Introduction
The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force across the European Union on 25th May 2018 and brought with it the most significant changes to data protection law in two decades. Based on privacy by design and taking a risk-based approach, the GDPR has been designed to meet the requirements of the digital age.
The 21st Century brings with it broader use of technology, new definitions of what constitutes personal data, and a vast increase in cross-border processing. The new Regulation aims to standardise data protection laws and processing across the EU, affording individuals stronger, more consistent rights to access and control their personal information.
Our Commitment
Life Close Up is committed to ensuring the security and protection of the personal information that we process, and to provide a compliant and consistent approach to data protection. We have always had a robust and effective data protection program in place, which complies with existing law and abides by the data protection principles. However, we recognise our obligations in updating and expanding this program to meet the demands of the GDPR. Our objectives for GDPR compliance have been summarised in this statement:
Information audit
We have carried out an information audit to identify and assess what personal information we hold, where it comes from, how and why it is processed and if and to whom it is disclosed.
Who is collecting the data?
We use third-party providers, like MailChimp, to deliver our newsletter. We gather statistics around email opening and clicks using industry standard technologies to help us monitor and improve our e-newsletter. For more information, please see MailChimp’s privacy notice.
What data is being collected?
We are only collecting the bare minimum of personal data required to achieve our stated objective (see below). That is email addresses only. We do not collect names or other sensitive information or high-risk data whatsoever.
How do we ensure data accuracy?
We take all reasonable steps to ensure that we address data inaccuracies without delay: incorrect data is rectified or deleted. In practice, if someone contacts us to update their email address, we take action on it without undue delay.
But being proactive is also important. We check our mailing list regularly and remove bounced addresses.
How is data being securely stored?
We do not store psysically any kind of data. Everything is stored by our newsletter provider, MailChimp, which is one of the top organizations worldwide in this field. What is more, we are not accessing the website from portable devices like smartphones or tablets, and we never share system login details with others. Finally, we are using Wordfence, a highly reputable security plugin, to protect our website from hacks and malware.
What is the legal basis for processing the data?
The legal basis for processing personal data is consent — that is, where the individual has specifically agreed via the checkable box that we may use their data in a specific way, as mentioned below. We are very clear in what consent means, without using any vague terms or generalized statements. To this purpose, we use double opt-in in our campaign management tools, to make sure that there is no room for misunderstanding.
Will the data be shared with any third parties?
We use several common applications that use cookies or pixels to track web traffic. These are: WordPress (our publishing platform), Bluehost or other (our web hosting provider), Google (for Google Analytics), MailChimp or other (our newsletter provider), Wordfence (our WordPress security plugin), and Facebook. We use only highly respected companies that understand and meet their GDPR obligations just like we do.
Some cookies are essential to the operation of the site, while others give us insights into how the site is used and allow us to personalise our services. Only essential and non-personal cookies are set when you first visit the site, but by continuing to use the site, we will set some non-essential cookies. You can opt-out at any point.
Wherever possible (e.g. with Google Analytics) we use non-privacy intrusive cookies, which means that traffic is anonymized and particular individuals cannot be identified.
How will the information be used?
Data is only used for specified, legitimate purposes. We use the emails we collect a) to send free products to our subscribers (e.g. eBooks), and b) to send out our free eNewsletter.
How long will the data be stored for?
All data will be held until permission is revoked by their owners. On top of that, we do our own data house-cleaning every five years, to make sure all email addresses that we have are accurate and active. If not, they are deleted permanently.
What rights does the data subject have?
All email campaigns that we run include an unsubscribe link. You can unsubscribe to general mailings at any time of the day or night by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any of our emails or by emailing us directly at info@lifecloseup.com. In both cases, we will permanently delete your email address from our database. You can also use the same address to contact us in order to correct or complete your data, or if you have specific questions.
How can the data subject raise a complaint?
You can raise a complaint at info@lifecloseup.com. We will respond within 48 hours.
Advertising and Cookie Policies
Cookie policy
This website will store some information about your preferences on your own computer inside a tiny file called a cookie. A cookie is a small piece of data that a website asks your browser to store on your computer or mobile device.The cookie allows the website to remember your actions or preferences over time.
You can delete all cookies that are already on your computer, and you can set most browsers to prevent them from being placed. However, if you do this, you may have to manually adjust some preferences every time you visit a site, and some services and functionalities may not work.
Most browsers support cookies, but you can set your browser to decline them and can delete them whenever you like.You can find instructions here for how you can do that on various browsers.
This website uses cookies to:
1) Identify you as a returning user and to count your visits in traffic statistics analysis
2) Remember your custom display preferences (such as whether you prefer comments to display all-collapsed or not)
4) Provide other usability features, including tracking whether you’ve already given your consent to cookies
Enabling cookies is not strictly necessary for the website to work but it will provide you with a better browsing experience.
The cookie-related information is not used to identify you personally and is not used for any purpose other than those described here.
There may also be other types of cookies created after you’ve visited this website. This site uses Google Analytics, a popular web analytics service that uses cookies to help to analyze how users use the site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of this website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of other website, compiling reports on website activity, and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google’s behalf. Google undertakes not to associate your IP address with any other data held by Google.
Third Party Advertising
This site has third-party advertising companies serving ads to you when you visit. These companies may store information about your visits here and to other websites in order to provide you with relevant advertisements about goods and services. For example, if they know what ads you are shown while visiting this site, they can be careful not to show you the same ones repeatedly.
These companies may employ cookies and other identifiers to gather information which measures advertising effectiveness. The information is generally not personally identifiable unless, for example, you provide personally identifiable information to them through an ad or an email message.
They do not associate your interaction with unaffiliated sites with your identity in providing you with interest-based ads.
This site does not provide any personal information to advertisers or to third party sites. Advertisers and other third-parties (including the ad networks, ad-serving companies, and other service providers they may use) may assume that users who interact with or click on a personalized ad or content are part of the group that the ad or content is directed towards (for example, readers in the Pacific Northwest who read certain types of articles). Also, some third-party cookies may provide them with information about you (such as the sites where you have been shown ads or demographic information) from offline and online sources that they may use to provide you more relevant and useful advertising.
To learn more about what options you have about limiting the gathering of information by third-party ad networks, you can consult the website of the Network Advertising Initiative.
You can opt out of participating in interest-based advertising networks, but opting out does not mean you will no longer receive online advertising. It does mean that the companies from which you opted out will no longer customize ads based on your interests and web usage patterns using cookie-based technology.
Sharing Information
This site does not sell, rent, or disclose to outside parties the information collected here, except as follows:
(a) Affiliated Service Providers: This site has agreements with various affiliated service providers to facilitate the functioning of the site. For example, the site may share your credit card information with the credit card service provider to process your purchase. All administrative service providers that this site uses are required to have the same level of privacy protection as this site does, and therefore your information will be handled with the same level of care. Additionally, for example, this site may use analytic or marketing services such as Google Analytics, Google Adsense, Taboola, or RevContent, to which collection you hereby unconditionally consent.
(b) Where required by law: This site may share the collected information where required by law, specifically in response to a demand from government authorities where such demand meets the legal requirements.
(c) Statistical Analysis: This site may share Non-Personal Information and aggregated information with third parties, including but not limited to for advertising or marketing purposes. No Personal Information will be shared in this manner.
(d) Transactions: In connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, financing or acquisition, or in any other situation where Personal Information may be disclosed or transferred as a business asset.
How To Opt Out Of Interest-Based Advertising
Opting Out of Interest-Based Advertising Services: This website is a member of the Network Advertising Initiative(NAI) and adheres to the NAI Codes of Conduct as described on the NAI website. This website also adheres to the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) Self-Regulatory Principles. For a description of the DAA Program, please visit the DAA website.
Opting Out of Interest-Based Advertising by Third Parties: To find out more about interest-based advertising on the internet and how to opt out of information collection for this purpose by companies that participate in the Network Advertising Initiative or the Digital Advertising Alliance, visit NAI’s opt-out page or DAA’s Consumer Choice Page.