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Privacy Policy

Introduction

At Sound Without Sight, we are committed to the protection and management of any personal identifiable information that you share with us. This Privacy Policy outlines the care and respect with which we treat your personal identifiable information.

Our details

In this policy, “we”, “us” and “our” refer to the Sound Without Sight project. 

Our website address is: https://soundwithoutsight.org.

This website is owned and operated by the Sound Without Sight project. The main contact for the Sound Without Sight project is Jay Pocknell (Project Manager), who can be contacted by email at: jay@soundwithoutsight.org

The project is currently hosted by the Technology Association of Visually Impaired People (TAVIP), who are registered in Scotland under charity registration number SC023234 and a company limited by guarantee (SC155406), with registered office is at:

c/o Lindsays,
Caledonian Exchange,
19a Canning Street,
Edinburgh, EH3 8HE

Data we collect

You may visit the Sound Without Sight website without identifying yourself or providing any personal information about yourself. Some parts of our sites contain information which is accessible only to registered users. If you choose to register with our website, you may be asked to submit information to allow us and our user community to communicate with you, which may include:

  • first name, 
  • last name, 
  • email address,
  • a username for your account.

Your username will be publicly viewable across the site, and your first and last name will appear under any articles you submit, along with your profile photo, should you choose to upload one.

Optional pieces of information that you choose to submit, such as an ‘About Me’ bio, your company, your website, or your profile photo will be publicly viewable on your profile page. 

Any other personal information you provide (i.e. your email address) is kept confidential unless you explicitly agree for it to be published, for example by including this information in knowledge hub articles, forum posts, or questions to the community. We recommend that you avoid sharing personal information within content that you contribute to the Sound Without Sight project. 

Third Parties

  • If you opt into receiving our mailing list, which we use to update you on new content, then your name and email address will be shared with the Mailchimp mailing list platform. See below. 
  • We may work with third parties to promote our website and its content.
  • User registration forms and visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
  • An anonymised 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 account, your profile picture is visible to the public.
  • We will not otherwise distribute your personal information to third parties unless we are required by law to do so.
  • We do not sell personally identifiable information to any third parties. 

Newsletters and Email Lists

  • When you register for an account on Sound Without Sight, you can choose to opt in or out of our mailing list, which is used to keep users updated with new posts.
  • In time, we intend to operate a variety of newsletters and email lists which all function on an opt-in basis and contain a link at the bottom of every message allowing users to unsubscribe at any time. 

Links to external websites

Our website contains links to other websites of interest, which have primarily been contributed by our community of users. If you these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement. Although we will never provide links to sites that we know are harmful in any way, you should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.

Software and Services

Some of the plugins used to construct the Sound Without Sight website offer the option to return anonymous usage data, which can help us identify issues and focus development activities on most beneficial areas.

Comments

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

Promoting Sound Without Sight’s content

We may promote our website and its content using our social media channels (including Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter), the social media channels of companies and partners that we work with, and relevant press outlets. 

Cookies

Like most sites on the internet, Sound Without Sight use cookies, small pieces of information stored on your computer which help in the effective delivery of services which contain no personal information at all. We use Google Analytics to help us improve our websites by anonymously tracking how people navigate the sites, as well as helping to identify any navigation problems which might occur. Similar cookies may also be used when we embed material from external services or host content on other sites, including videos from YouTube, questionnaires from SurveyMonkey, or development work on GitHub.

To learn more about Cookies and how to adjust your web browser settings visit AboutCookies.org

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.

Controlling your personal information

  • If you have previously agreed to us using your personal information to sign up to our mailing list, you may change your mind at any time by writing to or emailing us at: contact@soundwithoutsight.org
  • You may request details of personal information which we hold about you under the General Data Protection Regulation. You can make this request by contacting us by on contact@soundwithoutsight.org. We will provide this information free of charge and within 1 month of receipt of the request. 
  • If you believe that any information we are holding on you is incorrect or incomplete, please contact usas soon as possible. We will promptly correct any information found to be incorrect. You can also change your name 
  • You can contact us to delete your account at any time, which will remove any personal information you provided during the registration process. Any content that you contributed to the project will remain, but will be attributed to “deleted-user”. 

Personal data in Sound Without Sight content

Through the content you contribute to the Sound Without Sight project, it is possible that you may directly or indirectly share information that could be considered sensitive. This might include your personal experiences of sight loss; other disability or health condition; race; ethnic origin; or sexual orientation. It is your responsibility to ensure that post that you contribute will not have a negative impact on yourself, anyone else, or any company or organisation. The Sound Without Sight project cannot be held responsible for information included in community-generated content or any impact this information has. If you wish to edit or revoke details from any content published on Sound Without Sight, please contact us. 

Purposes of processing and legal bases

In this section, we have set out the purposes for which we may process personal data and the legal bases of the processing.

  1. Operations – We may process your personal data for the purposes of operating our website, generating invoices, bills and other payment-related documentation, and credit control. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely the proper administration of our website, services and business.
  2. Publications – We may process account data for the purposes of publishing such data on our website and elsewhere through our services in accordance with your express instructions. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely the publication of content in the ordinary course of our operations.
  3. Relationships and communications – We may process contact data, account data, transaction data and/or communication data for the purposes of managing our relationships, communicating with you (excluding communicating for the purposes of direct marketing) by email, providing support services and complaint handling. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely communications with our website visitors, service users, individual customers and customer personnel, the maintenance of relationships, and the proper administration of our website, services and business.
  4. Direct marketing – We may process contact data, account data and/or transaction data for the purposes of creating, targeting and sending direct marketing communications by email for marketing-related purposes. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely promoting our business and services and communicating marketing messages and offers to our website visitors and service users.
  5. Research and analysis – We may process usage data, personal data and transaction data for the purposes of researching and analysing the use of our website and services, as well as researching and analysing other interactions with our business. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely monitoring, supporting, improving and securing our website, services and business generally.
  6. Record keeping – We may process your personal data for the purposes of creating and maintaining our databases, back-up copies of our databases and our business records generally. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely ensuring that we have access to all the information we need to properly and efficiently run our business in accordance with this policy.
  7. Security – We may process your personal data for the purposes of security and the prevention of fraud and other criminal activity. The legal basis of this processing is our legitimate interests, namely the protection of our website, services and business, and the protection of others.
  8. Insurance and risk management – We may process your personal data where necessary for the purposes of obtaining or maintaining insurance coverage, managing risks and/or obtaining professional advice. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely the proper protection of our business against risks.
  9. Legal claims – We may process your personal data where necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims, whether in court proceedings or in an administrative or out-of-court procedure. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely the protection and assertion of our legal rights, your legal rights and the legal rights of others.
  10. Legal compliance and vital interests – We may also process your personal data where such processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject or in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person.

Your Consent

By using this website, you consent to the terms of our Privacy Policy. Sound Without Sight will regularly review this notice and may change this policy from time to time by updating this page. If the Privacy Policy changes, the changes will be posted to our website. You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes. This policy is effective from 3rd May 2023.