Welcome to Road Trips around the World, a website and blog where you can find resources and information to organise the road trip of your life!
This is Miss Coco, the creator of this site. To comply with certain laws and regulations, it is important that I give you various information on this website. You may have already seen my general funky / weird Terms & Conditions? If you haven’t, you should check them out as well. Here, I’ll be specifically telling you about data privacy!
Note: Miss Coco is a bit of an introvert and will not disclose publicly her own personal information to safeguard her own security. I’m not hiding anything, I’m just being careful.
Background information
There is a new European regulation that is shaking up the blogging industry (and, to be fair, other industries!). Such regulation aims to protect European citizens and reinforce their rights in terms of data protection. If you’re not a European citizen, you are still, most likely, protected by another regulations.
So what is this new European Regulation? It’s called the Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC. We’ll refer to it as GDPR if you don’t mind!
In short, the GDPR purpose is to protect the privacy of individuals, with regard to the processing of their personal data, by third parties.
The GDPR applies to anyone who processes personal data of EU citizens, whether they are themselves established in the EU or not.
The GDPR requires people who processes personal data to disclose information on such regulation and other information on how they process data. This explains why you will find, here, RTatW Privacy Policy.
What is RTatW Privacy Policy and what does it do?
RTatW Privacy Policy tells you what to expect when RTatW collects Personal Data (as defined below).
It applies to information I collect via (a) my website https://www.RoadtripsaroundtheWorld.com (“RTatW“) and (b) RTatW newsletter sign-up forms embedded on RTatW and operated by the third parties ‘MailChimp’ and ‘MailMunch’ respectively; as well as possibly (c) via social media aggregator services like ‘Hootsuite’.
To Whom does this Privacy Policy applies?
RTatW Privacy Policy is binding on all those who access, visit and/or use the services provided by RTatW, whether acting as an individual or on behalf of an entity, including you and all persons, entities, or digital engines of any kind that harvest, crawl, index, scrape, spider, or mine digital content by an automated or manual process or otherwise (collectively, “you” or “your”).
Like other policies or terms & conditions of use, RTatW Privacy Policy is easily available throughout RTatW to assist you, in understanding the handling of information, in the course of using RTatW.
What personal information does RTatW Privacy Policy covers?
The GDPR (in its article 4) gives a very broad definition of the personal information that are covered by such regulation. Such information include: name, first name, identification number, location data, online identifier and “factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person”.
For the avoidance of doubts, I will add that ‘online identifier’ refers to cookies and IP addresses.
As you will see below, RTatW, like any other website, uses cookies but those do not give me access to further information about you. I can’t identify you through cookies!
So the only personal information I get, are the ones provided when you register to RTatW Newsletter, or if we write to each others. Such personal information are further on, referred as to “Personal Data“.
Log Files and Cookies
RTatW utilizes industry standard analytics packages which gathers limited information on visitors of RTatW. This is done automatically, and these information are stored anonymously, in server log files. This information may include IP addresses, browser type, basic IP information, referring pages, operating system used and date/time stamps. These are used only for site administration, as well as for analysis of website usage and trends.
Information gathered by cookies does not identify individual users. Therefore for the purpose of RTatW Privacy Policy, such personal information is not considered as part of the Personal Data covered. I just don’t have a way to access such information and check it for you, personally.
Now, such information are still important and you can learn more about cookies, with my Cookie Policy!
Third-Party Advertising
RTatW uses third-party advertising companies to serve ads and collect information when you visit this website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to RTatW and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. For more information about this practice and to understand your opt-out choices, please click here.
Links to Other Websites
RTatW contains links to other sites that I do not controlled. Therefore I’m not responsible for the privacy practices and/or policies of any website other than the ones that apply to RTatW. I suggest that you review the privacy policy of every website you visit, whether or not they are linked to by RTatW.
Registration
Registration is not required in order to use or access most of RTatW.
However, this site may make comments functionality available to its users (it’s not at the moment!). You may be required to register for such feature, particularly if you wish to leave comments!
If you do register, and in the process provide personally identifiable information, rest assured that any such information you provide will not be shared with any third-party organization.
Please note that if you post comments on RTatW, any personally identifiable information you provide in those comments or articles may be read, collated and used by anyone viewing them. As such, I’m not responsible for personally identifiable information you may choose to make available through these channels.
At the moment, there is a special page which does require a password to access it. Such password is provided in RTatW Newsletter. The access format to such page may change in the future so I may need to update this section!
Registration is required if you wish to receive RTatW Newsletter
It goes without saying that to email you RTatW Newsletter, I need your email address! I also like to have your first name, just to make it more personal. There are more information on this below.
If you wish to receive RTatW Newsletter, and provide me with your email address and/or name for such purpose, rest assured that this information will not be shared with or sold to any third-party organization.
What Personal Data Information do I collect?
When you sign up for RTatW newsletter and as indicated above, I ask for your first name and email address. That’s it.
Every now and then, you might send me an email which may contain further information about you. I’m not doing anything with those except that I might not think of deleting such emails, so such information can be considered as stored.
How do I collect Personal Data Information?
To enable you, to sign up for RTatW Newsletter and to enable me, to distribute such Newsletter efficiently, I use the services of MailChimp and MailMunch.
MailChimp
I use MailChimp to generate RTatW Newsletter and for the storage of your Personal Data and the Personal Data of all subscribers.
MailChimp is pretty cool and gives me statistic around RTatW Newsletter, like opening and clicks. They use industry standard technologies to help people like me, monitor and improve their newsletters and track engagement.
For more information, please see MailChimp’s privacy policy.
MailMunch
I use MailMunch to create user-friendly sign-up forms so you can register to RTatW Newsletter. MailMunch received your Personal Data when you sign up for RTatW Newsletter, store such Personal Data and provides such Personal Data to MailChimp.
I don’t know how it works exactly. I just know it’s pretty cool!
For more information, please see MailMunch’s privacy policy.
What do I do with your Personal Data?
Once again, the Personal Data that you give me, when signing up for RTatW Newsletter, is solely used by me, to send you RTatW Newsletter!
Such newsletter may include various information like list of the latest articles you may have missed, things I’m working on, my future travel plans, giveaways and any other information that I may feel like sharing with you, including, from time to time, product promotions, especially if I published something new on S6!
Since thinks are becoming quite complicated, in the future, I probably will have to use RTatW Newsletter to let you know about changes to the various policies that apply to RTatW.
Overall, it’s not rocket science. I created RTatW Newsletter to keep you informed. If you’re not comfortable with it, then you can come back and check for yourself, if there is something new or of interest. If you don’t want to miss new articles, you can use the Bloglovin link provided in the sidebar. Bloglovin is kind of like a RSS feed (you’ll need to register so please read their privacy policy!).
What do I do with the other personal information gathered?
Information gathered by cookies are not Personal Data as explained above, as I can’t identify you with these information. At least that’s what I think and I can be totally wrong!
Such cookies are useful for your user experience and to me, to administer RTatW, analyse trends and generally do the things necessary to improve user experience.
What are your Rights under the GDPR?
Under the GDPR, you have the following rights:
- The right to be informed: You have the right to be informed, amongst other things, on how your Personal Data are being used. I think this page makes it pretty clear but if you still have question, email me and I’ll try to answer the best I can.
- The right to access: You have the right to access the Personal Data, RTatW holds. Again email me!
- The right to rectification: At any time, you can ask for the Personal Data RTatW holds about you, to be changed or corrected. Email me!
- The right to erasure: At any time, you can ask for the Personal Data held about you, to be deleted. In which case it means you need to unsubscribe from RTatW Newsletter. Please use the unsubscribe link located in all RTatW Newsletter or email me.
- The right to restrict processing: I’m not sure how that would apply to the Personal Data RTatW holds about you. If you are worried, you should unsubscribe because sending you RTatW Newsletter is the only ‘processing’ I make.
- The right to data portability: If you want me to confirm to you by email that I have your email address I can do that! Seriously, I don’t know how that applies in our case. Email me if you have doubts or unsubscribe.
- The right to object: if you wish to object to how I process your Personal Data, I’m afraid the only solution is for you to unsubscribe from RTatW Newsletter.
- Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling: RTatW Newsletter is sent to everyone who has signed up to it. I may in the future experiment with segmentation and propose different types of Newsletters but since at the moment I can barely keep up with a single Newsletter, it’s not going to happen anytime soon. I’m saying this although I don’t even know if segmentation falls as ‘automated decision’. I just suppose it’s the case. If you have concerns, email me. But do know that for now, there is no automated decisions or profiling made.
- You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. You do not have to email me prior to lodging such complaint but it would be nice if we did discuss your concerns before hand. I’m really doing my best here!
Security
As indicated MailChimp and MailMunch are the websites, storing your Personal Data. Now, MailChimp and MailMunch are broadly being used so I trust them to handle security, in the best possible way. If you have doubts, then the only solution may be to unsubscribe, because I don’t know what else I can do.
Having said that, nothing is 100% safe online.
FYI, I have not downloaded RTatW subscriber list to my computer (maybe I should have, I don’t know!).
Accountability & Governance
I believe I have implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure and to be able to demonstrate that processing of Personal Data is performed in accordance with the GDPR. Those measures shall be reviewed and updated where necessary.
Changes to these Terms
Since this is all kind of new, I may have to revisit RTatW Privacy Policy from time to time. Any changes will be posted on this page and, if you have signed up for RTatW Newsletter, I will hopefully remember to let you know of such changes, in my Newsletter.
Please check back here, to take notice of any updates or changes to this policy, as its terms are binding upon you.
Are you concerned that I have already breached RTatW Privacy Policy?
If you are concerned that I have already breached RTatW Privacy Policy, please send me an email! I aim to respond quickly.
Legal Disclaimer
I reserve the right to disclose your personal information, as required by law, and when I believe that disclosure is necessary to protect my rights and/or to comply with a judicial proceeding, court order or legal process served on RTatW.
Fingers crossed this doesn’t happen!
Contact Details
If you have any questions, concerns or requests regarding RTatW Privacy Policy, you can contact me by email at the address below.
misscocotravel @ gmail . com (delete space when writing this email address).
This Privacy Policy was last updated on 5/03/2018
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