Privacy Policy | A Stephens Genealogy

Last Updated: August 27 2021

Definitions

For the purposes of this Privacy Policy:

Account means a unique Account created for You to access Our Service or parts of Our Service.

Company (referred to as either "the Company", "We", "Us" or "Our" in this Agreement) refers to Alison Stephens Genealogy Ltd, Birmingham.

Cookies are small files that are placed on Your computer, mobile Device, or any other Device by a website, containing the details of Your browsing history on that website among its many uses.

Device means any Device that can access the Service such as a computer, a mobile phone, or a digital tablet.

Personal Data is any information that relates to You and allows Us to identify You, either directly or in combination with other data or information We may hold.

Service refers to the Website.

Service Provider means any natural or legal person who processes the data on behalf of the Company. It refers to third-party companies or individuals employed by the Company to facilitate the Service, to provide the Service on behalf of the Company, to perform services related to the Service, or to assist the Company in analysing how the Service is used.

Usage Data refers to data collected automatically, either generated by the use of the Service or from the Service infrastructure itself (for example, the duration of a page visit).

Website refers to Alison Stephens Genealogy, accessible from either www.asgenealogy.co.uk or www.alisonstephensgenealogy.co.uk

You (referred to as “You” or “Your” in this Agreement)) means the individual accessing or using the Service, or the Company, or other legal entity on behalf of which such individual is accessing or using the Service, as applicable.

DPO - Data Protection Officer

ICO - Information Commissioner’s Office

Privacy Notice

This policy describes Our policies and procedures on the collection, use, and disclosure of Your information when You use Our Service. It sets out the basis on any Personal Data We collect from You, or that You provide to Us, how it will be processed, and details Your privacy rights and how the law protects You. Genealogy research involves discovering personal information about Our ancestors and sometimes about living relatives.

By visiting Our Website You agree to the collection, processing, and use of your personal information that You choose to provide to Us, in accordance with this policy, and are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this policy. We are committed to protecting and preserving the privacy of all Our Website visitors and clients when they are communicating electronically with Us.

What are Cookies?

Cookies are small pieces of information stored by your browser on your computer's hard drive when you access certain websites. Cookies can help website owners identify you as an Internet user and make visiting a website easier for you by saving your preferences while you visit the site.

They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work in a better, more efficient way. They can do this because websites can read and write these files, enabling them to recognise you and remember important information that will make your use and navigation of a website more convenient.

When you visit Our Website we will show a consent banner so You can accept or disable the use of cookies on Our Website.

There are four main types of cookies:

Strictly necessary cookies are essential for running a website and enable you to move around it and use its services and features. Without the use of these cookies, the site will not perform as smoothly as intended, and you may not be able to use some of the features of websites.

Performance cookies monitor website performance and collect anonymous data on how visitors use a website such as number of visits, when they use it, how they use it. These cookies provide information to help improve how a website works.

Functionality cookies are used to remember user preferences so that the website can be customised for them, for example, marketing preferences, personalised preferences, etc.

Targeting or advertising cookies are used to target advertisements to the interests of users, based upon previous web browsing activity.

These are then further broken down into session or persistent cookies. Some cookies, known as 'session cookies', are temporary and expire at the end of Your browser session. Other cookies, known as 'persistent cookies', are stored on Your computer or mobile Device between browser sessions, for a specified period of time.

What Cookies do We use?

Our Website is hosted by wix.com and uses wix.com applications, Visitor Analytics, and Google Analytics tools. A number of different Cookies are implemented on every website built using Wix and are used for important reasons such as:

To provide a great experience for Our visitors and clients.
To identify Our registered members (users who registered to Our site).
To monitor and analyse the performance, operation, and effectiveness of Wix's platform.
To ensure Wix's platform is secure and safe to use.

For Wix’s cookie policy and a full listing of the cookies Wix uses, visit: https://www.wix.com/about/cookie-policy and https://support.wix.com/en/article/cookies-and-your-wix-site#types-of-cookies

For further information on Visitor Analytics visit: https://www.visitor-analytics.io/cookie-information/ and for Google Analytics: https://policies.google.com/privacy

How do You disable Cookies?

To opt-out from and prevent Your data from being used by Google Analytics across all websites, check out the following instructions: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

It is also possible to stop Your browser from accepting cookies altogether by changing Your browser’s cookie settings. You can usually find these settings in the “options” or “preferences” menu of Your browser, some links are provided below.

However, if You disable cookies, or use Your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) You may not be able to access all or parts of Our Websites which could adversely affect Your user experience.

To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and understand how to manage, delete and block them, visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org.

What type of data do we collect from You?

When using Our Service We may ask You to provide Us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact or identify You. This would usually include but is not limited to, first name, surname, address, phone number, email address, information on Your purchases from Us, communications You exchange with Us (eg emails, letters, calls, posts on social media), and Usage Data.

Personal information also includes information supplied regarding LIVING individuals for the purposes of generating a family tree such as date and place of birth, gender, marital status, religious beliefs, date and place of baptism, date and place of marriage, number of children, previous addresses, places of school and employment, electoral registers and directories.

We also collect Your preferences when You register as a member of Our Website community, to control how You receive notifications for interactions such as blog posts and updates, comments on Your posts, and updates about members and posts You follow.

Usage Data is collected using cookies* or similar identifiers. This may include information such as Your Device’s IP or MAC address, location and traffic data, operating system and platform, browser type and version, time and date of Your visit, pages visited, length of visit, resources accessed, the total number of visits, documents downloaded, download errors and other diagnostic data.

How do We collect your Personal Data?

We can obtain Your Personal Data when You make an enquiry using Our Service, or join Our online community. We receive, collect and store any data You enter on Our contact form or provide to Us in any other way to use solely for the purposes of conducting research on Your behalf.

Your Personal Data may be found during Our research, as a result of obtaining civil registration documents such as birth, marriage, and death certificates, where You are named, and legal documents such as wills where You may be a beneficiary such as a widow/widower/child.

In some circumstances, We may be provided with information by third parties such as leads given to Us from another genealogist or organisation, where they are unable to fulfil a request, or data from online databases and genealogy service providers such as Ancestry and Findmypast, that have been stored by other members. In such a case We will take reasonable steps to ensure that You are made aware of the information provided to Us by the third party.

Usage Data is collected automatically when using the Service. When You access the Service by or through a mobile Device, We may collect certain information automatically. We may also collect information that Your browser sends whenever You visit Our Service or when You access the Service by or through a mobile Device.

Why do We collect such personal information?

Personal Information is collated for the sole purpose of conducting family history research on Your behalf, communicating with You about that research, and providing You with ongoing customer assistance.

Membership of Our community allows You to collaborate with other clients and share experiences or to give feedback on Our blog articles.

How do We use this information?

We will use Your personal information for the following purposes:

To provide and maintain Our Service, including to monitor the usage of Our Service.

Information regarding living individuals supplied for research purposes such as date and place of birth will be used solely for the purposes of conducting research on Your behalf. By supplying this information You give consent to the use of that information for Our research. This includes Us obtaining civil registration documents on Your behalf (ie birth, marriage, and death certificates) and legal documents written by deceased relatives where You may be named, such as a will.

To communicate with You by email, postal mail, telephone calls, Zoom, Google Meet, SMS, or other equivalent forms of electronic communication, such as a mobile application's push notifications, for the purposes of providing Family History Research services to You, to resolve a dispute or to collect fees or monies owed.

To manage Your Account: to manage Your registration as a user of the Service. The Personal Data You provide can give You access to different functionalities of the Service that are available to You as a registered user. You will receive notifications in line with the customer preferences that You have set up on Your profile when people post blogs or comment on Your posts.

To improve Our services, We may ask You to complete a feedback or testimonial form of Your experience after We have fulfilled Your order, which will be shared on Our Website with Your first name, or with Your prior consent, We will include Your surname.

To provide You with news, special offers, and general information about other goods, services, and events that We offer that are similar to those that You have already purchased or enquired about unless You have opted not to receive such information.

For other purposes: We may use Your information for other purposes, such as data analysis, identifying usage trends, determining the effectiveness of Our promotional campaigns, and to evaluate and improve Our Service, products, services, marketing, and Your experience.

We may create a family tree on Ancestry https://www.ancestry.co.uk/ which will be set to private. Living people in the tree are only visible to Us, We would not set anyone else to be able to view living people. This data is stored solely for Us to organise data and reduce Our administration time which helps to reduce your costs.

It also allows Us the option to share the tree with You once the research is completed, should You wish to use and build upon it. If You prefer that any living people You have provided information on not to be included, You have the right to request this.

Ancestry have their own privacy policy which can be found at https://www.ancestry.co.uk/cs/privacyphilosophy and many safeguards in place to prevent personal information from being lost and to also prevent malicious cyber-related activity including secure account sign in.

We will not pass your personal information on to a third party or use it for marketing other than as stated in this privacy policy.

Public Forums and User Content

Our Services offer publicly accessible blogs and communities. Please be aware that any Personal Information You provide in any such areas may be read, collected, and used by others who access them. To request the removal of Your Personal Information from Our blogs, communities, or forums, feel free to contact Us using Our details at the end of this policy.

In some cases, We may not be able to remove Your Personal Information from such areas. For example, if You use a third-party application to post a comment (e.g., the Facebook social plugin application) while logged in to Your related profile with such a third-party, You must log in to such application or contact its provider if You want to remove the Personal Information You posted on that platform.

In any event, We advise against posting any Personal Information to any of the public areas on Our Services, or to Your own website, (via any means) if You don’t want it to become publicly available.

If You upload any user content to Your User Account or post it on Your User Website and provide it in any other way as part of the use of any Service, You do so at Your own risk.

We have put adequate security measures in place to protect Your Personal Information. However, We cannot control the actions of other Users or members of the public who may access Your User Content and are not responsible for the circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures You or We may have placed on Your User Website (including, for instance, password-protected areas on Your User Website).

You understand and acknowledge that even after its removal by You or Us, copies of User Content may remain viewable in cached and archived pages or if any third parties (including any of Your Users-of-Users) have copied or stored such User Content. To clarify, We advise against uploading or posting any information You do not wish to be public.

Your member details will be displayed for other members to see unless You amend Your profile to private. You can participate in blog articles, connect with members of Our site where You can leave comments, follow people, and more. Your nickname, profile image, and public activity will be visible on Our site.

How do We share Your information?

With other users: when You share personal information or otherwise interact in Our community with other users, such information may be viewed by users and may be publicly distributed outside.

With Your consent: We may disclose Your personal information for any other purpose with Your consent such as applying for military records or any other records that are not available publicly, or to gain assistance from another genealogist with specialist expertise

With Service Providers: We may share Your personal information with Service Providers to monitor and analyse the use of Our Service, to contact You.

How long do We retain Your information?

Any Personal Data We collect from You is stored after the completion of the commission for contact purposes only, should there be any need for follow-up correspondence relating to further enquiries or research later on. All paper and electronic copies of Your Personal Data will be deleted on request by You or after a period of 6 years from the completion of the commission, whichever is less, although we may need to retain certain information to resolve disputes and comply with our legal obligations and tax requirements.

We will also retain Usage Data for internal analysis purposes. Usage Data is generally retained for a shorter period of time, except when this data is used to strengthen the security or to improve the functionality of Our Service, or We are legally obligated to retain this data for longer time periods.

Disclosure of Your Information?

Your Personal Data is held in confidence and will not be released to any third party without Your express permission with the exception of the printers who will be passed the prepared electronic report files (i.e. the content of Your family history). They, in turn, may pass the content on to a contractor for the sole purpose of printing the report.

We will seek Your permission in advance should We seek client testimonials or use examples of Our research as case studies and We’ll use all reasonable efforts to ensure that Your Personal Data is not disclosed to anyone

The Company may disclose Your Personal Data in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a legal obligation, to protect and defend the rights or property of the Company, prevent or investigate possible wrongdoing in connection with the Service, and to protect against legal liability.

Our Service may contain links to and from other websites that are not operated by Us. If You choose to click through to third-party websites via Our Website, You will be directed to that third party's site. third parties may collect information about Your use of Our Website, using certain technologies available to them, for example, cookies.

We have no control over and assume no responsibility or liability for the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third-party sites or services. We strongly advise You to review the Privacy Policy of every site You visit, before You submit any Personal Data to these websites.

How is this information stored?

All information supplied to Us is held on Our own, private computers that are secured with a password, and also in paper form. We will ensure that it is held securely using appropriate physical, electronic, and other means and will take reasonable precautions to keep it safe.

We also store a copy of Our data in the cloud using the following providers who have their own privacy policies which We would strongly advise You to review:

Ancestry: Genealogy Research and Storage https://www.ancestry.co.uk/cs/privacyphilosophy

Google: Google Workspace, GMail, Drive https://www.google.com/policies/privacy

Apple: ICloud Storage https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/en-ww/

Dropbox: Secure File Storage and Workspace https://www.dropbox.com/privacy

Our Website is hosted on the wix.com platform that allows Us to promote and sell Our products and services to You.

There cookie policy can be found here: https://www.wix.com/about/privacy, https://www.wix.com/about/cookie-policy, and for specific cookies on my wix site: https://support.wix.com/en/article/cookies-and-your-wix-site#types-of-cookies

How do We protect Your data?

The security of Your Personal Data is important to Us, but unfortunately, no method of transmission via the internet, or method of electronic storage (ie via email and contact forms) is 100% secure. While We strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect Your Personal Data and use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access, We cannot guarantee its absolute security.

Alison Stephens Genealogy Ltd, Birmingham, UK, is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office as a Data Controller (Entry ZB128198), and all data and information discovered during the course of this research will be stored and used in accordance with the provisions of the Data Protection Act 2018. The person responsible is Alison Stephens, contact details can be found at the end of this Privacy Policy.

Children's Privacy

Our Service does not address anyone under the age of 16. We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 16. If You are a parent or guardian and You are aware that Your child has provided Us with Personal Data, please Contact Us. If We become aware that We have collected Personal Data from anyone under the age of 16 without verification of parental consent, We take steps to remove that information from Our servers.

If We need to rely on consent as a legal basis for processing Your information and Your country requires consent from a parent, We may require Your parent's consent before We collect and use that information. Children's Privacy

Your Rights

Under the provisions of the Data Protection Act You have certain rights :

Your Right to be Informed - Our privacy policy advises You about the collection and use of your Personal Data, and how We store and process it.

Your Right of Access - You have the right to request access (commonly known as a Subject Access Request or SAR) and/or a copy of, the personal information that We hold and are processing about You.

Your Right to Rectification - You have the right to request that Your information is updated, or for any inaccurate information We hold about You is rectified

Your Right to Erasure/Be Forgotten - If You don’t want Us to process Your data anymore You have the right at any time, to request in writing, that Your personal information held by Us is erased. This will prevent Us from communicating with You online. In compliance with the GDPR, We will erase all data on Our side upon request.

Your Right to Restrict Processing - You have the right to request the restriction of processing Your personal information in certain circumstances (eg for marketing purposes or to unsubscribe or opt-out of future email communications)

Your Right to Object to Processing - You have the right to object to processing if we are able to process your information because the process forms part of our public tasks, or is in our legitimate interests

Your Right to Data Portability - You have the right to request that we port Your personal information to another controller, this only applies to information you have given us.

You have the right at any time, to request in writing, that Personal Data that You have supplied regarding LIVING individuals for the purposes of generating a family tree which We have stored on ancestry.com be deleted, and We will comply.

You can exercise any of these rights, at any time, by submitting a request using Our contact details at the end of this policy. For any data that resides on Your computer, such as cookies or push notification opt-in, You would need to remove it yourself.

For more information on your rights, visit the ICO here https://ico.org.uk/global/privacy-notice/your-data-protection-rights/

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update Our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify You of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.

and update the "Last Updated" date at the top of this Privacy Policy.

You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes.

Complaints

If You have any questions or concerns about Our collection, use, or disclosure of Personal Information, or if You believe that We have not complied with this Privacy Policy or applicable data protection laws, please contact Us – Our details are set out at the end of this Privacy Policy.

Our team will investigate the complaint and determine whether a breach has occurred and what action, if any, to take. We take every privacy complaint seriously and will make all reasonable efforts to resolving Your complaint promptly and in accordance with applicable law.

You can file a complaint with Your local supervisory authority for data protection at any time, however, We recommend that You contact Us first so We can try to resolve it. In the event that We are unable to resolve the issue to Your satisfaction, You have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant supervisory authority, which is the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) in the UK, at any time. The ICO's contact details are available here: https://ico.org.uk/concerns/ or write to them at Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow SK9 5AF.

If You would like to access, correct, amend or delete any personal information We have about You, or You have any questions about Our privacy policy, You are invited to contact Our Data Protection Officer as follows:

by email: dpo@asgenealogy.co.uk
by post: Alison Stephens Genealogy Ltd, 81 Aviemore Crescent, Birmingham, B43 7QA

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