Privacy Policy
Who we are
Our website address is: http://www.merriscourt.com
We are committed to protecting your privacy. In this notice, you can read about the information we collect from you and how we use it. If you have any questions or concerns, you can email us at:
What personal data do we collect and why do we collect it?
This notice applies to all information collected or submitted on merriscourt.com. We collect this information in order to conveniently provide you with our products and services, or for technical reasons.
Personally identifiable information we may collect includes:
Name and job title
Contact information including email address
Demographic information such as postcode, preferences and interests
Non-personally identifiable information we may collect includes:
The type of device you are using to view the website
Anonymous usage statistics
Anonymous information, such as your internet service provider, IP address and internet browsing software, collected by our website
“Cookies,” which enables the website to remember your information if you return to the site, such as to keep you logged in or to remember your login credentials if you return to the site
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After 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, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.
Contact forms
When you email us, we will use your email address only for the purpose of responding to you and for no other purpose.
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 that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you have an account and you log in to this site, 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.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. 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.
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.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Analytics
When someone visits our website, we use a third-party service, Google Analytics, to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site. This information is only processed in a way which does not identify anyone. We do not make, and do not allow Google to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website. If we do want to collect personally identifiable information through our website, we will be upfront about this. We will make it clear when we collect personal information and will explain what we intend to do with it.
Google Analytics sets the following cookies.
_ga: This helps us count how many people visit merriscourt.com by tracking if you’ve visited before . This expires after 2 years.
_gid: This helps us count how many people visit merriscourt.com by tracking if you’ve visited before. This expires after 24 hours.
_gat: Used to manage the rate at which page view requests are made. This expires after 10 minutes.
We also use Google Adwords which tracks traffic to the website as with Analytics. We occasionally use Google remarketing to advertise across web sites. Google may show ads across websites that you are visiting. These ads shown across other websites are based on your past visits to our website by using cookies. You can opt-out of remarketing campaigns by visiting Google’s Ads Settings page
Who we share your data with
We will not sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties except (such as in the case of Mailchimp) when it’s necessary to complete the functions of the website.
Sometimes we may use anonymous information about your use of our site in combination with other users’ usage to make decisions about the contents and design of the website.
We may disclose your information in response to court orders, or other legal process, or to establish or exercise our legal rights or to defend against legal claims.
We may disclose your information when we believe it necessary or desirable in order to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of our policies, and/or to protect our rights and property.
If you believe that any information we are holding on you is incorrect or incomplete, please write to or email us as soon as possible. We will promptly correct any information found to be incorrect.
How long we retain your data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
For users that register on our website (if any), we also 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.
We only keep your personal data for as long as we need to in order to use it as described above and/or for as long as we have your permission to keep it. In any event, we will conduct a review to ascertain whether we need to keep your personal data every three years. Your personal data will be deleted if we no longer need it.
What rights you have over your data
If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also 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.
To access your information, you will need to put your request in writing.
You will need to provide information for us to identify you from our records such as name and email address. You will also need to tell us what kind of information you are requesting to enable us to locate the information. Send your request to the address provided at the top of this page.
Proof of identity
When we receive a request for information, we must make sure you are who you say you are. We need proof of identity. These include:
Your full name
Email Address
The following documents can be accepted to verify your identity. We require two forms of ID:
Current UK/EEA passport
UK photocard driving licence (full or provisional)
Firearms licence/shotgun certificate
EEA national identity card
Full UK paper driving licence
State benefits entitlement document*
State pension entitlement document*
HMRC tax credit document*
Local authority benefit document*
State/local authority educational grant document*
HMRC tax notification document
Disabled driver’s pass
Financial statement issued by bank, building society or credit card company
Judiciary document such as a notice of hearing, summons or court order+
Utility bill for supply of gas, electric, water or telephone landline+
Most recent mortgage statement
Most recent council tax bill/demand or statement
Current council rent card
Current council tenancy agreement
Building society passbook which shows a transaction in the last three months and your address
* Must be the most recently issued and less than 12 months old.
+ Must be the most recently issued and less than three months old (except water bills – less than 12 months old).
We will accept copies of these documents. However, we reserve the right to ask for originals if photocopies are not of a good quality.
A ‘reasonable fee’ will be charged when a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive, particularly if it is repetitive. We may also charge a reasonable fee to comply with requests for further copies of the same information.
Where we send your data
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
Additional information
How we protect your data
We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. We will never provide access to our databases to any third party, except to the extent necessary to conduct the operations of the web site (such as providing user data to Mailchimp).
We cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us or guarantee that your information on our web site may not be accessed, disclosed, altered or destroyed by breach of any of our industry-standard physical, technical or managerial safeguards. When you enter sensitive information (such as contact form credentials) on our contact form, we encrypt that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL). No method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure, however. Therefore, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
What automated decision making and/or profiling we do with user data
We do not use automated decision making or profiling on our website or as part of our business.
Changes to this policy
We reserve the right to change this policy at any time. Although we will notify users appropriately when changes are made to this policy, you are responsible for checking this page for changes. Your use of our website constitutes agreement to this privacy policy.
Links to other websites
Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.