Last Updated: October 27, 2025

Media Values Foundation (“we,” “our,” or “us”) is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you visit our website.

Please read this privacy policy carefully. If you do not agree with the terms of this privacy policy, please do not access the site.

Information We Collect

Personal Information

We may collect personal information that you voluntarily provide to us when you:

  • Register on the website
  • Subscribe to our newsletter
  • Leave comments on our site
  • Contact us directly
  • Participate in surveys or promotions

This information may include:

  • Name
  • Email address
  • Website URL
  • Username and password
  • Any other information you choose to provide

Automatically Collected Information

When you visit our website, we automatically collect certain information about your device, including:

  • IP address
  • Browser type and version
  • Operating system
  • Referring URLs
  • Pages viewed and time spent on pages
  • Access times and dates

Cookies and Tracking Technologies

We use cookies and similar tracking technologies to track activity on our website and store certain information. You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of our website.

How We Collect Your Information

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site, we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Contact Forms

When you submit a contact form, we collect the information you provide, including your name, email address, and message content.

Cookies

Comment Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site, you may opt-in to saving your name, email address, and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

Login Cookies

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks.

Session Cookies

If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

Editing Cookies

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

Analytics Cookies

 We may use third-party analytics services (such as Google Analytics) to help us understand how visitors use our website. These services may use cookies to collect information about your use of the site.

How We Use Your Information

We may use the information we collect from you to:

  • Provide, operate, and maintain our website
  • Improve, personalize, and expand our website
  • Understand and analyze how you use our website
  • Develop new products, services, features, and functionality
  • Communicate with you, either directly or through one of our partners, including for customer service, updates, and promotional purposes
  • Send you newsletters and marketing communications (with your consent)
  • Process your transactions
  • Find and prevent fraud
  • Respond to legal requests and prevent harm
  • Moderate and approve user comments
  • Protect against spam and abuse

Legal Basis for Processing (UK GDPR)

Under UK GDPR, we process your personal data based on the following lawful bases:

  • Consent: Where you have given clear consent for us to process your personal data for a specific purpose (e.g., newsletter subscriptions)
  • Contract: Where processing is necessary for a contract we have with you
  • Legal Obligation: Where we need to comply with the law
  • Legitimate Interests: Where processing is necessary for our legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of a third party (unless there is a good reason to protect your personal data which overrides those legitimate interests)

Embedded Content from Other Websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g., videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Who We Share Your Data With

We do not sell, trade, or rent your personal information to third parties. We may share your information in the following circumstances:

Service Providers

We may share your information with third-party service providers who perform services on our behalf, such as:

  • Web hosting providers
  • Email service providers
  • Analytics providers
  • Spam detection services

All third-party service providers are required to keep your personal data secure and confidential.

Password Reset

If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.

Legal Requirements

We may disclose your information where we are legally required to do so in order to comply with applicable UK law, governmental requests, a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process.

Business Transfers

We may share or transfer your information in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our organization to another company.

With Your Consent

We may disclose your personal information for any other purpose with your consent.

International Data Transfers

Your information may be transferred to and maintained on computers located outside of the United Kingdom where data protection laws may differ. When we transfer your personal data outside the UK, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place, such as:

  • Standard contractual clauses approved by the UK authorities
  • Transfers to countries with adequacy decisions
  • Other legally approved transfer mechanisms

Data Retention

Comments

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

User Accounts

 For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

General Retention

We will retain your personal information only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this privacy policy, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law.

Your Rights Under UK GDPR

Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, you have the following rights:

Right to Access

You have the right to request copies of your personal data. We may charge a small fee for this service if your request is clearly unfounded or excessive.

Right to Rectification

You have the right to request that we correct any information you believe is inaccurate or complete information you believe is incomplete.

Right to Erasure

You have the right to request that we erase your personal data, under certain conditions. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Right to Restrict Processing

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

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.

Right to Withdraw Consent

Where we rely on consent to process your personal data, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time.

Right to Lodge a Complaint

You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues. You can contact the ICO at:

  • Website: https://ico.org.uk
  • Phone: 0303 123 1113
  • Address: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF

Exercising Your Rights

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you.

To exercise these rights, please contact us using the contact information provided below. We will respond to your request within one month.

Where Your Data Is Sent

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service. Your information may be transferred to and maintained on computers located outside of the United Kingdom where the data protection laws may differ from UK laws. We ensure appropriate safeguards are in place for such transfers.

Security of Your Information

We use administrative, technical, and physical security measures to help protect your personal information. While we have taken reasonable steps to secure the personal information you provide to us, please be aware that despite our efforts, no security measures are perfect or impenetrable, and no method of data transmission can be guaranteed against any interception or other type of misuse.

Third-Party Websites

Our website may contain links to third-party websites that are not operated by us. If you click on a third-party link, you will be directed to that third party’s site. We strongly advise you to review the privacy policy of every site you visit. We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third-party sites or services.

Children's Privacy

Our website is not intended for children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under 13. If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that your child has provided us with personal data, please contact us. If we become aware that we have collected personal data from children without verification of parental consent, we take steps to remove that information from our servers.

Marketing Communications

We will only send you marketing communications if you have given us your consent or where we have another lawful basis to do so. You can opt out of receiving marketing communications at any time by:

  • Clicking the unsubscribe link in any marketing email we send
  • Contacting us directly using the details below
  • Updating your preferences in your account settings (if applicable)

Automated Decision Making

We do not use automated decision-making or profiling in ways that produce legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affect you.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page and updating the “Last Updated” date at the top of this Privacy Policy.

You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or wish to exercise your data protection rights, please contact us:

Media Values Foundation
Email: info@mediavalues.org
Address: 67 Saffron Hill, London EC1N 8QX
Phone: +44 (0)20 3553 3664

Data Protection Officer:
Email: [dpo@mediavaluesfoundation.org]

For data protection concerns, you may also contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO):