Standish Wiki:Privacy policy
From Standish Wiki
The Standish websites, which consist of the Standish Wiki (wiki.standish.org.uk), the Standish Gallery (gallery.standish.org.uk), and Standish Talk (talk.standish.org.uk), along with the front page (www.standish.org.uk, also known as the messageboard) are committed to respecting and protecting your privacy as a visitor to our websites.
We take the issue of privacy very seriously and value the trust you place in us each time you use this website. This Privacy Statement describes the practices and policies we have put into place to safeguard your personal information that may be gathered and used as you visit our website, and the information submitted to regarding Standish commercial businesses and community organisations for display on our website.
THIS NOTICE DESCRIBES HOW PERSONAL INFORMATION ABOUT YOU MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU CAN GET ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION. PLEASE REVIEW IT CAREFULLY.
The policy may change from time to time so please check back periodically. If you have any questions about our privacy policies, we encourage you to contact us using any of the methods outlined at the end of our Privacy Statement.
Who Is Collecting the Information?
The Standish Websites are collecting information on this website as outlined in this privacy statement.
What Information Do We Collect?
Automatic Collection of Information
If you do nothing during your visit but browse through the website, our system will automatically gather and store certain information about your visit. This information does not identify you personally and is used in an aggregate way to help us improve our website and tell us the number of visitors to our site each day.
Our Web server automatically collects and records the following information:
- The visitor's IP address
- Aggregate information on what pages are accessed
- Date and time you access our site
There is no way you can be identified as a result of your browsing activity on our website. We only examine browsing activity to monitor aggregated site traffic and analyse it. This gives us information to help us improve the relevance of the website, and to monitor the website for errors in the page linking.
Permission-based Collection of Information
As part of our website, you may be asked to volunteer personal information such as your name and email address. This is necessary for registration on our messageboard, wiki or gallery, and allows you to post messages, images or edit wiki content, as anonymous additions/modifications are not allowed.
Submission of Information for the promotion of Standish businesses and organisations
The Standish Wiki collects information for display on our website to promote local businesses and organisations based or operating within Standish. This information is volunteered by a representative member of the business/organisation, and can include items such as contact details, logos, and descriptions of services provided. This information is optional, and representatives are asked to submit only that information which is required to be displayed on the site to promote their business/organisation. This information may, or may not, include:
- Business/Organisation Name
- Address
- Telephone Number
- Fax Number
- Mobile Number (where this is given as an alternative to the above)
- Email Address
- Website URL
- Contact name (for organisations who require you to contact a specific person)
- Opening Hours (for businesses with regular opening hours)
- Meeting Times/Date (for organisations where there are regular weekly/monthly meetings)
- Meeting Venue (for organisations without their own premises where another meeting venue is used)
- Description
The description should give as much information about the organisation, including where possible, but not limited to:
- What you do
- Who is your service aimed to
- Products you use, sell or supply
- Menus and prices
- Membership requirements
- The history of your organisation
The business/organisation information may additionally include:
- your logo
- a shopfront image
- supplied images
- a Google aerial map showing your location (for businesses and venues within Standish)
This information is volunteered by members of these organisations in several ways:
- Information may be requested, and sent, via email. We always ask the provider to provide only that information which they wish displayed on the website. We use the name and email address provided in the email as contact information
- A web form exists on the website (www.standish.org.uk/submit.php) which may be used to submit the relevant information. This includes both contact details and the information to be displayed.
- We have a PDF form which may be downloaded from the website (www.standish.org.uk/submit.php). This may be printed, filled in offline, and then either sent back to us, or collected by us. This form may also be downloaded and printed by ourselves, and distributed by hand throughout Standish.
Where there is any question over the data to be displayed, we will contact the relevant person (via the contact details given) and confirm the data is correct.
We will also endeavour to periodically contact the representative via the contact details (email, telephone, mail or in person) to enquire as to the continued accuracy of the information.
At any time a representative (whether it is the contact name or not) may contact us and request that the information be modified or removed. Once we have confirmed the authority of the representative, we will amend, expand, correct or remove the information as requested.
How Do We Use the Information We Collect?
Use of Automatically gathered Information
The information we gather automatically during your visit to our website is used in the following ways:
- Confirm that the website is operating correctly
- Modify and enhance the website
- Improve the content and design of our website
Use of Permission-based Information
The permission based information we require on our website is used to allow registered users to login on our websites. On our Standish Talk messageboard, only registered members may post messages. Anonymous messages could allow users with malicious intent to disrupt a messageboard, and therefore we require that users register before they may post. Registration is not necessary to read the articles on our Messageboard, but to post articles we require the user to Register.
Use of Submitted Information
Information submitted to the site will be displayed on the site under the relevant section. The intent of these sections is to promote Standish community organisations, commercial businesses which operate in Standish and the surrounding area, and internet website either relevant to Standish, based in Standish, or personal pages published by Standish residents. Submission of information is purely voluntary - we only display the information provided to us.
With Whom Will the Information Be Shared?
The personally identifiable information gathered during your visit to this website is not shared with any organization for any purpose. We do not rent, sell, exchange or in some way provide personally identifiable information to any third-party organization.
Access and Correction of Personal Information
Opt-out of Storage of Personal Information
Individuals may notify us that they wish to opt-out and prevent the storage of their personally identifiable information by sending an e-mail to that effect.
Review of Personal Information
Upon request we provide site visitors with access to all information (including proprietary information) that we maintain about them. This information will be provided free of charge as soon as possible (within 40 days).
How to Access and Correct Personal Information
Consumers can access and request correction to this information by sending us e-mail to that effect.
Our Use of Cookies
Many websites now use "cookies" to provide useful features to their visitors by providing customisable and personalized services.
A cookie is a small amount of data that is sent to your browser from a web server and stored on your computer's hard drive. For example, a website may use cookies to store and sometimes track information about you, your preferences, or the pages you last visited.
Your browser software can be set to reject all cookies, or to ask you if you would like to accept or decline a cookie from a particular site before it is set. Most browsers offer instructions on how to reset the browser to reject cookies in the Help section of the toolbar. You should know, however, that if you reject a cookie, certain functions and conveniences of a site may not work properly.
We use cookies on our website for the following purposes:
- Allow registered users to remain logged in on the messageboard, wiki and gallery applications.
Registration for Access
Some websites require you to provide some personal information through a registration process in order to take advantage of certain website features and to access content areas. For example, a registration form might request your name and e-mail address.
Visitors to our website can use the majority of this website anonymously, without registration, with exception of the messageboard, where all visitors may read the articles, but only registered users may post articles.
Registration for the messageboard requires only a name (or pseudonym) and a valid email address, and it requires the user to respond to an email automatically sent to the email address to confirm that the address is valid. Other information may be provided voluntarily, including, where applicable and available: ICQ Number; AIM Address; MSN Messenger; Yahoo Messenger; Website; Location; Occupation; and Interests. This voluntary information is not required for registration.
Registration will also require the entry of a CAPTCHA visual code, and may, if a higher level of security is required, a VIP code will need to be entered. This VIP code can be found, if needed, within the Rules, Regulations and Announcements forum, where it may be read without registration.
We also require that messageboard users read our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), which details what is required of members of the messageboard community. Registration implies that the registered user has read and understood this AUP.
The Standish Talk messageboard differs from both the Wiki and the Gallery, in that registration is open to anyone. Both the Standish Wiki and the Standish Gallery only allow registration by an administrator, to limit membership to trusted members of the community. This has been put in place to limit the possibility of vandalism by those outside the community. To register for access to these applications, it is required that potential members send us an e-mail.
Childrens' Privacy Policy
We are especially concerned about protecting the privacy of children. We hope parents and teachers are involved in children's Internet explorations. It is particularly important for parents to guide their children when children are asked to provide personal information on line.
Our site does not feature information and services of much interest to children 13 and under, and our messageboard registration is restricted to over 13s only. This is voluntary, but if we subsequently find that a member of our messageboard is under 13 they will be de-registered. This will not prevent them from reading posts, but will prevent them from posting to the website.
Security of Communications
We recognize that many people are concerned about the privacy and protection of information as it is transmitted over the Internet. You should keep in mind that the possibility exists for unauthorized individuals to intercept any email message you send over the Internet. In some cases, information can be encrypted (scrambled or encoded) to make it very difficult to read if it is intercepted during communication. Certain technology and practices allow websites to provide an increased level of security for your personal information when appropriate.
We use the following practices on our website to enhance the level of security for communication and the transmission of personal information:
We have taken reasonable steps to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of personally identifiable information that you may provide. Information is stored on a secure server, and access to all personal data is protected by secure password systems.
E-Commerce, On-line Donations, and Online Shopping
At this time, we do not process credit card payments for donations, merchandise, registration or services on our website, nor have we currently any plans to introduce them in the future.
Advertising Servers
On-line advertising, such as banner ads, has become commonplace on many websites. Certain websites have developed relationships with third-party advertising servers to display these advertisements on their sites. By clicking on one of these banner ads, you will be taken to another site with different privacy policies. These third party ad servers may also use cookies to collect non-personal information on your preferences and interests via the advertisement you decide to view.
At this time, we do not partner with or have special relationships with any advertising server companies, and we have no plans to change this policy. We have no "banner ads", and our website is totally funded by the domain owner.
Links to Other Sites
Websites often provide a number of links that offer direct access to other useful or interesting websites holding potential value to site visitors. Inclusion of the other sites by links does not imply any endorsement of the material or information on the other sites. Users are encouraged to review the privacy policy of each linked site before sharing personal information.
The Standish Wiki website includes links to many non-affiliated external websites. We have no control over theses websites, their content and their existence. We have the following practices:
[*]We encourage users to review the privacy policy of each linked site, as we cannot be responsible for the privacy practices of other sites. [*]We periodically check our external links for "linkrot" (links which connect to missing or removed pages), and will attempt to keep the content of our website accurate. We will also ask members of our community, whether registered or not, to assist us with this task.
Data Protection
There are eight principles put in place by the Data Protection Act 1998 to make sure that your information is handled properly.
They say that data must be:
- fairly and lawfully processed;
- processed for limited purposes;
- adequate, relevant and not excessive;
- accurate;
- not kept for longer than is necessary;
- processed in line with your rights;
- secure; and,
- not transferred to countries without adequate protection.
By law data controllers have to keep to these principles. The owner of The Standish websites is not on the public register with the Information Commissioner. This has been decided in discussion with the Office of the Information Commissioner, as the status of the website (and it's author), the content of the data, and the way in which the data is collected, makes us exempt from notification.
However, the principles listed above are still relevant for the handling of information, and therefore we aim to uphold all the principles listed above.
Changes in Our Privacy Policy
From time to time, we may use customer information for new, unanticipated uses not previously disclosed in our privacy notice. If our information practices change at some time in the future, we have the following practice:
Preference for Future Use of Information
We will post policy changes to our website, specifically the Standish Talk messageboard to notify you of these changes and provide you with the ability to opt out of these new uses. If you are concerned about how your information is used, you should check back at our website periodically. You may prevent your information from being used for purposes other than those for which it was originally collected by contacting us.
Website Contact Information
If you have questions about our privacy policy, or feel that this site is not following its stated information policy, please contact us via e-mail at steve@standish.org.uk.
Modification Date
This privacy statement was last modified at on 1st September 2008.
