Privacy Policy for upskill2own.com

Last Updated: 01 April 2024

1. Introduction

Welcome to upskill2own.com (the “Website,” “Site,” “we,” “us,” or “our”). We are committed to protecting the privacy of our visitors and users (“you,” “your”). This Privacy Policy explains what personal data we collect, how we collect it, why we collect it, how we use, share, store, and protect it, and what rights you have regarding your personal data.

Our website address is: https://upskill2own.com.

This policy aims to comply with regulations including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union and the UK, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), and other relevant privacy laws.

Data Controller: Upskill2Own
Contact Email for Privacy Matters: Upskill2own@gmail.com
Contact Address (Optional but Recommended): 1549 Coucal Steet, Pretoria, 0151, South Africa

2. What Personal Data We Collect and Why We Collect It

We collect information about you in the following ways:

• Information You Provide Directly:
  • Comments: When you leave comments on the site, we collect the data shown in the comments form (such as your name, email address, and website URL if provided), your IP address, and browser user agent string.
    • Purpose: To display your comment, prevent spam, and facilitate discussion.
    • Legal Basis (GDPR/UK GDPR): Legitimate interest (spam prevention, enabling site functionality), Consent (by actively submitting the comment).
  • Contact Forms: ]
    • Purpose: To respond to your inquiries, provide support, sign you up to a newsletter.
    • Legal Basis (GDPR/UK GDPR): Legitimate interest (responding to inquiries), Consent (where we have a checkbox for specific uses), Performance of a contract (if the inquiry relates to a service)
  • User Registration: If users can register on our site, we collect the information provided during registration (e.g., username, email address, password, profile information).
    • Purpose: To create and manage user accounts, allow participation in restricted areas, personalize user experience.
    • Legal Basis (GDPR/UK GDPR): Performance of a contract (providing account features), Legitimate interest (site administration).
• Information Collected Automatically:
  • Log Files: Like many websites, we may collect standard log file information, including your IP address, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, date/time stamp, and clickstream data.
    • Purpose: Site administration, security monitoring, analyzing trends, understanding user movement.
    • Legal Basis (GDPR/UK GDPR): Legitimate interest (security, site maintenance, basic analytics).
  • Cookies and Similar Technologies: We use cookies to enhance your experience, remember your preferences, and analyze site traffic. See Section 4 (“Cookies and Tracking Technologies”) for details.
  • Analytics:  We may use third-party analytics services (e.g., Google Analytics, Ezoic) to collect information about your use of the Site, such as pages visited, time spent on pages, links clicked, and general location data (often anonymized or aggregated).
    • Purpose: To understand how visitors use our site, improve content and user experience.
    • Legal Basis (GDPR/UK GDPR): Legitimate interest (for basic, privacy-preserving analytics) or Consent (for more detailed tracking or where required by law – recommended).
• Information from Third Parties:
  • Gravatar: An anonymized string created from your email address (a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. If you are, your profile picture may be displayed publicly alongside your comment after approval. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/.
  • Embedded Content: Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g., videos from YouTube/Vimeo, images, articles, social media posts). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if you visited the other website. These websites may collect data about you, use their own cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, especially if you have an account and are logged in to that website. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of these third-party websites.
  • Ezoic Services: This website uses the services of Ezoic Inc. (“Ezoic”), including to manage third-party interest-based advertising. Ezoic may employ a variety of technologies on this website, including tools to serve content, display advertisements and enable advertising to visitors of this website, which may utilize first and third-party cookies.
    • The following information may be collected, used, and stored in a cookie when serving personalized ads:
      • IP address
      • Operating system type and version
      • Device type
      • Language preferences
      • Web browser type
      • Email (in a hashed or encrypted form)
    • Ezoic and its partners may use this data in combination with information that has been independently collected to deliver targeted advertisements across various platforms and websites. Ezoic’s partners may also gather additional data, such as unique IDs, advertising IDs, geolocation data, usage data, device information, traffic data, referral sources, and interactions between users and websites or advertisements, to create audience segments for targeted advertising across different devices, browsers, and apps. You can find more information about interest-based advertising and how to manage them here.
    • You can view Ezoic’s privacy policy here, or for additional information about Ezoic’s advertising and other partners, you can view Ezoic’s advertising partners here.
    • A cookie is a small text file sent to your device by a web server that enables the website to remember information about your browsing activity. First-party cookies are created by the site you are visiting, while third-party cookies are set by domains other than the one you’re visiting. Ezoic and our partners may place third-party cookies, tags, beacons, pixels, and similar technologies to monitor interactions with advertisements and optimize ad targeting. Please note that disabling cookies may limit access to certain content and features on the website, and rejecting cookies does not eliminate advertisements but will result in non-personalized advertising. You can find more information about cookies and how to manage them here.

3. How We Use Your Personal Data

We use the collected data for purposes including:

• Operating and maintaining the Website.
• Processing and displaying comments.
• Responding to your inquiries via contact forms or email.
• Detecting and preventing spam and security threats.
• Managing user accounts (if applicable).
• Analyzing website usage to improve content and user experience.
• Personalizing your experience (e.g., remembering login details).
• Complying with legal obligations.

4. Cookies and Tracking Technologies

Cookies are small text files stored on your device when you visit a website. We use them for various purposes:

• Essential/Strictly Necessary Cookies: Required for the basic operation of the site (e.g., session cookies, security cookies).
• Functional Cookies: Remember your preferences and choices (e.g., comment form details, login information, screen display options).
  • If you leave a comment, you may opt-in to saving your name, email address, and website in cookies for one year for convenience.
  • Login cookies last for two days; screen options cookies last for a year. “Remember Me” login persists for two weeks. These are removed upon logout.
  • An article editing cookie (no personal data, just post ID) expires after 1 day.
• Analytics/Performance Cookies: Help us understand how visitors interact with the website (e.g., Google Analytics cookies, Ezoic Cookies).
• Marketing/Targeting Cookies: This website is funded through adverts served by Google Adsense and Ezoic. For specific information on Ezoic Cookies, please use this link: https://g.ezoic.net/privacy/upskill2own.com

Your Consent: For non-essential cookies (Functional, Analytics, Marketing), we rely on your consent, typically obtained through a cookie consent banner when you first visit the site. You can manage your cookie preferences and withdraw consent at any time..

Browser Settings: Most web browsers allow you to control cookies through their settings. You can usually find these settings in the ‘options’ or ‘preferences’ menu of your browser. Please note that disabling essential cookies may affect the functionality of the Website.

5. Who We Share Your Data With

We do not sell your personal data. We may share your data with the following categories of third parties under specific circumstances:

• Service Providers: Companies that perform services on our behalf, such as:
  • Website Hosting Provider: Hostinger – They store website data.
  • Spam Detection Service: Akismet – Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service. .
  • Analytics Provider: Google Analytics, Ezoic – To analyze website traffic. Google’s: https://policies.google.com/privacy, Ezoic’s: https://www.ezoic.com/privacy/
  • Gravatar Service (Automattic): As described in Section 2.
  • Other Service Providers: e.g., Email marketing service: Mailchimp.
• Legal Requirements: If required by law, subpoena, or other legal process, or if we have a good faith belief that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, protect your safety or the safety of others, investigate fraud, or respond to a government request.
• Business Transfers: In connection with any merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company, user information may be transferred as a business asset.

We require our service providers to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. They are typically only permitted to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

6. International Data Transfers

Your information, including personal data, may be transferred to — and maintained on — computers located outside of your state, province, country, or other governmental jurisdiction where the data protection laws may differ from those in your jurisdiction (e.g., our hosting servers or service providers might be located in the United States).

If you are located in the European Economic Area (EEA), UK, or Switzerland, we will ensure that transfers of your personal data outside these regions are protected by appropriate safeguards, such as:

• Transferring to countries deemed to provide an adequate level of protection by the European Commission or UK Government.
• Using Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) approved by the European Commission or the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

By using our Website, you consent to such transfers, provided appropriate safeguards are in place. Specific information on safeguards used for transfers to specific providers (like hosting or analytics) can often be found in their respective privacy policies or data processing agreements.

7. How Long We Retain Your Data

We retain your personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

• Comments: If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This allows us to recognize and approve follow-up comments automatically. You can request deletion (see Section 8).
• User Account Data: For registered users, we store the personal information provided in their user profile indefinitely, or until the user deletes their account or requests deletion. Users can see, edit, or delete their profile information at any time (username cannot be changed). Administrators can also see and edit this information.
• Contact Form Submissions: We retain data submitted through contact forms for one year unless you request deletion sooner.
• Analytics Records: Analytics data is typically retained for 26 months before being automatically deleted or anonymized.
• Log Files: Server logs are typically kept for a shorter period, e.g., 90 days, for security and troubleshooting purposes.

8. Your Privacy Rights

Depending on your location and applicable laws (especially GDPR, UK GDPR, CCPA/CPRA), you may have the following rights regarding your personal data:

• Right to Access: You can request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Right to Rectification: You can request correction of inaccurate or incomplete personal data.
• Right to Erasure (‘Right to be Forgotten’): You can request deletion of your personal data under certain conditions (e.g., it’s no longer necessary for the purpose it was collected, you withdraw consent). This does not include data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
• Right to Restrict Processing: You can request that we limit the processing of your personal data under certain circumstances.
• Right to Data Portability: You can request to receive your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format and have the right to transmit that data to another controller (where processing is based on consent or contract and is automated).
• Right to Object: You can object to the processing of your personal data based on our legitimate interests. You also have the right to object to processing for direct marketing purposes.
• Right to Withdraw Consent: If we rely on your consent for processing, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. This will not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.
• Right Not to Be Subject to Automated Decision-Making: You have the right not to be subject to decisions based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produce legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affect you.
• Right to Lodge a Complaint: You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority (data protection authority) in your jurisdiction if you believe our processing of your personal data infringes applicable law. (e.g., the ICO in the UK, or your national DPA in the EU).

Specific Rights for California Residents (CCPA/CPRA):

• Right to Know: You have the right to request information about the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you, the categories of sources, the purposes for collecting it, the categories of third parties we share it with, and the categories of information disclosed or sold. As far as we know, we do not share any of your information from our site.
• Right to Delete: Similar to the GDPR right to erasure, subject to certain exceptions.
• Right to Correct: Similar to the GDPR right to rectification.
• Right to Opt-Out of Sale/Sharing: You have the right to direct us not to “sell” or “share” your personal information (as defined by CPRA). State clearly: “We do not sell personal information in the traditional sense. However, if you consider the use of analytics/ad cookies as ‘sharing’ under CPRA, opt out of the cookies when you visit the site.
• Right to Limit Use of Sensitive Personal Information: If you collect sensitive personal information (as defined by CPRA, e.g., precise geolocation, race, religion – unlikely for your blog based on description), users have the right to limit its use to essential purposes.
• Right to Non-Discrimination: We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your CCPA/CPRA rights.

9. How to Exercise Your Rights

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at our dedicated privacy email address: upskill2own@gmail.com

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We aim to respond to all legitimate requests within one month (or as required by applicable law, which may be 45 days for CCPA initial response).

10. Data Security

We implement reasonable administrative, technical, and physical security measures to protect your personal data from unauthorized access, use, alteration, or destruction. These may include SSL encryption, security plugins, access controls, regular software updates. However, please be aware that no method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Data, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

11. Children’s Privacy

Our Website is not intended for children under the age of 13 (or 16 in some jurisdictions like the EEA). We do not knowingly collect personal identifiable information from children under this age. If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that your child has provided us with personal data without your consent, please contact us. If we become aware that we have collected personal data from children without verification of parental consent, we take steps to remove that information from our servers.

12. Links to Other Websites

Our Website may contain links to other websites that are not operated by us (e.g., embedded content sources, external links in articles). If you click on a third-party link, you will be directed to that third party’s site. We strongly advise you to review the Privacy Policy of every site you visit. We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third-party sites or services.

13. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page and updating the “Last Updated” date at the top. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes are effective when they are posted on this page.

14. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us:

By email: upskill2own@gmail.com