Cookie Policy

How do we use cookies on this board?
We use files known as cookies on Christopher Ward Forum to improve its performance and to enhance your user experience. By using Christopher Ward Forum you agree that we can place these types of files on your device.

What are cookies?
A cookie is a small text file that a website may put on your computer, or mobile device, when you first visit that site or one of its pages. Once a cookie is saved on your computer, only the website that created the cookie can read it. Legislation states that a website must let you know when it uses cookies.

There are many functions that a cookie can serve. For example, a cookie will help the website to recognise your device the next time you visit it. Christopher Ward Forum uses the term "cookies" in this policy to refer to all files that collect information in this way.

Cookies contain non-Personally Identifiable Information (non-PII). For example, if you click on "Remember Me" when logging on, a cookie will store your username. No cookies will collect Personally Identifiable Information (PII) that identifies you, but will instead collect more general information such as how users arrive at and use Christopher Ward Forum. Cookies don't tell us who you are or give us any personal details about you beyond your forum pseudonym. The data they help us collect is anonymous.

What sort of cookies does Christopher Ward Forum use?
Cookies can perform several different functions:

1. Necessary Cookies
Some cookies are essential for the operation of Christopher Ward Forum. These cookies enable services you have specifically asked for.

2. Performance Cookies
These cookies may collect anonymous information on the pages visited. For example, we might use performance cookies to keep track of which pages are most popular, which method of linking between pages is most effective and to determine why some pages are receiving error messages.

3. Functionality Cookies
These cookies allow us to remember choices you make when you use the website, for example remembering your login details. The purpose of these cookies is to improve your experience and to avoid you having to re-enter your preferences every time you use the website.

Christopher Ward Forum may also allow third parties to serve cookies that fall into any of the categories above. For example, like many sites, we use Google Analytics to help us monitor our website traffic. All of the data we collect with Google Analytics is anonymous and we use it in an aggregated way which means that we look at overall trends in browsing behaviour. We collect information such as how many people visit our website, which pages they visit and how long they spend on them, and how long they stay on the site for. We do not allow Google to use or share the data about how you use this site. Understanding how people browse Christopher Ward Forum can help us identify areas that we need to improve, or fix problems that are preventing people from finding the information they need. For more info please visit: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-GB

We use the following cookies:

_ga Lifespan: 2 years
_gid Lifespan: 1 day

Associated with Google Universal Analytics. This cookie is used to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier. It is included in each page request in a site and used to calculate visitor, session and campaign data for the site's analytics reports.

_gtag_UA_xxxxxxxxx Lifespan: a few seconds
Associated with Google Tag Manager to load other scripts and code into the page. It is regarded as "Strictly Necessary" as without it, other scripts may not function correctly.

_ca Lifespan: 1 year
Identifies the Cookie Acceptance of the current browsing session and uses this to determine whether to display the cookie hint content and if the browser is accepting cookies.

_sid Lifespan: 1 year
Ensures that the visitor's information is not abused by any other than the rightful visitor. It is a secure Session Token for managing session states over a secure connection.

_k Lifespan: 1 year
The Session Key identifies you over multiple independent sessions. It handles the "Remember Me" functionality.

_u Lifespan: 1 year
User Identification, an anonymous and unique ID of your user account, used to lookup and compare your Session Token against your Session Key both defined above.

Cookies on Christopher Ward Forum from social networking sites
Christopher Ward Forum may have links to social networking websites, for example Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. These websites may also place cookies on your device and Christopher Ward Forum does not control how they use their cookies, therefore you should consult their policies.

Can a board user block cookies?
To find out how to manage which cookies you allow, see your browser's help section or your mobile device manual - or you can visit one of the sites below, which have detailed information on how to manage, control or delete cookies.

www.aboutcookies.org
www.allaboutcookies.org

Please remember that if you do choose to disable cookies, you may find that certain sections of Christopher Ward Forum do not function properly.


General Data Protection Regulation

Introduction
We take the protection of your privacy and confidentiality seriously. We understand that visitors to our website are entitled to information about their personal data and know it will not accidentally fall into the hands of a third party. Our principle guidelines are simple, and we will be clear about the data we collect and why. This policy sets out the conditions under which we may process any information that we collect from you, or that you provide to us. In the context of the law and this notice, "processing" means any operation performed on your data including collecting, storing, transferring, using, or otherwise acting on information.

The data for your account at Christopher Ward Forum is protected by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) and the Data Protection Laws applicable in the United Kingdom, the jurisdiction that hosts our website and which the data controller is a Registered Company and resides. When you are using this forum Christopher Ward London Limited, registered in England & Wales Company Number 05167936, is the data controller. The personal details that you gave us when you signed up, or added later, will be used solely for the purposes of Christopher Ward Forum board functionality, Christopher Ward London Limited, or its sub-processors. We ensure that any sub-processors appointed to carry out services on our behalf provide at least the same level of protection for your data as applied at Christopher Ward Forum, demonstrating assurance of our highest standards and compliance with relevant Data Protection Laws. Your data will not be passed on to any third party without your explicit consent, neither will it be used for anything beyond the lawful basis on which we carry out such processing as outlined below.

The information we collect about you
To comply with the GDPR you need to be made aware that your Christopher Ward Forum account will, at a bare minimum, contain a uniquely identifiable name (hereinafter "your username"), a personal password used for logging into your account (hereinafter "your password") and a personal, valid email address (hereinafter "your email"). Furthermore, we will mandatorily store all of the IP addresses that you use to post with to aid law enforcement of abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated or any other material violation in order to comply with any legal obligation. Any information beyond your IP address, your username, your password, and your email address required by Christopher Ward Forum during the registration process is optional.

How we use information about you
From time-to-time you agree for the data controller to perform a match on your corresponding email, against its Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, to distinguish you from other users. This helps us provide you with a good Customer Service Experience when you contact the data controller generally, or to register a complaint. Depending on your preferences, Christopher Ward London Limited may send you emails to the email address that Christopher Ward Forum holds in your account which will either be that you used when you registered or one that you have subsequently changed, but you are able to change these preferences from your User Control Panel (UCP) at any time should you wish to stop receiving them. Furthermore, within your account, you have the option to opt-in or opt-out of Christopher Ward Forum automatically generated system and notification type emails.

Your rights to access, correct, erasure, object, or restrict
In all cases, you have the option of what information in your account is publicly displayed and processed. You can check the personal details Christopher Ward Forum is holding about you from your User Control Panel (UCP) and may exercise any, or all, of your above rights at any time from your profile.

Non-Personally Identifiable Information (non-PII)
Your Christopher Ward Forum data is linked to a pseudonymous identifier, your username, associated with your email used to access this website all of which is considered wholly anonymous. The only other data about you in which we hold is that which you decide to post in the fora, whereupon it is considered to be public domain in any event. Publicly available content will have been indexed by search engines as well as on-line archive sites of which we have no control and you should consult their policies.