I decided to write this post as I worked on my own privacy policy! However, the first thing I need to tell you is – do not treat this as expert advice, I’m not a lawyer.
This post is to provide you with some guidance so you can fast track the process. It’s not the most exciting part of writing a blog I’ve gotta tell you, but chances are you need to have one.
Disclaimer done so let’s get to it!
What is a Privacy Policy?
According to Wikipedia, a privacy policy is a statement or a legal document (in privacy law) that discloses some or all of the ways a party gathers, uses, discloses, and manages a customer or client’s data.
A privacy policy basically tells users how you will collect, store and treat their personal information.
Do I Need a Privacy Policy?
If you intend for your blog to do any of these things, you may need to create a privacy policy as it’s required in most countries by law.
- Collect personal information from users
- Use cookies (data sent from a website and stored on the user’s computer by the user’s web browser while the user is browsing)
- Use web analytics tools
- Use third parties who may have privacy requirements that must be incorporated in your own privacy policy. Eg: Google Adsense, MailChimp etc.
Your privacy policy should:
- Be easy to read
- Visible on your website
- Include contact details
- Contain relevant information
Resources I Used
To create my privacy policy, I used a generic template that I sourced from here.
I use Google Analytics so I can learn about my blog traffic. The Google Analytics privacy policy requires that the SSO privacy policy discloses the use of Google Analytics, and how it collects and processes data. It must provide notice of the use of cookies that are used to collect data. The SSO privacy policy does this by including this link.
https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/
Click here to link to the Google Analytics terms.
The best option is to hire a lawyer but due to the cost this isn’t an option for most people.
My advice is to do some research on this. Make sure the content you include in your privacy policy is relevant to your business and you have checked out all third party privacy policies. And of course make sure you do what you say you do in the policy.
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AUTHOR: SARAH PILATI Hi, I’m Sarah! I’m here to help you create your first WordPress blog. I cover the early stages of your project – getting your website up and running! If you have any doubts you can do it yourself, this website is for you! You can get started here.
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