Your privacy is important to me, and so this page describes how I use any personal data from this website.
Firstly, this website is hosted on escapingoxford.blog/, a service owned by the company Automattic, and they also use and control data. This privacy policy only covers the data that are provided to me. You can read more about how they do so on their privacy notice and privacy policy.
Who I Am and What This Policy Covers
My name’s Alexander Homer (Alex for short), and this is one of my blogs: for simplicity I have the same Privacy Policy on both of them, which applies equally to both: probablyinteresting.wordpress.com and escapingoxford.wordpress.com. I write this as a hobby, and derive no income from it—it is purely a recreational exercise.
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
This policy is derived from the privacy policy of Automattic, though the text of that policy does not necessarily apply to my use of any of your data. That policy is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence, and so (according to the terms of that use) this policy is also available under that licence, and you should feel free to adapt its text for your own purposes, crediting both me (Alex Homer) and Automattic if you do so.
Information I Collect
I only collect information about you if I have a reason to do so—for instance, that you’ve filled in a webform on this site. I collect this information from two sources: if and when you provide information to me, and from outside sources. I do not collect any information automatically myself, but escapingoxford.blog/ does, some of which it provides to me (which then falls under the category of “outside sources”). Again you should check their Privacy Notice for information about what escapingoxford.blog/ collects, but, as far as my collection of data goes, let’s go over the contents of the two categories.
Information You Provide to Me
It’s probably no surprise that I collect information that you provide to me directly. Here are some examples:
- Public profile information: If you have a escapingoxford.blog/ account, and you leave a comment on my blog, you are providing me (and the wider internet!) with your username, and any other public information on your account.
- Name and contact details: If you fill in a webform on this site, you’ll be asked to provide your name and email address (the latter of which may contain other personal information: for instance, if you were born in 1975 and your email address was JohnSmith1975@email-provider.com).
- IP address: Your IP address may be collected when you leave a comment, and passed to me by Automattic.
- Form or comment contents: When you fill in such a form, or leave a comment, you have a free text box in which you can write anything you like (in accordance with other laws, of course!). This might involve giving me personal information, if you choose to do so.
Information I Collect from Other Sources
I may also get information about you from other sources. For example, if you create or log in to your escapingoxford.blog/ account through another service (like Google), that service, via escapingoxford.blog/, may provide aspects of your public profile to me.
As a further example, escapingoxford.blog/ provides me with analytics data on my website, which it collects in accordance with its Privacy Notice. This provides me with information about the country of location of my visitors, which site referred them to my site (and sometimes which page, or which search terms they used in the case of a search engine referral), which pages of my site they visited, which files they downloaded and which links they clicked on. Almost none of this is personally identifiable, though it is possible to conceive of examples where it might be in particular circumstances (if I recorded only one visit on a particular day, and that person completed my web form, I can then deduce which country that individual was from, which is additional private data about that individual). It is also possible that the page which referred you, or the search terms you used, could reveal person information about you.
How and Why I Use Information
Purposes for Using Information
I use information about you for the purposes listed below:
- To provide what a company would call “our services”. It’s a bit strange for me as an individual (and not a sole trader) to be talking about my “services”, but what I mean by this are: to reply to your comments, or to your entries in a web form, for instance, or to do something which you have explicitly asked me to do (provided I agree!). I might also collect data for a blog post, like when I’ve written posts talking about people’s responses to “Write a sentence about Birmingham” in the past: in such cases I almost certainly wouldn’t be trying to collect any personal information, but if it’s a free text box I can’t stop you writing whatever you like in there.
- To ensure quality, maintain safety, and improve my “services”. For example, I may use analytics data (which, as I’ve said, is usually anonymised sufficiently that it is no longer “personal data”) to work out which posts were well-read or well-shared, and write future posts that are similar to successful ones from the past.
- To communicate with you. This mostly comes under the first point, but I might reply to one of your emails, say.
Legal Bases for Collecting and Using Information
A note here for those in the European Union (and the UK, to which GDPR still applies post-Brexit) about my legal grounds for processing information about you under EU or UK data protection laws, which is that my use of your information is based on the grounds that:
- The use is necessary in order to fulfil my commitments to you under any agreement with you; or
- The use is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation; or
- The use is necessary in order to protect your vital interests or those of another person; or
- I have a legitimate interest in using your information—for example, to respond to an enquiry or a comment; or
- You have given me your consent.
It is normally ground 4 or ground 5 that will apply.
Sharing Information
How I Share Information
Generally, I do not share your information with anyone at all, though you should bear in mind that any information shared with me through this site is shared with me through Automattic’s servers, and so you are also sharing information with them by implication. (You could, I suppose, construe this as my sharing your information with Automattic.) Again, this policy does not cover what they do with your data, only what I do with it once I’ve received it.
If you leave a comment on my blog, you are sharing your comment and public profile information with the world by doing so. Otherwise, I will only share information in the following circumstances:
- Third-party vendors: I may share information about you with third-party vendors who need the information in order to provide their services to me, or to provide their services to you. In particular, this includes the case where you construe me to be sharing information with Automattic. I can’t think of any other circumstance where this would apply.
- Legal and regulatory requirements: I may disclose information about you in response to a subpoena, court order, or other governmental request (I hope you’ll understand that I can’t really turn that down!).
- To protect rights, property, and others: I may disclose information about you when I believe in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect my property or rights, or those of third parties, or of the public at large. For example, if I have a good faith belief that there is an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury, I may disclose information related to the emergency without delay.
- With your consent: I may share and disclose information with your consent or at your direction. For example, I may share your information with third parties when you authorize me to do so, or I may, if you agree, post your name and any other identifiable information in a blog post, if you sent me a suggestion for a post that I took you up on. (If you agreed, that would implicitly be consent to share that information publicly, as described below in the section of that name. But if you didn’t agree, of course I would not post that information!)
- Aggregated or de-identified information: I may share information that has been aggregated or de-identified, so that it can no longer reasonably be used to identify you. So, for instance, I may share information about my analytics with others, as long as the information cannot be used to identify individuals. Or I may quote from a suggestion for a blog post (within the limits of copyright law, which is a whole different beast!) without identifying you (unless you consented to identification, in accordance with the previous bullet point).
I do not sell data—I’m not sure who’d want to buy the data we’re talking about here, but the principle remains all the same!
Information Shared Publicly
Information that you choose to make public is—you guessed it—disclosed publicly. That means information like your public profile and comments on this site are all available to others—and I hope they get a lot of views! For example, the photo that you upload to your public profile, or a default image if you haven’t uploaded one, is your Globally Recognized Avatar, or Gravatar—get it? 🙂 (That “pun” was written by Automattic, not me, and is in the original version of this document that I adapted. I disclaim all responsibility for it.) Your Gravatar, along with other public profile information, displays alongside the comments and “Likes” that you make on my blogs while logged in to your escapingoxford.blog/ account. Please keep all of this in mind when deciding what you would like to share publicly.
How Long I Keep Information
I generally discard information about you when it’s no longer needed for the purposes for which I collect and use it—described in the section above on How and Why I Use Information—and I’m not legally required to keep it. That means that I will delete your webform submissions once addressed. If, with your consent, I share any information in a blog post, or if you leave a comment, those will remain indefinitely, as blog posts don’t “expire”.
Security
Any personal information shared with me is mostly kept on escapingoxford.blog/’s systems, which are behind a secure password. Anything downloaded to my computer is similarly on a password-protected machine, from which it will be deleted once any necessary processing is complete.
Choices
You have several choices available when it comes to information about you:
- Limit the information that you provide: You don’t need to provide me with any information to read my blog! If you fill in the webform, there is no requirement to use your real name, if indeed that particular form has a “name” field at all.
- Close your escapingoxford.blog/ account: Here’s what escapingoxford.blog/ say about this: “While we’d be very sad to see you go, you can close your account if you no longer want to use our Services. (Here are account closure instructions for escapingoxford.blog/ accounts.) Please keep in mind that we may continue to retain your information after closing your account, as described in How Long We Keep Information [in the Automattic Privacy Policy] — for example, when that information is reasonably needed to comply with (or demonstrate our compliance with) legal obligations such as law enforcement requests, or reasonably needed for our legitimate business interests.”
Your Rights
If you are located in certain parts of the world, including California and countries that fall under the scope of the European General Data Protection Regulation (aka the “GDPR”), you may have certain rights regarding your personal information, like the right to request access to or deletion of your data.
European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
If you are located in a country that falls under the scope of the GDPR (which includes the UK), data protection laws give you certain rights with respect to your personal data, subject to any exemptions provided by the law, including the rights to:
- Request access to your personal data;
- Request correction or deletion of your personal data;
- Object to my use and processing of your personal data;
- Request that I limit our use and processing of your personal data; and
- Request portability of your personal data.
You also have the right to make a complaint to a government supervisory authority, which in the UK is the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
The CCPA does not apply to me, as I am not a for-profit entity (as I’ve previously said, this blog is for recreational purposes). However, you should again check the escapingoxford.blog/ privacy policy and privacy notice linked above, as they are subject to this law and you are interacting with them by using this website.
Contacting Me About These Rights
If you’d like to contact me about this, scroll down to “How to Reach Me” to, well, find out how to reach me. When you contact me about one of your rights under this section, I’ll need to verify that you are the right person before I disclose or delete anything. For example, if you are contacting me about a webform submission, I will need you to contact me from the email address which you entered in the form. You can also designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf by giving me written authorization. I may still require you to verify your identity with me.
Controllers
I (Alexander Homer) am the controller of any information you submit; I reside in Scotland, in the United Kingdom. I am not registered with the ICO as all processing of personal data in connection with this site is for recreational purposes, which is “exempt processing” under the Data Protection (Charges and Information) Regulations 2018.
How to Reach Me
If you have a question about this Privacy Policy, or you would like to contact me about any of the rights mentioned in the Your Rights section above, please contact me through the web form on this site or via email to privacypolicy@alexjhomer.co.uk
Other Things You Should Know (Keep Reading!)
Transferring Information
Because information on this site is provided through Automattic, and because Automattic’s Services are offered worldwide, the information about you that I process when you use the Services in the EU may be used, stored, and/or accessed by individuals operating outside the European Economic Area (EEA) who work for Automattic, other members of the Automattic group of companies, or third-party data processors. This also applies to my other use of your data. This is required for the purposes listed in the How and Why I Use Information section above. When providing information about you to entities outside the EEA, I will take appropriate measures to ensure that the recipient protects your personal information adequately in accordance with this Privacy Policy as required by applicable law. These measures include entering into European Commission approved standard contractual arrangements with entities based in countries outside the EEA. Feel free to contact me about this.
Ads and Analytics Services Provided by Others
Ads appearing on this site may be delivered by advertising networks. Other parties may also provide analytics services via this site. These ad networks and analytics providers may set tracking technologies (like cookies) to collect information about your use of our Services and across other websites and online services. These technologies allow these third parties to recognize your device to compile information about you or others who use your device. This information allows Automattic and other companies to, among other things, analyze and track usage, determine the popularity of certain content, and deliver ads that may be more targeted to your interests. Please note this Privacy Policy only covers the collection of information by me and does not cover the collection of information by Automattic or by any third-party advertisers or analytics providers.
Privacy Policy Changes
Although most changes are likely to be minor, I may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. I encourage visitors to frequently check this page for any changes to its Privacy Policy. If I make changes, I will notify you by revising the change log below, and, in some cases, I may provide additional notice (like making a blog post about it). Your further use of the site after a change to our Privacy Policy will be subject to the updated policy
That’s it! Thanks for reading.
Change log
No changes since first upload.