Privacy Policy for WalkTW.co.uk

1. Who We Are

Our website address is: https://walktw.co.uk. WalkTW.co.uk is dedicated to exploring and celebrating the local history and architectural heritage of Royal Tunbridge Wells. You can read more about how we protect your data in our privacy policy. For the purposes of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the operator of this website acts as the Data Controller for your personal data.

2. What Personal Data We Collect and Why We Collect It

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site, we collect the data shown in the comments form, as well as the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to assist with automated spam detection.

An anonymised string created from your email address (also called a cryptographic hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to verify if you are using it. The Gravatar service Privacy Policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. Upon approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media

If you upload images to the website, avoid those with embedded location data (EXIF GPS). Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images hosted on the site.

Contact Forms & Enquiries

If you contact us via a contact form or direct email, we collect your name, email address, and any message content to respond to your inquiry. This data is processed on the legal basis of our legitimate interest in handling visitor correspondence.

3. Cookies

We use cookies to improve your experience on our website.

Comment Cookies: If you leave a comment on our site, you may opt in to saving your name, email address, and website in cookies. These are for your convenience, so you do not have to enter your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies expire after one year.
Session Cookies: If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
Authentication & Display Cookies: When you log in, we set several cookies to save your login information and screen display preferences. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
Publishing Cookies: If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

4. Embedded Content from Other Websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g., videos, images, maps, and other articles). Embedded content from other websites behaves exactly the same as if the visitor had visited the other website directly.

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 if you have an account and are logged in to that specific website.

We do not sell or rent your personal data to third parties. Data sharing is limited to the following operational necessities:

Spam Prevention: Visitor comments are processed through an automated spam detection service (such as Akismet).
Password Resets: If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.

6. How Long We Retain Your Data

Comments: If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This allows us to automatically recognise and approve any follow-up comments rather than holding them in a moderation queue.
Registered Users: For users who register on our website (if any), we store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
Contact Queries: General contact form submissions are retained for as long as necessary to resolve your query, up to a maximum of 2 years, unless required for ongoing correspondence.

7. Where Your Data is Sent

As a UK-based website, your data is primarily processed within the UK and the European Economic Area (EEA). However, automated spam detection or third-party cloud tools may process data globally. Where data is transferred outside the UK/EEA, we ensure appropriate safeguards (such as standard contractual clauses) are in place to maintain data security.

8. What Rights You Have Over Your Data

Under the UK GDPR, you hold specific rights regarding your personal data. If you have an account on this site or have left comments, you can request to:

Access: Receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us.
Erasure (“Right to be Forgotten”): Request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
Rectification: Request updates or corrections to inaccurate personal data.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at [email protected].

If you believe your data has been handled incorrectly, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). For administrative, legal, or security purposes.