Virtual Memorials Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

Who we are

Our website address is: http://virtualmemorialsonline.com.

Please click here to  learn more about this website.

What personal data we collect and why we collect it

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

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. 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 have images uploaded to the website, you should avoid using images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Contact forms

When you use a contact form to write to the website owner, your IP address is transmitted to the owner as well as the information you entered so that the owner can block the IP addresses of those who abuse the contact forms by sending spam.  It is up to you what information you wish to share on this website. Your information will be removed at any time at your request. A link to the post with be shared on our Facebook page unless you request otherwise.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. 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.

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

This site uses Statcounter, which is an online service which helps us to understand our visitors; for example, how visitors find our website, how long they spend on our site, which web pages they are most interested in etc. We use Statcounter because better understanding how visitors are interacting with our website helps us to improve the content, design and functionality of our site. This allows us to offer a better online experience to our visitors.

Statcounter uses cookies and other technologies to collect data on visitors and visitor activity on our website. This data includes:

* Time and date of visit (this can help us to identify and plan for busy periods on our website)
* IP address (this is a numerical label assigned to a device by an Internet Service Provider to enable the device to access the internet)
* Browser and Operating System (this can help us to make sure that our website functions correctly in the browsers/operating systems used to access our site)
* Device Information e.g. device type and screen size (this can help us to make sure that our website functions correctly in the devices used to access our site)
* Referring Data e.g. a search engine link (this can help us to understand which search engines are helping visitors to find our website)

Furthermore, when you visit our website a Statcounter cookie (called “is_unique”) may be placed in your browser. This cookie is used only to determine whether you are a first-time or returning visitor and to estimate unique visits to the site.

You can learn more about cookies from Statcounter and set your browser to refuse same here:
http://statcounter.com/about/set-refusal-cookie/

For further details, please see the Statcounter privacy policy the:
https://statcounter.com/about/legal/#privacy

Who we share your data with

We share your data with StatCounter, and Facebook, as explained above. The information on this website is backed up on the web admin’s computer and Microsoft One Drive.   VirtualMemorialsOnline keeps your information safe and will not share it with anyone except for our own volunteers who may call or write to ask for a donation.

How long we retain your data

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

When your information is deleted from the website, the original email and any photos will remain on the web admin’s computer unless you specifically ask to have it purged.

Statcounter preserves the information outlined above for the most recent 500 visitors which is approximately 1 week.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, 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 we send your data

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

This site uses Statcounter to monitor web traffic, as explained above under Cookies. The database only contains the most recent 500 visitors which is at this time about 7 weeks.

My contact information

VirtualMemorials@gmail.com