Privacy Policy
Short version: we collect your email address only if you give it to us, we store only a hashed version of your IP address for analytics, and we never sell your data.
What we collect
If you download the free guide
We store the email address you submit, plus the date, the page you signed up from, and coarse location information derived from your IP address (country, region, city). This is so we can send you the guide, understand which pages are useful, and keep our mailing list clean.
If you just browse
We keep anonymous visit analytics: which pages were viewed, how long they were viewed for, referring website, device type and browser, and coarse geographic location. We use this to work out which content is worth writing more of.
About your IP address
We do not store your IP address in a readable form. Every IP is converted to a one-way hash with a secret salt that is unique to this site, and only that hash is kept. We keep a truncated version (for example 203.0.113.0) purely so the analytics dashboard can distinguish one visit from another. You cannot be identified from what we retain.
Geolocation lookups are performed using a third-party service (ip-api.com, with ipwho.is as a fallback). Your IP address is sent to that service to obtain country, region and city. We cache the result against the hashed value so we do not repeat the lookup.
Cookies
We set two first-party cookies, both anonymous and both used only for analytics:
| Cookie | Purpose | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|
sp_vid | Random identifier that distinguishes a returning visitor from a new one. | 12 months |
sp_sid | Random identifier that groups page views into a single visit. | 30 minutes |
Neither cookie contains personal information and neither is shared with advertisers. We do not run third-party advertising trackers. If we introduce an advertising network in future, this page will be updated before it goes live.
If you subscribe, we use your address to send the guide and occasional preparedness emails. Every email includes a one-click unsubscribe link. We do not sell, rent or share your address with anyone. You can also ask us to delete your record entirely - see contact.
Third parties we rely on
- Google Fonts - serves the typefaces used on this site. Your browser requests these directly from Google.
- ip-api.com / ipwho.is - coarse geographic lookup from an IP address, as described above.
- Affiliate networks - when you click a labelled affiliate link, the destination site may set its own cookies. Those are governed by their privacy policies, not ours.
Your rights
You can ask us to show you what we hold about you, correct it, or delete it. If you are in the EU, UK, Canada or a US state with a privacy statute, you also have the right to object to processing and to data portability. Contact us and we will action a request within 30 days.
Children
This site is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect their information.
Changes
If this policy changes materially we will update the date at the top of this page.
Contact
Privacy questions or data requests: see the contact page.