We are dedicated to looking after your personal information in a way you feel is 100% safe and secure, handling it in a responsible manner and complying with data protection laws.
Our full Privacy Statement is below and we suggest you take the time to read and understand it.
This policy includes:
- About us
- Information we Collect
- How we use your information
- What if I don’t provide some or all of the information requested?
- What grounds (legal basis) are we processing the information under?
- Sharing Data and Research Interest
- Historic records and matching
- Sharing your personal information with third parties
- Sale of the Business
- Cookies
- How we protect your personal information
- Your rights regarding your personal information
- Right of complaint to the Regulator for Data Protection
- How long we hold your personal information
- Links to third-party websites
- Updates to the privacy policy
- Contacting Us
1. About Us
This website www.treepress.net is owned and operated by Black and White Digital Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales no. 10221101, having its registered offices at 23 Templemere, Weybridge, Surrey, KT13 9PA.
TreePress is committed to protecting your privacy and maintaining the security of any personal information received from you. We strictly adhere to the requirements of the data protection legislation in the UK. Any queries or requests regarding the data we hold about you should be addressed to support@treepress.net or by post to Data Protection Officer, 23 Templemere, Weybridge, Surrey, KT13 9PA.
2. Information we collect
A. Information we collect about you
When you register on our website, place an order or syncronize data from our TreePress WordPress plugin to this site, we collect your name and email address. This allows us to process your registration, fulfil your order and send you important service messages. When you first register or create a family tree, we ask for your date of birth and the country where you live. Providing this information is optional. Knowing your date of birth allows TreePress to see how people of different ages use our site and we can give you more relevant content.
Sometimes, we may ask you to provide other contact details, such as phone number or address, to carry out our surveys. You will always be given the option to withhold these contact details at the time you complete the survey.
We do collect some information from cookies, pixels and similar software which allows us to understand how you arrive on our websites, how you use and navigate around them, and how you interact with our email. This information is used to improve our services and communication. We obtain information about your location to give us insight on usage across different geographic areas.
We obtain some information from Google Analytics and Facebook. The Facebook information we obtain is limited to your email address and only that which you have previously agreed with Facebook that they can share.
We may collect the mobile device identifier (device ID) provided by your mobile device operating system from users of any future TreePress App. The device ID allows us to link your device to your account as well as to send you push notifications if you choose to have notifications from the (future) TreePress App.
In order to purchase a subscription or membership for TreePress you must be over 18 years old. More information about our age restrictions can be found in our terms and conditions.
B. Information you provide to us
If you create a family tree or create content on our website, we also collect that information, which may include personal information about you and other people (for example, names and birthdays of people in your family). You should ensure, if you provide personal information about people in your family who are living and not deceased, that you have the consent from the relevant individual to include that personal information on the website.
We do not collect sensitive personal information (also known as ‘special categories of data’) about you except when you specifically knowingly provide it and have consented to this. Examples are adding your religious belief to a family tree. More details about the privacy of the family tree are available below.
3. How we use the information
A. We will use your personal information for a number of purposes including:
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- To manage our website and WordPress plugins (including your account);
- To provide you with a free trial (if requested);
- To process orders and provide our services, goods or online content, to provide you with information about them and to deal with your requests and queries;
- For administration purposes. This means we may contact you regarding goods or services ordered or online content you have signed up for, to let you know that a service or online site has been suspended for maintenance, if your subscription is about to expire to ask if you wish to renew it, or if an online account has become dormant to ask if you wish to retain the account before we close it;
- To provide advanced website features to you and others;
- (For IP addresses and device identifiers) to identify the location of users, to establish the number of visits from different countries, to limit/cap adverts of a certain type, and to personalise content and emails;
- To undertake analysis and research to improve our services and goods offered;
- To improve your search results;
- To tailor a certain amount of advertising to individual users based on viewing and/or purchase habits. This is a common practice known as online behavioural advertising;
- To show you relevant advertising on third party sites (e.g. Facebook, Google, and Twitter). Some third party sites allow you to request not to see messages from specific advertisers;
- To conduct surveys with you (where you have consented to us contacting you for such purpose);
- To provide personalised communications (more details below);
- To offer users a more relevant, tailored service, based on our analysis of personal information you provide and your activity on our (and other) services; and
- To undertake marketing and strategic development activities, where we will only use and disclose information in aggregate (so no individuals are identified).
B. Communications
i. Service messages
We send service emails to you to administer the service. Service emails include registration and payment confirmations and emails that provide useful information about how to use a service or feature when you sign up or start using it. We will also send you a service email if we make a fundamental change to the website, or to our terms & conditions that we think we need to make you aware of, or to let you know important information about your account.
ii. Marketing messages
We use your email address to update you on new products, services and subscription offers. We will only contact you with your consent. You are entitled to withhold this consent and refrain from receiving such communications by selecting the appropriate option on the web form that collects your details. You can also update these options at any time by logging into your account and adjusting your preferences, by contacting us by email at support@treepress.net or by post to TreePress, 23 Templemere, Weybridge, Surrey, United Kingdom, KY13 9PA We will always provide you with a way of opting out of receiving future marketing messages from us each time we send them to you.
iii. Related records
Record matching is a part of the TreePress service. As you build your family tree we may highlight potentially matching records from other users either on screen or by email using the information you have provided and matching that against the records we hold in our historical records. We may also notify you of records related to the records you have recently viewed. You can use these valuable suggestions and records to add more information to your family tree.
4. What if I don’t provide some or all of the information requested?
The impact of this will depend on what information you withhold, but the main impacts may be:
- We will not be able to process or fully process your order;
- We will not be able to contact you to let you know of problems regarding your order or the goods/services provided;
- We will not be able to respond fully to requests and queries you may have;
- We cannot personalise the service you receive. So, if you are online you will have to search more for the content type you normally view or for similar/related products; and/or
- We won’t be able to limit online adverts to products or services you have shown interest in and so you may receive adverts that are not related to your interests.
5. What grounds (legal basis) are we processing the data under?
There are a number of grounds under which we process your personal information. These are:
- Contractual – we need the information to perform the contract for goods or services you have requested/ordered including payment, delivery etc;
- Legal – should we be legally required to contact you concerning a purchase or service;
- Legitimate interest – this means the processing is in TreePress’s interest. It allows us to manage the customer relationship effectively and efficiently and improve the goods and/or services we provide by better understanding how our online provisions are used and which goods are popular with which groups of individuals; and/or
- Consent – where you have given us consent to market to you.
6. Sharing Data and Reaserch Interests
At TreePress, we are continuously improving our family trees and finding new ways for you to get the most out of your TreePress experience.
A. Privacy. One of the most valuable resources for a community of users researching and building their family trees is access to the historical research of others. Many people, often unknown to each other, share common ancestors within a few generations, and those people know different parts of the family tree. By joining forces and connecting this knowledge, we can all discover new parts of our family history – parts we never had access to before.
Sharing information about deceased ancestors is vital for of matching service. When you create your family tree or upload a GEDCOM (a file format used for exchanging genealogical data), the privacy settings are set to share some information on deceased ancestors by default. This means that information on your deceased ancestors may be offered to other members as a match for their searches or data.
We provide you with privacy controls to manage your family tree and control who can see the information. You should familiarise yourself with how these controls work as you are responsible for using them.
i. When participating in Tree 2 Tree Hinting and ‘Sharing Deceased Ancestors’ is switched on
B. Tree deletion. Within the View All Trees area you can find an option to Remove Tree. This option will remove your tree from your tree view. TreePress will delete all the data related to living people. In cases where a person is not noted as deceased, we will remove all the data for those who were born less than 110 years ago. If you want your entire tree deleted from TreePress, please contact support@treepress.net. Once Hinting is available, deleting your tree will not delete branches you have shared with other users.
C. Removal of unauthorised data. We reserve the right (at our own discretion) to remove any personal information which you have included in your family tree about people who are living if we are alerted to the fact that this personal information was used without that person’s permission. If you become aware that your personal information has been included in somebody else’s tree without your permission or is being misused in any other way on the website, please send an email to our Customer Support team support@treepress.net with details and we will investigate and, if necessary, remove this information. The information added about deceased persons is not considered personal data under this policy.
D. Sharing family tree data with TreePress Users.
TreePress is a platform for sharing research interests and data. Once added to the TreePress platform, data may be shared with other users. Members can control access with a suite of privacy tools.
7. Historic records and record matching
A. Historic Records
You may find information about living individuals in some of our records. Examples of these records include civil birth and marriage indexes, electoral registers, the Companies House register, and more. The records we hold which contain the names of living people are public record and we provide the data based on our legitimate interest. In the examples, the records have been made public by the General Register Office or the Electoral Register. Records of living individuals allow users to build their family tree and research their family history from the current generation.
If you have any questions about these records, please contact our customer support at support@treepress.net. We will remove records of living people if it is requested by the individual named in the record. If you want to be removed from the UK Electoral Register records you will need to contact 192.com, who we use to access these records.
8. Sharing your information with third parties
We may from time to time provide your personal information to third parties for the purposes of providing you with our services. These third-party providers include payment processors, providers of card validation services, and credit referencing providers. This is necessary for the performance of the contract. We do not keep a record of your credit or debit card details in our systems. Our payment processors do not decide what is done with your data and only process it on our behalf. These third parties may be located outside the European Economic Area; however, we only use providers that provide adequate protection for your personal information at all times.
When transferring and storing any personal information outside the EEA we only do so under one of the legally recognised transfer mechanisms for ensuring the information is safeguarded. These are:
- The country in question has been deemed safe for data transfer by the European Commission (also known as an ‘adequacy finding’);
- The contract for data processing contains the standard contractual clauses laid down by the European Commission to safeguard the transfer of personal information;
- Binding corporate rules – this is where a large company’s own internal processes for international data transfer have been signed off and agreed by the European Commission as safeguarding the information;
- If the information is going to the USA it can be safely transferred to a company that is certified under the EU-US Privacy Shield; and
- Appropriate certification schemes.
We will disclose your personal information in order to comply with any legal obligation. This includes disclosing information to organisations for the purposes of fraud protection, credit risk reduction, or the order of a court or regulator.
We also share your details with service providers who assist us with hosting our marketing campaigns and surveys, but only in cases where you have consented to marketing or surveys. We will not provide your personal information to other third parties for marketing purposes unless you have specifically consented to this when you first provided your information to us. You are entitled to decline to receive such third-party communications by not selecting the appropriate box on the web form that collects your details or at any subsequent time by logging into your account and adjusting your preferences, by contacting us by email at support@treepress.net or by post to TreePress, 23 Templemere, Weybridge, Surrey, United Kingdom KT13 9PA .
9. Sale of the Business
In the event that we undergo re-organisation or are sold to a third party, any personal information we hold about you may be transferred to that re-organised entity or third party.
10. Cookies
This website uses cookies. For more information about what cookies are, what we use them for and how you can delete them, please read our cookies policy.
We do collect some information from cookies and similar software that allows us to understand how you arrive on our websites and use and navigate around them so we can improve the sites. We obtain some information from Google Analytics and Facebook. The Facebook information provided is limited to your email address and only that which you have previously agreed with Facebook that they can share.
11. How we protect your information
TreePress follows strict security procedures in the storage and disclosure of personal information and genetic data which we receive and that you have given us, to prevent unauthorised access to, and loss, misuse or alteration of your information in accordance with UK data protection legislation.
You are responsible for keeping secret any confidential passwords or other login or access details that you select or which we allocate to you. While we take steps to ensure the security of your information, there is a risk that any information transmitted over the Internet and stored on a computer may be intercepted or accessed by an unauthorised party. If you think that someone has accessed your information held by us without your permission or gained unauthorised access to your login details, you must notify us at support@treepress.net.
We also recommend that if you use a shared computer or a computer in a public place such as a library that you close your browser when you have finished your session.
12. Your rights regarding your Personal Information
Under the Data Protection law, you have a number of rights with respect to your personal information, which are:
- Correcting your Information
You are entitled to have your personal information updated to ensure it is up to date and accurate. In order to maintain the accuracy of the information we hold, you can update your personal details through your ‘My Account’ page or by sending us an email to support@treepress.net. - Withdrawing Consent
You have the right to withdraw your consent to any processing that is currently being done under your consent, such as marketing. Consent can be withdrawn by updating your preferences in the email preference centre or through ‘My Account’. You can also email to support@treepress.net. - Obtaining a copy of your Information
You have the right to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you. You can do this by contacting support@treepress.net from the email address attached to your account, providing the full name attached to your account. - Deleting your Information
You can request that we delete personal information in certain circumstances. These will be specific to each case. You can do this by contacting support@treepress.net from the email address attached to your account, providing the full name attached to your account. - Data Portability
You have the right to ask us to transfer the personal information that you have given us to another controller. - Restricting Processing
You can request a restriction on the processing of your data in some limited circumstances. Examples are concerns over data accuracy or we no longer need to hold your data but you have requested its retention by us to aid you in a legal matter. You can do this by contacting support@treepress.net from the email address attached to your account, providing the full name attached to your account. - Right to object to Processing
You have the right to request that we stop processing your data for marketing purposes and in other limited circumstances such as asking us not to process your data by wholly automated means or not to analyse your information for targeted content etc. (also known as profiling).
You can action any of these rights by contacting our Customer Support Team or by contacting us by email at support@treepress.net or by post to Data Protection Officer, TreePress, 23 Templemere, Weybridge, Surrey, United Kingdom KT13 9PA.
13. Right of Complaint to the Regulator for Data Protection
The data protection laws in the UK are regulated and enforced by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Each individual has the right to raise a concern/complaint to the ICO if they have any concerns about how their personal information and/or privacy is treated. You can do this via the ICO’s website, follow the links or have an online Live Chat.
Call the ICO helpline on 0303 123 1113
Email casework@ico.org.uk
Postal address:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
14. How long we hold your data for
Some of the information you provide to us will be necessary to carry out repeated tasks, such as verifying your identity or payment details when signing in to use an account, providing our services to you or when you are using an online checkout. We will keep this information for as long as you remain a registered user of any of our sites and for so long as reasonably necessary. After this time, we may need to hold your personal data in order to meet our financial obligations or identify or resolve issues or causes of action. If your account is inactive for more than ten years and you are no longer paying for a service, we reserve the right to delete any information you have provided to us, including all information in your family tree.
15. Links to third-party websites
Our website contains links to other websites belonging to third parties which are not covered by this privacy policy. If you want to go through to a third-party website, please make sure that you read the privacy policy for that website.
16. Updates to this policy
We may update this policy at any time without notice. We may tell you that we have updated the policy by emailing you at the email address you have provided to us and/or by posting an announcement on the website. By continuing to use the website after we have emailed you or posted a notice informing you of an update, you accept the changes to this Policy.
Privacy statement last updated 6 November 2019.
17. Contacting us
If you have any questions about privacy or wish to update your details or have them removed from our mailing list at any time, please contact us at:
Email: support@treepress.net
Post: Data Protection Officer
23 Templemere, Weybridge, Surrey, United Kingdom, KT13 9PA
