The webmaster of Urmston.net is registered as a data controller with the Information Commissioner's Office and is therefore legally entitled to process personal data in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998. It is a criminal offence to process personal data without being registered.
The webmaster takes data protection very seriously and will do his best to ensure full compliance with both the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA98) and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR2003).
What sort of data do I collect?
Urmston.net collects the first name and e-mail address of it's members and the name, address, e-mail and phone details of any business that is added to the Business Directory.
Why do I process this personal data?
The ability to assign a membership account to an individual enables to the webmaster to expand and add features to the website in a way that could not be done otherwise. A member's personal data is used purely as a means of enabling the website functionality.
The personal data of businesses added to the Business Directory is required primarily as a means of verifying that: a) the business is legitimate, and, b) it is a local business. The data is also processed so that members and visitors to the site can contact a business to make an enquiry.
Are you going to send me marketing?
Urmston.net cannot legally process your personal data for direct marketing purposes because this "data processing purpose" was deliberately omitted from the registration application. As such, the webmaster will be committing an offence if he uses your personal data to send you direct marketing.
So no, the webmaster will not process your personal data for direct marketing purposes or forward your personal data to any other organisation - unless requested to do so by an appropriate authority such as the police.
What do you do to safeguard my data?
Urmston.net is hosted by Fasthosts, the UK's most popular hosting company. Member's personal data and the personal data of businesses added to the Business Directory is stored in password protected databases housed within one of Fasthosts' secure data centres. Some personal data which has been submitted to the site over the years will be stored in non-password protected databases but still housed within a secure data centre. And some personal data, such as an e-mail address submitted via a contact form, will be processed once to generate an automatic e-mail which is then sent to the webmaster. As such, for a period of time, your e-mail address will be stored in either the webmaster's Inbox or in the Sent items/Deleted items mailbox on the webmaster's computer. Although this is kept to a minimum, the webmaster is aware that the theft of his PC could expose that personal data. As such, the "Contact the Webmaster" process will be converted to an online web application as a priority and this policy will be updated when the work has been completed.
Fasthosts did suffer a network intrusion in November 2007 and all customers were asked to change their passwords as a precaution. The passwords for Urmston.net were changed. In response, Fasthosts carried out a system-wide external security audit which removed the vulnerability that led to the network intrusion and enhanced the overall security appropriately.
Is there room for improvement?
Yes, during the registration process (registering to be a data controller) the webmaster identified some areas of data processing which could be improved. These are:
a. An online 'Contact the webmaster' application will remove the need to store personal data on the webmaster's PC. All enquiries would be answered via the password protected online database application so no personal data would be stored outside of this database.
b. Encrypting passwords will allow members to choose their own passwords
c. Password protecting ALL databases.
The webmaster will aim to carry out these changes as soon as possible.
How will I let you know if this policy changes?
Any policy changes will be posted on this page and, if substantial, may be promoted on the website or by a service update e-mail.
What are 'cookies' and why do I use them?
'Cookies' are ways of saving snippets of information on an individual's computer. Urmston.net uses cookies as follows:
a) To automatically identify a member without that member having to login each time they visit the site. The cookie on your PC contains your username your account number. If the cookie is removed from your computer or altered in any way, it will automatically be invalidated.
b) Cookies may be used by the CuteEditor to store any words that you have added to the dictionary when spell checking a post. The webmaster will verify this after a few weeks of use on the new site.
c) When logging in to Urmston.net, a session cookie may be generated, this is generated by the server and the webmaster has no control over it.
As far as the webmaster is aware, cookies are only ever used as part of the functionality of Urmston.net.
How to remove your personal data from the Urmston.net database
If you wish to cancel your membership, please contact the webmaster and all your personal data will be removed as soon as possible. Any posts that you have made to the site may well remain on the site as the posts do not constitute personal data.
If you have any questions about how your data is processed, or how data in general is processed on Urmston.net please contact the webmaster.
