1. Who we are

The Gothic Anatomist (‘we’ or ‘us’) is a blog dedicated to anatomy, death and everything in between. Our website address is: https://www.gothicanatomist.co.uk.

We collect, use and are responsible for certain personal information about you. When we do so we are regulated under the General Data Protection Regulations which apply across the European Union (including the United Kingdom) and we are responsible as ‘controller’ of that personal information for the purposes of those laws.

2. What personal data we collect and why we collect it

We collect some data during your use of our website. These are outlined below.

2.1 Comments

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

As we use the WordPress content management system, 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.

2.2 Media

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

2.3 Cookies

A cookie is a small text file that is stored in your web browser that allows us or a third party to recognize you using a unique identifier.

Terminology:

First-party	Cookies that are set by us
Third-party	Cookies that are set by companies or sites other than us, such as analytical tools or embedded content
Essential	First-party cookies that are necessary for the operation and correct functioning of the website. These are therefore not optional.
Non-essential	First-party cookies that help us understand how our services are being used (i.e., analytics)
Session	A session cookie only lasts until you close your browser.
Persistent	A persistent cookie lasts until it reaches its set expiry date or until you delete them.

The web service CookieYes sets an essential cookie to record your cookie acceptance/non-acceptance choices when you complete the privacy pop-up banner.

The platform that we use, WordPress, may set a number of cookies depending on your existing relationship with WordPress, including:

• If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a session 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, we 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.

2.4 Embedded content from other websites

Our website may include content embedded from other sites and services including, but not limited to, YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter and Facebook. These sites may set additional cookies but we do not pass any personally identifiable information to these services. The use of personal data by embedded content providers is not covered by this statement but by the privacy policies of those third-party services. Some of them are listed below:

YouTube:	Privacy Policy	Cookie Policy
Vimeo:	Privacy Policy	Cookie Policy
Twitter:	Privacy Policy	Cookie Policy
Facebook:	Privacy Policy	Cookie Policy

2.5 Analytics

We monitor the number of visitors to our website in order to analyse the popularity of each post and page. We use these statistics to improve the performance and content of the site. These statistical records are anonymised and contain no personally identifiable data.

2.6 Information you provide about 3rd Parties

If you give us information about another person, you confirm that the other person has appointed you to act on their behalf and agreed that you shall consent on their behalf to the processing of their personal data in line with this policy.

3. Who we share your data with

We will not sell, lease, rent or otherwise disclose your personal data to 3rd parties unless listed below or required by law. For example, we may be compelled to disclose your personal data to certain authorities or other third parties, such as law enforcement agencies and in accordance with applicable law to defend The Gothic Anatomist’s legitimate interests, for example, in legal proceedings or in connection with governmental requests and filings.

3.1 WordPress

As we use the WordPress content management system, an anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to determine if you are using it. After approval of your comment, your profile picture will be visible to the public in the context of your comment.

3.2 Akismet

We use Akismet by Automattic as our anti-spam service. As such, they collect the minimum amount of personal data required to protect our site from comment spam.

3.3 CookieYes

We use the CookieYes web service to provide cookie consent banners and logs as well as the setting of a cookie to record your consent options. As such, they handle the following data: anonymised IP address, country of the user, consent status and the time and date of the user decision. All of this is linked to a unique consent identifier assigned to the user for the life of that cookie.

Authorised Agents	Relevant Documentation
WordPress	Privacy Statement
Akismet	Privacy Statement
CookieYes	Logging cookie consent, Data processing agreement

4. How we process your data

We process your personal data using the following legal bases:

4.1 Consent

When you leave a comment on this site, you provide your consent to the storage and processing of the personal data you provide in the comment form. This consent can be revoked at any time by contacting us with a data erasure request (see below).

4.2 Legitimate Interest

We store and process some personal data, such as IP addresses, to ensure the safe and efficient administration of the site and for the limited purpose of detecting and preventing fraud, unauthorized system access, and ensuring the security of the website and server.

5. 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.

Server access and traffic logs are retained for a period of 3 months.

6. 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 we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also 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 as well as data that has been anonymised. Your request can be sent via the contact details outlined below. For more information or data erasure requests regarding authorised 3rd party suppliers, please contact the relevant 3rd party.

7. How we protect your data

All live data is stored on secure servers based within the European Union maintained by a 3rd party hosting provider. Data backups are stored in a secure location within the United Kingdom.

8. What third parties we receive data from

We do not receive personal data from any third-party companies.

9. Contact information

If you have any concerns, questions or requests regarding this policy, please don’t hesitate to contact us:

• General Query – privacy@gothicanatomist.co.uk
• Data Access/Erasure Request – data@gothicanatomist.co.uk

These policies may be amended at any time.

Last update: 16 April 2023