Effective: 25th, May 2018
Who we are
Honest Explorer is a personal blog written and edited by Sam Topping.
Our website address is: https://honestexplorer.com.
What personal data we collect and why we collect it
honestexplorer.com is committed to protecting your privacy and does not collect personal information unless the user has knowingly provided that information, such as providing an email address when signing up to a newsletter.
When you visit our website we may collect certain information from you in several ways, which include:
- Newsletter Signup: your name and email address
- Contact Form: your name and email address
- Comments: your name, email address and comment
We may use this information in several ways:
- To improve your experience on the website
- To reply to comments you have posted
- To reply to a message you have sent via the contact form
- To send you subscription emails (once you have opted in/ signed up)
GDPR
If you are a member of the European Union, you are legally entitled to certain rights and information on your data through the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). You may:
- Request for all the data we have about you to be deleted.
- Ask for access to the information we have about you, or for it to be ammended.
- Opt out of email subscriptions at any time, by clicking the unsubscribe button in an email, or asking for to be removed from the mailing list.
All requests should be sent to sam@honestexplorer.com.
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, as well as 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. 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
Through the contact form we collect your name and email address. This information is kept indefinitely. We do not use the information submitted in the contact form for marketing purposes or to send you emails you have not signed up for, unless you have opted in for these.
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.
Third Party Cookies: This site also uses cookies from third party providers such as google analytics and mail chimp for email subscriptions. These third parties may collect information such as referring websites, the date and time you viewed the site, how long you spend on the site and your IP address. In compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) we have IP anonymization in place for google analytics which removes the last section of your IP address, so you appear anonymous within the data we receive from google analytics. We will never send out any personal data without your permission. You should be able to disable cookies in your internets browser if you so wish.
We may receive information about you from other sources such as Facebook, Instagram, and/or Google accounts. If you choose to link your Facebook, Instagram, and/or Google accounts to your user profile, we will receive your name, email address and profile picture associated with that account. This site also has external links to other websites, in which we do not hold responsibly for any privacy practices by those external sites. If you have followed a link to outside honestexplorer.com then we suggest you look up that sites own privacy policy.
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
This site uses google analytics to gather information such as referring websites, the date and time you viewed the site, how long you spend on the site and your IP address. IP addresses have been anonymized are not linked to personal identifiable information. The information we gather from google analytics is primarily used to see which areas of the site are popular/working well and to improve user experience. You have the option to ‘opt out’ of analytics on google itself and we encourage you to read googles privacy policy which can be found here.
Who we share your data with
Third party providers with whom we share site data:
- Mail Chimp: We use this to send email updates, marketing and newsletters. We store your email address for subscription sign ups so you can receive our newsletter. Mailchimp may also hold your IP address to legally demonstrate that the individual provided consent and for analytics purposes. We will not share this data with anyone else without your permission. You may want to check Mailchimps own privacy policy which you can find here.
- Google Analytics: As said above we use analytics to gather information on user actions on our website. IP addresses have been anonymized for this and are not linked to personal identifiable information. For more information on Google’s privacy policy click here.
- WPforms Lite: We use this plugin for the contact form on our site. We will collect your name and email address. We store this information indefinitely and will not use it to send any emails you have not signed up for. To read WPforms privacy policy click here.
- Jetpack: This is a WordPress plugin by Automattic that has many features to help us improve our site, such as anti spam detectors and enhanced website functionality. A link to their privacy policy can be found here.
- WooCommerce: We use this plugin to run the shop on the site. Information collected will include your name, email, billing/ shipping address, what you have ordered and when, and the payment method you used. To find out what information WooCommerce stores, please click here.
Afilliate Programs
Some posts and pages may contain affiliate links and banners. This will use cookies to track visits to the affiliate sites, to gain commission on any sales the user then makes. The Website will post customised links to track the referrals to their affiliate website, via a cookie on your browser. The commisions earned do not cost the user anything.
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.
Your contact information
For any questions regarding this privacy policy please contact sam@honestexplorer.com.
How we protect your data
We have IP anonymization in place in Google analytics which removes the last section of your IP address so no information is identifiable. We also have GDPR check boxes before you sign up for newsletter subscriptions. This is to make sure you are aware and in control of how we are to use that information. You can opt out of email subscriptions at any time by clicking the unsubscribe box in the footer of the email or by sending a request to sam@honestexplorer.com. We will never share your data with anyone else without your permission.
What third parties we receive data from
This site uses Google analytics to gather information user actions on our website. It may also include information about referring sites. This information will be used to see which areas of the site are working well, and to improve user experience. We may receive information on name, IP address and email from Mailchimp. This data will not be used for anything without your permission or be shared with anyone without consent from you.
We collect information about visitors who comment on Sites that use our Akismet anti-spam service. The information we collect depends on how the User sets up Akismet for the Site, but typically includes the commenter’s IP address, user agent, referrer, and Site URL (along with other information directly provided by the commenter such as their name, username, email address, and the comment itself).
If you accept user-submitted images and use the API or ExactDN, those images may be transmitted to third-party servers in foreign countries. If Backup Originals is enabled, images are stored for 30 days. Otherwise, no images are stored on the API for longer than 30 minutes.
Suggested API Text: User-submitted images may be transmitted to image compression servers in the United States and stored there for up to 30 days.
Suggested ExactDN Text: User-submitted images that are displayed on this site will be transmitted and stored on a global network of third-party servers (a CDN).
Any questions on this policy send to: sam@honestexplorer.com