Privacy Policy
Your information, in plain English
What personal information Wales Updates collects when you read, sign up, comment or get in touch, why we collect it, who else handles it, how long we keep it and the rights you have over it.
Last updated
Who we are
Wales Updates is responsible for your personal information under UK data protection law (the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018).
If you have a question about this policy or your information, use our contact page.
Reading the site
You don’t need to give us anything to read Wales Updates. Some things are kept only in your own browser and never sent to us: the places you save on the weather page, the area you pick for News near you, your recent searches, what you follow, your Wales in 5 answers and streak, the stories you’ve left half read and your accessibility choices. Clearing your browser’s data removes them.
The searches people make on the site are counted, so we can see what readers look for, but we never record who searched. Weather searches for a postcode keep only its first half (such as NP12). If you use “Use my location” on the weather page, your position is rounded to about 100 metres to find the nearest postcode, and is not kept.
Reader accounts
You can make a free account by signing in with a link or code sent to your email. We don’t use passwords.
- What we keep Your email address and first name, anything you add to your profile (a photo, a cover picture, a line about you), what you follow, the stories you’ve read on the site while signed in (the last 400), your Wales in 5 scores and badges, your comments and your latest 60 notifications, and the devices you’re signed in on, with their IP address and browser, so you can sign them out. You stay signed in for up to 90 days.
- What others can see Your public profile shows your name, photo, cover and line about you, plus only what you choose in Settings. It never shows your email address, reading history or timeline. You can turn it off.
- In your control Under Settings you can change your details, pause or clear your reading history, choose what your public profile shows, sign out of other devices, or delete your account. Deleting it removes it straight away, along with your comments, photos, reading history and notifications. Replies other people made to your comments stay.
We use this information to run your account at your request, and to keep the site safe (our legitimate interest).
Messages you send us
When you use our contact page we keep your name, email address, phone number if you give it, your message and anything you attach or link to. We use it to reply and, if you’ve sent us a story or pictures, to report on it. If you tick “Please don’t name me in the story”, we won’t. Pictures you send are only published if you’ve confirmed they can be, with the credit you give.
Messages and their attachments are deleted a year after they arrive, and messages caught by our spam filter after 30 days.
Keeping bots out
Our sign-up, sign-in and contact forms have checks against bots, including Cloudflare Turnstile, which may look at your browser and internet address to check you’re a person. To stop a form being used over and over, we briefly keep a scrambled version of your internet address. Forms turned away are counted by day and reason only, for 90 days.
Who else handles your information
We never sell your information. These companies handle some of it for us, only to provide their service:
- Kinsta Hosts the website and its database
- Cloudflare Protects the site and checks forms for bots
- Mailgun Sends our emails, including newsletters and sign-in links
- Anthropic Checks comments before they’re published
- Ably Shows when a reader is replying to a comment
- Google Measures how the site is used, if you allow analytics cookies, and provides adverts
Some of these companies are based in, or use servers in, the United States. Where your information leaves the UK it is protected by the safeguards UK law requires.
We may also share information if the law requires it, for example under a court order.
How long we keep it
- Your account and everything in it Until you delete it
- Newsletter sign-ups Until you unsubscribe
- Sign-ups never confirmed 7 days after our first email
- Contact messages and attachments A year
- Messages caught as spam 30 days
- Our record of the emails we send you 30 days
- Search and weather search counts, never linked to you 90 days
Your rights
Under UK law you have the right to:
- Get a copy of the personal information we hold about you
- Have it corrected if anything we hold is wrong or incomplete
- Have it deleted in most cases, once we no longer need it
- Object or restrict how we use it
- Take it elsewhere in a form you can use
- Withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on it
To do any of these, use our contact page and we’ll reply within one month.
Not happy with how we’ve handled your information? Please tell us first. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.
Changes to this policy
We update this page whenever we change how we use personal information. The date it was last updated is shown at the top.
Comments
To comment you need an account. Your comment is published under your name and photo, and shows on your public profile while that’s on. As on any WordPress site, the IP address and browser a comment was sent from are stored with it, to help us deal with abuse.
Before a comment goes up it is checked automatically by Claude, an AI service from Anthropic, for legal problems such as libel, contempt of court or identifying someone the law protects. Only the words of your comment, the comment it replies to and the story are sent, not your name or email address. A comment may also be held for one of our editors to read.
We’ll tell you on the site when someone replies to you, mentions you or comments on a story you follow. We’ll email you if the newsroom removes one of your comments (with the reason) or makes it an editor’s pick, and send a weekly round-up of your comments if you had any approved that week. You can switch these off in your account’s Settings, or with the link in any of the emails.
If you vote in a poll under a story while signed out, your vote is kept in your browser, and we limit how many votes can come from one internet address each day. While you’re writing a reply, other readers may see “[your name] is replying…”, passed on through Ably, a messaging service.
We use this information to run the comments you take part in, and to keep them lawful and safe (our legitimate interest).