Privacy Policy

In accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules, the following explains how I comply. This affects anyone who has given me their email address when emailing me directly.

As the rules have been designed for large organisations, there isn’t much guidance for us writerly-types. If you believe I should be doing more, please let me know.

The information I hold:
Email addresses of people who have emailed me directly and to whom I have replied are automatically saved in my ‘virginmedia’ email account.
Email addresses of people who signed up to my mailing list via the now deleted opt-in link on my website – these are held in Mailchimp.

Your privacy is very important to me – none of this information is shared with anyone.

Communicating privacy information:
This document is on my website, clearly marked in the navigation section at the top of the page.
There is a link on my website ‘Contact’ page.

Individual’s rights:
On request, I will delete data.
The ‘blog subscription’ is no longer offered, but those who did sign up and wish to unsubscribe, will be automatically deleted from the Mailchimp list.

Subject access requests:
I aim to respond to all requests within 24 hours.

Lawful basis for processing data:
If people have emailed me, they have given me their email address. I do not actively add it to a list, but it is automatically saved in my ‘virginmedia’ email.

Consent:
I do not regard ‘consent’ as ongoing and definite. To this end, I will remind subscribers that they can unsubscribe at any time or ask for their data to be removed.

Data breaches:
My computer, my ‘virginmedia’ account, Squarespace, Google and Mailchimp accounts are strongly password-protected. I am the only one who has knowledge of my passwords. If any of the organisations mentioned were compromised, I would take steps to follow their advice immediately.

Data Protection Officers:
As I am the owner and sole user of my website, the responsibility of ‘data protection’ is mine alone.

International:
My lead data protection supervisory authority is the UK’s ICO.