Privacy, Commenting & Advertising Policies

The purpose of this statement (Privacy Policy) is to let users know how Remembering the Past Australia (ABN 73 378 832 504) (whether trading under the name Remembering the Past, RTPA Designs or another trading name) (we, us or our) handles, collects and manages personal information about you as:

• A current member (Member) of Remembering the Past Australia;
• A visitor (Visitor) to our website, (Site) whether or not you are a Member; and/or
• A customer (Customer) whether or not you are a Member or Visitor.

In using the Site and/or providing us with any personal information, you agree that you are 15 years of age or older and acknowledge that this Privacy Policy details how we collect, use, hold and disclose any personal information you provide us and you consent to our collecting, using and disclosing of your sensitive information in accordance with and as outlined in this Privacy Policy.

If you provide us with the personal information of another individual, you guarantee that you have informed them of this, that you have provided this Privacy Policy to them and that you have their permission to provide their personal information to us.

1. Site Information

Remembering the Past Australia is a Family History/Genealogy and Australian History website that includes genealogical services, membership subscriptions and ecommerce transactions.

2. Collection of Personal Information

2.1 Members and Customers

As a Member or Customer we collect personal information when you provide it to us via the Site, such as when purchasing a subscription or product, or registering for a course or an event.  This information includes:

• Your full name; and
• Your address and contact details.

2.1.1 Processing Payments

We do not collect, store or have access to any personal financial information.  All payments on this Site are made through the secure payment platform of Paypal. Please see Paypal’s  Privacy Policy for more information.

2.2 Visitors

As a Visitor we collect your personal information if:

• You provide it to us on the Site (i.e. entering information in to the Contact Form);
• You subscribe to receive updates from the Site;
• You enter and/or participate in a course or survey of ours; and/or
• If you otherwise contact us by email.

We also collect personal information through the use of cookies. (See Clause 8. Cookies)

3. Use of Personal Information

3.1 Members & Customers

We use the personal information we collect about you to provide you with business-related products and services, in particular:

• To process and deliver products and services to you (e.g. delivering services and processing payments);
• To provide you with requested information about our products and services;
• To personalise and customise the products and services we offer you;
• To understand how we can better serve your needs as a Member and those of other Members;
• To process payments and transactions relating to your account as a Member; and
• To verify your identity for the purposes of protecting the integrity and security of your Member account.

3.2 Visitors

We use the personal information we collect about you:

• To respond to your messages or emails;
• To send you updates about the Site if you have subscribed to receive updates;
• to conduct surveys and promotions;
• to tailor our memberships, products and services to you; and
• for other purposes as permitted or required by law.

4. Sharing of Personal Information

If you subscribe to our Site your personal information is added to a Distribution List hosted on Mailchimp who have and may access the data on the list. If a subscriber chooses to use the “forward to a friend” link in the email update sent from our Site, it will allow the Subscriber to share the email content; however, the friend’s email will not be added to the Distribution List and their email address is not stored either on this Site or via Mailchimp.

Information is shared with third-party providers that aid in the operation of this Site. Third-party providers provide website and application development, hosting maintenance, backup, storage, virtual infrastructure, payment processing, analysis and other services which may require them to access information on our Site.

If required or authorised by law, we may also share your information for other purposes.

5. Email Subscribers

Our Site offers functionality allowing you to subscribe to receive updates of when new public articles are posted on to our Site. You will only receive an email if you subscribe to receive it. If you change your mind you will always have an option to unsubscribe.

6. Updating and/or Accessing Your Personal Information

If you are a Member or Customer and have an account on the Site, you can view and edit your personal information by logging into your account. Please ensure that your account profile is kept up to date.

If you are unable to do it yourself on the Site, you can contact us at any time to request access to and/or correction of your personal information. We reserve the right to charge a reasonable fee for responding to such a request. We will respond to your request within 30 days after receiving it. Should we not be able to meet your request for any reason, we will write back to you and explain why.

7. Security of Your Personal Information

While safeguard designs are implemented to protect your information, no security system is impenetrable and due to the inherent nature of the Internet, there is no guarantee that data during transmission through the Internet is absolutely safe from intrusion by others.

Remembering the Past Australia will take all reasonable steps to protect your personal information once it reaches us, including software updating and logging of system access.  In addition, this site is generated by WordPress, and uses Jetpack and Akismet (by Automattic Inc.), a spam-fighting service that protects millions of WordPress sites. These data hosting service providers host the information collected from you and use technical measures to secure your data.

8. Use of Cookies

A cookie is a small piece of data that is stored on your computer or mobile device which is used to facilitate website services. Cookies themselves contain no personally identifiable information. This site uses cookies to operate certain functions including authentication to determine if you have access and security to protect this website and services generally.

This site is generated by WordPress which uses cookies to deliver its services, personalise ads and analyse traffic.

This site uses Google Adsense who collect and send the following information (made available from the visitor’s browser) to their Demand Partners: IP address, geographical data (derived from the IP address), user agent, operating system, device type, unique user ID (randomly generated identifier), current URL, and IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) interest category. The advertising partners may use that information to display personalised ads to those visitors. The sharing of this information with their advertising partners may be considered a “sale” of information under the CCPA.

Data Retention: Log data (IP address, geographical data, user agent, operating system, device type) is stored for 30 days. The unique user ID is stored in cookies and is retained for 1 year.

Google Adsense track ad impressions, video-related events (i.e. pause, mute, 100% plays, etc.) or errors, and ad click events.

Various cookies are used for the following purposes: delivering targeted advertisements to specific visitors, storing user identifiers, and collecting anonymous ad platform stats.

Google Analytics uses first-party cookies and JavaScript code to help analyse how users use the site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website will be transmitted to Google. Google will use this information for the purpose of compiling reports on website activity and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage. — Opt-Out

You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser.

Please note that by deleting cookies or disabling future cookies you may be unable to access certain areas or features of our website. If you adjust your cookie settings or choose the Do Not Track browser option this will also affect the other websites you visit.

9. Log Data

Remembering the Past Australia receives information when you view content on this Site or otherwise interact with the Site. When you visit this website or interact via the contact page, we automatically receive information about you. This Data includes information such as your IP address, browser type, operating system, the referring web page, pages visited, location, your mobile carrier, device information (including device and application IDs), search terms, and cookie information. Log Data is used to operate the services and to ensure that they are secure, reliable, and perform well. The information you provide and the data received, including Log Data and data from third parties, is used to better design services and to personalise content.

10. Social Login, Sharing, Likes and Commenting

This site uses plugins to send requests to third party (Facebook) APIs via website visitor’s web browser to fetch information (like social shares, social comment count). This request made by a web browser may include an IP address, which can then be seen by the third party that it’s being requested from. This API request doesn’t include any personal data of the website user other than the IP address.

• Social Login

We collect your public profile data only from your consent that you grant before initiating Social Login, from the social network used to login at our website. This data includes your first name, last name, email address, link to your social media profile, unique identifier, link to social profile avatar. This data is used to create your user profile on our website. You can revoke this consent at any time by sending us an email.

• Facebook Comments

We embed Facebook Comments plugin to allow you to leave a comment on our website using your Facebook account. This plugin may collect your IP address, your web browser User Agent, store and retrieve cookies on your browser, embed additional tracking, and monitor your interaction with the commenting interface, including correlating your Facebook account with whatever action you take within the interface (such as “liking” someone’s comment, replying to other comments) if you are logged into Facebook. For more information about how this data may be used, please see Facebook’s data privacy policy.

• Facebook Like, Facebook Recommend, Facebook Share official buttons

We embed a Facebook widget to allow you to see the number of likes/shares/recommends and “like/share/recommend” our webpages. This widget may collect your IP address, your web browser User Agent, store and retrieve cookies on your browser, embed additional tracking, and monitor your interaction with the widget, including correlating your Facebook account with whatever action you take within the widget (such as “liking/sharing/recommending” our webpage) if you are logged in to Facebook. For more information about how this data may be used, please see Facebook’s data privacy policy.

• Twitter Tweet official button

We use a Twitter Tweet widget on our website. As a result, our website makes requests to Twitter’s servers for you to be able to tweet our web pages using your Twitter account. These requests make your IP address visible to Twitter, which may use it in accordance with their data privacy policy.

• Pinterest Save official button

We use the Pinterest Save widget on our website to allow you to pin images to Pinterest from our web pages. These requests may track your IP address in accordance with their data privacy policy.

12. Links to Other Sites

This Site uses hyperlinks to other websites. These websites may use their own cookies to collect data or solicit information from you. This Site is not responsible for the privacy practices of other websites, please ensure that you make yourself familiar with their policies when using a hyperlink from this site.

13. Law, Harm, and the Public Interest

Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in this Privacy Policy or controls we may otherwise offer to you, Remembering the Past Australia may preserve, use, or disclose your personal data if it is believed that it is reasonably necessary to comply with a law, regulation, legal process, or governmental request; to protect the safety of any person; to protect the safety or integrity of our platform, including to help prevent spam, abuse, or malicious actors on this site, or to explain why removed content has been removed from accounts on this site; to address fraud, security, or technical issues; or to protect Remembering the Past Australia and it’s administrator’s rights or property or the rights or property of those who use this site. Nothing in this Privacy Policy is intended to limit any legal defences or objections that you may have to a third party’s, including a government’s, request to disclose your personal data.

14. Non-Personal Information

You can request at any time for your account to be deleted. This will include personal data, profile data, created content, logs, etc. Cookies need to be deleted by you. Your request and choices may be limited in certain cases: for example, if fulfilling your request would reveal information about another person, or if you ask to delete information which Remembering the Past Australia is permitted or required by law or may have compelling legitimate interests to keep.

15. Republished Content

This site and its administrator are not responsible for republished content from this site on other websites or blogs without permission.

16. Your Consent to This Policy

By using Remembering the Past Australia or any features on this site, you are consenting to the collecting of your information as has been specified and this Privacy Policy.

17. Changes to this Privacy Policy

This privacy policy is subject to change without notice and was last updated on 120 October 2021. You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.

18. Contact

If you have any questions or if you encounter any difficulties in using our site, please feel free to contact Remembering the Past Australia using the contact form or via email: connect@rememberingthepastaustralia.com

Comments are welcomed and encouraged on this site, but there are some instances where comments will be edited or deleted as follows:

• Comments deemed to be spam or solely promotional in nature (unless posted in the Businesses / Services / Societies Forum) will be deleted. Including a link to relevant content is permitted, but comments should be relevant to the post topic.
• Comments including profanity will be deleted.
• Comments containing language or concepts that could be deemed offensive will be deleted. Note this may include abusive, threatening, pornographic, offensive, misleading or libellous language.
• Comments that attack an individual directly will be deleted.
• Comments that harass other posters will be deleted. Please be respectful toward other contributors.
• Anonymous comments will be deleted. Comments are only accepted from posters who identify themselves.

The views and opinions published on Remembering the Past Australia Forum represent a wide range of views and interests of the participating individuals. Statements expressed in these forums are the personal opinion of the commentators and do not necessarily reflect those of Remembering the Past Australia, its administrator or any affiliates to this site.

The administrator at all times, and at their absolute discretion, reserves the right to edit or remove any comments considered to be reasonably offensive from this site.

This commenting policy is subject to change at any time. If you have any questions on the commenting policy, please contact Remembering the Past Australia.

To help maintain parts of this webpage as free, Remembering the Past Australia has engaged funding through advertising which may include affiliate advertising.

A small commission is paid to Remembering the Past Australia if you purchase products through an affiliate link from this website. You will pay no extra by purchasing through a link on this site and in some cases may even be able to obtain a discount by doing so.

This site does not sell your personal details to any advertiser or third party.

If you like this site, please don’t use ad blockers – some advertisers will pay just for you to see their advertisement and it’s an easy way for the site to make money to maintain the webpage while keeping other costs low.

If you have a complaint about any ad, for any reason, please contact Remembering the Past Australia so that it can be looked into.

Please note: Remembering the Past Australia and its administrator does not endorse or verify the legality of any business enterprise, service or link that is advertised.