This privacy policy sets out how we use and protect any information that you provide whilst using this website (the "Services").
We are committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Any information provided by you to us, by which you can be identified, will only be used in accordance with this privacy policy.
We may change this policy as and when necessary. It is your responsibility to check this privacy policy periodically to ensure you agree with any changes.
1. WHAT INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT?
(a) Personal Information you disclose to us.
We collect personal information that you voluntarily provide to us when registering, when updating your public Profile, when posting messages, or otherwise contacting us. This includes your Email Address and Username when registering; and your Birthdate, Location, and Gender if added to your Profile.
Social Media Login Data. We may provide you with the option to register using social media account details, like your Facebook, Twitter or other social media account. If you choose to register in this way, we will collect the Information described in the section called "HOW DO WE HANDLE YOUR SOCIAL LOGINS" below.
(b) Information automatically collected.
We automatically collect certain information when you visit, use or navigate the forum. This information does not reveal your specific identity (like your name or contact information) but may include device and usage information, such as your IP address, browser and device characteristics, operating system, language preferences, referring URLs, device name, country, location, information about how and when you use our Services and other technical information. This information is primarily needed to maintain the security and operation of our Services, and for our internal analytics and reporting purposes.
2. HOW DO WE USE YOUR INFORMATION?
The information you provide to us is required for, but not limited to, the following reasons:
To facilitate account creation and logon process. If you choose to link your account with us to a third party account (such as your Google or Facebook account), we use the information you allowed us to collect from those third parties to facilitate account creation and logon process for the performance of the contract. See the section below headed "HOW DO WE HANDLE YOUR SOCIAL LOGINS" for further information.
To send administrative information to you. We may use your personal information to send you site information or other information pertaining to your account. We may also use your personal information to send you product, service and new feature information and/or information about changes to our terms, conditions, and policies. You can adjust what types of communication you prefer to receive in your account settings.
To protect our Services. We may use your information as part of our efforts to keep our Services safe and secure (for example, for fraud monitoring and prevention).
To enable user-to-user communications. We may use your information in order to enable user-to-user communications with each user's consent.
To respond to user inquiries/offer support to users. We may use your information to respond to your inquiries and solve any potential issues you might have with the use of our Services.
How we use cookies and IP addresses:
We use small text files, called cookies, to store information in your web browser. The information stored may include preferences, session identification, HTTP information, and IP address.
You can set your browser to not receive cookies, but this may degrade your ability to use this website.
3. WILL YOUR INFORMATION BE SHARED WITH ANYONE?
We will not sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties unless we have your explicit permission.
We may process or share data based on the following legal basis:
Consent: We may process your data if you have given us specific consent to use your personal information in a specific purpose.
Legitimate Interests: We may process your data when it is reasonably necessary to achieve our legitimate business interests.
Performance of a Contract: Where we have entered into a contract with you, we may process your personal information to fulfill the terms of our contract.
Legal Obligations: We may disclose your information where we are legally required to do so in order to comply with applicable law, governmental requests, a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process, such as in response to a court order or a subpoena (including in response to public authorities to meet national security or law enforcement requirements).
Vital Interests: We may disclose your information where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding potential violations of our policies, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person and illegal activities, or as evidence in litigation in which we are involved.
More specifically, we may need to process your data or share your personal information in the following situations:
Vendors, Consultants and Other Third-Party Service Providers. We may share your data with third party vendors, service providers, contractors or agents who perform services for us or on our behalf and require access to such information to do that work. Examples include: payment processing, data analysis, email delivery, hosting services, customer service and marketing efforts. We may allow selected third parties to use tracking technology on the Services, which will enable them to collect data about how you interact with the Services over time. This information may be used to, among other things, analyze and track data, determine the popularity of certain content and better understand online activity. Unless described in this Policy, we do not share, sell, rent or trade any of your information with third parties for their promotional purposes. We have contracts in place with our data processors. This means that they cannot do anything with your personal information unless we have instructed them to do it. They will not share your personal information with any organisation apart from us. They will hold it securely and retain it for the period we instruct.
Business Transfers. We may share or transfer your information in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business to another company.
Third-Party Advertisers. We may use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit the Services. These companies may use information about your visits to this website and other websites that are contained in web cookies and other tracking technologies in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you.
How Google uses data when you use our partners’ sites or apps:
https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sitesOther Users. When you share personal information (for example, by posting comments, contributions or other content to the Services) or otherwise interact with public areas of the Services, such personal information may be viewed by all users and may be publicly distributed outside the Services in perpetuity. If you interact with other users of our Services and register through a social network (such as Facebook), your contacts on the social network will see your name, profile photo, and descriptions of your activity. Similarly, other users will be able to view descriptions of your activity, communicate with you within our Services, and view your profile.
4. DO WE USE COOKIES AND OTHER TRACKING TECHNOLOGIES?
We may use cookies and similar tracking technologies (like web beacons and pixels) to access or store information. Specific information about how we use such technologies and how you can refuse certain cookies is set out in our Cookie Policy.
Third parties may place and read cookies on your browser, or use web beacons to collect information as a result of ad serving on this website.
5. HOW DO WE HANDLE YOUR SOCIAL LOGINS?
Our Services may offer you the ability to register and login using your third party social media account details (like your Facebook or Twitter logins). Where you choose to do this, we will receive certain profile information about you from your social media provider. The profile Information we receive may vary depending on the social media provider concerned, but will often include your name, e-mail address, friends list, profile picture as well as other information you choose to make public.
We will use the information we receive only for the purposes that are described in this privacy policy or that are otherwise made clear to you on the Services. Please note that we do not control, and are not responsible for, other uses of your personal information by your third party social media provider. We recommend that you review their privacy policy to understand how they collect, use and share your personal information, and how you can set your privacy preferences on their sites and apps.
6. WHAT IS OUR STANCE ON THIRD-PARTY WEBSITES?
The Services may contain posts or advertisements that link to other websites, online services or mobile applications. We have no control over such external websites or services and therefore we cannot guarantee the safety and privacy of data you provide to any third parties. Any data collected by third parties is not covered by this privacy policy. We are not responsible for the content or privacy and security practices and policies of any third parties, including other websites, services or applications that may be linked to or from the Services. You should review the policies of such third parties and contact them directly to respond to your questions.
7. HOW LONG DO WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION?
We will only keep your personal information for as long as it is necessary for the purposes set out in this privacy policy, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law (such as tax, accounting or other legal requirements). No purpose in this policy will require us keeping your personal information for longer than the period of time in which users have an account with us.
When we have no ongoing legitimate need to process your personal information, we will either delete or anonymize it, or, if this is not possible (for example, because your personal information has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your personal information and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.
8. HOW DO WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION SAFE?
We have implemented appropriate technical and organizational security measures designed to protect the security of any personal information we process. However, please also remember that we cannot guarantee that the internet itself is 100% secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal information, transmission of personal information to and from our Services is at your own risk. You should only access the services within a secure environment.
9. WHAT ARE YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS?
In some regions (like the European Economic Area), you have certain rights under applicable data protection laws. These may include the right (i) to request access and obtain a copy of your personal information, (ii) to request rectification or erasure; (iii) to restrict the processing of your personal information; and (iv) if applicable, to data portability. In certain circumstances, you may also have the right to object to the processing of your personal information. To make such a request, please use the contact details provided below. We will consider and act upon any request in accordance with applicable data protection laws.
If we are relying on your consent to process your personal information, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. Please note however that this will not affect the lawfulness of the processing before its withdrawal.
If you are resident in the European Economic Area and you believe we are unlawfully processing your personal information, you also have the right to complain to your local data protection supervisory authority. You can find their contact details here:
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/bodies/authorities/index_en.htm.
If you would at any time like to review or change the information in your account or terminate your account, you can:
- Log into your account settings and update your user account.
- Contact the administrator at
[email protected] or Personal Message using the site's internal messaging system.
Upon your request to terminate your account, we will deactivate or delete your account and, if requested, delete the personal information contained in your account and profile settings. However, some information may be retained in our files to prevent fraud, troubleshoot problems, assist with any investigations, enforce our Terms of Use and/or comply with legal requirements.
Cookies and similar technologies: Most Web browsers are set to accept cookies by default. If you prefer, you can usually choose to set your browser to remove cookies and to reject cookies. If you choose to remove cookies or reject cookies, this could affect certain features or services of our Services.
Opting out of email marketing: You can unsubscribe from our marketing email list at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the emails that we send or by contacting us using the details provided below. You will then be removed from the marketing email list – however, we will still need to send you service-related emails that are necessary for the administration and use of your account. To otherwise opt-out, you may:
- Note your preferences when you register an account with the site.
- Access your account settings and update preferences.
10 DATA BREACH
A privacy breach occurs when there is unauthorized access to or collection, use, disclosure or disposal of personal information. You will be notified about data breaches when the website administrator believes you are likely to be at risk or serious harm. For example, a data breach may be likely to result in serious financial harm or harm to your mental or physical well-being. In the event that the website administrator becomes aware of a security breach which has resulted or may result in unauthorized access, use or disclosure of personal information the administrator will promptly investigate the matter and notify the applicable Supervisory Authority not later than 72 hours after having become aware of it, unless the personal data breach is unlikely to result in a risk to the rights and freedoms of natural persons.
11. CONTROLS FOR DO-NOT-TRACK FEATURES
Most web browsers and some mobile operating systems and mobile applications include a Do-Not-Track (“DNT”) feature or setting you can activate to signal your privacy preference not to have data about your online browsing activities monitored and collected. No uniform technology standard for recognizing and implementing DNT signals has been finalized. As such, we do not currently respond to DNT browser signals or any other mechanism that automatically communicates your choice not to be tracked online. If a standard for online tracking is adopted that we must follow in the future, we will inform you about that practice in a revised version of this privacy policy.
12 DO WE MAKE UPDATES TO THIS POLICY?
We may update this privacy policy from time to time. The updated version will be indicated by an updated “Revised” date and the updated version will be effective as soon as it is accessible. If we make material changes to this privacy policy, we may notify you either by prominently posting a notice of such changes or by directly sending you a notification. We encourage you to review this privacy policy frequently to be informed of how we are protecting your information.