Privacy Policy

Internet privacy is a big thing these days so we thought it was time to update EMARI Group’s Privacy Policy.

But rather than just use a boiler plate template or go to the trouble and expense of hiring a lawyer to write some complicated smoke-screen style blather, we thought we’d just tell you in plain English what information is kept on file, how it’s used and what steps have been taken to protect it from misuse by others.


If you are only interested in exactly what is and isn’t happening with your data, just read the parts in bold and skip the rest.

GDPR

Obviously we have to be GDPR-compliant which means knowing what data you collect and process, and why. First thing you need to know is that pinning down all your data is like pinning jelly to a wall but we did it and this policy is effective from 25/05/18 and includes the new requirements of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR.)

If you don’t know much about GDPR, we seriously recommend EU GDPR The Pocket Book Guide by Alan Calder - an acknowledged authority on international cyber security and IT governance and/or GDPR: Fix it Fast by Patrick O’Kane which is a bit more user-friendly.

Cookies

Let’s start off with the cookies —a silly name for short text files—that are stored on your computer, tablet or phone (from now on we will just write “your device”) when you visit our site

What? You store stuff on my device? We here you ask

Yes. Pretty much every site you visit does the same. Some of those sites use those little pieces of information in some strange ways: Ever wonder how sites know to show you ads on sails after you do a search on “best sailmaker in….”? Or how companies know that you nearly bought a product from their site, and then decided against it or "abandoned your basket” as they would say? Well cookies are a lot of how that’s done. If you don’t like being reminded of what you almost bought then remember to delete your cookies - you can find various How To guides to do on Google or your preferred search engine.

With cookies, the personal information collected might include your name, address, postcode, phone numbers, email address, IP address, and information regarding what pages are accessed and when. We promise not to collect, store or process data that is labelled as sensitive under the GDPR.

So here’s how we use Cookies:

  • Monitor traffic to the website to learn useful stuff like what articles are the most popular - Google Analytics is used to do that.

  • Track user shares of posts on social media.

  • Also, whilst not a cookie, it’s worth mentioning that a small piece of Javascript is executed in your browser to monitor how quickly the webpages load—maintaining decent performance on a website is a huge challenge and this helps us make sure something has not slowed the site down.

Here’s what we don’t do with Cookies that a lot of other sites might be doing:

  • Don’t track you personally in any way. 

  • Don’t show you anything on our site driven by what you have already looked at—everyone sees the same stuff.

  • Don’t use the cookie code to read anything off your device. (In fact, as far as we know, that’s not technically possible.)

  • Don’t share any information about you with any other company or individual.

Not tracking you personally deserves a bit of explanation so here goes..

  • Google identifies each of you with a number any time you visit any site that runs Analytics AKA the vast majority of the internet.

    We can see the following about a visitor:

    1. How they found EMARI’'s website: search, referral (link), etc.

    2. The pages they visited.

    3. The course they followed to take a specific call to action.

    All of this information is anonymous: There’s a visitor number e.g. 12530269484.15884993018 and we can see what they did on the website, but not their name or anything personal about them. (This is called pseudonymisation and is in the GDPR Article 4 Section 5 in case you were wondering.)

  • There’s also no third-party tracking. If a site uses Facebook to reach people, it’s often recommended to install something called the “Facebook Pixel” - we haven’t done that.

Opting out of Cookies

If you decide that you don’t want the cookies, you can simply tell any modern browser not to allow cookies, from all sites, or just this site. Here’s how to do that.

Opting Out of Google Analytics Tracking

If you decide you don’t want to be tracked anonymously, here’s How to do that . Do please take a minute to think about this, because this data really does help us to work out how to make the website better.

We promise to be diligent about checking for and removing anything that tracks you, other than the limited stuff mentioned above and, by continuing to use this site, you have agreed to the above policy.

And that’s how the cookie crumbles.

Yes. We did write this entire plain English post just so we could get that pun in there.

What is done with the information gathered

If you’ve signed up for our newsletter, you may periodically receive promotional emails about new products, special offers or other information which you may find interesting using the email address which you have provided. As a client, if we have a postal address for you we might send you a Christmas card or a random gift. (We usually default to using the publicly available registered business address)

What is not done with your Information

  • Your information is not shared with anyone else.

  • We don’t, and won’t, hound you to buy stuff from EMARI Group or anybody else. EVER.

Where Your information is stored

  • EMARI’s web server (like everybody else)

  • EMARI’s CRM system. If you really want to you can read their privacy statement here. (Section 7 covers provisions for European Data.)

  • EMARI’s bulk email mail provider (used for newsletters.) You can read Mailchimp’s privacy statement here.

Security

To prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information collected on-line. Here are a few things you should know:

  •  The places your information is stored are generally considered best in class

  • Access to customer data is limited. EMARI subscribes to the principle of least privilege (e.g., employees, system accounts, vendors, etc. are provided with the least amount of access for their job function).

  • The EMARI website is updated as quickly as practical to make sure we’re up to date with security.

  • Laptops are strong password protected. Really strong.

Transfer of personal data outside of the EU:

There may be occasions where data may be transferred outside of the EU for storage or processing e.g. bulk email providers like Mailchimp, but steps have been taken to ensure that there are adequate safeguards in place to protect your personal data. We’ve done a lot of reading around this to ensure it.

Your Right to Be Forgotten

Hopefully, one day, all the software and services we use every day will automate these requests, but that day is not today. So if you want to see the very little personal information held about you under the GDPR (previously the Data Protection Act 1998) at EMARI, email  feedback@emari.co.uk. with the subject line as “request for my information” and let us know what it is you want to know.

If you do execute request your information frequently, or just for the fun of it, a reasonable fee will be charged and donated to charity. £50 seems reasonable for repeated requests.

Your information is kept on file and you will be sent newsletters with new content (unless you unsubscribe using the link at the bottom of all emails) in case you wish to re-join. However, if you wish to have your information removed from our records, again send an email with “forget me + your name” as the subject line and we’ll send you one final email to confirm you’re forgotten...”

That’s it. Well done. If you got this far, you deserve a large adult beverage or treat of your choice.