Privacy Statement

respond to enquiries and communicate with correspondents;
provide requested information;
maintain continuity in ongoing exchanges relating to family history, local history, or archival research;
operate, maintain, and secure the website;
prevent spam or misuse of website forms; and
comply with applicable legal, regulatory, accounting, or record keeping obligations.

Spam protection :

The website may use anti-spam tools to help prevent automated or abusive submissions through its forms. At present, this includes WP Armour, which uses a honeypot method to help detect spam submissions without requiring CAPTCHA challenges.

If the GDPR applies to the processing of your personal data, the legal basis relied on is legitimate interests, where processing is necessary to respond to communications, maintain continuity in research-related correspondence, protect the website from spam or misuse, and operate and secure the website.

Disclosure of personal information :

Personal information is not sold.

Personal information may be shared only where reasonably necessary to operate the website or comply with legal obligations, including with service providers such as:

website hosting providers;
email service providers;
technical support, security, or backup providers; and
professional advisors where required.

This website is hosted through GreenGeeks, and email related to contact form submissions may be processed through EasyHosting as part of normal website and email operations.

Access to personal information is otherwise limited to the site owner/editor, except where a service provider may require access in order to host, maintain, secure, or support the website or related communications.

International processing :

Service providers used to operate the website may store or process personal information outside your province or country, including in jurisdictions that may have different privacy laws. Where applicable, reasonable steps will be taken to ensure that personal information remains subject to appropriate safeguards.

Retention :

Personal information is retained only for as long as necessary for the purposes for which it was collected and to meet any applicable legal, accounting, tax, or record keeping requirements.

Contact form submissions and correspondence: generally up to 12 months after the last communication. However, where an enquiry leads to an ongoing exchange relating to family history, local history, or archival research, the correspondent’s name, email address, and related correspondence may be retained for a longer period where reasonably necessary to preserve research context, maintain continuity of communication, or respond to future related enquiries.
Technical information: for the period reasonably required for website operation, security, and ordinary service-provider logging practices.

When personal information is no longer required and no applicable legal retention requirement applies, it will be deleted, securely destroyed, or anonymized, as appropriate.

Your rights :

Subject to applicable law, you may request access to the personal information held about you and request correction of inaccurate or incomplete information.

If the GDPR applies, you may also have the right to request erasure, restriction of processing, data portability, and to object to processing based on legitimate interests. You may also have the right to lodge a complaint with a competent supervisory authority.

Requests may be made using the contact information below. Identity verification may be required before responding.

Cookies and similar technologies :

This website and its service providers may use cookies or similar technologies that are necessary for website operation, security, performance, and basic analytics. The website is not intended to use advertising cookies for behavioural advertising.

You can usually control cookies through your browser settings, although disabling certain cookies may affect website functionality.

Security :

Reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards are used to help protect personal information against loss, unauthorized access, use, disclosure, or modification. However, no method of transmission or storage can be guaranteed to be completely secure.

Third-party websites :

This website may contain links to third-party websites. This Privacy Statement does not apply to those websites, and you should review their privacy practices before providing personal information to them.

Contact the editor :

Questions, requests for access or correction, or other privacy-related inquiries may be directed to:

Alison Kilpatrick, Editor

End notes :

Source citation for this page: Kilpatrick, Alison. “Privacy Statement.” Published to Arborealis, online at arborealis.ca/about/privacy-statement/; accessed [date].

Updated 25th July 2026.

Arborealis