Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

Going Fishing Directory is operated by Christene Jayne Backhouse, operating as Going Fishing Directory.

For questions about this Privacy Policy, your personal information or the way we use it, please contact:

contact@going-fishing-directory.co.uk

2. Our Approach to Personal Information

We do not collect personal information simply because it may be useful one day.

We aim to collect the minimum information reasonably necessary to provide and administer the Directory, manage accounts and Fishery Owner services, maintain security, respond to enquiries and meet our legal responsibilities.

We do not sell or rent personal information to advertisers, mailing-list providers or other organisations for their own marketing purposes.

3. Fishery Information and Personal Information

Much of the information in Going Fishing Directory concerns fisheries rather than individual people. This may include waters, species, depths, peg numbers, prices, facilities, opening information, rules and seasonal advice.

Fishery information may be obtained from publicly available sources, supplied by Fishery Owners or authorised representatives, or maintained by Going Fishing Directory.

Information about an identifiable individual may still be personal information even where it has previously been made publicly available. Where Directory information includes personal information, we will handle that information in accordance with applicable data protection law.

4. Angler Accounts

If you create an Angler account, we may collect:

• your name or the name by which you are known;
• your email address;
• your password in securely hashed form;
• confirmation that you are aged 18 or over;
• your account role and status;
• account creation and update dates;
• the date of your most recent successful login; and
• security and audit information relating to your account.

We do not need your date of birth simply to operate an Angler account. Instead, account registration requires confirmation that you are aged 18 or over.

Passwords are not stored in readable form.

5. Fishery Owner Accounts and Claims

Fishery Owners and authorised representatives may be required to provide additional information because we need to establish who is requesting management access to a fishery.

This may include:

• your full name;
• your email address;
• your telephone number;
• the fishery you represent;
• your relationship with that fishery;
• information supplied as part of an ownership claim;
• information reasonably required to verify that claim; and
• our decision and administrative history relating to the claim.

We use this information to assess claims, prevent unauthorised control of fishery listings and administer approved Fishery Owner access.

We will not deliberately retain supporting claim evidence that is no longer reasonably necessary.

6. Contacting Us

If you contact Going Fishing Directory, we may collect your name, email address, the subject of your enquiry, your message and any other information you choose to provide.

Contact enquiries may be stored within the Directory's administration system so that we can record their status, respond appropriately and determine when an enquiry has been completed.

Please do not send personal information that is not relevant to your enquiry.

7. Security and Audit Information

We maintain audit and security records to help protect the Directory, its users and its data.

Depending on the activity concerned, these records may include account identifiers, actions performed, dates and times and Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.

We use this information to investigate problems, identify unauthorised or inappropriate activity, maintain account security and protect the integrity of the Directory.

8. Directory Usage Statistics

We collect usage statistics to understand how the Directory is used, measure interest in its content and distinguish genuine visitor activity from automated traffic such as search-engine crawlers and other bots.

To produce accurate statistics, we temporarily record limited technical information associated with activity on the Directory. This may include the date and time of the activity, the page or resource requested, Internet Protocol (IP) address, browser or user-agent information, referring page and the type of interaction recorded.

This temporary information is used to assess traffic patterns and classify activity before permanent aggregate statistics are produced. It is not used to build advertising or marketing profiles of individual visitors.

Raw usage information containing IP addresses and other temporary technical information is retained for a maximum of seven days and is then automatically deleted.

The resulting long-term statistics are aggregate records, such as the number of times a fishery, water or county page was viewed on a particular date. These aggregate records do not contain the visitor's IP address or a permanent visitor identifier.

Aggregate fishery statistics may also be made available to an authorised Fishery Owner through their Owner Dashboard.

9. Why We Use Personal Information

We use personal information where it is reasonably necessary to operate and protect Going Fishing Directory and provide the services requested by our users.

Depending on the circumstances, our reasons may include:

• creating and administering user accounts;
• authenticating users and maintaining account security;
• assessing and administering Fishery Owner claims;
• maintaining accurate ownership and management relationships;
• responding to enquiries and complaints;
• maintaining audit and security records;
• preventing misuse and protecting the Directory;
• meeting legal and regulatory responsibilities; and
• sending communications necessary to operate your account or Fishery Owner service.

10. Our Lawful Basis for Processing

The lawful basis we rely upon depends on why particular personal information is being used.

Where you create an account or use a service you have requested, processing may be necessary to provide and administer that service.

We may rely on our legitimate interests where it is reasonably necessary to operate, administer and secure the Directory, produce accurate usage statistics, distinguish genuine visitor activity from automated traffic, verify Fishery Owner claims, maintain appropriate records, prevent misuse or respond to enquiries, provided those interests are not overridden by your rights and interests.

We may process information where necessary to comply with a legal obligation.

Where we rely upon your consent, such as for certain marketing communications, you may withdraw that consent at any time.

11. Service Emails

Registered users may receive emails necessary for the operation and security of their account or service.

These may include account verification, password and security messages, Fishery Owner claim decisions, important changes to the service or Terms, information requiring attention and other administrative communications relating directly to the service being provided.

Fishery Owners may also receive factual notifications that new visitor statistics or other information about their fishery is available through their Owner Dashboard.

We will not use an administrative or security message as a disguised marketing email.

12. Marketing Emails

From time to time, we may offer users the opportunity to receive news, promotional information or other marketing emails relating to Going Fishing Directory.

Where consent is required, marketing email is optional and is not a condition of creating or maintaining an account. Any consent request will be presented separately and will not be selected on your behalf.

You can withdraw your marketing consent or unsubscribe from marketing emails at any time.

Unsubscribing from marketing does not prevent us from sending genuine administrative, security or service messages that are necessary for your account or Fishery Owner service.

13. Who We Share Information With

We do not sell or rent your personal information.

We may use trusted service providers where this is reasonably necessary to operate the Directory. Our website, database and email services are currently hosted using infrastructure provided by EUKHost.

Service providers may process information only as necessary to provide the relevant service and subject to the arrangements governing that service.

We may also disclose information where required by law, where necessary to establish or defend legal rights, or where reasonably necessary to protect users, the Directory or others from fraud, abuse or a serious security threat.

14. Payments and Future Services

Going Fishing Directory does not currently use an external payment provider to process subscriptions or payments through the Directory.

If paid services are introduced in the future, this Privacy Policy will be updated to explain what information is processed and which payment or other service providers are involved before those services are made available.

15. How Long We Keep Information

We do not intend to keep personal information indefinitely simply because it is technically possible to do so.

Our normal retention arrangements include:

• Audit and security records: normally retained on a rolling six-month basis.
• Raw usage statistics: technical information used to classify genuine and automated traffic is retained for a maximum of seven days before being automatically deleted.
• Contact enquiries: normally retained for six months after the enquiry has been closed.
• Rejected Fishery Owner claims: unnecessary supporting evidence is normally removed after six months, while limited information may be retained where reasonably necessary to record the decision and protect the integrity of the claim process.
• Active accounts: account information is retained while the account remains active and as reasonably necessary to provide the service.

Information may occasionally need to be retained for longer where there is an unresolved complaint, security investigation, dispute, legal requirement or another legitimate reason for doing so.

16. Inactive Accounts

We do not want unused accounts and unnecessary personal information to remain in the Directory indefinitely.

Where an Angler account has not been used for 12 months, we may contact the account holder and ask them to confirm that they wish to keep it.

If the user does not log in or otherwise confirm that the account should remain active within 30 days of that notification, the account may be closed and personal information that is no longer reasonably required may be removed.

An inactive Fishery Owner account will normally be reviewed rather than automatically closed because the account may be associated with an existing fishery listing. We may contact the Owner to confirm that they remain authorised to represent the fishery and to encourage them to review their information.

17. Backups

We maintain backups for security, recovery and continuity purposes.

Information deleted from the live Directory may remain temporarily within secure backups until those backups are overwritten or expire through our normal backup procedures.

Backup information is retained for recovery purposes and is not used as an alternative source for ordinary processing after information has been deleted from the live service.

18. Your Data Protection Rights

Depending on the circumstances, data protection law may give you rights in relation to your personal information. These can include rights to ask us:

• for access to personal information we hold about you;
• to correct inaccurate or incomplete personal information;
• to erase personal information in appropriate circumstances;
• to restrict how personal information is used;
• to provide certain information in a portable form;
• to consider an objection to particular processing; and
• to respect withdrawal of consent where processing is based upon consent.

These rights do not apply in exactly the same way in every situation and some are subject to legal conditions or exceptions.

To make a request, please contact us using the details shown in this Privacy Policy.

19. Privacy Complaints

If you are concerned about the way Going Fishing Directory has handled your personal information, please contact us so that we have an opportunity to investigate and resolve the problem.

We provide an electronic route for raising data protection concerns and will acknowledge a data protection complaint within 30 days. We will investigate the matter appropriately, keep you informed where necessary and communicate the outcome without undue delay.

You also have the right to raise concerns with the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK's independent data protection regulator.

20. Security

We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect personal information against unauthorised access, loss, misuse, alteration or disclosure.

These measures include access controls, role-based permissions, secure password hashing, authenticated sessions, security and audit logging and other safeguards appropriate to the operation of the Directory.

No internet-based service can guarantee absolute security, but we will review and improve our safeguards as the Directory develops.

21. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy where the Directory changes, where we introduce new services or service providers, or where legal or regulatory requirements change.

Where a significant change materially affects registered users, we will make reasonable efforts to bring it to their attention.

The date of the latest revision will be shown on this page.