Privacy

Before we get into more detailed info, this site uses self-hosted analytics to gather info about which pages are visited, what types of devices are used to visit them, and the general location of the visitors. This information is anonymized, and it is unlikely that the info would be able to be traced back to a specific individual.

Privacy Policy

A lawyer did not write this privacy policy, but it should help you understand what info I gather. The abridged version: I don’t gather a lot. If you have any concerns, feel free to contact me.

Who we are

Our website address is: https://andy-bell.com. This website is run by Andrew Bell, as if you couldn’t tell by the website 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, and 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.

This site also uses the Akismet anti-spam service. The information collected typically includes the commenter’s IP address, user agent, referrer, and the page URL, along with other information directly provided by the commenter, such as the commenter’s name, username, email address, and the comment itself. You can view the Akismet privacy policy at http://automattic.com/privacy/.

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

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

The analytics on this site are powered by Plausible Analytics, which I’m informed does not even set a cookie on your system!

Who we share your data with

Analytics gathered on this site are not shared with any third parties. (I use a self-hosted Plausible Analytics instance, so the data remains on my own server.) What little information is collected would only be shared with others as required by law.

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.

Contact information

You can contact me through the contact forms on this site, or by email. The email address is andy at this domain. I would recommend email as I do not regularly check that the contact forms are working properly.

Additional information

How we protect your data

I update all software on this server approximately weekly to ensure the data has a reasonable level of protection. I’m not a professional system administrator, so I cannot guarantee the safety of data on this or related websites. However, I do not seek to store data of a highly personal nature, so risk of damage from data theft is low.