Privacy

Privacy Policy

This privacy policy covers how Sophie The Pigeon (and her Pet humans) collects, store, use and discloses information about users of Sophie’s website. This privacy policy applies to this website. This privacy policy does not apply to websites, applications, projects, products or publications that either display, include or link to different privacy statements.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on my site, I collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection and to keep the website a safe place for everyone. For your own safety and to comply with my privacy (and safety) terms, it is not allowed to post any personal identifiable information in comments, this includes but is not limited to: Your email address, phone number(s), home addresses, bank accounts or anything alike.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles, project and product pages or (forum) posts on my website 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 tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website. I however have implemented a technique which tells YouTube not to place cookies which will track users and such. However because I’ve noticed that they do still place some cookies, it is necessary for you to allow ‘advertising cookies’ to be able to see YouTube videos on my website.

What information do I collect and store

When visiting/using my website I (our servers automatically) collect the following information:
– Your (public) IP Address (This is basically what every website does and ‘how the internet works’, I’m only using this information for security purposes and nothing else).
– What browser you’re using (to optimize the site output for your browser so that the website can be displayed correctly).

Who has access to your data

Only me and one of my pet humans have access to the information you provide us. The main administrator is the only one whom usually has access to all data required to run and maintain my website.

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, this comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so that I can recognize and approve any follow-up comments more easily, and to make sure that the content posted by you can be helpful or informative for other visitors in the future.

We however do reserve the right to ‘redact’ a comment if it’s contents might be considered inappropriate, violates my Terms And Conditions or if I notice that you have posted (possibly) harmful personal identifiable information. It is however expected that you understand that you shall not post such personal information on my website, this includes both your own personal data and that of other people.

Twitter buttons and twitter feed

My website uses plugins for the Twitter social networking service. You can recognize these plugins by the ‘Twitter Bird’ logo. You can see the Twitter logo’s/branding here: https://about.twitter.com/en_us/company/brand-resources.html. When you access an page on my website which contains a Twitter plugin (like for example the ‘Tweet Button‘), your browser will create a direct link between my website and the Twitter servers. The plugin content (like the button/image or Twitter feed) is then transferred directly from Twitter to your browser and integrated into our page(s).

This also automatically informs Twitter that you (your browser) have visited the respective page(s) on our website, even if you do not have a Twitter account or if you are not currently logged in to your twitter account(s). This information (including your IP address) is transferred by your browser directly to a Twitter server, where it is stored. If you are logged in to your Twitter account while visiting our website(s), Twitter will associate your visit to our website with your Twitter account. If you interact (directly or indirectly by for example viewing the Twitter feed) with the Twitter plugin, or for example click on the Tweet button, this information will also be transferred directly to a Twitter server and stored.

When “tweeting through a tweet button” on my website, the Tweet will appear on your Twitter timeline and be visible to your Twitter followers and, if your Tweets are public, to other users. For information on the purpose and scope of data collection and processing by Twitter, as well as your rights and options for protecting your privacy, please refer to Twitter’s privacy policy: https://twitter.com/privacy.

If you do not want Twitter to associate the data it collects via our website(s) you can either disallow the social media cookies (which will also disable the twitter buttons and twitter feed), or you can (if you do accept the social media cookies) log out of Twitter before visiting our website(s) to prevent Twitter from associating the data with your Twitter Account.

When and how do I contact you

Well that is a very simple one 😉 : Only if you have contacted me or one of my pet humans directly.

Who do we share your data with

I (Sophie) nor my pet humans will ever purposefully share your data or personal information obtained via my website with anyone. Unless you of course specifically asked me or my pet humans to ‘pass along’ certain information to someone else.

We will share your information with third parties and/or authorities in very specific circumstances. If we sell all or part of our platform(s), or are otherwise involved in a similar event, we may transfer your information as part of that transaction. In addition, there are certain other situation where we must share your information either to protect our rights, to further our legitimate (legal) interests, or to comply with a legal obligation to which we are subjected. We will share your personal information when we believe in good faith that:

  • a subpoena or warrant is issued, or we receive any other legitimate government agency request to produce information.
  • we need to share the information in order to enforce or protect our own rights, for example, to respond to and resolve third-party claims, complaints, or legal situations.
  • we need to address a security or technical issue within our website (an example of this would for example (but not limited to): If we discover in our log’s that your IP Address has made ‘dozens’ of attempts to breach our database(s) and thus the data in these databases could be at risk, then we might have to pass said IP Address and these log’s to either authorities and/or an external investigation/security agency.
  • when sharing the information (for example with authorities) is necessary to prevent harm to others or others’ property, or yourself, especially in emergency situations.

Google AdSense Advertisements

On my website I use Google AdSense advertisements. For the Google AdSense advertisements I use several techniques in an attempt to assure maximum privacy for you as visitor of my website. Including for example sending an so called additional setting parameter telling Google to only show Non Personalized ads (NPA’s) and by always sending an TFUA tag to apply restricted data processing. This should force Google AdSense to refrain from collecting or using any personal and/or privacy related information about our visitors. And thus this should also force Google AdSense to only show non-personalized advertisements, which should in no way be related to your past internet searches or internet behavior. A quote from the Google AdSense Documentation states the following:

“When using this feature, a TFUA parameter will be included in the ad request. This parameter disables personalized advertising, including remarketing, for that specific ad request. It also disables requests to third-party ad vendors, such as ad measurement pixels and third-party ad servers.”

https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/9009582?hl=en (22-02-2022)

Despite this (in an attempt to ensure maximum privacy for our visitor) I still require you to enable the advertisement based cookies setting if you would like to allow me to show advertisement by Google AdSense on my website. This for example due to the following statement made in an article regarding the Google AdSense program:

“Although non-personalized ads don’t use cookies or mobile ad identifiers for ad targeting, they do still use cookies or mobile ad identifiers for frequency capping, aggregated ad reporting, and to combat fraud and abuse. Therefore, you must obtain consent to use cookies or mobile ad identifiers for those purposes where legally required, per the ePrivacy Directive in certain EEA countries.”

https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/9007336?hl=en (22-02-2022)

Further more I strongly recommend you to review the following information and privacy policy’s in regards to the Google Adsense program before allowing Google AdSense advertisements on my website:

Information article from Google in regards to Non-Personalized ads.
Google AdSense TFUA Restricted data processing tag
How Google uses data when you use our partners’ sites or apps

Direct Privacy disclosure quote in regards to Google AdSense Advertisements on my website

“have and abide by a privacy policy that clearly discloses any data collection, sharing and usage that takes place on any site, app, email publication or other property as a consequence of your use of Google products. The privacy policy must disclose to users that third parties may be placing and reading cookies on your users’ browsers, or using web beacons to collect information as a result of ad serving on your website.

To comply with this disclosure obligation with respect to Google’s use of data, you have the option to display a prominent link to How Google uses data when you use our partners’ sites or apps.”

https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/10502938 (22-02-2022)

What rights you have over your data

Because my website literally has no options to create an user account for you (and thus enter your personal data), there is basically nothing stored (aside from the ‘normal internet data’ like your IP address when using my website. This information is ‘normal internet data’ and is harmful, however it is necessary for security purposes to retain this in the server (for example to ban users whom are harassing other visitors, to ban spammers etc). If you have previously posted comments you can request to get them removed (or anonymized!), but to do so you will need to send us an email from the actual email address you’ve entered while placing the comment. Otherwise there is no way for us to know if it is really you whom is requesting the removal, or that it for example is actually someone whom is trying to ‘bully’ you.

Merchandise shop

The XNL Future Technologies Merchandise shop (which also hosts my merchandise) is hosted by Spreadshirt.nl. In our ‘shop portal/manager’ we CAN see which products have been sold and for what amount(s), we can see the order numbers, and the country and zip code they have shipped to. Any other data including but not limited to: Your name, address, phone number, payment details, email address, username etc are not visible and/or accessible for us. Despite that the information they do show is already anonymized (because for us it’s impossible to identify you just by your country and zip-code), we would have liked to see an option to ‘opt-out’ completely of this data, but this isn’t possible due to legal, administrative and tax obligations. We will however (despite this information being anonymized) never use this data ourselves other than for strictly necessary situations (like for example but not limited to: Administrative and tax purposes or any other legal obligation).

Please make sure to read their privacy policy before creating an account or ordering anything.
This shop uses a lot more data processing and analytics services than we ever will use, so keep this in mind please!

Cookies

I use several cookies on my website, these cookies are used so that the website ‘knows’ how to display the page(s) for example. Some cookies are used for settings (which for example remember your cookie consent settings). These cookies are called ‘Necessary cookies’, without these cookies the website basically would just not function properly at all.

Then there are also other types of cookies which for example can be used for analytics, site-performance, marketing and more of the alike. I personally always try to use as minimal cookies as necessary, it is however possible that embedded content on one of the pages, or my blog posts might place cookies when interacting with it (YouTube video’s for example tend to do this). I personally do not use any trackers, advertisement counters, invisible pixels or ‘tracking cookies’, nor will I accept to place them on request for example. But like mentioned earlier: External (or externally embedded) content might (out of our control) place (additional) cookies when using, or accessing this content. By clicking on the ‘Coo-Cookie Settings‘ button at the bottom of our page, you can view what each cookie and/or categories does (or might do). I have included a system where you can actually disable most content per platform to give you maximum control over your privacy.

Children’s Online Privacy Protection

My website(s) is not intended or directed at individuals under the age of 16. I do not knowingly collect or keep any information of children under the age of 16. If we discover it, we’ll delete it as soon as possible.

Your data safety

I and my pet humans use reasonable measures to secure my website and any private information you submit to us against loss, tampering, unauthorized access, and other malicious acts. For example, we use SSL (and always try to force HTTPS) connections when possible to protect your data while it is in transit (for example login data and while entering forms). However, no data transmission over the Internet is guaranteed to be completely secure, so we cannot completely guarantee the security of any data. You use our services at your own risk.

Privacy Policy Updates

I or my pet humans may modify or update this privacy policy from time to time to reflect changes in/on my website or to comply with international compliance regulations. When any changes in this policy occur, we will update the ‘Last Update’ date at the bottom of this page, and when required by law we will inform you upon your next visit or request you to renew your consent.

Last Updated: 23-03-2023