Who we are
Our website address is: https://www.karendoherty.com.
If you have given us your email address (by emailing us, buying something from our website or subscribing to our website, for example) you should read this to reassure yourself that we are looking after your data responsibly.
If any website visitors understand these rules better than us and believe there is something else we should be doing, please don’t hesitate to let us know. We value the security of your information extremely highly and will never intentionally breach the rules. However, the rules are designed for large organisations and most authors are sole traders just doing our best to keep up.
Our use of cookies, analytics tracking, and more technical issues related to this website and data collection is addressed fully in our Site Terms, Cookies and Privacy Policy.
Our lead data protection supervisory authority is the UK’s ICO so in order to create this document we consulted the UK ICO booklet, “Preparing for the General Data Protection Regulation – 12 Steps to Take Now”.
What personal data we collect and why we collect it
Name and email address
Email addresses of people who have emailed us via our contact form and to whom we have replied – automatically saved in our Gmail account – collected only for the purposes of replying to emails.
We do not share this information with anyone, unless specifically indicated and when explicit consent has been given by the message sender, or in the highly unlikely event that we are legally obliged to do so.
If someone randomly asks for another person’s email address, unless both are known closely to us, we will always check with the other person first.
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 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 may be visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Comment form 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.
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
We use Google Analytics to monitor traffic levels, search queries and visits to this website.
Google Analytics stores IP addresses anonymously on its servers in the US, and neither we nor Google can associate your IP address with any personally identifiable information. To find out more please visit: How Google uses data when you use our partners’ sites or apps
Who we share your data with
We never share your name or email with anybody unless legally obliged to do so.
How long we retain your data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its 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 (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
Since version 4.9.6 upwards WordPress core has provided a tool to assist website owners comply with GDPR requirements. 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 we send your data
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
If someone asked to see their data stored via Gmail we will take a screenshot of their email entry/entries.
If they unsubscribe themselves from a Mailchimp list, their data is automatically deleted.
Contact information
If you require any more information or have any questions about our privacy policy, please feel free to contact us by email at karen@karendoherty.com
Additional information
When you click on links to books and make a purchase on this site this may result in us earning a small commission. Please see our Privacy Policy for our full affiliate disclosure.
Subject access requests
We aim to respond to all requests within 72 hours and usually much sooner.
Lawful basis for processing data
If people have emailed us, they have given us their email address, and usually, their names. We do not actively add it to a list but Gmail will save it automatically. We will not add it to any database or spreadsheet unless someone asks us to or gives us explicit and detailed permission.
If people have opted into our Mailchimp list they have actively opted in, in the knowledge that they will receive the following:
- Occasional newsletters and occasional bits of news based on blog posts on website
- Each newsletter will remind users (again) that they can unsubscribe at any time
Children
Young people sometimes email us but we don’t know their age unless they tell us – and we only have their word for that. We would not deliberately keep their email address (but Gmail would save it in our account.) Since we are not “processing” their data, we are not required to ask for parental consent. We might reply to the email, but will not actively contact them again.
Data breaches
We have done everything we can to prevent this, by strongly password-protecting our computers, mobile devices, Gmail, Mailchimp, Dropbox, Hostgator and VaultPress accounts, and using two-factor verification where available. If any of those organisations were compromised we would take steps to follow their advice immediately. Our website is hosted by Hostgator and is protected using SSL (Secure Socket Layer) technology. SSL is the industry standard method of encrypting personal information. Access to back end website management is also protected by strong passwords and two-factor verification.
Communicating privacy information
We have put this document on our website with a link from our contact page, in the footer, and in our existing privacy policy.