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.

Cookies

Like many online businesses we use cookies to improve user experience. Cookies are small pieces of information sent by a web server to a web browser which allows the server to uniquely identify the browser on each page. We use the following categories of cookies on our website:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

These cookies are essential in order to enable you to move around the website and use its features. Without these cookies, services you have asked for such as remembering your preferences cannot be provided.

Performance Cookies

These cookies collect anonymous information on how people use our website. For example, we use Google Analytics cookies to help us understand how customers arrive at our site, browse or use our site and highlight areas where we can improve areas such as navigation and functionality. The data stored by these cookies never show personal details from which your individual identity can be established.

Removing cookies

If you want to delete any cookies that are already on your computer, please refer to the help and support area on your internet browser for instructions on how to locate the file or directory that stores cookies. Please note that by deleting our cookies or disabling future cookies you may not be able to access certain areas or features of our site. To find out more about cookies please visit: www.allaboutcookies.org or see www.youronlinechoices.eu which contains further information about behavioural advertising and online privacy.

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.

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.

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 we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Where your data is sent

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