At Geek Girl Pen Pals (IGGPPC), we are committed to maintaining the trust and confidence of our visitors to our website, those who take part in our pen pal pairing program.

In particular, we want you to know that we do not sell, rent or trade your email or other information with other companies under any circumstances, it’s not how we roll.

We do ask for information, specifically for the pen pal pairing program, and below you will find information on why we collect the data and how we treat data that we collect.

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, 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.

Blog comments are processed through the Disqus plug-in. You can read their privacy policy here: https://help.disqus.com/terms-and-policies/disqus-privacy-policy.

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.

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 www.geekgirlpenpals.com 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. You can find more information on how cookies are used on this website in the Cookies Policy.

Sensitive Data

We do not collect any Sensitive Data about you. Sensitive data refers to data that includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data. We do not collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

Pen Pal Registration

We use a third party provider, Google Forms, to facilitate the pairing sign up process through an embedded form on our website. You can read more about their GDPR compliance here: https://cloud.google.com/security/gdpr/resource-center/

The main objective of IGGPPC is the pen pal pairing process and the data we collect is used for this purpose only. To be able to facilitate this service we have to collect personal data in order to pair people together as pen pals. Here’s what we collect: Name, Email, Date of Birth, Gender, State/Country, Pairing Preference, Top 5 Geek Loves

We use use this data to create pen pals pairs based on the geek loves. Once pairs are made we send use the emails provided to send a ‘pair up’ email. Once we have put you in contact with a new pen pal we cannot be held responsible for the outcome of any contact of any kind made between you.

We also use an anonymized version of the pen pal registration data to produce yearly statistics about our users.

Since the majority of our staffers live in the United States your data may be processed outside the EU.

After you have been paired your data will be kept for six months and then deleted.

The processing is based on  your consents in accordance with Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR.

Swaps

Occasionally we will host swaps. For this we collect: your name, e-mail address, and your country.

Depending on the type of swap a spreadsheet will be provided or you’ll be matched with a partner. If a spreadsheet is provided your data will be shared with all participating swappers.

Your data will be deleted when the swap is over.

Since the majority of our staffers live in the United States your data may be processed outside the EU. We usually collect your data for the swaps through google forms.

The processing is based on  your consents in accordance with Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR.

Events

Occasionally we will host events. For this we collect: your name and e-mail address.

This data will be used to assign event participates into groups. Your data will be shared with event staff and members of your assigned group.

Your data will be deleted when the event is over.

Since the majority of our staffers live in the United States your data may be processed outside the EU. We usually collect your data for the swaps through google forms.

The processing is based on  your consents in accordance with Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR.

Giveaways

On special occasions we host giveaways through Gleam.

Your data will be processed by Gleam. Please refer to https://gleam.io/privacy.

Once the package will be received we will delete your personal data. Since the majority of our staffers live in the United States your data may be processed outside the EU. Your data will be processed in accordance with Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR.

Contact

If you contact us through our e-mail-adress, we will process your e-mail-adress and any further personal data that you provide through your e-mail.

Since the majority of our staffers live in the United States your data will be processed outside the EU.

Your data will be processed in accordance with Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR.

Links to Other Websites

This privacy notice does not cover the links within this site linking to other websites. Those sites are not governed by this Privacy Policy, and if you have questions about how a site uses your information, you’ll need to check that site’s privacy statement.

Newsletter Sign Up

We no longer have a newsletter. It was previously through MailChimp and all data collected through it has been deleted.

Security Monitoring and Auditing

We use the WP Security Audit Log plugin as a security monitoring and auditing plugin to create a log of data about the ways that our web site is used by those who have login access to it. This information is collected and retained by the web site administrator for, as the name might suggest, security and auditing purposes.

Once activated, the plugin logs a timestamped record of when a logged-in user takes the following actions:

  1. Logs in and out;
  2. Creates, deletes or modifies or views a post (be it a page, post or a post with a custom type);
  3. Creates, deletes or modifies tags;
  4. Creates, modifies, deletes, or approves comments;
  5. Creates, modifies or deletes widgets and menus;
  6. Creates, modifies (this including changing the password), deletes a user or views another users’ profile;
  7. Installs, activates, deactivates, or uninstalls a theme or plugin;
  8. Changes system settings such as reading, general, or permalinks;
  9. Takes actions on a BBPress forum such as creating a new forum, deleting entries, changing forum settings, etc;

A full list of logged actions is available here.

The timestamped record includes the following information:

  1. The user’s login name
  2. The user’s actual name as entered when their account was set up
  3. The user’s WordPress role (Author, editor, etc)
  4. The IP address from which the user accessed the site
  5. The time and date of each action detailed above while the user was logged in.

The data captured by the WP Security Audit Log plugin is stored by the web site administrator for a period of three months solely for security and auditing purposes.

Information captured by WP Security Audit Log is accessed only by the administrators of the web site and is stored on the web site’s database. These administrators may be located outside the European Union.

Information captured by the WP Security Audit Log is not shared with third parties except in the case of law enforcement requests.

Who we share your data with

Geek Girl Pen Pals have not and will never sell or pass on your information to any third parties.

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, 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.

Personal identifying data (such as emails, names, and birth dates) submitted for pen pal pairings are kept for six months.

Access to Your Personal Information

You are entitled to access the personal information that we hold. 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 also have the right to rectification or erasure of personal data or restriction of processing concerning the data subject or to object to processing or to withdraw your consent as well as the right to data portability. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes. Email your request to our team [email protected].

 

.last updated January 9, 2020.