Privacy Policy

This is my online home, and you’re welcome here.

My website address is: https://herkocoomans.net. This is the central hub for a whole set of websites and personal online projects, all listed here on the homepage of this website. Each website will have its own privacy policy published, but they’re all the same as this one (you can check it yourself!).

What personal data I collect and why I collect it

Comments

When visitors like yourself leave comments on the 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. I hate spam, don’t you?

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. From that string, I can’t identify your e-mail address, to me it’s just a random set of letters and numbers. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. The system that powers this website is called WordPress, and it does NOT remove embedded location data by itself. This means that other visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website. So can Google and other systems.

Contact forms

Cookies

If you leave a comment on my site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies, stored on your local machine and not on the webserver or any other system. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year. You don’t have to use this opt-in feature for the site to function properly or optimally. All features are available whether you opt in or out. Also, by opting in to this feature, you’re not making that data stored in the cookie available to me.

If you visit my login page, I will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, I will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed. Here too, the cookies are stored on your local machine only, and are not available to me unless you visit my site again and the cookies read the login status and screen preferences.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

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 tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Analytics

Who I share your data with

I don’t use any analytics tools, no social media sharing buttons and no third party tracking services. So all data collected by my sites are either necessary for the technical operation of this website and anonymous, data you opted in on, and/or data you provided yourself.

How long I retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so I can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on my website (if any), I also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data I hold about you, including any data you have provided to me. You can also request that I erase any personal data I hold about you. This does not include any data I am obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Where I send your data

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

How to reach me with privacy requests

You can reach me through the contact form.

Additional information

How I protect your data

This website, and the other websites run within the herkocoomans.network, run on a virtual private server managed by myself. This means that no other people have direct access to the data stored on this server.

Also, I have no monetary incentives to collect (and resell) any data generated by you visiting this website or any other website running within the herkocoomans.network, so I collect the bare minimum.

What data breach procedures I have in place

In case of a data breach, I am ablogated to inform the Dutch Privacy Authority and notify the users of this website. Where I have contact details of the users, meaning you left your e-mail address when leaving a comment or a reply to a post, I’ll contact that person via e-mail.

If the data breach includes personal data from visitors of this website whose contact details I do not have, I’ll post a notice on the website informing everyone of the breach and the options to have personal data removed from this website.