Privacy policy

Who we are

This privacy policy covers Maldives Culture, available at maldivesculture.com. It explains what personal data we collect, why we collect it, and what rights you hold over it.

Data we collect and how we use it

Comments

When you leave a comment, we collect the information shown in the comment form, along with your IP address and browser user-agent string for spam detection. An anonymised hash of your email address may be sent to the Gravatar service to check whether you use it — see Automattic's privacy policy for details. Once your comment is approved, your profile picture (if set via Gravatar) becomes publicly visible alongside it.

Media uploads

If you upload images, please remove any embedded location data (EXIF GPS) beforehand. Visitors can download images from this site and extract location information from them.

Cookies

Commenting on the site gives you the option to save your name, email address and website URL in cookies lasting one year, so you need not re-enter them next time. Logging in sets short-lived cookies: login cookies persist for two days (or two weeks if you tick "Remember Me"); screen-preference cookies last one year. A temporary, data-free cookie is also set at login to check that your browser accepts cookies — it is discarded when you close your browser. Editing or publishing a post saves a one-day cookie recording only the post ID; it contains no personal data.

Embedded content

Some articles include embedded content — videos, images, or similar — from third-party websites. That content behaves exactly as if you had visited those sites directly; they may collect data about you, set their own cookies, and track your interactions.

Your rights and data retention

Comments and their metadata are kept indefinitely so that follow-up comments can be recognised and approved automatically. Registered users may view, edit, or request deletion of their personal data at any time (usernames excepted). You may also request a full export of the personal data we hold about you. We will erase any data on request unless we are legally or administratively required to retain it.

Visitor comments may be checked against an automated spam-detection service. We do not otherwise share, sell, or transfer your data to third parties.