This policy is reviewed and updated periodically – last updated on 19 Oct 2019.
What is this privacy policy for?
This privacy policy is for the use of this website served by the Quartet of Nations Region 31 of Sweet Adelines International. It governs the privacy of the users who choose to use the website. It sets out the different areas where personal information is collected, stored and used.
Who are we?
The Quartet of Nations Region 31 is an authorised region of Sweet Adelines International. It administers and oversees the activities which fulfil the mission of Sweet Adelines International in the United Kingdom and Netherlands. As part of an international organisation, our commitment to protecting your privacy is set by Sweet Adelines International, which you can view here – https://sweetadelines.com/privacy-policy
What type of information is collected from you?
Accessing this website does not require you to create an account (where you provide personal information such as name and email address). However, we collect your IP address and information regarding what pages were accessed and when.
The full name is also collected from contributors of the articles for attribution.
When visitors who comment on the articles, we collect the data in the comments form, and also the 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.
How do we collect your personal information?
We obtain information about you when you visit our website.
How is the personal information used?
We may use the personal information to:
- improve the users’ experience of our website through analytics; and
- attribute the article and/or the comment display in the site.
Who has access to your information?
We will not sell, rent or otherwise distribute or release your personal information to third parties. We will not share your personal information with third parties for marketing purposes.
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
Third party service providers working on our behalf: We may pass your information to our third party service providers, agents, subcontractors and other associated organisations. However, when we use third party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service and we have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it for their own direct marketing purposes.
We may also transfer your personal information if we’re under a duty to disclose or share your personal information in order to comply with any legal obligation. However, we will take steps with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected.
Your rights
You have the right to ask us not to process your personal information for marketing purposes.
Data protection law gives you the right to access the personal information we hold about you for certain purposes, the right to erase, restrict or receive a copy of your personal information. Please contact us privacy@sweetadelines.org.uk and we will handle your request in accordance with the law.
Storing and securing your data
We may transfer, store or process your personal information outside of the European Union (“EU”). The laws in some countries may not provide as much legal protection for your personal information as in the UK.
By providing your personal information, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. Where we use service providers outside the EU, we rely on approved data transfer mechanisms (for example, the EU Standard Contractual Clauses and the EU-US Privacy Shield) to ensure that your personal information is adequately safeguarded in the recipient country.
Non-sensitive details (like your email address) are transmitted normally over the internet, and this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your information, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems.
We keep your personal information for as long as is necessary for the purposes for which it is processed. These periods vary depending on the nature of the information and your interactions with us.
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.
External links
Although this website only looks to include quality, safe and relevant external links, you should always adopt a policy of caution before clicking any external web links mentioned throughout this website. We cannot guarantee or verify the contents of any externally linked website despite our best efforts. Clicking on external links is at your own risk and this website and the Quartet of Nations Region 31 and Sweet Adelines International cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned.
Embedded content
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 tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Use of cookies
We use cookies and other similar technologies to identify your computer as you view different pages on our website. This helps us provide you with a good experience when you use our services. We also use cookies and similar technologies to show you more personalised advertising, including Quartet of Nations Region 31 ads on other websites. You may adjust the settings of your browser to refuse cookies but some of our services may not work if you do so.
We may use cookies to:
- Analyse our web traffic using an analytics package (Google Analytics). Aggregate usage data helps us improve the website structure, design, content and functions.
- Identify whether you are signed in to our website. A cookie allows us to check whether you are signed in to the site.
- Test content on our website. For example, 50% of our users might see one piece of content, the other 50% a different piece of content.
- Store information about your preferences. The website can then present you with information you will find more relevant and interesting.
- To recognise when you return to our website. We may show you relevant content, or provide functionality you used previously.
Cookies do not provide us with access to your computer or device nor any information about you, other than those you choose to share with us, are contained in them.
If you leave a comment, 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.
