Privacy Policy
This policy applies to software products and services supplied by McGoo Software which is a privately owned business registered in the state of Queensland, Australia. McGoo Software is a sole-trader home hobby business.
General Scope
This policy covers personally identifiable information collected or stored by McGoo Software on its servers in relation to the products supplied by the business entity and their communities. Consistent with its Data Retention Policy, McGoo Software collects and retains the least amount of personally identifiable information needed to fulfill the products supplied by the business entity's operational needs.
Activities on McGoo Software products.
In general, this Policy only applies to private information stored or held by McGoo Software which is not publicly available.
User accounts and authorship
McGoo Software does not require users to register to trial the program. Anyone can use the online software without logging in with a username. Users that do decide to register and store their progress in our database are internally identified by a random unique UserID number which is not disclosed to the user or any other person.
User email addresses and passwords are encrypted using a seeded one-way algorithm and only the encrypted version is stored in the database. The encrypted email and password are matched against user requests to login and/or change details. The first and last name and school name provided by the user are stored for presentation purposes when that user is logged in, but these details are not checked, nor verified. The user does not need to provide full (or correct) names to register and aliases may readily be used. The school name is not required and an alternatively name may be used, eg "personal use".
Except insofar as it may be required by law, no person should disclose, or knowingly expose, either user passwords and/or cookies generated to identify a user. Once created, user accounts will not be removed. It may be possible for a user's names to be changed, depending on the policies of individual products supplied by the business entity. McGoo Software does not guarantee that a user's names will be changed on request.
Purpose of the collection of private information
McGoo Software limits the collection of personally identifiable user data to purposes which serve the well-being of its products, including but not limited to the following:
- To enhance the public accountability of the products.
- McGoo Software recognizes that any system that is open enough to allow the greatest possible participation of the general public will also be vulnerable to certain kinds of abuse and counterproductive behavior. McGoo Software has established a number of mechanisms to prevent or remedy abusive activities. For example, new accounts must be confirmed by response to an email sent to the user's account.
- To provide site statistics. McGoo Software statistically samples raw log data from users' visits.
- These logs are used to produce the site statistics pages; the raw log data is not made public.
- To solve technical problems.
- Raw data may be examined by developers in the course of solving technical problems.
Details of data retention
General expectations
- When a visitor requests or reads a page, or sends email to a McGoo Software server, no more information is collected than is typically collected by web sites. McGoo Software may keep raw logs of such transactions, but these will not be published or used to track legitimate users.
- When a page is used by a logged-in user, the server confidentially stores related information for a limited period of time. This information is automatically deleted after a set period. For editors who do not log in, nothing is stored.
Cookies
- The site sets a temporary session cookie on a visitor's computer whenever a login is successful to maintain logged-in status only.
Page history
- Login data and results are generally retained forever. Information may be permanently deleted for individuals who email a request to do so, but there is no guarantee any permanent deletion will happen as it is unlikely that the data pertaining to that user can be identified.
Reading products supplied by the business entity
- No more information on users and other visitors reading pages is collected than is typically collected in server logs by web sites. Aside from the above raw log data collected for general purposes, page visits do not expose a visitor's identity publicly. Sampled raw log data may include the IP address of any user, but it is not reproduced publicly.
Access to and release of personally identifiable information
Access:
Only persons employed by McGoo Software and by the hosting contractor engaged to host the McGoo Software website have access to personally identifiable information. This information is limited to name and school attended.
Access to and publication of this information is governed by the Access to nonpublic data policy, as well as specific policies covering some of the functions in question.
Release: Policy on Release of Data
It is the policy of McGoo Software that personally identifiable data collected in the server logs, or through records in the database via the registration feature, or through other non-publicly-available methods, may be released by McGoo Software staff, in any of the following situations:
- In response to a valid subpoena or other compulsory request from law enforcement,
- With permission of the affected user,
- When necessary for investigation of abuse complaints,
- Where the user has been vandalizing articles or persistently behaving in a disruptive way, data may be released to a service provider, carrier, or other third-party entity to assist in the targeting of IP blocks, or to assist in the formulation of a complaint to relevant Internet Service Providers,
- Where it is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of the McGoo SOftware, its users or the public.
Except as described above, McGoo Software policy does not permit distribution of personally identifiable information under any circumstances.
Third-party access and notifying registered users when receiving legal process:
As a general principle, the access to, and retention of, personally identifiable data in all products supplied by the business entity should be minimal and should be used only internally to serve the well-being of the products supplied by the business entity.
Unlikely as this may be, however, McGoo Software may receive a subpoena or other compulsory request from a law-enforcement agency or a court or equivalent government body that requests the disclosure of information about a registered user, and may be compelled by law to comply with the request. In the event of such a legally compulsory request, McGoo Software will not be able to notify the affected user of the arrival of such subpoena by sending a notice by email to the email address (if any) that the affected user has listed in his or her user preferences as we do not store the email address in a readable or usable form.
McGoo Software cannot advise a user receiving such a notification regarding the law or an appropriate response to a subpoena. McGoo Software does note, however, that such users may have the legal right to resist or limit that information in court by filing a motion to quash the subpoena. Users who wish to oppose a subpoena or other compulsory request should seek legal advice concerning applicable rights and procedures that may be available.
If McGoo Software receives a court-filed motion to quash or otherwise limit the subpoena as a result of action by a user or their lawyer, McGoo Software will not disclose the requested information until McGoo Software receives an order from the court to do so.
Registered users are required to provide an email address, but this address is encrypted using one-way encryption and McGoo Software is unable to restore the email address to a usable form. McGoo Software will thus not be able to notify the affected user in private email messages when it receives requests from law enforcement to disclose personally identifiable information about the user, if such a user is even identifiable from our records.
Disclaimer
The McGoo Software believes that maintaining and preserving the privacy of user data is an important value. This Privacy Policy, together with other policies, resolutions, and actions by McGoo Software, represents a committed effort to safeguard the security of the limited user information that is collected and retained on our servers. Nevertheless, McGoo Software cannot guarantee that user information will remain private. We acknowledge that, in spite of our committed effort to protect private user information, determined individuals may still develop data-mining and other methods to uncover such information and disclose it. For this reason, McGoo Software can make no guarantee against unauthorized access to information provided in the course of participating in products supplied by the business entity.
Please Note:
This policy is based on and directly modified from the Wikipedia Foundation Privacy Policy, details of which can be found here.