Silicon Dales Ltd Privacy Policy
1. Preamble
Silicon Dales is committed to protecting you and your family’s personal information when you are using Silicon Dales services. We want our services to be safe and enjoyable environments for our audience. This Privacy Policy relates to our use of any personal information you provide to us through Silicon Dales websites.
In order to provide you with the full range of Silicon Dales services, we may sometimes collect information about you.
This privacy policy explains the following:
- what information Silicon Dales may collect about you;
- how Silicon Dales will use information we collect about you;
- when Silicon Dales may use your details to contact you;
- whether Silicon Dales will disclose your details to anyone else;
- your choices regarding the personal information you have provided to us;
- the use of cookies on Silicon Dales websites and how you can reject these cookies.
As set out above, the Silicon Dales is committed to safeguarding your personal information. Whenever you provide such information, we are legally obliged to use your information in line with all laws concerning the protection of personal information, including the Data Protection Act 1998 (these laws are referred to collectively in this Privacy Policy as the “data protection laws”).
Our websites contain hyperlinks to websites owned and operated by third parties which are outside our control and are not covered by this privacy policy. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the privacy practices of such third party websites and your use of such websites is at your own risk. Links to other web sites are provided by Silicon Dales in good faith and for information only. Silicon Dales disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any web site linked to from this site.
2. What Information will Silicon Dales Collect About Me?
When you sign up to participate in or receive a service from any Silicon Dales website, such as newsletters, competitions, live chats, message boards or comments we may ask for personal information about you. This can consist of information such as your name, e mail address, website URL, postal address, telephone or mobile number or date of birth. Different webpages may ask for different personal information.
By entering your details in the fields requested, you enable the Silicon Dales and its service providers to provide you with the services you select.
Please note that sometimes on particular webpages we will require you to provide additional personal information, and sometimes sensitive personal information (e.g. website contributors). When we do this we will specify further on these webpages why we are collecting your information and how we will use it.
Silicon Dales also uses cookies (see paragraph 13 below for details) and collects IP addresses (an IP address is a number that can uniquely identify a specific computer or other network device on the internet). We use analysis software to look at IP addresses and cookies for the purpose of enhancing your user experience. This information is not used to develop a personal profile of you.
We also use your IP address to determine whether you are accessing the services from the UK or not. If not, you may be re-directed to another version of a Silicon Dales site.
- We collect email addresses.
- Registration: on some parts of the site we ask you to register, and if you do we ask for your name, email address and other personal information.
- From time to time we will ask you for further information, for example if you make a purchase or enter a competition.
- We may also use cookies. For an explanation, see the section on cookies below.
3. How will Silicon Dales use the information it collects about me?
Silicon Dales will use your personal information for a number of purposes including the following:
- for “service administration purposes”, which means that Silicon Dales may contact you for reasons related to the service you have signed up for, as set out in paragraph 4 below (e.g. to provide you with password reminders or to notify you that a particular service has been suspended for maintenance);
- to contact you about a submission you have made to the websites, including any content you provide, see especially the information on User Generated Content (below).
- to personalise the way Silicon Dales content is presented to you;
- IP addresses are used to identify the location of users, the number of visits from different countries and also to block disruptive use; and
- to analyse and improve the services offered on Silicon Dales websites e.g. to provide you with the most user-friendly experience.
Where Silicon Dales proposes using your personal information for any other uses we will ensure that we notify you first. You will also be given the opportunity to withhold or withdraw your consent for your use other than as listed above.
4. When will Silicon Dales contact me?
Silicon Dales may contact you:
- in relation to the functioning of any service you have signed up for in order to ensure that Silicon Dales can deliver the services to you;
- where you have opted to receive further correspondence;
- in relation to any contribution you have made to Silicon Dales, e.g. on Silicon Dales message boards or comment sections;
- to invite you to participate in surveys about Silicon Dales services (participation is always voluntary); and
- for marketing purposes where you have specifically agreed to this (see paragraph 5 below)
Local pages will give you detailed information about how Silicon Dales will contact you in relation to specific services.
5. Will I be contacted for marketing purposes?
Silicon Dales won’t contact you for marketing purposes, or promote new services to you unless you specifically agree to be contacted for these purposes.
6. Will Silicon Dales share my personal information with anyone else?
We will keep your information confidential except where disclosure is required or permitted by law (for example to government bodies and law enforcement agencies) or as described in paragraph 7 below. Generally, we will only use your information within Silicon Dales. However, sometimes Silicon Dales uses third parties to process your information. Silicon Dales will require these third parties to comply strictly with its instructions and Silicon Dales will require that they do not use your personal information for their own business purposes.
Your information may be passed to and used by all Silicon Dales businesses. We will never pass your personal data to anyone else, except for any successors in title to the business and suppliers that process data on our behalf both in the UK and abroad. We may also use and disclose information in aggregate (so that no individual customers are identified) for marketing and strategic development purposes.
7. Offensive of inappropriate content on Silicon Dales website(s)
If you post or send offensive, inappropriate or objectionable content anywhere on or to Silicon Dales websites or e-mail addresses, or otherwise engage in any disruptive behaviour on Silicon Dales websites, Silicon Dales may use your personal information to stop such behaviour.
Where Silicon Dales reasonably believes that you are or may be in breach of any of local law, Silicon Dales may use your personal information to inform relevant third parties such as law enforcement agencies or Internet providers. Please note that some of our websites may fall under the jurisdiction of England, Wales, Australia or other countries.
8. What if I am a user aged 16 or under?
If you are aged 16 or under, please get your parent/guardian’s permission beforehand whenever you provide personal information to Silicon Dales. Users without this consent are not allowed to provide us with personal information.
9. How long will Silicon Dales keep my personal information?
We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant service, or as long as is set out in any relevant contract you hold with Silicon Dales. In the case that you wish to cancel your registration as a Silicon Dales member, your information will stay on the system for a period before being deleted.
Where you contribute to Silicon Dales Silicon Dales will generally only keep your content for as long as is reasonably required for the purpose(s) for which it was submitted. For example, Silicon Dales will only keep copies of entries to a photographic competition for the duration of the competition. However other submissions are likely to have a longer, or even permanent, duration.
Some content submitted to or shared with the Silicon Dales may be retained for prolonged periods of time or potentially indefinitely in Silicon Dales’s archive, which is true of contributions which are published. There may also be rare instances where we will share your contribution with third parties in the interests of maintaining historical archives. Where possible, we will endeavour to inform you or let you know at a later date where we are likely to keep content indefinitely or pass it onto an approved historical archive.
10. Can I find out what personal information Silicon Dales holds about me?
Under the Data Protection Act you have the right to request a copy of the personal information Silicon Dales holds about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected. The regulations covering this will change from 25th May 2018 and be covered by the General Data Protection Regulations. For more information on your rights, see the ICO.
On first request a digital copy of any Personal Data records will be supplied free of charge. Before supplying, we will require you to prove your identity with 2 pieces of approved photographic identification. On request, we will use reasonable efforts to supply, correct or delete personal information about you on our files.
Please use the contact form within the Silicon Dales website to make any Data Protection enquiries.
11. What if I am accessing Silicon Dales outside the UK?
Silicon Dales is published worldwide by Silicon Dales. All personal information submitted by you will be processed in accordance with this Privacy Policy and the laws of England and Wales.
12. Changes to Silicon Dales’ Privacy Policy
This privacy policy may be updated from time to time so you may wish to check it each time you submit personal information to any Silicon Dales website.
13. Cookies policy – information Silicon Dales collects from you
a. What is a cookie?
A cookie is a small amount of data, which often includes a unique identifier that is sent to your computer or mobile phone (referred to here as a “device”) browser from a website’s computer and is stored on your device’s hard drive. Each website can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser’s preferences allow it, but (to protect your privacy) your browser only permits a website to access the cookies it has already sent to you, not the cookies sent to you by other sites. Many sites do this whenever a user visits their website in order to track online traffic flows.
Cookies record information about your online preferences and allow us to tailor the websites to your interests. Users have the opportunity to set their devices to accept all cookies, to notify them when a cookie is issued, or not to receive cookies at any time. The last of these means that certain personalised services cannot then be provided to that user and accordingly you may not be able to take full advantage of all of the Silicon Dales features. Each browser is different, so check the “Help” menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.
During the course of any visit to Silicon Dales, the pages you see, along with a cookie, are downloaded to your device. Many websites do this, because cookies enable website publishers to do useful things like find out whether the device (and probably its user) has visited the website before. This is done on a repeat visit by checking to see, and finding, the cookie left there on the last visit.
b. How does Silicon Dales use cookies?
Information supplied by cookies can help us to analyse the profile of our visitors and help us to provide you with a better user experience. For example: if on a previous visit you went to our education pages, we might find this out from your cookie and highlight educational information on your second and subsequent visits.
Silicon Dales also use a number of independent measurement and research companies. They gather information regarding the visitors to Silicon Dales sites on our behalf using cookies, log file data and code which is embedded on our website. Silicon Dales uses this type of information to help improve the services it provides to its users. Certain other areas of Silicon Dales websites may use cookies for a specific reason – for example, to track sales of products resulting from our website(s).
By accessing and using any Silicon Dales Ltd website and service, you expressly agree to that website, and any third party website we so select, using cookie files in the manner detailed above. If you wish to block cookies on your web browser, you may do so by accessing the browser settings, though please note that some sections of Silicon Dales Ltd websites rely upon cookies, and will therefore no longer function as intended (such as pages requiring you to login).
14. Adverts and sponsored links
Silicon Dales websites may contain sponsored links and adverts. These will typically be served through our advertising partners, who may have detailed privacy policies relating directly to the adverts they serve.
Clicking on any such adverts will send you to the advertisers website through a referral program which may use cookies and will track the number of referrals sent from this website. This may include the use of cookies which may in turn be saved on your computer’s hard drive. Users should therefore note they click on sponsored external links at their own risk and this website and its owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned.
15. Social media platforms
Communication, engagement and actions taken through Silicon Dales accounts hosted on external social media platforms are custom to the terms and conditions as well as the privacy policies held with each social media platform respectively.
Users are advised to use social media platforms wisely and communicate / engage upon them with due care and caution in regard to their own privacy and personal details.
This website may use social sharing buttons which help share web content directly from web pages to the social media platform in question. Users are advised before using such social sharing buttons that they do so at their own discretion and note that the social media platform may track and save your request to share a web page respectively through your social media platform account.
16. Copyright and Trade Marks
All materials on Silicon Dales websites are the copyright of Silicon Dales Ltd or are reproduced with permission from other copyright owners. All rights are reserved. The materials on Silicon Dales websites may be retrieved and downloaded solely for personal use. No materials may otherwise be copied, modified, published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written permission of Silicon Dales Ltd.
17. User generated content
Portions of Silicon Dales websites may allow users to post their own material. Materials posted by users do not necessarily reflect the views of Silicon Dales. By posting materials on Silicon Dales websites, you represent that you have all necessary rights in and to such materials and that such materials will not infringe any personal or proprietary rights of any third parties, nor will such materials be defamatory, unlawful, threatening, obscene or otherwise objectionable.
Silicon Dales reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to review, edit or delete any material posted by users which Silicon Dales deems defamatory, unlawful, threatening, obscene or otherwise objectionable. Notwithstanding the foregoing, Silicon Dales expressly disclaims any responsibility or liability for any material communicated by third parties through Silicon Dales web site(s).
18. Disclaimer
Silicon Dales makes no warranties or representations of any kind concerning the accuracy or suitability of the information contained on any Silicon Dales web site for any purpose. All such information is provided “as is” and with specific disclaimer of any warranties of merchantability, fitness for purpose, title and/or non-infringement. Silicon Dales makes no warranties or representations of any kind that the services provided by any Silicon Dales web site will be uninterrupted, error-free or that the web site or the server that hosts any Silicon Dales web site are free from viruses or other forms of harmful computer code. In no event shall Silicon Dales, its employees or agents be liable for any direct, indirect or consequential damages resulting from the use of any Silicon Dales web site. This exclusion and limitation only applies to the extent permitted by law and is without prejudice to any express provisions to the contrary in any written licence or subscription agreement from Silicon Dales in respect of the use of any online service provided via any Silicon Dales web site.
19. Payment information
When you purchase a service through a Silicon Dales Ltd web property, Silicon Dales Ltd will securely pass on your payment information to our third party payment providers. We will not store your payment information, however, if you wish to allow them to, the third party payment service might retain (for example) your payment information to allow for faster future payments.
Your usage of Silicon Dales website and services indicates that you agree to be bound by the terms of our Privacy Policy. You are free to opt out by adjusting your browser settings to block cookies; and by ceasing to access Silicon Dales products and services.
20. Silicon Dales Ltd Cookies Set
- WordPress signin Cookie – used only if you register and login (not standard usage)
- WordPress Cookie – for comments / replies
- Google Analytics Cookie(s) – used for tracking interaction with pages. Anonymised data. Click here to learn how Google uses Cookies to track user interaction.
Remember, you can block cookies using your browser settings. Some features of this – and other – websites may not work as expected or intended if cookies are blocked.