Terms, Conditions and Privacy Statement

Contents

  1. About us
  2. Community forum rules
  3. Moderation
  4. Submission of contributions
  5. Content standards
  6. Notes on the use of the forum and contents of posts
  7. Copyright
  8. Breach of these rules
  9. Contacting us
  10. Privacy statement and policy

Welcome to the British Genealogy forums

The forums are provided to the public free, for enjoyment, education and discussion and we are sure you will find your use of the forums informative and enjoyable.

Think of ‘a forum’ as being a discussion between people having common interests at a meeting in the administrator's own home. You are a guest and must behave with courtesy at all times.

This forum operates all of the following guidelines and rules to ensure that all of our guests enjoy their experience with British Genealogy.

It is accepted that sometimes there may be heated discussions where people may disagree, but please behave responsibly.

In the event of a user not adhering to reasonable standards of courtesy then threads and posts may be deleted without warning and the user banned permanently.

The Moderators and Administrators decision on such matters will be considered final.

If you want to post a further query about a person/topic for which there is already a thread, either continue in the same thread or else provide a link to your first thread to avoid duplication of research by people willing to assist you. Failure to do so can confuse users and alienate people who want to assist you.

1. About Us

This website www.british-genealogy.com is owned and operated by Clever Digit Media Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under company number 04381547 and with our registered office at New Hall, Market Place, Melksham, Wiltshire, SN12 6EX.

2. Community Forum Rules

These rules (Rules) set out the terms for use of the Community Forum (the Forum), which apply to all members and replace the former ‘Acceptable Use Policy, privacy policy and terms’.

The forum is part of our website www.british-genealogy.com and these rules are duplicated there under ‘terms’.

Any submission of material by you to the Forum means that you accept, and agree to abide by, all the terms and conditions of these Rules.

3. Moderation

The forum is moderated by volunteers giving up their own valuable time and for whom genealogy is a passion!

You must be aware, as a contributor to a forum that you accept the rules set herein and to abide by them and accept the administrator's enforcement of them.

As a user you may not post messages on the forums that attempt to do the administrator's/moderator's job, or to impose these or other rules.

Although the Forum is moderated, we are under no obligation to you or any other person to oversee, monitor or moderate the Forum and we may stop monitoring the Forum at any time. We will not be responsible as author, editor or publisher of any contribution submitted to the Forum (Contribution) and we expressly exclude our liability for any loss or damage arising from the use of the Forum by any person in contravention of these Rules. We reserve the right to promptly remove, or to disable access to, any contribution which we deem to be potentially defamatory of any person, unlawful or in violation of any third-party rights.

4. Submission of contributions

To add a Contribution to a discussion, carry out the following:

  1. Ensure you are logged into your account.
  2. Click on the button labelled “Reply to Thread” in the top left of the page showing the discussion you would like to respond to.
  3. Enter your reply in the “Quick Reply” box provided.
    1. For advanced settings please click on “Go Advanced” below the Quick Reply box.
    2. Advanced settings allow you to set a title for your post and add additional formatting such as Bold or Italics text, hyperlinks and images.
    3. From the Advanced Reply page you can also preview your post by clicking on the button labelled “Preview Post” below the reply box.
  4. Click on the button labelled “Post Quick Reply” to add your post to the discussion thread.
    1. This button is labelled “Submit Reply” in the Advanced Reply page. There is no limit to the length of a Contribution.

If you would like to start a new thread for discussion, please ensure you are logged in to your account and then:

  1. Click on the button labelled “Post New Thread” in the top left of the forum section you would like to post in.
  2. Enter a title for your post relevant to your subject.
  3. Enter your post content in the large box provided.
    1. Formatting options for bold and italics text, hyperlinks and images can be found at the top of this box.
  4. If desired set a post icon.
  5. Additional options can be set below the “Submit Thread” buttons. These include toggles to display your profile’s forum signature and disable ‘smilies’ as well as options for establishing a poll.
  6. Once happy with your post you can preview it by clicking the button labelled “Preview Post” found below the reply box and below the additional options menu.
  7. If you do not wish to preview your post you can immediately submit it by clicking on the “Submit New Thread” button.

5. Content standards

These content standards (Content Standards) apply to each part of a Contribution as well as to its whole.

6. Notes on the use of the forum and contents of posts

The Content Standards must be complied with in spirit as well as to the letter. We will determine, in our discretion, whether a Contribution breaches the Content Standards.

A Contribution must:

A Contribution must not:

Permission can be sought from Administrators and Moderators to post links to sites with useful and relevant resource to the topic being discussed.

By submitting a Contribution to the Forum, you agree to grant us a non-exclusive licence to use that Contribution.

Although you will still own the copyright in your Contribution, we will have the right to freely use, edit, alter, reproduce, publish and/or distribute the material contained in your Contribution. This licence will be free of charge, perpetual and capable of sub-licence. We may exercise all copyright and publicity rights in the material contained in your Contribution in all jurisdictions, to their full extent and for the full period for which any such rights exist in that material.

Please also note that, in accordance with the Content Standards, you must ensure that your Contribution does not infringe any copyright, database right or trade mark of any other person. By submitting your Contribution to the Forum, you are warranting that you have the right to grant us the non-exclusive copyright licence described above.

If you are not in a position to grant such a licence to us, please do not submit the Contribution to the Forum.

'Lookups'

For the avoidance of doubt -this forum strictly forbids users to advertise or solicit ‘lookups’ from copyrighted work held elsewhere.

It is allowed and encouraged (subject to the copyright of the author and licence of the product publisher) to help others on the forums with their specific family history problems and queries by using or quoting a limited amount of material from published sources; and in such cases, you should always refer to the original source in your text.

8. Breach of these rules

When we consider that a breach of the Content Standards has occurred, we may at our discretion take such action as we deem appropriate. Failure to comply with these Rules constitutes a material breach of the terms of use on which you are permitted to use the Community Forum, and may result in our taking all or any of the following actions:

We exclude our liability for all action we may take in response to breaches of these Rules. The actions described above are not limited, and we may take any other action we reasonably deem appropriate.

9. Contacting us

If you have any questions about privacy or wish to update your details or have them removed from our mailing list at any time, please contact us at:

Email: [email protected]

Post:
Data Protection Officer
Clever Digit Media Ltd
New Hall
Market Place
Melksham
Wiltshire
SN12 6EX

10. Privacy statement and policy

At British Genealogy we take your privacy seriously. We are dedicated to looking after your Personal Information in ways that you feel are completely safe and secure, processing it in a responsible manner and complying with relevant data protection laws.

When it comes to your privacy, we will follow these principles:

Simple. We want to make it simple for you to understand how we use your personal data. We aim to use easy to understand the language to describe our privacy policy and processes to help you make informed choices.

Open. We want to be transparent about the personal information we collect, why we collect it and how we process it.

Easy to control. We give you control over the Personal Information you provide to us. We let you choose how and when it is used, shared, kept or deleted.

Our full Privacy Statement is below and we suggest you take the time to read and understand it.

10.1. Information collection and use

Clever Digit Media Ltd is committed to protecting your privacy. We strictly adhere to the requirements of the data protection legislation in the UK/EU and we are a registered Data Controller - Register number Z7564097.

Our Data Protection Officer will be happy to deal with any queries or requests regarding the data we hold about you. They can be contacted at [email protected] or by post to Data Protection Officer, Clever Digit Media Ltd, New Hall, Market Place, Melksham, Wiltshire, SN12 6EX.

Our VAT number is 811538154.

Information we collect about you

When you register on our website, we collect your name and email address. This allows us to accept and deal with your registration and send you important service messages.

We collect some information from cookies and similar software which allows us to understand how you arrive on our websites, how you use and navigate and interact with our emails and website.

This information is used to improve our services, design webpages and ensure specific relevant communication to match your needs. We obtain some information from Google Analytics also.

Information you provide to us

Your information is always totally secure with us.

If you create an account with us we will only collect that information which is essential to you having an account with us, this will consist of:

Registered name, email address (and, where applicable -IP address only).

Interests

Location

Surnames being researched

We do not collect sensitive information (also known as special categories of information) about you and only retain information for the purpose of fulfilling our contractual and legal obligations with you.

10.2. How we use your information

We use your personal information for a number of purposes including

Types of messages

Service messages

We send service emails to you to administer the service.

Service emails include registration and emails that provide useful information about how to use a service or feature when you sign up or start using the website. We may also send you a service email if we make a fundamental change to the website, or to our terms and conditions that we think we need to make you aware of, or to let you know important information about your account.

Because these are essential to the provision of the websites service these cannot be switched off.

Marketing messages

We do not send marketing messages of any type.

10.3. What legal basis are we processing the data under?

There are a number of grounds we process your data under. These are:

10.4. Sharing your information with third parties

In the case of additional services and provision of certain goods, we may from time to time have to provide your personal information to third parties for the purposes of providing you with those specific goods/services.

These third-party providers include payment processors and providers of card validation services, delivery services (where physical goods are to be sent only) and targeted advertisers.

This is necessary for the performance of the contract. We do not keep a record of your credit or debit card details in our systems. Our payment processors do not decide what is done with your data and only process it on our behalf.

We will disclose your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, but only after we have verified the requestor is legally entitled to ask for such.

10.5. Sale of the Business

In the event that we undergo re-organisation or are sold to a third party, you agree that any personal information we hold about you may be transferred to that re-organised entity or third party.

10.6. Cookies

This website uses cookies.

We do collect some information from cookies and similar software that allows us to understand how you arrive on our websites and use and navigate around them so we can improve the sites. We obtain some information from Google Analytics.

The following explanation is provided for why this data is collected:

Cookies are used to track visitors to our site so we can better understand what portions of our site best serve you.

Cookies are a technology which can be used to provide you with tailored information from a website. A cookie is a piece of data that a website can send to your browser, which may then be saved on your computer. You can configure your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie, giving you the chance to decide whether to accept it.

Group "Cookies"

At the user's option, we will collect the following data:

This data will be used for the following purposes:

This data will be used by ourselves and our agents.

10.7. How we protect your information

We follow very strict security procedures in the storage and disclosure of information which you have given us, to prevent unauthorised access to, and loss, misuse or alteration of your personal information in accordance with UK data protection legislation. These include firewalls, encryption of data and virus-checking procedures.

You are responsible for keeping secret any confidential passwords or other login or access details that you select or which we allocate to you. While we take steps to ensure the security of your information, there is a risk that any information transmitted over the Internet and stored on a computer may be intercepted or accessed by an unauthorised party. If you think that someone has accessed your information held by us without your permission or gained unauthorised access to your login details, you must notify us at [email protected]p>

We also recommend that if you use a shared computer or a computer in a public place such as a library that you close your browser completely when you have finished your session.

10.8. Your rights regarding your Personal Information

Under Data Protection law, you have a number of rights with respect to your personal information, which are:

10.9. Right of complaint to the Regulator for Data Protection

The data protection laws in the UK are regulated and enforced by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Each individual has the right to raise a concern/complaint to the ICO if they have any concerns about how their personal information and/or privacy is treated. You can do this via the ICO’s website ico.org.uk/concerns, follow the links or have an online Live Chat.

Call the ICO helpline on 0303 123 1113

Email [email protected]

Postal address:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

10.10. How long we hold your data for

Some of the information you provide to us will be necessary to carry out repeated tasks, such as verifying your identity or payment details when signing in to use an account, providing our services to you or when you are using an online checkout.

We will keep this information for as long as you remain a registered user of any of our sites and for so long as reasonably necessary.

After this time, we may need to hold your personal data in order to meet our financial obligations or identify or resolve issues or causes of action.

If your account is inactive for more than six years and you are no longer paying for a service, we reserve the right to delete any information you have provided to us.

We may send an email to the address attached to your account before deleting the account in case you wish to retain your account with us.

10.11. Links to third-party websites

Our website contains links to other websites belonging to third parties which are not covered by this privacy policy. If you want to go through to a third-party website, please make sure that you read the privacy policy for that website.

10.12. Updates to this policy

We may update this policy at any time without notice.

Privacy statement last updated 17th December 2019.