Privacy Policy

Visual Snow Man is committed to safeguarding your privacy. By using this site you consent to the Processing of your Personal Data as described in this Privacy Policy.

Information collected while operating this website is used for non-commercial purposes and to ensure optimal operation for this website. Personally-identifying information is not generally shared with third parties as outlined below. In certain instances non-personally-identifying information may be shared with third parties for purposes relating to visual snow research.

Who we are

Visual Snow Man is a non-profit website owned by a private individual.

Our website address is: https://visualsnowman.com.

Contact information

Neil Salata

neil@visualsnowman.com

What personal data we collect and why we collect it

Certain visitors to Visual Snow Man choose to interact with the website in ways that require us to gather personally-identifying information. The amount and type of information that Visual Snow Man gathers depends on the nature of the interaction. In each case, Visual Snow Man collects such information only insofar as is necessary or appropriate to fulfill the purpose of the visitor’s interaction with Visual Snow Man. Visual Snow Man does not disclose personally-identifying information other than as described below. And visitors can always refuse to supply personally-identifying information, with the caveat that it may prevent them from engaging in certain website-related activities.

We Process your Personal Data in order to fulfil obligation rising from law and/or use your Personal Data for options provided by law. We reserve the right to anonymise Personal Data gathered and to use any such data. We will use data outside the scope of this Policy only when it is anonymised.

We might process your Personal Data for additional purposes that are not mentioned here, but are compatible with the original purpose for which the data was gathered. To do this, we will ensure that:

• the link between purposes, context and nature of Personal Data is suitable for further Processing;
• the further Processing would not harm your interests and
• there would be appropriate safeguard for Processing.

We will inform you of any further Processing and purposes.

Information you have provided us with
We save the information you provide us with in order for you to comment or perform other activities on the website. This information includes, for example, your name and e-mail address.

Information automatically collected about you
This includes information that is automatically stored by cookies and other session tools. For example, your IP address. This information is used to improve your visitor experience. When you use our services or look at the contents of our website, your activities may be logged.

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.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Contact forms

If you submit a contact form, the submissions are retained for communication purposes, but we do not use the information submitted through them for marketing purposes.

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.

We use cookies and/or similar technologies to analyse visitor behaviour, administer the website, track users’ movements, and to collect information about users. This is done in order to personalise and enhance your experience with us.

A cookie is a tiny text file stored on your computer. Cookies store information that is used to help make sites work. Only we can access the cookies created by our website. You can control your cookies at the browser level. Choosing to disable cookies may hinder your use of certain functions.

Email subscriptions

With your consent we Process your Personal Data to communicate with you via email newsletters.

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 and the Jetpack plugin owned by Automattic to measure traffic on our website. Google has their own Privacy Policy which you can review here. If you’d like to opt out of tracking by Google Analytics, visit the Google Analytics opt-out page. You can review the Automattic privacy policy here.

Who we share your data with

We do not share your Personal Data with strangers. We disclose your Personal Data to third parties or public officials when we are legally obliged to do so. We might disclose your Personal Data to third parties if you have consented to it or if there are other legal grounds for it. Any data shared in the interests of visual snow research is anonymised or shared with your consent.

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 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.

1. Right to information – meaning you have to right to know whether your Personal Data is being processed; what data is gathered, from where it is obtained and why and by whom it is processed.
2. Right to access – meaning you have the right to access the data collected from/about you. This includes your right to request and obtain a copy of your Personal Data gathered.
3. Right to rectification – meaning you have the right to request rectification or erasure of your Personal Data that is inaccurate or incomplete.
4. Right to erasure – meaning in certain circumstances you can request for your Personal Data to be erased from our records.
5. Right to restrict processing – meaning where certain conditions apply, you have the right to restrict the Processing of your Personal Data.
6. Right to object to processing – meaning in certain cases you have the right to object to Processing of your Personal Data, for example in the case of direct marketing.
7. Right to object to automated Processing – meaning you have the right to object to automated Processing, including profiling; and not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated Processing. This right you can exercise whenever there is an outcome of the profiling that produces legal effects concerning or significantly affecting you.
8. Right to data portability – you have the right to obtain your Personal Data in a machine-readable format or if it is feasible, as a direct transfer from one Processor to another.
9. Right to lodge a complaint – in the event that we refuse your request under the Rights of Access, we will provide you with a reason as to why. If you are not satisfied with the way your request has been handled please contact us.
10. Right for the help of supervisory authority – meaning you have the right for the help of a supervisory authority and the right for other legal remedies such as claiming damages.
11. Right to withdraw consent – you have the right withdraw any given consent for Processing of your Personal Data.

Where we send your data

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

Additional information

How we protect your data

We promise to follow the following data protection principles:

• Processing is lawful, fair, transparent. Our Processing activities have lawful grounds. We always consider your rights before Processing Personal Data. We will provide you information regarding Processing upon request.
• Processing is limited to the purpose. Our Processing activities fit the purpose for which Personal Data was gathered.
• Processing is done with minimal data. We only gather and Process the minimal amount of Personal Data required for any purpose.
• Processing is limited with a time period. We will not store your personal data for longer than needed.
• We will do our best to ensure the accuracy of data.
• We will do our best to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of data.

What data breach procedures we have in place

We do our best to keep your Personal Data safe.  We use safe protocols for communication and transferring data (such as HTTPS). We allow anonymising and pseudonymising where suitable. We monitor our systems for possible vulnerabilities and attacks.

Even though we try our best we can not guarantee the security of information. However, we promise to notify suitable authorities of data breaches. We will also notify you if there is a threat to your rights or interests. We will do everything we reasonably can to prevent security breaches and to assist authorities should any breaches occur.

If you have an account with us, note that you have to keep your password secret.