This privacy policy explains what personal information The Botanical Pour (thebotanicalpour.co.uk) collects, why, how long it’s kept, and your rights under UK data protection law (the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018).
Who we are
This website is run by Jasminejoy M, trading as The Botanical Pour, who is the data controller for the personal information described here.
Contact for privacy questions: steadyforge+botanicalpour@mail.grokbot.com. Postal address: available on request.
What we collect and why
If you use the contact form
The contact form (made with WPForms Lite) asks for your name, email address and message. We use them to reply to you. The form sends your message by email to our contact inbox. WPForms Lite doesn’t save form entries in the website’s database.
Lawful basis: our legitimate interest in answering enquiries. We aim to reply within 3 working days. We keep messages for up to 12 months, then delete them, unless we need them longer to deal with an ongoing issue.
If you leave a comment
When you comment, WordPress stores your name, email address, website (if you give one), the comment, your IP address and your browser’s user agent, so we can moderate comments and stop spam. Your email address is never published. Comments are checked for spam by Antispam Bee, which works on our own server and doesn’t send your comment to an outside service. It doesn’t use any external country or language checks. Profile pictures (avatars, from Gravatar) are switched off, so your email address isn’t sent to Gravatar.
Lawful basis: legitimate interests (running and protecting a comment section). Approved comments stay with the post while it’s online. Spam is deleted automatically after 7 days. You can ask us to remove your comment at any time.
Search statistics
We use Google Search Console to see how the site appears in Google search results. It reports on searches and clicks in aggregate and doesn’t add any cookies or tracking code to our pages.
Cookies
We use the Complianz plugin to ask for your consent before any non-essential cookies or third-party content load, and to record your choice. See our Cookie Policy for the full list and to change your settings.
Embedded content
Some posts may include embedded content such as Pinterest pins or YouTube videos. These are blocked until you agree to them in the cookie banner. Once loaded, those services may collect data about you under their own privacy policies.
Security and logins
To protect the site, Limit Login Attempts Reloaded records the IP address and time of failed login attempts, and temporarily blocks repeated attempts. Two Factor adds a second login step for site administrators only. Lawful basis: legitimate interests (keeping the site secure).
Hosting and backups
The website is hosted by Fasthosts, a UK company, which processes data on our behalf. Like all web servers, theirs keep logs of requests (such as IP address, date and time, and page requested) for security and troubleshooting. These logs are kept in line with Fasthosts’ own policy.
We back up the website with UpdraftPlus. Backups include the database (so they may contain comments) and are stored on our Fasthosts web hosting server only. We keep about 14 daily database backups and 4 weekly file backups, then older copies are deleted automatically.
Who we share your information with
We don’t sell your personal information, and we don’t share it for marketing. The only organisations that handle it are those that help run the site: our web host, Fasthosts. We may also disclose information if the law requires it.
Your rights
Under UK data protection law you have the right to:
- ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you
- ask us to correct it, or to delete it
- ask us to restrict how we use it, or object to us using it
- ask for your data in a portable format, where that applies
- withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on consent (for example, cookies)
To use any of these rights, contact us at the email above. We’ll reply within one month. There’s normally no charge.
Complaints
If you’re unhappy with how we’ve handled your information, please contact us first so we can try to put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO): ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, or call 0303 123 1113.
Children
This site is written for adults. We don’t knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.
Changes to this policy
We’ll update this page if the way we handle information changes. Last updated: 1 November 2026
