hash of the user’s email address (if logged in to the site or WordPress.com — or if they submitted a comment on the site using their email address that is attached to an active Gravatar profile) to the Gravatar service (also owned by Automattic) in order to retrieve their profile image.
Jetpack Comments
Data Used: Commenter’s name, email address, and site URL (if provided via the comment form), timestamp, and IP address. Additionally, a jetpack.wordpress.com IFrame receives the following data: WordPress.com blog ID attached to the site, ID of the post on which the comment is being submitted, commenter’s local user ID (if available), commenter’s local username (if available), commenter’s site URL (if available), MD5 hash of the commenter’s email address (if available), and the comment content. If Akismet (also owned by Automattic) is enabled on the site, the following information is sent to the service for the sole purpose of spam checking: commenter’s name, email address, site URL, IP address, and user agent.
Activity Tracked: The comment author’s name, email address, and site URL (if provided during the comment submission) are stored in cookies. Learn more about these cookies.
Data Synced (?): All data and metadata (see above) associated with comments. This includes the status of the comment and, if Akismet is enabled on the site, whether or not it was classified as spam by Akismet.
Likes
This feature is only accessible to users logged in to WordPress.com.
Data Used: In order to process a post like action, the following information is used: IP address, WordPress.com user ID, WordPress.com username, WordPress.com-connected site ID (on which the post was liked), post ID (of the post that was liked), user agent, timestamp of event, browser language, country code.
Activity Tracked: Post likes.
Mobile Theme
Data Used: A visitor’s preference on viewing the mobile version of a site.
Activity Tracked: A cookie (akm_mobile) is stored for 3.5 days to remember whether or not a visitor of the site wishes to view its mobile version. Learn more about this cookie.
Notifications
This feature is only accessible to registered users of the site who are logged in to WordPress.com.
Data Used: IP address, WordPress.com user ID, WordPress.com username, WordPress.com-connected site ID and URL, Jetpack version, user agent, visiting URL, referring URL, timestamp of event, browser language, country code. Some visitor-related information or activity may be sent to the site owner via this feature. This may include: email address, WordPress.com username, site URL, email address, comment content, follow actions, etc.
Activity Tracked: Sending notifications (i.e. when we send a notification to a particular user), opening notifications (i.e. when a user opens a notification that they receive), performing an action from within the notification panel (e.g. liking a comment or marking a comment as spam), and clicking on any link from within the notification panel/interface.
Sharing
Data Used: When sharing content via email (this option is only available if Akismet is active on the site), the following information is used: sharing party’s name and email address (if the user is logged in, this information will be pulled directly from their account), IP address (for spam checking), user agent (for spam checking), and email body/content. This content will be sent to Akismet (also owned by Automattic) so that a spam check can be performed. Additionally, if reCAPTCHA (by Google) is enabled by the site owner, the sharing party’s IP address will be shared with that service. You can find Google’s privacy policy here.
Subscriptions
Data Used: To initiate and process subscriptions, the following information is used: subscriber’s email address and the ID of the post or comment (depending on the specific subscription being processed). In the event of a new subscription being initiated, we also collect some basic server data, including all of the subscribing user’s HTTP request headers, the IP address from which the subscribing user is viewing the page, and the URI which was given in order to access the page (REQUEST_URI and DOCUMENT_URI). This server data used for the exclusive purpose of monitoring and preventing abuse and spam.
Activity Tracked: Functionality cookies are set for a duration of 347 days to remember a visitor’s blog and post subscription choices if, in fact, they have an active subscription.
Who I share your data with
I do not share Personal Data with third-parties.
I will never sell, rent, or lease your Personal Data to a third party.
Please bear in mind however, that by providing this site and in order to do so and maintain it, your Personal Data you choose to share may be available to:
- Service Providers and others who help with operations and assist in the delivery of the site including, but not limited to, application development, site hosting, maintenance, data analysis, infrastructure provision, IT services, customer service, email delivery services, payment processing, marketing, analytics, and enforcement of our Terms of Service Agreement and other agreements;
- Other users of the site to identify you to anyone to whom you send messages or make comments through the site;
- Persons or entities with whom you consent to have your Personal Data shared;
- Third parties in order to prevent damage to our property (tangible and intangible), for safety reasons, or to collect amounts owed to me;
- Merchants and payment processors;
- Third parties as I believe necessary or appropriate, in any manner permitted under applicable law, including laws outside your country of residence to: comply with legal process; respond to requests from public and government authorities, including public and government authorities outside your country of residence; enforce my Terms of Service Agreement and other agreements; protect my operations; protect my rights, privacy, safety or property, and/or that of my affiliates, you, or others; and allow me to pursue available remedies or limit the damages that I may sustain.
How long I retain your data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so I 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), I 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.
Google Analytics data is retained for 26 months.
Contact forms and comments cookies are held for one year.
I will retain your Personal Data for the period necessary to fulfil the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy unless a longer retention period is required or allowed by law.
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 I hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that I erase any personal data I hold about you. This does not include any data I are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
Most advertising networks offer you a way to opt out of Interest Based Advertising. If you would like to find out more information, please visit http://www.aboutads.info/choices/ or http://www.youronlinechoices.com.
Where I send your data
This blog is hosted outside the EU.
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Security
The security of your Personal Information is important to me, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. While I strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Information, I cannot guarantee its absolute security.
I use reasonable and appropriate physical, electronic, and administrative safeguards to protect personal data from loss, misuse and unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration and destruction, taking into account the nature of the Personal Data and risks involved in processing that information.
Users under 13 years of age
This site is not directed to, nor do I knowingly collect Personal Data from children under the age of 13. If I become aware that a child under the age of 13 has provided Personal Data, I will take steps to remove such data. If you become aware that your child has provided Personal Data without your consent, please contact me at simon@simonscullion.com.
By using the site, you are representing to me that you are not under the age of 13.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
I may change this Privacy Policy at any time.
The most recent version of the Privacy Policy is indicated by the “Last Updated” date at the top of the Privacy Policy.
All changes are effective immediately upon posting.
Please review this Privacy Policy frequently to stay updated on changes that may affect you.
Your continued use of this website signifies your continuing consent to be bound by this Privacy Policy.
Your contact information
For any questions please contact me here: simon@simonscullion.com