Drafted by Claude Opus 5.5 and reviewed by Christopher K. Long
This page explains what happens to information about you when you visit this website. In short: the website does not use cookies, analytics or adverts, has no accounts or forms, and keeps nothing on your device until you have made a choice about that: then only what you allow or, if you decline, a record of that choice. I do not collect or hold any personal data about its visitors, other than the emails that they choose to send me.
The website is run by Christopher K. Long. For anything to do with privacy, email privacy@christopher-k-long.ac.
What the host receives
The website is hosted on GitLab Pages, a service of GitLab Inc. As with any website, your browser sends the host your IP address and some details of your browser and device each time it requests a page or file. GitLab keeps logs of these requests under its own privacy statement [1]. I have no access to those logs.
GitLab Inc. is based in the United States, as are most of the other services named on this page, so the information they receive may be processed outside the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area. Their policies, linked from this page, describe the safeguards they apply to such transfers.
Everything a page needs is served by the website itself, including its fonts, icons and mathematics, so that visiting a page does not contact anyone else unless you allow it, as described below.
The larger files that the website offers, such as the PDFs of articles, slide decks, datasets and some figures, are not part of the website itself. They are kept in its repository on GitLab.com, another service of GitLab Inc., and your browser connects to GitLab.com when you open or download one. Links to these files work like any other link to another website. Figures kept there are treated like the content from other services below, and are not loaded unless you allow it.
Content from other services
Some pages include content that is loaded from other services, such as embedded social media posts, videos, images and status badges. Loading it connects your browser to that service, which then receives your IP address and details of your browser, learns which page you are on, and may set its own cookies.
None of it is loaded unless you allow it. You are asked when you first visit, and again on a page with content from a service that you have not yet made a choice for. Until you allow a service, a text version or a link is shown in place of its content. You can change your choices at any time under , which is also at the bottom of every page. A change applies straight away: content from a service that you switch off is taken off the page.
| Service | What is loaded | Their policy |
|---|---|---|
| Bluesky | Embedded posts | Privacy policy [2] |
| Embedded posts | Privacy policy [3] | |
| X | Embedded posts | Privacy policy [4] |
| YouTube (Google) | Embedded videos, from its “privacy-enhanced” address | Privacy policy [5] |
| GitLab | Figures kept in the website’s repository | Privacy statement [1] |
| GitHub | Status badges of software tests | Privacy statement [6] |
| Read the Docs | Images from software documentation | Privacy policy [7] |
| Software Heritage | Archive badges | Legal information [8] |
| Zenodo (CERN) | DOI badges | Privacy policy [9] |
For X, every page also asks that your visit is not used to personalize suggestions or adverts, using the opt-out that X provides [10]. X still receives the information described above.
Links to other websites are ordinary links: nothing is sent to them unless you follow one, after which their own policies apply.
What is kept on your device
The website sets no cookies. If you allow it, it keeps a few things in your browser’s local storage on your own device, so that it works the way you left it. None of this is sent to me or to anyone else, and nothing is kept until you have made a choice in the privacy settings.
- Your settings: the light or dark theme, which folders are open in the explorer, the graph’s settings and the pages it marks as visited, and your privacy choices.
- Earlier versions of the website: so that these can be viewed, a small program (a service worker) is installed in your browser, and it keeps the parts of earlier versions that you have opened.
Under you can allow all of this with “Allow all” or “Allow local storage”, or allow each kind on its own under “Breakdown”. There you can also see everything that is kept, with its size, and delete any of it; “Clear local storage” deletes all of it. Switching a kind off deletes what was kept of it. Without local storage, settings only last until the page is reloaded or closed, and earlier versions of the website are unavailable.
“Decline all”, and switching “Allow local storage” off, keep only a record of your privacy choices, so that you are not asked again on every page. That has its own switch, “Privacy choices”, and with it off nothing at all is kept.
If you email me
If you email me, for example at the address above or to report a security problem, I receive your email address and whatever you write. I use these only to deal with your message and to reply, I do not share them, and I keep them no longer than that needs.
Email to addresses at this website’s domain is received by Cloudflare Email Routing, a service of Cloudflare, Inc., which forwards it under its own privacy policy [11] to my mailbox with Gmail, a service of Google, which has its own [5]. Cloudflare is not used to serve the website, so it learns nothing about your visits.
These addresses only receive email. My reply will therefore not come from the address that you wrote to, but from my Gmail address.
Your rights
Data protection law gives you rights over personal data that is held about you, including to see it, correct it and have it erased. Unless you have emailed me, I hold no personal data about you, so there is nothing for me to provide or erase. If you have, you can ask me for a copy of your emails, or to delete them. Either way, you are welcome to email me with any question or concern. The services above hold whatever they collect, and requests about that go to them.
If you are unhappy with how your data has been handled, you can complain to the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office, or to the data protection authority where you live.
Changes
If what the website does changes, this page will be updated. Its earlier versions are listed in its history, which is opened by ‘’ at the top of the page. The whole website as it was at an earlier date can be viewed with ‘’ in the navigation panel, once snapshots are allowed in the privacy settings.