This privacy policy sets out how christmasvillages.co.uk uses and protects any information that you may provide when using this website.
christmasvillages.co.uk is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified when using this website, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy statement.
christmasvillages.co.uk may change this policy from time to time by updating this page. You should check this page periodically to ensure that you are happy with any changes. This current policy version came into effect on 19 March 2022.
Who we are
christmasvillages.co.uk is part of a small network of websites, collectively operating under the trading name of BuzzNet.
Our website address is: https://www.christmasvillages.co.uk.
What we collect
We may collect the following information:
- Name
- Contact information including email address
- Demographic information such as postcode, preferences and interests
- Statistical data detailing how you engage with this website
- Other information relevant to customer surveys and/or offers
How we collect the information
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 is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Contact information, including email addresses obtained in this manner will never be used for marketing purposes and will only be used should you explicitly request and consent to it.
Contact forms
When you make use of a contact form to make an enquiry, you will be asked to provide a name, email address and your message. You will always be asked to provide your consent to the use of the submitted data, for the sole purpose of responding to your query. Contact forms make use of Akismet spam detection (see below).
Cookies
This site uses cookies – small text files that are placed on your machine to help the site provide a better user experience. In general, cookies are used to retain user preferences, store information for things like shopping carts, and provide anonymised tracking data to third party applications like Google Analytics.
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 sensitive 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.
Cookie Control
We classify cookies as those which are strictly necessary and those which are not. Strictly necessary cookies are those which are essential to the proper function of the website. They help maintain security and protect data, as well as making it possible to display the website in a manner appropriate to the device you are using to access it. Strictly necessary cookies do not require user consent and are enabled by default.
Other cookies are those utilised by third parties that are not strictly necessary. These include those used for analytics and advertising purposes. These can help us to maintain, monitor and improve our website to deliver the best possible service to the user. We will always seek your consent before setting these types of cookies. You may opt in to these cookies by clicking on the ‘ok, thanks’ button in the cookie notification bar that is displayed to new users when they first visit the website. You can change your mind at any time by clicking on the settings cog at the bottom of the page to review and change your cookies settings.
You may delete, block, clear and manage cookies of all types and across all websites via your browser settings. Here are instructions to manage cookies in Chrome. Other browsers will also have settings to manage cookies.
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. Wherever possible, we make use of enhanced privacy settings to provide cookieless embedded video content.
Analytics
We use Google Analytics to gather statistical data on this website. We may gather information including demographic data, what type of device you use to access our website, which pages you view and the time spent viewing them.
Google uses Google Analytics data to provide this service. Identifiers such as cookies are used to measure user interactions with the websites, while IP addresses are used to provide and protect the security of the service, and to give the customer a sense of where in the world their users come from.
Here you can find more information on how Google safeguards the data they receive and also the cookies they use to provide the analytics service.
Advertising
The main provider of advertising on this website is Google Adsense. If you have accepted the use of optional cookies on this website, you may be shown personalised advertising delivered by Google. Personalised adverts are those which are tailored to your interests, based on your browsing history. You can view the full list of networks used by Google to display personalised advertising on this website at the bottom of this page. We also provide a link to the privacy statement of each of these networks.
Non-personalised advertising from Google and others may also be shown. Non-personalised ads do not rely upon the collection or use of personal data when delivering their advertising services. They may however still make use of cookies for things like combatting fraud and abuse, frequency capping, and aggregated ad reporting. You can find out more about Google’s uses of information, and how you can control the information they collect on the link provided. You can also find detailed information on the cookies used by Google and also the various domains used to set cookies used in their advertising products.
What we do with the information we gather
We require this information to understand your needs and provide you with a better service, and in particular for the following reasons:
- Internal record keeping.
- We may use the information to improve our products and services.
- If you subscribe to our mailing list, we may periodically send promotional emails about new products, special offers or other information which we think you may find interesting using the email address which you have provided.
- From time to time, we may also use your information to contact you for market research purposes. We may contact you by email. We may use the information to customise the website according to your interests.
Who we share your data with
In addition to the parties already mentioned above, we may share your data with the following services.
Cloudflare:
Cloudflare is a Content Delivery Network (CDN). A CDN is a system of distributed servers (network) that deliver pages and other web content to a user, based on the geographic locations of the user, the origin of the webpage and the content delivery server. Essentially, Cloudflare provides an extra layer of security that protects our website from threats and speeds up delivery of our content. They use cookies to provide this service, identified as _cfduid. More information may be found on the Cloudflare Privacy Policy page.
Dropbox:
Dropbox is a cloud storage, file hosting service. We use Dropbox to store backups of our website data, including some user data. This ensures that we are able to restore services and data in the event a website server failure or damage to the database. Dropbox is a storage facility only and does not have access to any data we may store there. More information about how Dropbox safeguards the files they store can be found in the Dropbox Privacy Policy.
Akismet:
Akismet is a spam detection service. They collect information about visitors who comment on sites using Akismet anti-spam service, including ours. 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). Akismet is operated by Automattic (see above for link to their privacy policy).
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.
Google retains our analytics user data for a period of 26 months. If the user doesn’t initiate a new session before the retention period expires, then that user’s data is deleted. If a user initiates a new session, then that user’s identifier is refreshed and will not expire.
Backup data files are stored with Dropbox on a weekly basis. We keep a copy for each of the last two weeks. At this point they are replaced with an updated backup file and the oldest file is deleted.
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.
Please email us at [email protected] should you wish to access or delete your data.
Where we send your data
We use Media Temple as our web hosting provider. Media Temple is a subsidiary of Go Daddy Operating Company LLC. Our servers are located in California, USA. Dropbox is also based in California, USA. Both these and Google Analytics involve sending data outside the European Union.
Each of these services are participants in and are certificated by the EU-U.S. and the Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield Privacy Shield Framework. You can learn more about the privacy shield at https://www.privacyshield.gov/ and view the certificates here.
Contact
Should you have any questions or concerns about privacy please email us at [email protected]
What data breach procedures we have in place
We have multiple layers of security in place to ensure the safeguarding of any data we store. We do not store any sensitive personal data. We use monitoring and internal reporting systems to alert us to any possible security threats. We also employ best practices to ensure staff maintain data security. In the unlikely event of a data breach, all affected users would be contacted by email where one has been provided to us, outlining the nature of the breach, recommendations on any steps you should take and how we intend to rectify the breach.
