( 'Terms' refers to the terms of use of the Newsquest Herald & Times Ltd communities).

Personal responsibility and choice
Disclosure of personal, private and confidential material is at your own risk. Any information you choose to disseminate on the community becomes public information and, subject to our Terms, remains online. We cannot control site users and advise you to exercise care in disclosing personal information on the internet. However, we shall take care of any personal information you supply to us as described in this policy in accordance with data protection legislation. Persons under 16 should not disclose to us any personal information without first getting the permission of a parent or guardian

Our policy
By registering or subscribing to this website, or otherwise providing personal information to us, you agree to the collection, retention, usage and distribution of your personal information under this policy and the Terms of use of the website.

Changes of policy
This policy may be revised or updated at any time and we encourage you to familiarise yourself with it and read it frequently to keep yourself updated.

Collection of personal information
Personal information can be collected by us from you when you register to use the website, request services from us or third parties connected with us, e-mail us, use our website, participate in promotions, enter competitions or otherwise provide your personal details.

Other information
In addition to personal information we obtain, including your name, postal and e-mail addresses and telephone numbers, we may also collect information that is in no way personally identifiable. This may include the operating system you are working on, the internet browser you are using, the domain name of your internet service provider and the websites you visit directly before and after your visit.

Cookies
A "cookie" is a piece of software which can stick to a computer's hard drive and recalls details about how your computer operates. We reserve the right to use this information to track your movements through our website. Personal information about you is not collected during this process. You can disable the cookies if your browser allows this. For further information on how to do this, please refer to www.about-cookies.org . However you might not be able to use some of our on-line services if you follow this. We have no control over any cookies sent by third party websites.

Use of your personal information
Your personal information, including contact information such as postal and e-mail addresses and telephone numbers, may be used by us or by one of our connected companies for any of our internal purposes, including administration, site updates or upgrades, editorial purposes, promotions, marketing of goods and services, statistical analysis and market research or for evaluating the use made of our websites.

Disclosure of personal information to third parties
Your personal information will be disclosed where we are obliged or permitted to do so by law, or in the circumstances described in paragraph 15 of the Terms. We may disclose non-personally identifiable data to commercial advertisers on our websites or any other of our commercial clients to help them understand and meet potential customer preferences and needs. We may disclose your personal information to selected third parties who may then send information to you about goods and services. You can indicate you do not wish to receive such material by e-mailing us at

Retention of personal information
We will keep your personal information securely on our systems for as long as may be necessary for the purposes described in this policy. At any time you can tell us if you do not want us to continue to store and use your details and we will erase them and cancel your registration for the website, although we may need to keep for a minimum of 12 months thereafter any messaging transcript data in connection with the use of the community or any other part of the website.

Data protection
You are entitled to request personal data that we hold about you for a small charge. You can insist that we correct any information about you.

Third party policies
Third parties and websites linked to our site may collect or use information about you. We are not liable for the information practices of unconnected companies or other persons except as may be required by law.