Privacy policy
This privacy policy sets out how Undercurrent News Limited uses and protects any information that you provide when you use this website. Undercurrent News Limited takes privacy and security seriously. We do not sell or share names, email addresses, or any other personal information with third parties. Undercurrent News Limited is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified when using this website, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy statement.
Undercurrent News Limited may change this policy occasionally by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes. This policy was most recently updated on May 25, 2018 to reflect changes put into place by Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Table of contents
- Who we are
- What information do we collect?
- What do we use your information for?
- How do we protect your information?
- How do we use cookies?
- Analytics
- Update your privacy settings
- Do we disclose any information to third parties?
- How long we retain your data
- What rights you have over your data
- Request to export or erase your data
- Where we send your data
- Our contact information
- Our data breach procedures
- What third parties we receive data from
- What automated decision making and/or profiling we do with user data
Who we are
Undercurrent News Ltd is a limited media company, registered in the United Kingdom. You can find out more about us in our About and Contact Us pages.
Our website address is: https://www.undercurrentnews.com
What information do we collect?
For all subscribers, (i.e. people who have created an account with Undercurrent News to access our content), we collect the following personal details:
- name and email address (required)
- optionally, details such as job title, industry, organization and phone number
- payment details such as credit card information where necessary
For all visitors to our website and subscribers, we collect:
- Anonymized and non-personal information via Google Analytics and HubSpot, such as country, browser type, device and domain
- Anonymized technical details of your device, used to enforce our paywall
- Activity logs via Mixpanel (based on opt-in consent)
For all newsletter subscribers (i.e. people who have subscribed to receive one or more of our newsletters), we collect the following personal details:
- email address (required)
- name and country (optional)
What do we use your information for?
We require this information to understand your needs and provide you with a better service, and in particular for the following reasons:
- Internal record keeping
- To improve our website, products and services
- To process transactions
- Enforce our paywall
- Provide support when requested, for instance with a subscription, purchase or login issue
How do we protect your information?
We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorized access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.These security measures include, but are not limited to: password protected directories and databases to safeguard your information and SSL (Secure Sockets Layered) technology to ensure that your information is fully encrypted and sent across the internet securely.
How do we use cookies?
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.
For instance, when you sign in and select "Remember me", this choice can only be applied with the use of a cookie.
Likewise, if you have an account and you log in to our website, we will set up cookies to save your login information. Login cookies last for a session. If you select "Remember Me", your login will persist for a year. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
We only use cookies for essential website functionalities as per the examples above, and for analytics purposes - for instance, to distinguish between a new, and returning, visitor.
Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website by remembering your choices, and providing us with more accurate analytics.
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.
To view and/or update your cookies preferences, please visit our Privacy Settings page here.
Analytics
We use the following analytics services on our website:
- Google Analytics. This allows us to monitor overall traffic and segment it by for instance page title, country, screen resolution or browser. Doing so allows us to track our articles' popularity, gauge where our audience is located across the world and what screen resolutions are the most common in our readership, for instance. It also allows us to carry out AB tests to inform our paywall. The data collected by Google Analytics is fully anonymized and you may opt out of the cookie it adds on our Privacy Settings page.
- HubSpot. This allows us to monitor and analyze web traffic and used to help us understand User behaviour and navigational information so that we can help our customers and provide them with the best services they are looking for. You may opt out of the cookie it adds, on our Privacy Settings page.
- Chartbeat. This lets us view our traffic in real time, allowing us to visualize the times of day when our traffic is heaviest, and lightest. Again, the data is fully anonymized and you may opt out of the cookie it adds, on our Privacy Settings page.
- Mixpanel. Mixpanel gives us a more detailed view of our website traffic, allowing us to visualize visitors' activity flow. Its purpose is twofold: better understand why people carry out specific actions -- such as purchasing a subscription or report -- and troubleshooting technical issues. Mixpanel creates a random unique identifier for each visitor and does not store or receive any personal data for visitors, except for an account ID for logged in visitors (which is only used if needed for technical troubleshooting). You may choose to opt out of Mixpanel altogether on our Privacy Settings page.
Update your privacy settings
You may update all your privacy preferences at any time, on our Privacy Settings page here.
Do we disclose any information to third parties?
Undercurrent News does not share your data with any third party. We adhere to a strict policy of never selling, distributing or leasing your personal information to third parties, unless we have your permission or are required by law to do so.
You may request details of personal information which we hold about you under the Data Protection Act 1998. If you would like a copy of the information held on you please write to us at [email protected].
If you believe that any information we are holding on you is incorrect or incomplete, please write to or email us as soon as possible at the above address. We will promptly correct any information found to be incorrect.
How long we retain your data
How long we retain certain data depends on what we are using it for, whether that is to provide services to you, for our own legitimate interests (described above) or so that we can comply with the law. If you cease to be a customer or user, we will archive your data no later than 8 weeks after you stop using the website.
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.
For visitors who register on our website, we store all account information indefinitely, for record keeping purposes. All subscribers can see, edit, or delete their personal information (with the exception of the username) at any time in their Profile page here. Website administrators can also see and edit that information, except for the password.
For anyone who has made a purchase through our website, we will retain a record of the transaction history, invoice(s) and billing details indefinitely for accounting and tax auditing purposes. This history is also visible in subscribers' accounts, in the billing details and invoices pages.
What rights you have over your data
Individuals located in certain countries, including the European Economic Area, have certain statutory rights in relation to their personal data.
Subject to any exemptions provided by law, you may have the right to request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us.
If you have an account on this site, have made a transaction on our website, or subscribe to our newsletters, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. We do not hold personal data on any other visitors.
You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. Please note this does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, billing, legal, or security purposes.
Request to export or erase your data
If you would like us to export, or erase, all the data we may hold about you, please click below.
Where we send your data
As an online business, we use third party hosting and cloud technologies to support our operations. This means our traffic may be routed to, or some of our data processed or stored with, the services listed below in this section.
When we share data with these providers, it may be transferred to, and processed in, countries other than the United Kingdom – such as to the United States, where most of the services we use are headquartered.
For individuals in the European Economic Area (EEA), this means that your data may be transferred outside of the EEA. Where your personal data is transferred outside the EEA, it will only be transferred to countries that have been identified as providing adequate protection for EEA data, or that can show certified compliance with the EU-US Privacy Shield and Swiss-US Privacy Shield framework (collectively, the "Privacy Shields").
All information is sent and stored using password protected directories and databases and Secure Sockets Layered (SSL) technology to ensure that your information is fully encrypted and sent across the internet securely.
The third parties Undercurrent News relies on are:
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Cloudflare for web hosting and security against threats such as DDoS attacks, respectively. Both companies are based in the United States and are members of the above-mentioned Privacy Shields. Learn more about AWS' privacy policy here and compliance with the EU's General Directive on Privacy Regulation (GDPR) here. Cloudflare's privacy policy can be found here.
- MailChimp, the campaign automation platform owned by US-based Rocket Science Group. MailChimp stores our newsletter subscribers' data in order to send newsletters on our behalf. MailChimp is also a certified member of the Privacy Shields. Learn more about its privacy policy here.
- Stripe, a US-based payment gateway provider which allows us to securely process payments on your behalf for our services. Stripe is also a certified member of the Privacy Shields. Learn more about its privacy policy here.
- Xero, a New Zealand-based online accounting software. The European Commission has approved New Zealand as a partner country 1 offering adequate data protection level for data transfers to and from the EEA. You may read about Xero and GDPR here.
- Google Analytics, Doubleclick For Publishers (DFP) -- both owned by Google -- and Chartbeat for contextual and wholly anonymized analytics. Both US-based companies are members of the Privacy Shields 2 3. Read their privacy policies here and here.
- Mixpanel for more detailed analytics (upon opt-in only) including a unique ID per visitor on our website. Mixpanel is also a certified member of the Privacy Shields. Learn more about its privacy policy here.
Our contact information
For matters specific to privacy matters, please contact us at [email protected]
Our data breach procedures
What third parties we receive data from
We occasionally receive access to lists of attendees from specific industry events. In this case, we will always first ask proof from the provider that the attendees have provided consent for their details to be shared with third parties before receiving the list.
What automated decision making and/or profiling we do with user data
Some of the contextual data provided by our subscribers -- specifically industry, country and job title - is used to collate statistics on our audience, where these details are available. This help us make better business and editorial decisions by having a better understanding of who our audience is. Please not we would never use any personably identifiable information in such endeavors - nor would they be of any use.