Safeguarding Your Privacy

As a consumer, there’s nothing I hate more than signing up for a website or a newsletter, and then finding that I’m bombarded with offers I don’t want to see from people I’ve never heard of. My undertaking to my readers, is that I will do everything in my power to prevent any such misuse of the trust you have placed in me by sending me confidential information, such as your email address.
 
In our interconnected world, I use the services of third-party businesses to help me provide services to my readership. Notably, this website is written on WordPress.org and hosted by Hostinger. I keep my mailing list at MailerLite, which also delivers my newsletters. For orders taken directly from customers, I use Payhip and Stripe for payment processing, BookFunnel for ebook distribution, and Bookvault for printing and distribution of physical books. I’ve selected these businesses because they come highly recommended as trustworthy and reliable by the indie writing community.
 
But for further protection, both for you and for me, my privacy policy also includes the following. This is a legally-constructed document, compliant with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (the GDPR), and recommended by The Alliance of Independent Authors (of which I am a member).
 

My Privacy and Cookies Policy

I am committed to safeguarding the privacy of my website and newsletter visitors, readers, and service users.
 
Any data you send me will be used in a lawful way. I won’t do anything with it that I did not tell you about in advance, and it will all remain private unless you give me permission to send specific data to a third party for a good reason.
 
I use cookies, or pieces of code that record reader preferences, on my website and for my newsletters, but before I start storing any of your data in cookies, I will first ask for your consent to their use to do so.
 
There are laws around the world restricting what we can do with your data (your email address, name, phone number, and other identifying information), and the policy below complies with current laws.
 

How I Use Your Personal Data

I may process data about your use of my website through a third-party analytics tracking system, such as Google Analytics. This usage data may include your IP address, geographical location, browser type and version, operating system, referral source, length of visit, page views and website navigation paths, as well as information about the timing, frequency, and pattern of your service use.

I may process your account and profile data, which will include your name and email address and phone number and any other demographic information you voluntarily provided to me. This information is used only to provide you with my services and communicate with you.

I may also process information you supply to me in contributing to my website or in transactions, including purchases of goods and services. Also, I may process information you gave me in subscribing to my email notifications and/or newsletters.

 

Providing your personal data to others

Financial transactions relating to my website and services may be handled by my payment services providers. I will share transaction data with them only to the extent necessary for the purposes of processing your payments, refunds, and dealing with queries. Personal data that I process for any purpose will not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose.

 

Security of Personal Data

I will take appropriate technical and organizational precautions to secure your personal data and to prevent its loss, misuse, or alteration. I will store all your personal data on secure servers, personal computers and mobile devices, and in secure manual record-keeping systems.

Data relating to your enquiries and financial transactions that is sent from your web browser to my web server, or from my web server to your web browser, will be protected using encryption technology.

 

Your rights

Your principal rights under data protection law are:

• The right to access: You have the right to confirm the personal data I have on you and I must provide access if you request it.

• The right to rectification: You have the right to have any inaccurate personal data about you corrected and to have any incomplete personal data about you completed.

• The right to erasure: Also known as the “right to be forgotten,” you have the right to the erasure of your personal data without undue delay for any reason.

There are a few exceptions to this right, though, if I am complying with a legal obligation or defending against a legal claim.

• The right to restrict processing: In some circumstances you have the right to restrict the processing of your personal data. That could happen if you contest the accuracy of the data or I no longer need the data, but you would like it retained for legal reasons.

• The right to object to processing: If you make such an objection, I will cease to process the personal information unless I can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds that override your interests.

• The right to data portability: You have the right to object to my processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes (including profiling for direct marketing purposes). If you make such an objection, I will cease to process your personal data for this purpose.

• The right to complain to a supervisory authority: If you consider that my processing of your personal information infringes data protection laws, you have a legal right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority responsible for data protection.

• The right to withdraw consent: You have the right to withdraw your consent to handle your data at any time.

 

Third party websites

My website and newsletter includes hyperlinks to and details of, third party websites. I have no control over, and am not responsible for, the privacy policies and practices of third parties.

 

Personal data of children

My website and services are targeted at persons over the age of 16. If I have reason to believe that I hold personal data of a person under that age in my databases, I will delete it.

 

About cookies

A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser and is stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server.

Cookies may be either “persistent” cookies or “session” cookies: a persistent cookie will be stored by a web browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by the user before then; a session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed.

Cookies do not typically contain any information that personally identifies a user, but personal information that I store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies.

I use cookies to identify you when you visit my website, determine if you are logged in (at present there is no log-in requirement), and maintain the status of your shopping cart. They may also be used to help me analyse the use and performance of my website and services.

My service providers, including Google Analytics, Payhip, BookFunnel and MailerLite, use cookies that may be stored on your computer when you visit my website.

Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies and to delete them. The methods for doing so vary from browser to browser, and from version to version. You can however obtain up-to-date information about blocking and deleting cookies via these links:

 

Where to Change Your Cookie Settings

(a) https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95647?hl=en (Chrome);

(b) https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-and-disable-cookies-website-preferences(Firefox);

(c) http://www.opera.com/help/tutorials/security/cookies/ (Opera);

(d) https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/17442/windows-internet-explorer-delete-manage-cookies (Internet Explorer);

(e) https://support.apple.com/kb/PH21411 (Safari); and

(f) https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10-microsoft-edge-and-privacy(Edge).

If you block cookies, you will not be able to use all the features on our website.

If you have any questions or concerns about our handling of data, please e-mail me at alan@milesposts.com.

More Information

Answers to questions about laws concerning handling of data privacy can be found in this guide to General Data Protection Regulation for the European Union.

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/