1. General statement
You’ve probably encountered privacy policies on other sites before, certainly since the EU initiated the new GDPR standards on the 25th May 2018. You may even recollect having been inundated with emails about providing consent to continued subscriptions to this newsletter or that.
As you’ve probably gathered already, we don’t do much in the way of storing information about our site visitors here. To keep up with the times, though, and to allow you to rest easy, please find the information about the limited data storing we do get up to here below.
2. What is collected and stored?
2.1. Browsing
If you’re just browsing this website, we don’t actively store any information about you at all. Your IP is picked up and likely stored by our web host (godaddy.com) for a limited time, for security reasons, but this alone can not be used to identify you and is out of our hands. As registration isn’t required to enjoy this fabulous website, we also don’t bombard you with cookies. We do like cookies, though, particularly chocolate chip. That being said, it may very well be that some cookies are being flung your way, though, by the WordPress plugins employed on this site. This is also out of hands. If you prefer not to accept cookies, we recommend that you change your browser settings accordingly.
2.1.1 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.
2.2. Commenting
If you post a comment below a blog entry, video or podcast episode, sharing some details with us is indeed required. Note that sharing your own mini-reviews falls into this category as well, as they are de facto comments. Comments and their metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so that we can recognise and approve any follow-up comments automatically, instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
The following details are required by you when posting a comment: name, email address, comment. The name is largely cosmetic. This is how the author of the post is listed on the front-end. You may call yourself anything you like (as long as it is not offensive) — we do not perform any authenticity checks. Similarly, the email address that you provide is not checked against. We operate under the assumption that you will provide a legitimate email address, as notifications regarding your comment will be sent to it.
In order to maintain the integrity of the comment functionality on the website, we keep a record of all comments, which entails: the name provided, the email address provided, the comment, and the date and time that the comment was submitted.
Your IP address and browser user agent string are collected by the system to help spam detection and make sure you’re not a Dalek.
You may have noticed that some people have a little avatar next to their mini review. Perhaps you even have one yourself. We use Gravatar for this service. An anonymised string created from your e-mail 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. After approval of your comment or mini review, your profile picture is visible to the public next to it.
2.3. Blogging
In order to join the ‘WBW Correspondents’ and to submit content for assessment and eventual publication on the website, accepted users are required to have an account on the site. Registration of such an account is made by the webmaster on the Correspondent’s behalf and requires the following information: Your name and email address.
Correspondents are also expected to provide a short ‘Author’s bio’ and, optionally, their Twitter handle. Where provided, these are shared on the front-end below the respective author’s articles.
All details provided, including the mandatory name and email address, are kept on record and associated with the respective articles. The Date and Time of any blogging edits are also stored and associated with your account. This includes, but is not limited to:
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- Saving blog post drafts
- Submitting drafts for assessment and publication
- Uploading images
This is solely in order to know, for example, whether you have waited for your submitted draft to be reviewed for a very long time, not because we are assembling a digital simulation of your persona so that we can replace you with an Auton facsimile.
As the webmaster creates all Correspondent accounts, the initial password of all accounts is known to him and stored for security reasons. However, Correspondents are able to change their passwords upon receipt of their initial login details. No updated passwords are stored.
The date and time of any account changes are stored, however. This includes the date and time of when a password was changed. This is simply a feature of WordPress. If it were up to the webmaster of WBW, we probably wouldn’t store that data and, to be perfectly honest, he never checks that stuff.
2.4. Logging in
If you log into this website, your IP is registered and stored for a period of time. This is to prevent potential bots, hackers and Daleks from gaining unlawful entry to the inner workings of WBW. The only people who should be logging in are the WBW Correspondents and the webmaster, though, so this probably won’t worry you.
2.5. eCommerce
No financial transactions take place on this website. If you would like to buy any WBW merchandise, you can go to whobackwhen.com/shop. This will redirect you to a 3rd party, RedBubble, that handles all of the transactions. None of that information is shared with, or retained by, us.
3. Removing your data
As above, you will only have shared your personal data with us if you’re registered as a WBW Correspondent. Should you ever wish to remove your Correspondent account, please just say the word and the webmaster will handle this request for you. Such a request can be directed to whobackwhen@gmail.com.
4. 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.
5. Contact
As above, where 3rd parties are concerned, WBW will have to defer to their privacy policies. By following the above links, you can find their policies and/or contact their help desks for more information.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding this, feel free to get in touch at whobackwhen@gmail.com. We’re assuming that you’re not concerned, though, as you’ve made it this far and evidently know pretty well already how the Internet works.
Thanks!
WBW
