Principles
We are committed to maintaining the privacy and security of any personal data you provide to us. We operate with a “data minimalist” principle, collecting the minimum amount of data required to provide our services efficiently. We use that data only for the purposes for which it was collected. We do not sell, rent, distribute, or make public your personal information.
What Information We Collect and How We Use It
Overview
In order to provide our services, we collect a combination of personal data you voluntarily provide, such as name and email address, and data collected automatically form web browsers, mobile devices, and servers, such as IP address, browser type, unique device identifiers, language preference, referring site, date and time of access, operating system,and mobile network information.
We do not collect any sensitive personal information. Sensitive data refers to data that includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data.
We use WordPress as our content provider and third-party tools to provide additional functionality.
Cookies
This site may log information using cookies, which are small data files stored on your browser, or web beacons or similar technology that place pieces of code on your computer. The types of cookies used are:
- Technical or essential cookies are necessary to enable you to move around the site. These cookies collect no personal identification information and you cannot opt out of them.
- Performance cookies collect information about how visitors use the site, for instance which pages visitors go to most. These cookies don’t collect information that identifies a visitor. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. It is only used to improve how a website works.
- Functionality cookies allow the site to remember choices a visitor makes and provide more personalized features. For example, when you comment on a post functionality cookies save your name, email address, and URL if provided to allow you to make a future comment on the site without re-entering all the data.
This site does not currently use targeting or advertising cookies. These type of cookies are used to deliver ads more relevant to you and your interests, limit the number of times you see an ad on a site, and share information between sites and advertisers in order to measure campaign effectiveness and calculate commissions. Should this site start using these type of cookies through the introduction of affiliate links or direct advertising, this privacy policy will be updated.
Tip: If you’d to like to delete cookies across all websites you visit, you can set your browser to do so. Visit the help pages of your web browser to find out how to do this.
Please note, however, that if you delete cookies or refuse to accept them, you may not be able to store your preferences and some pages may not display properly.
Specific Data Collected
Site Visitation Tracking
Like most sites, this site uses Google Analytics (GA) to collect internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns, such as the number of pages visited. We use the information to find out what parts of the site are being visited and with what frequency. GA records non-personally identifiable data such as geographic location (country), device, internet browser and operating system. GA also captures IP address, but it is anonymized and the full address is not stored. This data is currently stored for 26 months. The data is processed in such a way that it does not identify specific persons. We view reports of aggregated data.
GA uses cookies to distinguish unique users. Details can be found on Google’s developers guides.
Tip: Website users who don’t want their data collected with Google Analytics can install the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. To opt-out of Analytics for the web, visit the Google Analytics opt-out page. Note that if you do that, statistics this site collects on number of users and pages visited will not include your visits.
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection. Your email address is never publicly displayed. 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.
We use the Jetpack service to help us manage comments. It sets functionality cookies to remember the name, email address, and website you’ve entered so you need not re-enter that information when you make subsequent comments on our site. Information on Jetpack cookies can be found here.
We use Akismet to check for spam. Commenter’s name, email address, site URL, IP address, internet browser and operating system are sent to the service for that purpose.
Your comment and its associated personal data is stored on this site until we see fit to either delete the comment or remove the blog post. Should you wish to have the comment and its associated personal data deleted, please contact us here.
Tip: The entire text of your comment itself is publicly displayed. Avoid entering personally identifiable information in the actual comment field.
Subscribe to New Posts or New Comments
If you select options on the site to receive email notifications when new blog posts are published we collect and store your email address. You will then receive an email each time a new blog post is published. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe option in the email.
When you comment on a post, you have the option to receive notification when other comments are made on that post. If you select that option, we collect and store your email address. You will then receive an email each time a new comment is made on that particular post. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe option in the email.
We use the Jetpack service to help us manage subscriptions. It sets functionality cookies to remember the state of post and comment subscription boxes. Information on Jetpack cookies can be found here.
Contact Forms
Should you choose to contact us using the contact form on our Contact page, we collect and store the contact form content along with your email address, name, URL if provided, IP address, and the date and time the contact form was submitted. We manually delete contact queries and their associated personal data after one year.
We use Akismet to check for spam. Name, email address, site URL, IP address, internet browser and operating system is sent to the service for that purpose.
Your query and its associated personal data is stored on this site. Should you wish to have the query and its associated personal data deleted, please contact us here.
Share Buttons
We encourage you to share our posts on social media and have included sharing buttons on the site to make it easy for you to do so. This is made possible through the use of widgets installed on our site. The widgets are pieces of code, supplied by the social media platform, that allow the passing of information to their site. They allow you to see the number of shares and to share our web pages. Please keep in mind that whenever you click on the link to a social media platform, Twitter, Facebook, GooglePlus, Pinterest, etc., their respective Cookie and Data Privacy Policy will apply.
Newsletters
We use Mailchimp to create and deliver our monthly newsletters. If you choose to sign up for our newsletters, the name and email address you provide will be forwarded to Mailchimp and will be stored there for as long as we continue to use their services or until you request removal from their list by unsubscribing using the unsubscribe links contained in the email newsletters or contacting us to be removed from the list.
How We Store Data
We store personal data related to comments you’ve submitted, contact forms you’ve submitted, and subscriptions you’ve opted into on this website. The data is currently stored in an identifiable fashion: a limitation of the content management system this website is built on (WordPress). In the future we hope to change the storage of this data to a pseudonymous fashion meaning the data would require additional processing using a separately stored “key” before it can be used to identify an individual.
This website is hosted by Northern Computer Solutions in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
How We Share Data
We use a number of carefully-chosen third parties to process data on our behalf. We share with them the data necessary for them to provide the functionality they deliver.
- Google Analytics
Information about visitor activity is sent to and stored at Google Analytics. This includes anonymized IP address, geographic location (country), device, internet browser and operating system, page visited and date/time stamps. Data is kept for 26 months. See Google’s privacy policy. - Automattic
We use Automattic’s Jetpack and Akismet services as outlined in the section on what information we collect. Information stored on our site when you comment or send us a contact query (names, email address, URL, comment or query text, comment or query date/timestamp) is synched with Jetpack’s server. Name, email address, site URL, IP address, internet browser and operating system are sent to the Akismet service for the sole purpose of spam checking. A hash of a commenter’s email address is sent to the Gravatar service (also owned by Automattic) in order to retrieve their profile image. See Automattic’s privacy policy. - Mailchimp
We use Mailchimp to deliver our monthly newsletters. Mailchimp collects and stores your name and email address. See Mailchimp’s privacy policy.
We may disclose personal information to other bodies if required to do so by law or to protect our legal rights.
Links to Other Sites
This site contains links to other sites not operated by us. If you click one of these links, you will be directed to that site. We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy polices or practices of any third party sites or services. We advise you to review the privacy policy of every site you visit.
Children
We do not knowingly collect any personally identifiable information from children under the age of 16. If a parent or guardian believes that the Website has personally identifiable information of a child under the age of 16 in its database, please contact us immediately. We will use our best efforts to promptly remove such information from our records.
Controlling Your Data
You can unsubscribe to comments, new post notifications, or newsletters at any time by selecting the unsubscribe button in the email or contacting us. You have the right to have access to your personal data on our sight and to ask us to change or delete it. Contact us with any queries or requests regarding your personal data.
Contact Information
If you have any questions about this policy or would like to make a request regarding your personal data on our site, contact us here.
This Privacy Policy was last updated June 1, 2018.