If you subscribe to my blog, website or newsletter, email me, or contact me on social media (or if you have already done any of these things), please read this notice. The general information about website security, links to third party websites and use of cookies applies to all visitors. This policy was last updated on 25 May 2018.

New General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) come into force on 25th May 2018. Although they are designed primarily for large organisations, and I am an individual, I do take your privacy extremely seriously. I only ever ask you for the information I need, and I will never sell lists or email addresses or share them with anyone else.

Who we are

Our website address is: https://www.dawnbrookespublishing.com.

What personal data we collect and why we collect it

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.

An anonymised 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.

Contact forms/Subscription

If you contact me via the contact form on my website or email me directly, I will simply reply, relying on lawful basis of processing (in other words, I will not ask for your consent before replying). I will not enter your details on any database without your consent, but your name and email address will automatically be stored as a ‘contact’ within my email account. I may also store the email/email chain if it contains details I think I may need to refer back to, especially if it contains a review of my work.

By subscribing to my newsletter you consent to receiving details of newsworthy events and incidental information, which may include but will not be limited to a free ebook, details of new releases, special offers, competitions and giveaways. I do not store your personal information. Instead, my list of newsletter subscribers is managed on a third party site called MailChimp. When you sign up to my newsletter, you consent that I can:

  • Transfer your contact information to MailChimp
  • Store you contact information in my MailChimp account
  • Send you newsletters/emails from my MailChimp account
  • Track interactions (e.g., click and open rates) for email marketing purposes.

All MailChimp forms collect your email address, IP address, and add their own timestamp which serves as evidence that you have provided consent. I do not have access to the distribution lists of other MailChimp users and they do not have access to mine. If you subscribe to my newsletter and use the ‘forward to a friend’ (FTF) link, this will allow you to share my email content with individuals who are not on my Distribution List. You can be assured that when you forward an email to a friend, MailChimp doesn’t store your friend’s email address, and it will not be added to my distribution list.

Read MailChimp’s Privacy Policy here.

In order to demonstrate that you have opted to sign up to my newsletter, after you fill in your details, you will receive an email asking you to confirm your subscription. You can unsubscribe at any time. All emails will provide an unsubscribe option within the email.

Requests for Review Copies of Books

I have recently started to use a service provided by Bookfunnel to send free ebooks as review copies to those who request them. Bookfunnel do not receive any of your personal information from me – I send you the link to where the book’s file is stored on their server, and you use the link to download the free book in the format of your choice. Here is Bookfunnel’s privacy policy.

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.

If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

If you wish to restrict or block Cookies, you can do this through your browser settings. The ‘Help’ feature within your web browser should tell you how. Alternatively, you may wish to visit www.aboutcookies.org, which contains comprehensive information on how to manage privacy and security settings on a wide variety of web browsers and how to delete cookies from your computer (including those from this visit). For information on how to do this on your mobile device, you will need to refer to its user guide.

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 tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Analytics

This website uses Google Analytics to gather data about user interests.

How long we retain your data

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

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data I hold about you, including any data you have provided. 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.

Website security

My website is managed by WordPress.com, which backs up information held on my website and runs regular security scans. My website has an SSL Certificate. This activates the padlock and https protocol and allows secure connections from a web server to a browser. Typically, SSL is used to secure credit card transactions (although I don’t conduct sales from my website), data transfer and logins, and more recently is becoming the norm when securing browsing of social media sites.

Data breaches

I use strong password-protecting on my computer, website and social media. If my computer, website or social media accounts were compromised, I would notify you at the earliest opportunity, seek advice and take steps to follow that advice immediately.

Additional information

How I protect your data

I use the Wordfence plugin to protect the website from hackers, although this does not guarantee that the site will not be hacked.

What third parties I receive data from

Social Media

If you comment on my social media accounts or on You Tube, records of those transactions will be held by the relevant social media channels.  I have access to databases of followers on Twitter and Facebook. In these instances, I am not the data processor. However, I use strong passwords on these sites.

What automated decision making and/or profiling we do with user data

Industry regulatory disclosure requirements

Plugin: Smush

Smush sends images to the WPMU DEV servers to optimize them for web use. This includes the transfer of EXIF data. The EXIF data will either be stripped or returned as it is. It is not stored on the WPMU DEV servers.

Smush uses a third-party email service (Drip) to send informational emails to the site administrator. The administrator’s email address is sent to Drip and a cookie is set by the service. Only administrator information is collected by Drip.

Links to other websites

My website, blog posts and newsletters contain links to other websites. Once you use these links, you will leave my website. I am not responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites. Please exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question. I do use carefully selected affiliate links on my websites and if you click on these links you will leave my website as already mentioned.