Intro and who we are

We respect your privacy and the importance of protecting your personal data. Our focus in this website is on providing a platform for creativity and ideas to be expressed, and to interact with visitors in a positive way. To do this, our site is set up in ways that use your information, such as our contact form and newsletter sign up, please read this privacy policy for more details.

This is the website of artist Blair Thomson, founded by him in Glasgow in 2002. Our website address is: https://www.blairthomson.com

What personal data we collect and why we collect it

Newsletter Sign Up Form

In this sign up form we use the plugin ‘Contact Form 7’ to collect the names and email addresses of visitors who agree to sign up to our Newsletter. Please check the Contact Form 7 privacy policy for more information about how they operate. After you have signed up to our newsletter, we store your name and email address. You can unsubscribe at any time by contacting us or by replying to our email with the words ‘Unsubscribe’ or similar.

Contact forms

We use the plugin ‘Contact Form 7’ to allow you to contact us easily. We keep contact form submissions to reply to your submission and for our records. These are held by us as emails on the email server we use and our email software, but we do not use the information submitted through them for marketing purposes.

However Google’s reCAPTCHA v3 (part of the Contact Form 7 plugin we use) may send information to Google – please check their privacy policy.
https://policies.google.com/?hl=en

Cookies

Our Website is set up using the WordPress platform – their plugins, such as Jetpack, use cookies. Please check the WordPress and Jetpack privacy policies about cookies. WordPress have strict guidelines about how plugins hosted by them behave. We use Google Analytics, who use cookies. Please check their privacy policy for more information.
Jetpack:https://automattic.com/privacy/
Google Analytics:https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245?hl=en

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. As an example we use Vimeo to embed our videos on our site.

Analytics

Our site is set up using WordPress, their Jetpack plugin collects analytics data. It tells us information such as how many page views we have per month, or if visitors have been referred to our site from another website. Please check WordPress and Jetpack privacy policy. Our site host 34sp may collect analytics data, please check their privacy policy. We also use Google analytics to see which pages have been viewed, to see how visitors interact with the site, which blog posts articles visitors are interested in, and overall to improve our site and make it more enjoyable to visit 🙂 Here is their privacy policy:
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245?hl=en

Jetpack:https://automattic.com/privacy/
34sp:https://www.34sp.com/securityandprivacy

You can opt out of Google Analytics using their Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add on: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/
Other possibilities for opting out of analytics tracking are from your browser, or other browser add ons. Some software which may be helpful are Firefox Focus, Duck Duck Go, or Privacy Badger.

Do we share your information with other parties?

Due to the embedded content and analytics we have mentioned above, some of your data may be shared automatically with these parties. Here are the privacy policies of these service providers: Google Analytics, 34sp, Vimeo. We only use WordPress plugins which are hosted by WordPress.org, the guidelines of WordPress.org are clear in prohibiting the tracking of users without their consent. We do not sell your data or information to any third parties at all.

Vimeo:https://vimeo.com/privacy
34sp:https://www.34sp.com/securityandprivacy
Google Analytics:https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245?hl=en
Youtube(Google):https://policies.google.com/privacy

How long we retain your data

We will keep your personal information according to the law and relevant regulations for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy and we will never retain your personal information for longer than necessary. Newsletter sign up names and email addresses we keep indefinitely unless a person unsubscribes, or if an email address which is no longer used ‘bounces’ back to us in which case we will remove immediately. Anyone who has subscribed to our newsletter can contact us please if they would like their personal information to be edited or deleted. Google Analytics records are kept for 14 months (we would prefer shorter, but this is the shortest time offered by Google).

What rights you have over your data

You can request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Where does information go to?

We don’t use cloud storage for storing any information. Apart from WordPress, Jetpack, Facebook and Google Analytics mentioned above, we don’t deliberately give any information to areas outside the EU/UK, which are safeguarded to European data protection standards. However Google’s reCAPTCHA v3 (part of the Contact Form 7 plugin) may send information to Google – please check their privacy policy.

How we protect your data

Measures we have taken to protect your information: using plugins such as from WordPress which have strict guidelines prohibiting tracking; website staff awareness on how to comply with data protection regulations.

Many thanks for reading 🙂