Privacy

Privacy & Cookies

I am committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This policy sets out the basis on which any personal information I collect from you, or that you provide to me through my website or via email or phone, will be processed by me. Please read the following carefully to understand my views and practices regarding your personal information and how I will treat it. By providing your personal information to request my services, you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this policy. 

Contents

  1. What information I collect about you
    Contact Form, Email or Telephone Enquiries
    Website comments and testimonials
    Embedded content
    Analytics
  2. Who I share your data with
  3. How long I retain your data
  4. What rights you have over your data
  5. Where I send your data
  6. How I protect your data
  7. Data Breaches
  8. Cookies

What information I collect, and why I collect it

Contact Form, Email or Telephone Enquiries

As the Greystoke Geek, I (the Data Controller) will collect your name, address, email address and telephone number. I may do this via email or telephone, or the contact form on my website. I will also hold details of the services I provide to you, including the date. If you submit a request via a contact form, I will also collect your IP address.

Why I need to collect it
I need to collect minimal personal information so that I can provide the products and services you have requested from me, enter into contracts with you, and send you invoices and receipts for the work carried out. When you contact me via a contact form, I also need to collect your IP address to help prevent spam.

I will never contact you with details of any other products or services that I may provide in the future. I may on occasion contact you to inform you of material changes to the services I provide in extreme situations if I stop trading.

I need to keep track of when I provided services to you to ensure my records are up to date and accurate, and so that I can delete non-essential data (See below).

Comments and testimonials

When visitors leave comments on the site I collect the data shown in the comments and testimonials form, and also 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: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Comments – 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.

Comments – 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.

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.

Analytics

I use google analytics to gather anonymised information about visitors to my site and how they interact with my site in order that I can improve my website. You can read more about those cookies, and how to opt out in my Cookie Policy.


Who I share your data with

I will never share the data you provide with any 3rd party unless absolutely necessary for the core operations of my business. I will never share your data with a 3rd party for marketing purposes.

When a contact form or a comment is submitted via my website, that data is shared with Kualo Limited (“Kualo“) who host this website. All the servers Kualo use are based in the UK (London). Kualo is committed to upholding General Data Protection Laws and you can read their Privacy Policy here.


How long I retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so I can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

If you submit a contact form, the contact form data is retained only until I have the chance to respond to your query. I will then delete the contact form data from Kualo’s servers. But will retain key contact information on my own, secure storage.

Customers: HMRC requires me to keep business records for 5 years following the 31st January tax year deadline submission for the relevant tax year:  www.gov.uk/self-employed-records/how-long-to-keep-your-records. These records include invoices and receipts with relevant customer details. I will conduct an annual audit in February of each year to ensure that all relevant customer details that can be deleted are securely destroyed. I will only hold data for confirmed customers. Any inquiries which do not result in business will be deleted.


What rights you have over your data

​Right to ask me what personal data I hold

You have the right to access any personal data I hold for you.  Please be aware that if you do so, for your own security, I may need to ask you additional questions to verify your identity, before I release that information.

If you have left comments on this site, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data I hold about you, including any data you have provided to me. You can also request that I erase any personal data I hold about you. This does not include any data I am obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Right to be forgotten

You have the right to ask me to delete any personal data I hold for you. This request should be made in writing so we both have a record. Again you can request this by contacting me at greystokegeek@gmail.com. Be aware that if you do so, for your own security, I may need to ask you additional questions to verify your identity, before I release that information. I may need to retain some personal information for tax purposes, but I will delete everything that is not relevant (eg telephone number).

Right to complain

If at any point you believe the information I process on you is incorrect you can request to see this information and even have it corrected or deleted. If you wish to raise a complaint on how I have handled your personal data, you can contact me and I will investigate the matter. You can contact me at greystokegeek@gmail.com

If you are not satisfied with my response or believe I am processing your personal data not in accordance with the law you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).


Where I send your data

Visitor comments and contact forms may be checked through an automated spam detection service.


How I protect your data

All communications between your browser and my website are protected via SSL (Secure Socket Layers).

Data submitted via a contact form or comments functionality will be stored under my account on Kualo’s server. You can read more about Kualo server security here.

All personal data retained by myself is held on a secure network storage drive, encrypted, and protected by a strong, unique password. Only I have access to your data records.


Data Breaches

I will report any unlawful data breach of this website’s database or the databases 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.

Cookies

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

You can read more, and control analytics cookies in my cookie policy here.

Design & Hosting

This website is built and hosted by Greystoke Web Design in Cumbria. You can read their privacy policy here.