Privacy Policy

Last updated: 25 Feb 2024

Summary

Privacy policies are necessary, but terribly dry. So here’s is a quick summary:

  • We do not monetize our content, use paid ads, or sell any user data.
  • We only collect as little information possible from users to allow them to log in and comment, and to learn and improve how the blog is found and used.
  • We only share data with third parties as necessary to fight spam, improve network access and gather statistics.
  • Our server is in Australia, some of our providers are in other countries, and you might be in yet another country; so your data might be sent across international borders.
  • When you interact with other sites (like YouTube or FaceBook) through this blog, those sites’ privacy policies come into play too, so be aware of them – though we still try to protect you.

The full policy

Who we are

This is Horacio’s blog on kizomba, at https://discoveringkizomba.com. For matters related to this privacy policy, you can contact me at the email address privacy at discoveringkizomba dot com.

What personal data do we collect and why?

User profiles and notifications

When a visitor creates an account or user profile, we gather their email, username, names, password and preferences, so that they can log back in in the future and control their interactions with the site.
If the user requests it, we will also use their email to send updates and notifications.

We do not process sensitive information (health data, etc).

We do not knowingly collect data from minors, nor market to them; if we find that personal information from minors has been collected, we’ll delete it.

We use Google Analytics to record information about the pages a user has seen, for example the URL of the page, time of day, device used, etc.

Comments, forms and polls

When visitors leave comments on the site, or fill a form or poll, we collect the data shown in the form (emails, usernames, passwords, names) to publish it, plus the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection and to set limitations.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to get your user profile picture, if you use 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.

Media uploads

If you upload files to the website, you should avoid including personal data, like (e.g.) when uploading any images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website might download and extract any location data from images on the website.

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 visit our login page, 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.

Google Analytics mainly uses first-party cookies to report on visitor interactions on this website.


You may disable cookies or delete any individual cookie from your browser settings tab, though this might disable part of the functionality of the blog.


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.

In particular, we use YouTube video embeds and Google Calendar widgets, plus the already mentioned Gravatar.

How we handle your social logins

If you use the ability to register / log in using your third-party social media account details (like your Facebook or Instagram logins), we will receive certain profile information about you from your social media provider. The information we receive may vary depending on the social media provider concerned, but will often include your name, email address, friends list, and profile picture, as well as other information you choose to make public on such a social media platform.

We will use the information we receive only for the purposes that are described in this privacy notice. Please note that we do not control, and are not responsible for, other uses of your personal information by your third-party social media provider. We recommend that you review their privacy notice to understand how they collect, use, and share your personal information, and how you can set your privacy preferences on their sites and apps.

Who we share your data with

If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.

If you leave a comment, others user might receive notifications about your comment and username.

Our anti-spam plugin Akismet collects information about visitors who comment on sites that use their service. The information they collect includes the commenter’s IP address, user agent, referrer, and Site URL (along with other information directly provided by the commenter such as their name, username, email address, and the comment itself). Their privacy policy can be found here: https://automattic.com/privacy/.

For internet infrastructure, we use Cloudflare and Stablepoint’s services.

Google Analytics’ collected information is anonymized and sent to Google, which also collects Internet Protocol (IP) addresses to provide and protect the security of the service, and to give website owners a sense of which country, state, or city in the world their users come from (also known as “IP geolocation”). See this page for Google Analytics security and usage of data: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245

We have Data Processing Agreements in place with these providers to ensure that we all comply with our obligations in regard to your privacy.


How long we retain your data

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

For users that register on our website, 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 own username – but you can contact us for that). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

Analytics data is retained indefinitely.

How we keep your information safe

We aim to protect your personal information by appropriate and reasonable technical and organizational security measures, including minimization of the amount of information we collect to begin with.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, 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 and data from forms or polls might be shown publicly and may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

Our server is in Australia, some of our providers are in other countries, and you might be located in yet another country; so your data might be sent across international borders, including to the USA.