Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy is written to comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and applicable Estonian data protection law. It is provided for transparency and is not a substitute for legal advice.
Who We Are
This website, jaankivila.com, is operated by Jaan Kivila, based in Estonia. For the purposes of the GDPR, I am the data controller responsible for your personal data.
You can contact me regarding any privacy matter at: itsme [at] jaankivila.com
What Personal Data We Collect
We keep the data we collect to a minimum. Depending on how you use the site, we may process:
- Server and access logs. Like most websites, our hosting infrastructure automatically records technical information about visits, such as your IP address, browser and device type, referring page, pages viewed, and timestamps. This happens for every visitor, without any action on your part.
- Information you provide directly. If you contact us by e-mail, we receive your e-mail address and the content of your message, along with anything else you choose to include.
We do not require account registration, and the site does not currently sell any products or services.
How We Use Your Information and Our Legal Basis
| Purpose | Data used | Legal basis (GDPR Art. 6) |
|---|---|---|
| Operating, securing and troubleshooting the website | Server and access logs | Legitimate interest — keeping the site reliable and secure |
| Responding to your messages | E-mail address, message content | Legitimate interest / taking steps at your request |
| Understanding how the site is used (Google Analytics — only with your consent) | Analytics cookies | Your consent |
We never use your data for automated decision-making or profiling, and we do not sell or rent your personal data to anyone.
Cookies and Similar Technologies
Your light/dark theme preference is kept in localStorage on your device so we can remember your choice on your next visit. This is purely functional, stays on your device, is never sent to us or to any third party, and doesn’t require consent.
We use Google Analytics (Google Ireland Limited) to understand overall traffic to the site — but analytics cookies are only set after you give your explicit consent via the cookie banner shown on your first visit. Until you decide (or if you decline), no cookies are set and you are not identified — only an anonymous, aggregated signal is sent (Google Consent Mode), with no cookie and no visitor ID, used only for rough, non-identifying statistics. Your IP address is anonymized before processing either way. You can change your decision at any time via the “Cookie preferences” link in the site footer, which reopens the banner and lets you withdraw consent.
Data Retention
We keep server and access log data only for as long as necessary for the security and operational purposes described above, and delete or anonymise it periodically. E-mail correspondence is kept for as long as reasonably needed to handle your enquiry and any related follow-up, after which it is deleted.
Disclosing Your Information
We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data. We may share limited technical data with:
- Our hosting provider, which processes server logs on our behalf to keep the site running.
- Authorities, where we are legally required to disclose information (for example, in response to a lawful request).
International Data Transfers
If you consent to analytics cookies, your data is processed by Google Analytics (operated by Google Ireland Limited, with processing that may involve Google LLC in the United States). This transfer outside the European Economic Area (EEA) relies on an appropriate safeguard recognised under the GDPR, such as the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses. Without your consent, no such transfer happens.
Your Rights Under the GDPR
As a data subject, you have the right to:
- Access the personal data we hold about you.
- Rectify inaccurate or incomplete data.
- Erase your data (“right to be forgotten”), where applicable.
- Restrict or object to certain processing.
- Data portability, where technically feasible.
- Withdraw consent at any time, where processing is based on consent (for example, analytics cookies), without affecting the lawfulness of processing before withdrawal.
- Lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. In Estonia, this is the Estonian Data Protection Inspectorate (Andmekaitse Inspektsioon) — aki.ee. You may also contact the supervisory authority in your own EU member state.
To exercise any of these rights, please contact us.
Children’s Privacy
This website is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from children under the age of 16. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us so we can delete it.
Security
We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your data against unauthorised access, loss, or misuse, including running the site over HTTPS. However, no method of transmission over the internet is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.
Third-Party Links
On occasion, we include links to third-party websites. A link does not mean that we endorse or are responsible for that site’s privacy practices. Please review the privacy policy of any third-party site before providing your personal data to it.
Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time, for example to reflect new features such as analytics. Material changes will be reflected by an updated date on this page, and where required by law, we will ask for your renewed consent.
Contacting Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or how we handle your data, please contact us.