Privacy Policy

Updated 1 June 2021

Please read this privacy notice carefully as it contains important information that explains how and why we collect, store, use and share your personal data. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal data and how to contact us or supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.

This notice applies to your use of all Ruralmums platforms including ruralmums.com and social media as provided by Ruralmums Ltd (hereafter known as Ruralmums).

The type of personal information we collect:

It is important that you understand how and why we use the personal data that we collect from you. We process personal data for different reasons and below we list which types of personal data we need for each purpose.

Registration & account profile

In order to use some of the features on Ruralmums you are asked to register. The personal information collected at registration due to your contract with us, is:

your first name and surname;
your user name;
your email address;
password you set up to access your account.

How we get the personal information and why we have it

Most of the personal information we process is provided to us directly by you for one of the following reasons: Registration, comments/reviews, competitions.

We also receive personal information indirectly, from the following sources in the following scenarios: cookies.

We use the information that you have given us in order to:

manage your account for: your log in information, to create a username and to identify if you have opted in to receive our newsletter.
Administer competitions
Analyse website and social media activity

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the lawful bases we rely on for processing this information are: your consent. You are able to remove your consent at any time. You can do this by contacting hello@ruralmums.com or writing to at The Henhouse, 1 Chapel Street, Belton In Rutland, LE15 9JT.

Competitions

We may collect personal data about you when you sign up for competitions, this data is only used for the purposes of the relevant competition and will be subject to the terms and conditions of that competition, which will be notified to you when you enter. Please see our Competition Small Print for more details.

We use competition data for the purposes of allowing you to participate in competitions and to carry out any activities required in relation to those competitions, for example contacting you to let you know you have won a prize and using your address to send the prize to you. Your information will only be passed on to a 3rd party, such as the company sponsoring the competitions, if you have opted in to do so. You can do this by contacting hello@ruralmums.com or writing to The Henhouse, 1 Chapel Street, Belton In Rutland, LE15 9JT.

Chat room/social media

Where you make data public such as in our Forum or on Social Media, we may collect this information and use it for our posts, articles or social media.

Technical support

Should you contact us for technical support, we use your personal data to enable us to respond to queries, complaints or comments that you have and to ensure that these are appropriately dealt with.

Cookies

As you journey through our site some anonymous information is passively collected by cookies. Your internet browser automatically transmits to this site some of this anonymous information, such as the url of the website you just came from and the IP address and the browser version your computer is currently using.

This helps us analyse data about our site traffic so we can improve our service and adapt it to our members needs. All information is anonymous and only used for operational purposes.

*A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer’s hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.

We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about webpage traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to customer needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system.

Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.

You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.

Other things we use your data for?

We use your personal data and analytical data (Google Analytics) to help us monitor, analyse and improve our service. We use this data to help us understand which content and services are most interesting and enjoyable for our users. This helps us to make sure that we are providing you with the best possible service.

How we store your personal information?

We periodically review the data that we keep in our systems and delete or anonymise your data held in our archives, when we consider it is no longer relevant. Occasionally personal data is kept for longer than our standard retention policy, if it is required for legal or safeguarding interests or in order to respond to any complaints or claims that you make. If this is the case, we will only keep the data for as long as we need in order to fulfil those purposes.

Where your data is stored

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Your Account data

We will keep all your personal data for as long as your Ruralmums account remains active. If you have not logged in for 3 years, we will delete your account and any personal data we hold, unless there is a legitimate reason to keep your account active. You can delete your membership at any time by contacting hello@ruralmums.com or writing to The Henhouse, 1 Chapel Street, Belton In Rutland, LE15 9JT.

You can, at any time, create an anonymous username, this ensures that anything you post is not identifiable by other users.

Newsletters

Your subscription will remain active until you unsubscribe. However, if you have not engaged with our emails for 3 years, we will email you to ask if you want to be removed and if we do not hear from you, we will remove your subscription.

Chat room posts

Anything you post in the chat room will be kept there indefinitely. If your account has been deleted your posts will be anonymised.

Comments or reviews

We keep comments for as long as the page is live on the site. If your account is deleted, we will keep the comment or review on the site but anonymise your details.

Who has access to your personal data?

The following may have access to your Personal Data:

Employees of Ruralmums and Sub-Contractors and systems we use for technical services, analytical solutions etc such as:

We use the following data analysis companies to understand our users: Google Analytics
To resolve technical issues

Your data protection rights

Under data protection law, you have rights including:

Your right of access – You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information.
Your right to rectification – You have the right to ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.
Your right to erasure – You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.
Your right to restriction of processing – You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
Your right to object to processing – You have the the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
Your right to data portability – You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.
You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you.

Please contact us at hello@ruralmums.com or write to at The Henhouse, 1 Chapel Street, Belton In Rutland, LE15 9JT if you wish to make a request.

Data Protection Officer

Because our activities do not involve large scale, regular and systematic monitoring of individuals, or special categories of personal data, or data relating to criminal convictions and offences we are not required to appoint a data protection officer.

Complying with the law

We are complying with the Data Protection Act 2018, UK GDPR and Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of the 27th of April 2016, General Data Protection Regulation referred to as “GDPR”.

How to complain

If you have any concerns about our use of your personal information, you can make a complaint to us at hello@ruralmums.com or write to at The Henhouse, 1 Chapel Street, Belton In Rutland, LE15 9JT if you wish to make a request.

You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you are unhappy with how we have used your data.

The ICO’s address:

Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF

Helpline number: 0303 123 1113 ICO website: https://www.ico.org.uk

Changes to this notice

We may make changes to this Privacy Notice from time to time. The date of the latest update will be posted at the top of this page.