Privacy policy

The contact form

When you send us a message we store your name, your email address, the subject and the message, together with the page and language you wrote from and the time, so that we can reply. Our staff read these messages. Your IP address is used briefly to limit repeated submissions. With each message we also store a keyed hash of your IP address and of your browser’s user agent: we do not keep them in readable form with the message, and we use the hash only to spot abuse. We do not use your details for marketing.

Analytics

We measure how the site is used with our own analytics and with Google Analytics. Both record the pages you view, how long you stay and how you interact with them, along with your device type, system version, language and time zone, tied to a random identifier kept in your browser. Google Analytics also receives your IP address and is told when a contact message is sent, not what it says. If your browser’s time zone suggests you may be in Europe, we ask first and nothing is recorded or stored until you accept. Elsewhere analytics runs unless you decline with the cookie settings link. Advertising features are switched off.

Spam protection

The contact form uses Google reCAPTCHA to tell people from automated programs. It loads when you start typing in the form, whatever your analytics choice. Google receives technical information about your browser and device, including your IP address, and may set its own cookie. Our server then asks Google to confirm the check.

Cookies and browser storage

If you pick a language, a cookie remembers it for one year. Your analytics choice is kept in your browser’s storage. If you accept analytics, our own analytics keeps an identifier, the current session and any unsent records in your browser, and Google Analytics sets its cookies. If you decline, these are deleted from your browser.

Who receives your data

Our site and its data run on Google Cloud in the United States, so your data is processed there wherever you are. Like most servers, ours keep request logs with IP addresses and browser types for 30 days. Google also provides Google Analytics and reCAPTCHA. We do not sell your data and we do not share it with advertisers.

How long we keep it

Contact messages are kept until you ask us to delete them; there is no automatic expiry. Our own analytics data is deleted automatically after at most 400 days. If you accept analytics we remember it for 180 days and then ask again; if you decline we remember it until you change your choice.

Your choices and rights

You can change your analytics choice at any time with the cookie settings link at the bottom of every page. You can ask us for a copy of your data, to correct it or to delete it; we handle these requests by hand, and for analytics data we need the identifier stored in your browser to find yours. Deletion is complete within about a day, and our backups keep deleted analytics records for up to 14 more days. We delete your Google Analytics data in Google’s console when you ask. If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, you also have the right to object and to complain to your data protection authority.

Contact

To ask a question or make a request about your data, write to us through the contact form.

Contact

Changes to this policy

We will update this page when what we do changes, and change the date at the top.

Your identifiers

To ask for a copy or the deletion of your analytics data, send us the identifiers shown here. Deleting past data does not stop new data being recorded: use the cookie settings link to decline analytics.

Our analytics: None stored in this browser

Google Analytics: None stored in this browser