Privacy Questions and Answers

This notice describes how Hornsea Community News, or HCN for short, collects and uses data about you.

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What is HCN?

HCN is an independant Community driven Newspaper aimed at the People of Hornsea, East Yorkshire, UK and it's surrounding area. The HCN website primarily uses Discourse open source software for hosting Internet discussion forums and WordPress, an open source software Content Management System. HCN is hosted by Maia Internet Services free of charge.

HCN sets only its own privacy practices and is not goverened by any other organisation including it's parent hosting company.

How does HCN collect data about me?

HCN collects data about you:

  • when you browse the HCN website

  • when you create and use an account on the HCN website

  • when you post, send private messages, and otherwise participate in the HCN website

HCN collects data when you use the HCN website, whether you use the HCN website using a web browser on your own computer, or on mobile devices.

HCN does not buy or otherwise receive data about you from data brokers.

What data does HCN collect about me, and why?

HCN collects data about visits to the HCN website.

When you visit the HCN website, including the forum, whether you have an account or not, the the HCN website uses cookies, server logs, and other methods to collect data about what pages you visit and when.

HCN uses data about how you use the website to:

  • optimise the forum, so that it’s quick and easy to use

  • diagnose and debug technical errors

  • defend the forum from abuse and technical attacks

  • compile statistics on forum and topic popularity

  • compile statistics on the kinds of software and computers visitors use

HCN usually stores data about how you use the forum in identifiable form for just a few weeks. In special circumstances, like extended investigations about technical attacks, HCN may preserve log data longer, for analysis. HCN stores aggregate statistics about the use of the forum indefinitely, but those statistics don’t include data identifiable to you personally.

HCN collects account data.

Many features of the HCN website require an HCN account. For example, HCN requires an account to post and reply to topics on the forum.

To sign up for an HCN account, the HCN website requires your name, a user name, and an e-mail address.

HCN uses your account data to identify you on the website, and to create pages specific to you, like your profile page. As the website is public, HCN publishes your account data and is available to everyone who can access the forum, according to the website administrator’s configuration.

HCN uses your e-mail address to:

  • notify you about posts and other activity on the website

  • reset your password and help keep your account secure

  • contact you in special circumstances related to your account

  • contact you about legal requests, like DMCA takedown requests

You may provide additional data for your account, like a short biography, your location, or your birthday, on the profile settings page for your account. HCN makes that data available to others who can access the website. You don’t have to provide this additional information, and you can erase it at any time.

HCN stores your account data as long as your account remains open.

HCN collects data about posts and other activity on the website.

HCN collects the content of your posts, plus data about bookmarks, likes, and links you follow in order to share that data with others, through the website. As the website is public, HCN publishes your activity. Some access restrictions do apply to specific areas so HCN makes your activity available only to those users permitted to see it.

HCN also collects data about private messages that you send through the website. HCN makes private messages available to senders and their recipients, and also to the HCN website administrators.

HCN stores your posts and other activity as long as your account remains open.

How can I make choices about data collection?

You can make choices about how data about is used on the settings page for your account. As the HCN website uses access restrictions that vary by category, you can choose who will see your post by choosing the appropriate category.

HCN does not respond to the Do Not Track HTTP header.

Where does HCN store data about me?

The HCN website, in it's entirety, is hosted on a server located at the Roubaix Data Centre, Paris, France.

Does HCN comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation?

HCN respects privacy rights under Regulation (EU) 2016/679, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Information that GDPR requires HCN to give can be found throughout this privacy notice. So can information about specific rights, like access, rectification, erasure, data portability, and objection to automated decision-making.

Where can I access data about me?

You can see your account data at any time by visiting your account page on the HCN website. Your account page also lists your posts and other activity on the forum.

Your account activity page also includes a link to download all of your activity in standard comma-separated values format.

How can I change or erase data about me?

You can change your account data at any time by visiting the profile settings page for your account. The settings for a particular forum may also allow you to close your account, on the settings page for your account. Closing your account starts a process of erasing or anonymizing HCN’s records of data you provided for your account. Forum administrators can also erase and anonymize accounts.

The HCN website allows you to edit, anonymize, or erase your posts. When you edit posts, HCN will keep all versions of your posts. HCN website administrators can view old versions of posts and optionally make them visible to other forum visitors.

Does HCN make automated decisions based on data about me?

HCN classifies posts as spam automatically.

HCN uses data about your posts and other activity to make automated decisions about whether your posts to hornseacommunitynews.uk are spam. When Akismet decides that a post is likely spam, the forum refuses to accept the post.

If you think a post has been wrongly blocked or removed, contact an HCN moderator. They can override the decision that a post was spam.

HCN uses data about posts and activity to set trust levels automatically.

The HCN website uses data about your posts and activity to award you badges and calculate a trust level for your account. Your trust level may affect how you can participate in the forum, such as whether you can upload images, as well as give you access to moderation and management powers in the forum. Your trust level therefore reflects forum administrators’ confidence in you, and their willingness to delegate community management functions, like moderation.

If you think your trust level has been set incorrectly, contact an HCN administrator. They can manually adjust the trust level of your account.

Does HCN share data about me with others?

HCN shares account data with others as mentioned in the section about account data.

HCN shares data about your posts and other forum activity with others as mentioned in the section about account data.

Apart from making data available to the owner of the HCN website, HCN does not sell or give information about you to other companies or services. However, HCN does use services from other companies. The companies behind those services may collect data about you on their own, for their own purposes. Some of these services may be used to collect information about your online activities across different websites. All of these services are based in the United States.

Service Privacy Notice Description
Akismet https://automattic.com/privacy/ reduces spam posts on some forums
Google Analytics https://www.google.com/analytics/terms/ Compiles visitor statistics on some websites, including hornseacommunitynews.uk. You can opt out of Google Analytics using a browser extension.
Jetpack https://jetpack.com/support/privacy/ Allows social media integration and distributed asset management.
Apple Push Notification Service https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/ Sends push notifications to users of the Discourse iOS app.
Google Cloud Messaging https://policies.google.com/privacy Sends push notifications to users of the Discourse Android app.

Other individuals and companies may also reuse data about you that HCN publishes, such as your posts to public forums.

How can I contact HCN about privacy?

You can send questions and complaints to:

Air Cadet Central
[email protected]

For complaints under GDPR more generally, users may lodge complaints with their local data protection supervisory authorities.

How can I find out about changes?

This version of HCN’s privacy questions and answers took effect May 15, 2018.

HCN will post the next version at https://forum.hornseacommunitynews.uk/privacy. HCN may change how it announces changes in the future.

In the meantime, HCN may update its contact information without announcing a change. Please refer to https://forum.hornseacommunitynews.uk/privacy for the latest contact information at any time.