Privacy policy

PRIVACY POLICY FOR @BAZBT3 🏡

Scroll down to the ‘Contact me’ section below if you have any issue that needs addressing. I’ll try my best to fix things – if I believe the request is genuine.1

Introduction:

Laws have been passed and/or enacted in the European Union and United Kingdom over the last few years attempting to ensure the Internet is safe for all users. Some have matured as time has passed and are therefore easy to follow, and others are not, causing honest people to question whether it’s worth maintaining any kind of online presence in the face of well-meaning but poorly-drafted legislation.

Because I can’t afford a fine of any size I’ve turned comments off and tried to ensure that nothing in my blog breaks the laws I am subject to. There should be enough within this short2 document to outline how I collect, use, and at least attempt to protect your data.

You should probably read all of this document late at night if:

  • You want to check for loopholes and inconsistencies. Contact me if you find any.
  • You’re struggling to go to sleep, I’ve made no attempt to introduce brevity.

2 laws in isolation:

The EU general data protection regulation (GDPR):

This is pretty simple.

  • I do not operate a business. I’m nevertheless acting as my own informal data registrar (if that’s the right term).
  • Comments are disabled.
  • The site records IP addresses of every visitor, however they are used only to block a small range of countries that perform intrusion attempts. I don’t care if you spoof your location provided you are just here to read stuff.
The UK Online Safety Act:

As a work in progress, with the regulatory body scrabbling to formulate policies, this one isn’t at all simple. However I’ve completed one risk assessment, my summary of which is that:

  • I do not operate a business, moreover nothing here is intended ever to be monetised3 and I don’t have any delusions that the words or images are worth licensing,
  • I am the only content creator using this service and do not foresee that changing,
  • Though some of my posts explore challenging themes I do not believe any material in my blog contravenes this law,
  • Visitors can not make comments that would be stored at this site, so the risk of harmful, unlawful material is negligible,
  • The linked photo gallery is intended to be accessible only by my family.

Data collection and usage:

The only data I collect is that you willingly provide. This includes:

  • Stuff going on behind the scenes which uses digital cookies to track your visits to improve my experience. Feel free to block them completely. My ultimate aim is to remove them but for now some of the plugins protect my site from unwanted intrusions – WordPress exploits, repeated attempts to sign in as an administrator, etc.
  • As no-one has ever expressed an interest in any statistics collected by the WordPress blog and the plugins I’ve installed it’s unlikely I will ever share any data from my logs with anyone except law enforcement bodies, but only if they produce a warrant or a method of convincing me the request is actually lawful.

Your Rights:

This one is pretty obvious; you have the right to ask me:

  • To rectify any typos or mistakes that affect either the meaning of the words I’ve written as it affects you, or looks unfavourably on a protected class in law. I’d be happy to rectify or discuss rectifying anything you find.
  • What data I have about you. I’ll tell you, probably in my usual long-winded fashion. You’ll probably have to let me know your IP address – I think that’s the only thing the blog infrastructure collects.
  • To erase you from my site. Tricky. I try to not post personally identifiable information unless it’s about a public figure. Public figures usually have far more money to spend than I to legally address the perception that words written about them have damaged their public image.

Security:

The blog data is stored in a remote password-protected computer. There’s no such thing as perfect security but 2-factor login authentication probably helps.

Changes to this policy:

I’ll update this document when I remember to. As I’m unlikely to post a log of changes you’ll have to revisit occasionally.

Contact Me:

If you have any questions or just want to chat, you can reach me using the Mastodon link at the bottom of every page on my site.

Footnotes!

  1. I am a fan of the Cleveland Browns professional American Football team. Being a fan of that particular team opens one up to all manner of insults and attempts at ridicule – a lot of which are warranted. So be aware I have limits.
  2. It started off short. Sorry.
  3. That said, I wrote a book once. It’s not great but it’s a book. I used the writing exercise mainly to find out how many words I can write semi-coherently before running out of patience. It transpires that, though I reached a decent conclusion I have no practical upper limit.