Simple statement about this website
Cookies: When you use this website, it may leave cookies on your computer. I cannot use them them to identify you personally, and use them to improve the experience of website visitors (like most websites in the world).
Your personal data: If you enter personal data onto a contact form it will be used only for the purposes of contacting you in the manner prescribed. Your personal information is kept private and stored securely until a time it is no longer required or has no use. At no time do I sell or pass your personal data to other companies/ people to use, unless required to do so by law.
Read more about the contact form
Marketing: I will not use your personal data to market to you unless you give explicit permission and tell me what subjects you are interested in. Such data, is never passed or sold to third parties.
My beliefs regarding your privacy and data protection
Your privacy and your data protection are human rights.
- I have a duty of care to all those people I store data on
- Data is a liability, it should only be collected and processed when necessary
- I loathe spam as much as you do!
- I will never sell, rent or otherwise distribute or make public your personal information
The data controller for this website, my marketing, and my operations is me, Alan Freshwater.
The following policy gives more details on the subjects above.
The privacy and data policy for this website.
This policy shows what data my business holds on website visitors, why and what I do with it. I hold this data as I have a legitimate interest in doing so. If you have any questions on this, or wish to review any data i hold on you, you should contact me.
To read individual sections of this policy, click on the + sign to open them.
1.0 External Website Links & Third Parties
Although I attempt to only include quality, safe and relevant external links, users are advised to adopt caution before clicking any external web links in this website.
External links are clickable text / banner / image links to other websites, for example this one) I cannot guarantee or verify the contents of any externally linked website despite my best efforts.
You click on external links at your own risk and I cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned.
2.0 Social Media Policy & Usage
I adopt a Social Media Policy to ensure the business and any representatives/ staff conduct themselves accordingly online. While I have official profiles on social media platforms you are advised to verify authenticity of such profiles before engaging with, or sharing information with such profiles.
I never ask for user passwords or personal details on social media platforms. You are advised to conduct yourself appropriately when engaging with me on social media.
This website may feature social sharing buttons, enabling you to share web content directly from this website to social media platforms. You use social sharing buttons at your own discretion and accept that doing so may publish content to your social media profile feed or page.
3.0 My core beliefs regarding user privacy and data protection
- User privacy and data protection are human rights
- I loathe spam as much as you do!
- I will never sell, rent or otherwise distribute or make public your personal information
- I have a duty of care to the people whose data I hold
- Data is a liability, it should only be collected and processed when absolutely necessary
4.0 Relevant legislation
This website is designed to comply with the following legislation with regards to data protection and user privacy:
- UK Data Protection Act 1988 (DPA)
- EU Data Protection Directive 1995 (DPD)
- EU General Data Protection Regulation 2018 (GDPR)
My business and internal computer systems also are designed to comply with the same legislation.
5.0 Personal information that this website collects and why I collect it
This website collects and uses personal information for the following reasons:
5.1 Cookies
Cookies are small files saved to the your user’s computer that track, save and store information about the user’s interactions and usage of the website. This website uses cookies to improve the user experience of visitors, and to collate anonymous information about how you (and other users) use the website.
All visitors give permission or to deny the use of/ saving of cookies on computer/ device. This is done when you first visit the website.
The cookies I use are (click down arrow to see details:
| Cookie | Type | Duration | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| DYNSRV | 1st party | Session | Helps load balancer to track which web server to send the visitor to. Its purpose is to improve the performance of the website. This is an essential cookie to the operation of the site that is always set by the load balancer and does not store any personal information.
Personally identifiable information:
|
| Google Analytics | 3rd party | I use Google Analytics to monitor traffic levels, search queries and visits to this website. Google Analytics stores IP address anonymously on its servers in the US. These cookies enable Google to determine whether you are a return visitor to the site, and to track the pages that you visit during your session.
Personally identifiable information:
| |
| Viewed cookie policy | 1st party | 1 year | Stops the cookie warning message coming up each time you visit the site.
Personally identifiable information:
|
If you accept the cookie policy, clicking accept will stop you being asked about it each time you visit this site. Accept
If you want to delete the cookie left by the cookie policy, click here. This will only affect ‘view cookies’ cookie and will mean you are asked to accept cookies again next time you visit this site.
You can disable cookies on your internet browser, it will stop cookies from tracking any part of your visit to pages in this website.
5.2 Visitor tracking.
Like most websites, this site uses Google Analytics to track user interaction (via the use of cookies). I use this data to determine how many visitors use the site, to better understand how they find and use the web pages and to see their journey through the website.
Google Analytics records data such as your geographical location, device, internet browser and operating system; however, none of this information personally identifies you to me.
Google Analytics also records your computer’s IP address which could be used to personally identify you, but Google do not grant me access to this. I consider Google to be a third-party data processor (see section 6.0 below).
5.3 Contact forms and email links
Should you choose to contact us using the contact form on our ‘Contact us’ page or an email link like this one, the data that you supply will NOT be stored by this website. It will be processed by the third party data processors defined in section 7.0 that relates to email conversations.
Your data will be collated into an email and sent to us over the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). My SMTP servers are protected by TLS (sometimes known as SSL) meaning that the email content is encrypted using SHA-2, 256-bit cryptography before being sent across the internet. The email content is then decrypted by our local computers and devices. I ONLY use your email address to respond to you, and don’t keep the email for more than 6 months, unless the email goes on to form the basis of a contract or a marketing request (these are separate reasons for holding your data).
5.4 Downloads & Media Files
Any downloadable documents, files or media on this website are provided to users at their own risk. All precautions have been undertaken to ensure only relevant downloads are available virus free. You are advised check all files with third-party anti-virus software or similar applications.
When you request a download you will be explicitly told if your data is being stored for marketing purposes (occasional, related emails). If the form does not make this explicit, I do not keep data on you as somebody who has downloaded material from the website.
6.0 How this website stores your personal information
If you enter a comment to the blog on this site some personal information will be stored within this website’s database (your name, email address and your comment). This is the only occasion where personal data is stored on this website.
This data is currently stored in an identifiable fashion (this is a limitation of website system we and most websites use – Wordpress).
6.1 This website’s server
This website is hosted by TSO Host within a UK data centre (Maidenhead, Milton Keynes and Slough).
7.0 My third party data processors
I use the following third parties to process personal data on my behalf. These third parties all comply with the legislation set out in section 2.0.
These third parties are based in the EU. They are:
- TSO – Website (Their privacy policy)
These third parties are based in the USA and are EU-U.S Privacy Shield compliant. They are:
- Google – analytics (Their privacy policy)
- Hotmail – emails (Their privacy policy)
8.0 Data breaches
I will report any unlawful data breach of this website’s database or the database(s) of any of our third-party data processors to any and all relevant persons and authorities within 72 hours of the breach if it is apparent that personal data stored in an identifiable manner has been stolen.
9.0 Data controller
The data controller of this website is: Alan Freshwater, a sole trader, whose office is:
Property Services
35 Collard Avenue
Loughton
Essex
IG10 2ER
10.0 Data protection officer
Alan Freshwater, contact details as above.
11.0 Changes to this policy
This website privacy and data policy may change from time to time to keep up to date with legislation or industry developments. We will not always explicitly inform clients or website users of these changes.
I recommend you check this page occasionally for any policy changes. Specific policy changes and updates are mentioned in the change log below.