PRIVACY POLICY

I am committed to protecting your privacy and personal information and will never abuse your trust.

This Privacy Policy explains

what information is collected
how information is stored
how information is used

Cookies are small text files, which contain small amounts of information, that are placed on your device. Your internet browser sends these cookies back to the website every time you visit the site, so the website can recognise your device.

A cookie will not access any information other than the information you provide to us when you visit the website.

Whether or not you receive a cookie depends on your browser settings.

What is personal data?

This is the definition provided to me by the Information Commission Office in the UK where I am based.

The GDPR applies to ‘personal data’ meaning any information relating to an identifiable person who can be directly or indirectly identified in particular by reference to an identifier.

This definition provides for a wide range of personal identifiers to constitute personal data, including name, identification number, location data or online identifier, reflecting changes in technology and the way organisations collect information about people.

The GDPR applies to both automated personal data and to manual filing systems where personal data are accessible according to specific criteria. This could include chronologically ordered sets of manual records containing personal data.
What information does the GDPR apply to?

What information do I collect?

When you contact me

Personal data you provide about yourself (for example, your name and contact details e.g. an email)
you provide a name and an email address when making a comment on a blog post or submitting a form. I do not ask for any other details. What you provide is up to you.
you may disclose information about your business - however this is not personal information which for the purposes of the GDPR only relates to the personal data of individuals

When a third party contacts me on your behalf

Personal data provided by a third party such as your name, contact details and specific circumstances.

When you visit this website, or interact with this site or me via social media

Your IP address and browsing preferences and choices;
Your name and username and any comments that you make.

If you commission me to do work for you

Your name and email address. I will also ask you for your normal mailing address for my invoice. Depending on the assignment you may disclose various other data but this will vary from client to client and will not apply to all. What you disclose is your choice.

How do I collect information?

Your personal information may be collected from a number of sources. These include:

When you visit this website, including through the use of cookies.
When you contact or interact with this site by email or when you communicate through social media;
From forms you may complete;
From public sources of data (e.g. the contacts details you have chosen to make public on your website or social media)
From organisations/bodies you are connect to or are affiliated with, when they provide your information to me

Why do I collect it?

Consent

In relation to news updates, the information I hold is based on you having given your consent. For example, in relation to news updates, you have provided the email and then verified (consented) that it should be stored and used as a basis for processing the blog feed via Google's Feedburner and sending you an email for the news update.
Where you have given consent to the processing of your data you may withdraw it at any time.

Legitimate Interest

I have a legitimate interest to enable the publication of the website and to understand how it is used. In relation to Technical and Statistical Data: the data collected includes data about your use of this website, e.g. which pages you visit and how long you visit for; which browsers you use, your IP address. I do not collect data that identifies any individuals. I choose NOT to collect any demographic data via Google Analytics.
I also collect information because of a legitimate interest to ensure I have got details correct in relation to any public published information about you. You may contact me to correct any information or ask for it to be withdrawn from view at any time.

Contractual necessity

Data relating to any business transaction arises out of a contractual necessity e.g. so both you and I are fulfilling the obligations set out in supplier terms and conditions or any contract that may be in place. (Examples of such transactions usually arise because you heard about me via this website and not because of any offer made on this website)

How do I use your information?

I process your data in order to:

Record any correspondence or products I receive and respond accordingly;
Send out information relating to news updates;
Enter into contracts with customers; and/or
Maintain relationships with individuals and organisations and send messages from time to time

How is it stored?

Your personal data is stored in a number of ways:

In software systems which are managed on my computer hardware or on webware provided by a third party supplier (e.g. Google; Wix)
If you register to receive news updates, your information will be held on a secure server and the data will be shared with Google Feedburner only for automated processing of the news feed.

Who do I share your information with?

I may share your data with and/or obtain information from some third parties:

my website service (Wix) in relation to the use of forms and comments on this website and for the management of cookies on this website;
statistical services (Google Analytics, Statcounter and Wix) with respect to understanding the 'macro' level of sources of traffic to the website and the pages of most interest to you.
Social media providers e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram – to highlight public news

Other organisations where I am required to do so by law or by a public authority.

I am committed to protecting your privacy.

Under no circumstances do I rent, trade or share your e-mail address without your consent.
Very occasionally people ask to be put in contact with another person. Rather than give your email address to them, I inform them that I will forward their request to you (using gmail) and leave you to decide how to respond.

Children's Privacy

My Service does not address anyone under the age of 13 ("Children").
I do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13. If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that your Children has provided me with Personal Data, please contact me. If I become aware that I have collected Personal Data from children without verification of parental consent, I will take steps to remove that information from my servers.

How do I protect your data?

I take the security of your data very seriously. Your data cannot be accessed by third parties other than those providing services as identified below.

I engage reputable service providers to process your data on my behalf for the purposes of email correspondence, website and social media provision. They are all under a duty of confidentiality, and are legally obliged to implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure the security of data in line with the relevant legislation.

How long do I keep your personal data?

Nothing is kept indefinitely. Your personal data is kept under review.

Correspondence: I periodically delete contacts and associated emails.
Blog comments and forms: If the blog comment is not published or the form submitted is nonsensical they are deleted.
Spam comments are kept for a period of time prior to reports to Google re. the worst offenders.
News updates: Emails are stored within my dedicated Google Feedburner account. If the email is not verified for this use within one month of it being received by Feedburner I delete it. You may unsubscribe from this online newsletter at anytime using the link provided in each update. (Please also note I cannot create a subscription for you).
Personal data and business correspondence in relation to all business contracts involving payment is retained for a minimum of six years after the end of the tax year in line with the requirements of HMRC.

What rights do you have in relation to your personal information?

You have certain rights in relation to your personal information. They are:

The right to obtain confirmation that we are processing your personal information (see Subject Access Request process);
The right to access your information (see Subject Access Request process);
The right to have your personal information rectified if it is incomplete or inaccurate;
The right to have your personal information removed or deleted in certain circumstances, for example when you have withdrawn consent to it being processed and I have no other basis for processing it;
The right to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances;
The right to object to certain processing including the right to object where I am processing your information on the basis of my legitimate interest;
Where you have provided your consent to the processing, the right to withdraw consent to the processing of your data (without affecting the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal); and
The right to require us not to send you marketing communications.

Please note that the above rights are not absolute, and requests may be refused where exceptions apply.

Subject Access Request

You can ask me to confirm if I am keeping any personal information about you and you can also request to receive a copy of that personal information – this is called a Subject Access Request.

To make a Subject Access Request you will need to

provide adequate proof of identity such as a copy of your passport, birth certificate, or driving license before your request can be processed.
be as clear as possible about the information you are seeking, as that helps me to respond to your request more efficiently.

Once I have received your Subject Access Request and proof of identity, you will receive a response within a month.

If you want to submit a Subject Access Requests or exercise any of the other rights referred to above, please email me (see contact page). If you are not happy with how I handle any of your requests, queries, or concerns, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (www.ico.org.uk), which oversees the protection of personal information in the UK.

How I work with third party services?

Blog comments and Contact Forms

Use of Forms: email addresses can be collected by this website - using Wix form (Wix is based in the USA).

They are ONLY used for correspondence relating to the page where you submitted your email address - with a suggestion or query.
The way the Wix website works means that your email address is stored on the Wix servers. This is the Wix Privacy Policy.
The emails submitted via forms are forwarded automatically to me at a specific email address. I use gmail for correspondence. Gmail is a Google product and is covered by Google's Privacy Policy. (Also based in the USA with a UK operation)

Email addresses

My Privacy Policy in relation to e-mail addresses is simple. The links below are to the Privacy Policies of the services I use when you supply your email to me.

Your personal information is kept safe and secure.
Your email address is only ever used for the purpose you consented to use it for,
Email addresses will never be passed by me to anyone else or any other organisation.
see below for how your personal information is processed via this website.

That means your personal information and email address will never be sold, rented, or leased to any other party. Very occasionally people ask to be put in contact with another person and rather than give their email address to you I will either provide their website's contact details or, if they have no website, I will forward your request via form or email (using gmail) to the third party and leave them to decide how to respond.

Gmail Contacts

I store email addresses of personal contacts who have written to me on Gmail Contacts, because that is the email service I use.

If you do not want your email stored, you can let me know and I will delete the email after sending it to you. That will mean I won't recognise you if you write again direct to my email address and I will have no recall of any previous history or prior correspondence. I routinely delete emails from people I do not know where there is no purpose to the proposed correspondence.

How to Contact Me

For purposes of EU data protection law, I, Galina Stefanova, am the data controller of your personal information. If you have any questions or concerns, you may contact me at galinastefanovaart@gmail.com.