Privacy Policy

This is the Privacy Policy for Anonymised, its Owned and Operated sites and the data we collect from sites that are part of the Anonymised Publisher Portfolio. We kept this Privacy Policy as short and easy-to-read as possible. Please read it carefully to learn how your personal data is protected and why this is important. Anonymised’s main mission is to protect your privacy, so it is really important that you understand what data we collect, why we collect it, how we protect it and how you can manage it. We may revise this Privacy Policy from time to time. The most current version of the policy will govern our use of your data and will always be available at https://anonymised.io/privacy.

For more information, please contact our team at privacy@anonymised.io or write to the Data Protection Officer heyData Gmbh at datenschutz@heydata.eu

About Anonymised

Anonymised (also referred to as “we” or “us” in this document) is a data privacy software, created and managed by ID Ward Limited, trading as Anonymised, that collects your personal data, stores it and makes it anonymous on your own device. Anonymised is deployed across a wide range of websites and applications.

1. The Anonymised Publisher Portfolio

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The Anonymised software is installed on all Anonymised ‘Owned and Operated’ sites and its ‘Publisher Portfolio’ sites. Owned and Operated sites are the domains managed directly by Anonymised, and include www.anonymised.io and www.thecookielessfuture.com. These sites collect data on behalf of Anonymised, but do not share such data with any third party.

The Publisher Portfolio sites are the sites that use the Anonymised Marketing Tag. Such sites are owned and operated by a third-party publisher but use the Anonymised Marketing Tag, which collects your consent and your data from those sites, processes it on your device and saves it on your Data Account. Anonymised is only responsible for the data it collects directly. The publishers may collect data outside of Anonymised, according to their own privacy policy.

2. The Anonymised software

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The Anonymised software includes the Marketing Tag (that collects, processes and anonymises your data) and the Data Account (that displays your personal data and allows you to download it and delete it). When you land on a page that has Anonymised in it and consent to marketing cookies, you activate Anonymised’s Marketing Tag and gain access to the Data Account. Access to the Data Account is always possible from the Anonymised domain. Publishers using the Anonymised tag will also include a link to the Data Account from their own website, and we woek with them to ensure that the link is easily accessible. 

Anonymised’s Marketing Tag

Anonymised’s Marketing Tag is a script running on publishers’ sites which is responsible for: (1) collecting data about user interaction with a site’s content and storing it locally, (2) processing the data to understand the user interests, (3) helping the user change privacy settings and manage their personal data by providing a link to the Data Account, and (4) anonymising data by using machine learning on the device.

Anonymised’s Data Account

Your Anonymised Data Account shows you what data Anonymised has inferred from your online activities and gives you control over the way the data is used. From your Data Account you can change your Privacy settings on all the sites that are part of Anonymised’s Publisher Portfolio. You can also view, edit and delete your inferred data. When you click on Delete my data, we will delete all of your data within 48 hours and no backup copy will be maintained on our servers. You will not be able to recover the deleted information if you change your mind. Your data account will always be available at this link.

What personal data we collect

When using Anonymised, you consent to the collection, transfer, storage, disclosure, and use of your personal information as described in this Privacy Policy, subject to the Privacy Settings you choose.

1. Data collected on this site

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This website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google Inc. (“Google”). Google Analytics uses so-called “cookies”, text files that are stored on your computer and that allow an analysis of the use of the website by you. The information generated by the cookie about your use of this website is usually transmitted to a Google server in the USA and stored there. However, in the event of the activation of IP anonymisation on this website, your IP address will be shortened beforehand by Google within member states of the European Union or in other contracting states of the Agreement on the European Economic Area.

2. Data collected on Anonymised Publisher Portfolio

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What we collect

How we collect it

Why we collect it

Data collected when you reject cookies (this data is stored on Anonymised servers)

Privacy choices

User input

We record your privacy settings for each website or app you visit which we managed directly, so that you don’t have to set it up every time you visit the site/app. This means that we maintain a list of all the sites you visited and record your preferences for each site

Data collected when you accept cookies (this data is processed on your local device)

Truncated IP address

Cookies

We collect the first 24 bits only of the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the device that is being used to view the page in order to know your generic location (country and city).

Location

Cookies

The IP address tells us what city and what country you are connecting from (but not the exact address!). This can be used, for instance, to recommend stories that are relevant to the location you are in.

Page URL

Cookies

We collect the web address (URL) of the web/app page you are viewing in order to understand what stories you are interested in. Please note that, in some cases, the URL will be sent to our servers for server-side processing and immediately deleted when the processing is completed.

Date and time of a page visit

Cookies

We collect the date you visited a page in order to recommend the right content on the right day of the week at the right time of the day. We also do this to monitor usage at different times, estimate peak demand and maintain good service performance.

Time spent on a page

Cookies

We collect the time spent on a page to understand whether you read/watched its content and, by extension, whether you found the content interesting.

Page events

Cookies

We collect data on what proportion of a page you viewed (scroll position) or what page elements you clicked on to understand whether you are interested in consuming certain content, products or services at that moment in time.

Device data

Cookies

We collect the following information about your device: device type and model, screen resolution, operating system, type and version of the internet browser. This helps publishers and advertisers understand how audiences are consuming online content.

3. Data inferred by Anonymised

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Anonymised analyses the data you generate to infer the language you speak and the country and city you live in. Anonymised also analyses the content of the pages you visited to infer your interests and your buying intentions. These inferences are called ‘insights’ and they are personal data. You can see, download and delete the insights inferred by Anonymised in your Data Account available on this page. Anonymised does not share the ‘insights’ gleaned about you (a.k.a. your Anonymised ‘profile’) with any third party.

4. Additional data collected on e-commerce sites

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Anonymised also helps e-commerce sites leverage the data they collect on their own domains to target users with personalised ads across the Publisher Portfolio, without sharing insights with other companies that are part of the Publisher Portfolio. E-commerce sites can collect additional data about their audience’s interaction with content on their site, such as clicks to view or buy products.

How we manage your data

Anonymised collects, manages and anonymises data for the following purposes and with the following constraints.

1. Why we collect your personal data

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When you Accept cookies on a site, you agree to Anonymised processing the personal data you generate on that site. You can stop data collection from a particular site at any moment by changing your Privacy settings from the Consent Manager of that site. You can also stop data collection from all sites in the Anonymised Publisher Portfolio from the Data Account. Data collection is limited to the provision of the following services:

Building a profile: the information displayed in Data Account reflects the interests Anonymised has inferred from your browsing history across the Anonymised portfolio of sites. It is, in effect, a ‘profile’ used to suggest personalised content and ads. Your profile does not include clickstream data (that is, the raw data about your browsing history) and is not linked to any permanent identifier. This means that, if you delete your profile, no one will be able to re-identify you at a later stage.

Personalised advertising: if you consent to it, your profile is used to personalise ads and other online experiences. However, this is done in an anonymous way as third parties (the ‘advertisers’) only have access to aggregated, anonymous information. No personal data is shared with any third party, other than for the reason required by law.

Automated decision-making: content and advertising suggestions are the result of automated decision-making. Your profile is created using machine learning algorithms and automated decision-making. Because we do not collect information about sensitive data such as ethnicity, political opinion, religion and so forth, these algorithms have an extremely low chance of performing any form of discrimination. However, our data and algorithms are open and will be periodically audited to ensure that they do not promote any form of discrimination unbeknownst to us.  

Data sharing: We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personal data. Moreover, because we do not store your clickstream data, we cannot identify you as an individual. For this reason, we do not foresee cases when we will be forced to release information related to you in order to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others’ rights, property or safety.

2. How long we keep your personal data

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We keep your personal data for only as long as we need to. How long we need your personal data depends on what we are using it for, as set out in this privacy policy. For example:
The clickstream data (see paragraph 2 above) is processed on the device in real time and immediately deleted
Your inferred data (the interests we infer from you clickstream data) is kept for a maximum of six months unless deleted earlier by clearing cookies on your browser, deleting your data from the Data Account or withdrawing consent from sites on the Anonymised Publisher Portfolio
Your Anonymised ID is s untiyou clear cookies on your browser, delete your data from the Data Account or withdraw consent from sites on the Anonymised Publisher Portfolio.

3. How do we keep your personal data safe

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Most of the data you generate is processed on your device to generate inferences and deleted within a few seconds. The limited data Anonymised collects is encrypted and protected within our servers. We currently store the data on Google Cloud Platform and we use cutting-edge technology to protect your personal data. Should a data breach occur, we will notify relevant authorities within 72 hours from becoming aware of the breach and we will take immediate action to recover and protect your personal data.

We will also notify you of a data breach within 72 hours of becoming aware of it by adding a notice on your Data Account page. The Data Account is the only way we can communicate with ou, since we never collect email addresses or other personally identifiable information. Please check your Data Account regularly.

Your data rights

If you want to exercise your rights, you can do so from your Data Account page and/or the publisher’s Consent Manager, which are easily accessible on all sites that use Anonymised. If you feel that you cannot exercise your rights as well or as fully as you would like to, or if you have any further questions, please contact us at: privacy@anonymised.io or contact our Data Protection Officer at: datenschutz@heydata.eu

1. Your rights under the General Data protection Regulation (GDPR)

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If you are a resident of the United Kingdom or the European Union, the GDPR gives you the following rights in relation to your personal data:

Right of Access (Article 15): you have the right to obtain confirmation as to whether or not your personal data are being processed, and, where that is the case, access to the personal data and additional information.

Right to Rectification (Article 16): you have the right to obtain the rectification of inaccurate personal data

Right to Erasure (Article 17): you have the right to obtain the erasure of your personal data

Right to Data portability (Article 21): you have the right to receive your personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and to transmit it to another controller

Right to object (Article 22): you have the right to object to processing of your personal data, including profiling. In practice, this is unnecessary because Anonymised only processes your data if you’ve consented to it and does not claim a legitimate interest to process your data. If you object to processing of your personal data you can withdraw consent from your Privacy Dashboard or delete your Anonymised account.

Right to lodge a complaint (Article 77): you have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority in the Country of your habitual residence if you consider that the processing of personal data relating to you infringes the GDPR.

2. Your rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)

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If you are a resident of California you may contact us with regard to the following rights in relation to your personal data:

Right of Access: You have a right to request access to the personal data we may hold on you for the past twelve (12) months. You may submit up to two (2) requests per year of access to your personal data.

Right to Opt-In/Opt-Out of Sale of Personal Data: For individuals sixteen (16) years or older, you have the right to opt-out of sale of personal data we may hold on you. You can exercise this right at any time by pressing the “California resident – Do not sell” link in the footer of every page. For individuals between thirteen (13) to sixteen (16) years old, you have the right to opt-in to the sale of personal data we may hold on you.

Right to Deletion: You also have the right to ask us to delete personal data we may hold on you or restrict how it is used. There may be exceptions to the right to deletion for specific legal reasons which, if applicable, we will set out for you in response to your request.

Right to Non-Discrimination: We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your California Consumer Privacy Act rights.