Privacy and Security

Summary

• We always respect your privacy - no exceptions!
• Only essential customer information is recorded, usually only a name and email, the minimum for operational needs.
• Personal information is never shared with anyone else.
• We do not track individual activity on our website or through our software.
• Minimal use is made of web cookies.
• File downloads and use of free or trial software is completely anonymous.
• Our software does not contain any form of spyware, malware, usage tracing or adverts.

Personal details

We value our own personal privacy and have total respect for the privacy of our customers and anyone else that contacts us. We are committed to protecting your rights.

Only essential contact details required for operational purposes will be kept in our records, such as name, email address and sometimes postal address. The action of making a purchase from us is taken as positive consent to hold the data provided.

If you choose to contact us either via the website form or by direct email message, your email address will also be kept for a while on our system. However, we will never use it for any purpose other than direct reply or follow-up contact.

Any such personal data retained by us will not under any circumstances be made available to any other company or person.

We never gather and store personal information from any external source. We do not do any form of direct marketing. We never send unsolicited emails or text messages, or anything else like that.

We use email addresses to validate existing customers, for example when issuing licence reminders. We very rarely send email messages except in response to queries.

Any on-line purchase payments from our website are handled entirely by PayPal, we do not see or keep any credit card details. We will never request payment card or any other account details from you. PayPal have an excellent security record and provide extensive information about privacy and safe purchasing on their own web-site.

Removal: If at any time you wish to have your details removed from our system, just let us know and it will be actioned as soon as possible. You may also ask us to provide what details we hold about you. Please note that if a customer's details are deleted then we may be unable to provide free replacement of lost licence codes.

Cookies

What are cookies? - They are small text files that are saved to the hard drive by your web browser. Cookies have a number of practical purposes and almost all websites use them to some extent. In themselves cookies do not pose any threat to your security, but they can be used to transfer information, particularly about your web activity.

For a very detailed explanation, see this Wikipedia article about cookies.

On this website we make little use of cookies. We no longer use Google Analytics or other measurements therfore no tracking cookies are set. Our blog runs on WordPress software which uses cookies for operational functions. The picture gallery using Piwigo is similar. Our online plant database also makes occasional use of a cookie only for navigational purposes. We never gather any personal data from any of these.

Our web pages don't carry any 3rd Party adverts, so no advertiser cookies are set. Some pages may contain external web links, we take no responsibility for external sites or any cookies they might use.

You can generally control cookies in your browser settings, or delete them at any time. This should have no significant impact on viewing our website.

Continuing to use our website implies that you are in agreement with the use of cookies on it. As indicated by UK and EU law we have also implemented a consent check on pages that might set cookies. The consent question is shown on the first visit and if agreed, will be not be repeated. The answer is saved by setting a cookie - which is in fact one of the few occasions a cookie is used by our own code!

Software

Our software does not incorporate any form of remote access for authentication, reporting or any similar function. The downloading or installation of software files from our own website also does not reveal your personal identity - use of our trial and free software is entirely anonymous.

For software installed via an app store, such as Google Play, we do not see or collect any personal data. Your privacy rights are covered by their own system. Our mobile apps are the same as all our software and never collect identity information.

Purchase of our software licences normally require your email address and a user-name, which may or may-not be based on your real name. Issued registration codes are linked to this user-name and email address. Replacement codes, when requested, are only issued on validation of the original purchase email address.

Our software, desktop or mobile, never attempts to access unauthorised parts of your computer systems. Our programs are strictly concerned with performing only the purpose described for them - nothing else. Any run-time permissions required are for purely operational functioning, for example access to file storage.

We recommend that all downloaded executable files, including those from this site, and also installation CD's are scanned with a reliable anti-virus/anti-spyware program before installing any software.

General security

Our in-house systems are fully protected by hardware and software firewalls, anti-virus and anti-spyware programs. No unsupervised access to systems holding personal data is allowed at any time.

Our web and email services are hosted by a reputable UK company who utilise stringent security measures, well above industry average.