Last updated 20th September 2022.

Welcome to modelrailwayline.com, the website and online service of Model Railway Line ("Model Railway Line", "we", "us" or "our"). We are committed to protecting your privacy. This page explains the privacy policy which governs your use of our online services, website, and software provided on or in connection with the service (collectively the "Service"). By accessing or using the Service, you signify that you have read, understood, and agree to the collection and use of your information set out in this Privacy Policy ("Agreement") and to the terms and conditions as set forth in the Model Railway Line Terms and Conditions (https://www.modelrailwayline.com/terms/), whether or not you are a registered user of our Service. This Agreement applies to all visitors, users, and others who access the Service ("Users").

By using, or interacting with, the Service, you hereby consent to this Agreement and agree to its terms.

Information we collect

The Service is powered by Ghost ("Ghost"), which uses a cookie for member authentication to maintain a logged-in session. This cookie falls under "strictly necessary" privacy exemptions and does not require any special handling. Model Railway Line is hosted on servers located in London, United Kingdom. You can read Ghost's GDPR Data Processing Agreement.

The personal information that you are asked to provide, and the reasons why you are asked to provide it, will be made clear to you at the point we ask you to provide your personal information.

If you contact us directly, we may receive additional information about you such as your name, email address, phone number, the contents of the message and/or attachments you may send us, and any other information you may choose to provide.

When you register for an Account, we may ask for your contact information, including items such as name, company name, address, email address, and telephone number.

Additionally, the following information may also be collected automatically by Ghost:

  • Your IP address
  • Your unique Stripe ID (if you subscribe to one of our paid plans)
  • Your generalized geolocation information (which may include: city, region, country, latitude, longitude, timezone)

How we use your information

We use the information we collect in various ways, including to:

  • Provide, operate, and maintain the Service
  • Improve, personalize, and expand the Service
  • Understand and analyze how you use the Service
  • Manage your subscription to the Service
  • Develop new products, services, features, and functionality
  • Communicate with you, either directly or through one of our partners, including for customer service, to provide you with updates and other information relating to the website, and for marketing and promotional purposes
  • Send you emails
  • Find and prevent fraud

Disclosure of your information

The personal information that we collect when you use the Service is confidential. We may disclose your personal information to a third-party in the following circumstances:

  • If required to do so by law, or by any court, applicable regulatory, compliance, government, or law enforcement agency
  • If necessary in connection with any ongoing or potential legal proceedings
  • If ownership of the Service is acquired by, or transferred to, a third party. In this case the new owner would only be entitled to use that information in a way consistent with this Agreement
  • In accordance with the Terms & Conditions of the Service

Where we store your personal data

The data that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored in, countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA). Your information may also be processed by our service providers which operate outside of the EEA. By submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. We will take all reasonable and necessary steps to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

The transmission of data via the internet is not completely secure. We do our best to keep the information you disclose to us secure. However, we cannot guarantee its security. By using the Service you accept the inherent risks of providing information via the internet and will not hold us responsible for any security breach.

How long do we keep your personal information?

We will only hold your personal information for the period necessary to fulfil the purposes outlined in this Agreement (unless a longer period is required or permitted by law), or until you request that it is deleted.

Generally, you can expect us to keep your personal information while you regularly interact with the Service, subscribe to the Service, log in to the Service, or open the Model Railway Line newsletters. If you do not interact with the Service, log in to the Service, or open the Model Railway Line newsletters for a reasonable length of time, we will automatically unsubscribe and remove your personal data from our systems.

You can choose to unsubscribe from the Model Railway Line newsletters at any time. An unsubscribe link is provided at the bottom of every newsletter we send out. Simply click this and you will be unsubscribed from the mailing list.

If you have contacted us using the contact form on Model Railway Line, or by email, we will keep the information you send to us (including any subsequent correspondence between you and us) for a period of up to one year from the last piece of correspondence. This enables us to more easily act on any subsequent requests for support or assistance from you.

Log Files

Model Railway Line follows a standard procedure of using log files. These files log visitors when they visit websites. All hosting companies do this and a part of hosting services' analytics. The information collected by log files include internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet Service Provider (ISP), date and time stamp, referring/exit pages, and possibly the number of clicks. These are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable. The purpose of the information is for analyzing trends, administering the site, tracking users' movement on the website, and gathering demographic information.

Cookies and Web Beacons

Like any other website, Model Railway Line uses 'cookies'. These cookies are used to store information including visitors' preferences, and the pages on the website that the visitor accessed or visited. The information is used to optimize the users' experience by customizing our web page content based on visitors' browser type and/or other information.

We use cookies, pixel tags and tracking technology to help provide you with a good experience when you use the Service and to allow us to improve the functionality and performance of the Service.

Third-party technology used on the Service may also use cookies or web beacons to improve your experience on their sites and platforms.

Google is one of the third-party vendors on our site. It also uses cookies, known as DART cookies, to serve ads to our site visitors based upon their visit to www.modelrailwayline.com and other sites on the internet. However, visitors may choose to decline the use of DART cookies by visiting the Google ad and content network Privacy Policy at the following URL – https://policies.google.com/technologies/ads

Our Advertising Partners

Some of advertisers on our site may use cookies and web beacons. Our advertising partners are listed below. Each of our advertising partners has their own Privacy Policy for their policies on user data. For easier access, we have linked to their Privacy Policies below.

Advertising Partners Privacy Policies

You may consult this list to find the Privacy Policy for each of the advertising partners of Model Railway Line.

Third-party ad servers or ad networks uses technologies like cookies, JavaScript, or Web Beacons that are used in their respective advertisements and links that appear on Model Railway Line, which are sent directly to users' browser. They automatically receive your IP address when this occurs. These technologies are used to measure the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns and/or to personalize the advertising content that you see on websites that you visit.

Note that Model Railway Line has no access to or control over these cookies that are used by third-party advertisers.

Third Party Privacy Policies

This Agreement does not apply to other advertisers, websites or services. Thus, we are advising you to consult the respective Privacy Policies of these third-party ad servers for more detailed information. It may include their practices and instructions about how to opt-out of certain options.

You can choose to disable cookies through your individual browser options. To know more detailed information about cookie management with specific web browsers, it can be found at the browsers' respective websites.

CCPA Privacy Rights (Do Not Sell My Personal Information)

Under the CCPA, among other rights, California consumers have the right to:

Request that a business that collects a consumer's personal data disclose the categories and specific pieces of personal data that a business has collected about consumers.

Request that a business delete any personal data about the consumer that a business has collected.

Request that a business that sells a consumer's personal data, not sell the consumer's personal data.

If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you. If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact us.

GDPR Data Protection Rights

We would like to make sure you are fully aware of all of your data protection rights. Every user is entitled to the following:

The right to access – You have the right to request copies of your personal data. We may charge you a small fee for this service.

The right to rectification – You have the right to request that we correct any information you believe is inaccurate. You also have the right to request that we complete the information you believe is incomplete.

The right to erasure – You have the right to request that we erase your personal data, under certain conditions.

The right to restrict processing – You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.

The right to object to processing – You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.

The right to data portability – You have the right to request that we transfer the data that we have collected to another organization, or directly to you, under certain conditions.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact us. Such requests will usually be dealt with within one month, however this may be longer if your request is complicated or you have made a large number of requests. In such cases we will let you know that we need more than one month to respond to your request. Any access request may be subject to a fee of £10 to meet our costs in providing you with details of the information we hold about you.

Children's Information

Another part of our priority is adding protection for children while using the internet. We encourage parents and guardians to observe, participate in, and/or monitor and guide their online activity.

Model Railway Line does not knowingly collect any Personal Identifiable Information from children under the age of 13. If you think that your child provided this kind of information on our website, we strongly encourage you to contact us immediately and we will do our best efforts to promptly remove such information from our records.

Contact

Any questions or comments regarding this Privacy Policy should be addressed to support[at]modelrailwayline.com.

Changes

This Agreement is effective from 20th September 2022. Occasionally we may update this Privacy Policy in accordance with changes to legislation, best practice, or enhancements to the Service. Any changes we make to our Privacy Policy will be posted on this page (https://www.modelrailwayline.com/privacy-policy/). Please check back frequently to familiarize yourself with any changes to our Privacy Policy. Changes posted on this page will become effective as soon as they are posted.