As some of you may be aware - data privacy is a major issue at the moment and accordingly the EU has come out with the
GDPR
to set a framework for data privacy compliance in the EU.
Whilst we are
NOT a business or consumer site, do
NOT offer services or goods, and are completely
NON commercial as well as being hosted in Singapore
NOT the EU, we do have EU citizens as members AND we strongly believe in data privacy. Accordingly we have no need to be GDPR compliant,
as the GDPR does not apply to data processing “in the course of a purely personal activity”, but we think its a good move by the EU - so we looked into our compliance as a goal we should achieve anyway.
We have always strongly believed in data privacy and we have always had a strict
Privacy Policy
. The core of our policy has been that we do not collect any data in any non-voluntary form other than:
a) IP numbers, which our system keeps for 30 days only. We log IP numbers in order to reference them against automated SPAM protection lists. So if you are using an IP (even a shared one) that is recorded on SPAM databases we will block access automatically.
b) Our system uses
Google Analytics that logs the equipment you use and other information such as IP location (i.e. PC or Mac, computer or mobile, city, etc) for use by us explicitly in Google Analytics.
All other information stored on the system is voluntary i.e. the user name you choose, the email you use to register, avatar picture you use, and any other information you voluntarily submit in your profile. You have access to delete or change information in your profile
at anytime in your profile area on the forum.
Additionally we took the action of removing Facebook and Google login capabilities from the site over a year ago because we were uncomfortable with Facebook's tracking abilities - how correct we ended up being on this.
We have now gone through all 7 major requirements of the GDPR and are happy to tell you that we are compliant in principle.
In the coming weeks we will reconfirm each members "cookie" compliance preferences - by serving you a pop-up when you login or register, that requests you to accept or decline a "cookie". Whether you choose yes or no in the "cookie" pop-up it will not affect what you see in the forum, but it will give you control of what third parties (i.e. Google) can see of you.
