Privacy Policy

We at The Great Diary Project (www.thegreatdiaryproject.co.uk) have written our Privacy Policy to make it clear, simple and easy to read.

The policy explains how The Great Diary Project uses your personal data.

You may have heard that a new data privacy law has been introduced in the UK from 25 May 2018.

It’s known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and it gives you more control over your personal information and transparency around how it’s used.

We’ve been busy making some changes to make sure it’s easy for you to check and update the information we hold about you.

And, we’ll continue to store your personal information as safely and securely as we always have done.

What’s changed?

European Data Protection law changed on 25 May 2018. Like all organisations that use your personal information, The Great Diary Project have to provide more information about the purposes for which we use your personal data, the rights you have over it and what that means in practice. So we’ve taken this opportunity to update our Privacy Policy.

Don’t worry – the way we use your data hasn’t changed, and we still give it the same level of care and protection. We hope we’ve explained it clearly and simply, but it you want to find out in more detail about the new data protection regulation, go to the Information Commissioners office (ICO) (UK’s independent body set up to uphold information rights) website.

Our promise to you:

The Great Diary Project is committed to protecting your privacy. We’ll always keep your personal information safe and will never sell it to third parties. We’ll be clear and open with you about why we collect your personal information and how we use it. Where you have choices or rights, we’ll explain them to you and respect your wishes. We’ve written this Privacy Policy in plain English without legalese to tell you how and why we use your personal information. We hope you’ll find it clear and simple but if you have any concerns or questions please feel free to contact our The Great Diary Project.

Who’s in control of your information?

You are. Throughout this Privacy Policy, ‘we’ or ‘The Great Diary Project’ means The Great Diary Project. The project was launched in 2007 by two diary devotees, Dr Irving Finkel and Dr Polly North. The project rescues, archives and makes publicly available a growing collection of more than 7,500 diaries.

The diaries that are donated to us are freely available to researchers and interested readers at Bishopsgate Institute’s reading room.

The personal data we might collect from you includes:

questions, queries or feedback you leave, including your email address if you contact us
your Internet Protocol (IP) address, and details of which version of web browser you used information on how you use the site, using cookies and page tagging techniques

We might occasionally use Google Analytics software to collect information about how you use our services and our website. We do this to help make sure the site is meeting the needs of its users and to help us make improvements, for example improving site search.

Google Analytics stores information about:

the pages you visit
how long you spend on each page
how you got to the site
what you click on while you’re visiting the site
We do not collect or store your personal information (for example your name or address) so this information cannot be used to identify who you are.

Information we get from social media

We may obtain information posted publicly on social media sites and use it to help us understand what people think and feel about our work. We do this in a way that doesn’t always identify individual customers. If we intend to use your information from a social media site such as Instagram, we’ll always contact you for your permission first. If you raise a query or a complaint through The Great Diary Project’ social media pages, we’ll of course have a record of your user name. This is used only to enable us to correspond with you and resolve the matter you’ve raised.

We also collect data in order to:

improve the site by monitoring how you use it
gather feedback to improve our services
respond to any feedback you send us, if you’ve asked us to send email
provide you with information about services if you want it

We will not:

sell or rent your data to third parties
share your data with third parties for marketing purposes

We will share your data if we are required to do so by law – for example, by court order, or to prevent fraud or other crime.

How long we keep your data:

We will only retain your personal data for as long as:
it is needed for the purposes set out in this document
the law requires us to

In general, this means that we will only hold your personal data for a minimum of 1 year and a maximum of 7 years.

Children’s privacy protection:

Our services are not designed for, or intentionally targeted at, children 13 years of age or younger. We do not intentionally collect or maintain data about anyone under the age of 13.

Where your data is processed and stored:

We design, build and run our systems to make sure that your data is as safe as possible at any stage, both while it’s processed and when it’s stored.

How we protect your data and keep it secure:

We are committed to doing all that we can to keep your data secure. We have set up systems and processes to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure of your data – for example, we protect your data using passwords and protected files.

Your rights:

You have the right to request:
information about how your personal data is processed
a copy of that personal data
that anything inaccurate in your personal data is corrected immediately

You can also:

raise an objection about how your personal data is processed
request that your personal data is erased if there is no longer a justification for it
ask that the processing of your personal data is restricted in certain circumstances
If you have any of these requests, get in contact with our Data Protection Officer.

Links to other websites:

Our website may at times contain links to other websites.

This privacy policy only applies to our website, and doesn’t cover other services and groups that we might link to. These services have their own terms and conditions and privacy policies.

Following a link to another website:

If you go to another website from this one, read the privacy policy on that website to find out what it does with your information.

Following a link to The Great Diary Project from another website:

If you come to The Great Diary Project from another website, we may receive information from the other website. We don’t use this data. You should read the privacy policy of the website you came from to find out more about this.

Changes to this policy:

We may change this privacy policy.

If these changes affect how your personal data is processed, we will take reasonable steps to let you know.

Contact the Data Protection Officer (DPO) if you:
have any questions about anything in this document
think that your personal data has been misused or mishandled

Data Protection Officer
[email protected].

You can also make a complaint to the Information Commissioner, who is an independent regulator.

[email protected]
Telephone: 0303 123 1113
Textphone: 01625 545860
Monday to Friday, 9am to 4:30pm

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

If you would like any data we might hold on you to be deleted please write to [email protected]