Privacy policy

This document sets out the privacy policy of Guardian Soulmates ("Soulmates") and explains how we use your personal information (meaning any information about you which identifies and is about you, such as your name, phone number, address and email). Your privacy is important to us. This policy explains how we use collect and use your data, and how you can exercise your rights in relation to this information.

What information do we collect about you?

We collect information from you when you register for Soulmates, when you fill in forms on our site, and when you use the site. This includes:

Your Soulmates profile:

Your "Soulmates User Name" will be publicised on the Soulmates site and this will be the identity by which you are known on the site. Visitors to Soulmates who haven't logged in will be able to see limited information about you (your description of yourself and what you're looking for, basic information about your age, approximate location, height, etc). Logged in Soulmates members can see all of the information you disclose on your profile. Always think carefully about the information which you disclose on your profile. As stated in our terms of use it is your responsibility to decide what information you wish to make available to other Soulmates members or other Internet users.

Your email address:

We will use your email address for contacting you. We will never give your email address to another Soulmates member.

Your password:

We will encrypt your password in our database. We strongly encourage you to choose a secure password that isn't easily guessable. You should never reveal your Soulmates password to anyone. If you think your password might be compromised please change it immediately via the 'Your account' page.

Your location:

We ask for your location so that we can help you find Soulmates near you. We won't show your postcode or detailed location information to other Soulmates users.

Your date of birth:

We will use your date of birth to calculate the age we show on your profile. We won't show your date of birth to other Soulmates users.

Your photos:

If you choose to add a profile picture, this will be displayed to anyone who views your profile page or sees you on a search results page. Profile pictures may be included in email communications to Soulmates members if Soulmates considers you to be a good match.

We show pictures of Soulmates members on the front page of the Soulmates site, in promotions such as on the front page of guardian.co.uk or in the classified pages of the Guardian Guide and The Observer. You can choose not to be featured on these pages by updating your preferences via the 'Your account' page.

If you choose to add more pictures you can choose to allow any logged in Soulmates member to see that picture, or you can choose to only show that picture to the people you like, i.e. the people whose profile you've marked as someone you like.

All photos uploaded will be checked by a member of the Soulmates team before they are shown on the website in accordance with our photographic terms and conditions. You can amend your preferences via your "Gallery" page at any time.

Your messages:

Your safety is important to us, so we review some messages sent between Soulmates members for inappropriate content and as stated in our terms of use we reserve the right to delete inappropriate content. We display messages from the last 6 months on your inbox page.

Your customer service history:

If you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence.

How will we use this information?

We may use your information when developing improvements to the site. Personally identifiable information may be used for troubleshooting any issues you might have.

We will use your information to provide you with information regarding other Guardian and Observer products and services only where you have consented to be contacted for such purposes. If you do not want us to use your data in this way, please amend your preferences via the 'Your account' page at any time.

Emails from Guardian Soulmates

We will send you emails to tell you about your membership status and to notify you of new messages and other site activity. We will also send you emails with suggestions of people you might like. From time to time, we will send you marketing emails about Guardian Soulmates. You can change your email preferences via the 'Your account' page at any time.

Sharing your information with other third parties

We may in some cases use third parties to assist us in operating the site and to conduct some processing of your information on our behalf but this is always subject to strict contractual control. These third parties may be located outside the EEA.

We may disclose your personal information to third parties if we are legally obliged to do so by a statutory authority with the appropriate jurisdiction, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use; or to protect the rights, property or safety of Guardian News & Media, our customers, Soulmates members, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for the purposes of fraud protection.

Access to and Updating Your Information

You may access and update your information contained in Your Account accessed by the 'Your account' page. You must make sure that you update your information as soon as possible with any and all relevant changes.

Hiding your profile

If you're taking a break from Soulmates and 'hide' your profile, we won't show your profile on the Soulmates website and you won't appear in anyone's search results or emails of suggested matches. You can unhide your profile at any time, and make your profile visible again.

We recommend you hide your profile if you aren't using Soulmates anymore. If you change your mind in the future you can unhide your profile without losing any of your information.

Tell a friend

If you use the 'Tell a friend' feature on a profile page to tell someone about a profile you've seen on Soulmates, we will send an email message to the address you give us. We won't share this email address with anyone else. We will tell the recipient that you have asked us to send this message. By choosing to use the 'Tell a friend' feature you are confirming that your friend is happy to receive the email. You must not use our 'Tell a friend' feature to send spam.

Cookies

We may collect information about your computer, including where available your IP address, operating system and browser type, for system administration and to report aggregate information to our advertisers. This is statistical data about our users browsing patterns, and does not identify any individual.

For the same reason, we may obtain information about your general internet usage by using a cookie file which is stored on the hard drive of your computer. Cooks contain information that is transferred to your computer's hard drive. They hope us to improve our site and to deliver a better and more personalized service. They enable us: to estimate our audience size and usage pattern; to store information about your preferences for the site, and so allow us to customize our site according to your individual interests. This includes remembering your login details, and your preferences for displaying your 'Edit profile' page; to speed up your searches; to recognize you when you return to our site.

You may refuse to accept cookies by activating the setting on your browser which allows you to refuse the setting of cookies. However if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of our site. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you log on to our site.

For more information on cookies and how to refuse them, please refer to our cookies policy: http://www.guardian.co.uk/info/cookies.

Data security

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will take all reasonable measures to ensure the security of your data, including using a third party to audit our security measures, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorized access.

Who are we?

We are Guardian News & Media Limited ("Guardian News & Media") whose registered office is at Kings Place, York Way, London, N1 9GU. Guardian News & Media has notified the Information Commissioner's Office of the ways in which we process personal data. This notification can be viewed on the ICO's Data Protection Public Register under registration number Z5969905.

Contact Us

Please contact us if you have any questions about our privacy policy, the way in which we use information we hold about you, if you would like to obtain a copy of the personal data we hold on you, or if you wish to make a complaint or comment: write to us at: dataprotection@guardian.co.uk Guardian Soulmates, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London, N1 9GU.

Complaints

If you think we have not have resolved a complaint to your satisfaction, you may forward your complaint to the Information Commissioner for investigation. For more information on the Information Commissioner, and how to make a complaint, please visit their website at www.ico.gov.uk.

Changes to this policy

We are constantly looking for new ways to improve this website. We may amend this privacy policy from time to time. All such changes will take effect once they have been posted on the site and you will be deemed to have accepted any such changes by your use of the site from time to time. Details of changes will be set out below.

August 2011