Privacy & Cookies

Who runs this site?

Retro Dad is run by Stuart, who is responsible for the personal information used on this site. For privacy questions, access requests or comment-removal requests, email info@retrodad.co.uk.

Comments

If you leave a comment, we store your chosen name or nickname, the comment, its submission date and moderation information. Your name and comment become public only after approval. You do not need to provide an email address. Please avoid including contact details or private information about yourself or others.

We use this information to provide and moderate the discussion, relying on our legitimate interests in running a community blog and preventing abuse. Approved comments are retained while the related post remains published and the comment remains relevant, with an annual review. Comments returned to the pending queue are reviewed again; unreviewed pending comments are deleted after 90 days in that queue. Spam comments are deleted after 30 days from being marked as spam. Comments rejected using permanent deletion are removed immediately.

Polls

Voting stores your answer and a pseudonymous voter identifier so we can count votes, remember your choice and limit repeat voting. We do not ask for a name or email. The identifier can link votes from the same browser across our polls; we use it only for the voting feature, not advertising or profiling.

We rely on our legitimate interests in running fair, informal polls. Individual vote records are retained while a poll is open and for 30 days after it closes. They are then removed, leaving only totals for each answer. These totals can be kept with the site's content. Polls already closed when this retention system was introduced start their 30-day period from its installation.

Security and spam prevention

We use a temporary session cookie to protect forms and admin login. Forms may start this session when they are displayed. Comment and vote submissions also use a keyed hash derived from your IP address to limit repeated submissions. This hash is pseudonymous, not anonymous. The application removes expired rate-limit records after 24 hours on the next hourly maintenance run. Our basis for this processing is our legitimate interest in keeping the service secure.

Cookies used here

• retrodad_…: a session cookie for login and form security. It has no fixed persistent expiry; browser session-restoration settings can affect when it disappears.
• rd_vote_…: a signed, random identifier used for voting, with a maximum lifetime of 90 days from issue. It is created when you submit a vote. Existing one-year voting cookies are shortened when your browser next returns to a page that processes them; we cannot remotely remove cookies from browsers that do not return.

The cookies are used for the security and voting features described above. This site does not use advertising cookies or audience-analytics tracking in its own application. You can remove or block cookies through your browser settings; doing so may prevent voting, commenting or login, or cause a poll to forget that you have voted.

Hosting, fonts and email

Our hosting provider, Namesco, processes technical information needed to deliver and secure the website. Hosting logs may contain IP addresses, request details and browser information. Contact us for details of current hosting-log and backup retention arrangements.

Fonts currently load from Google Fonts, so your browser contacts Google and supplies technical information such as your IP address and request headers. See Google Fonts privacy information. Google may process information outside the UK; see its privacy information for its processing and transfer arrangements.

If you email us, we use your contact details and message to respond and handle your request. We retain correspondence only for as long as needed to resolve it and any related follow-up or obligations. Hosting and email providers may process information on our behalf. We do not sell your information. We may disclose information when legally required.

Deletion and backup copies

Scheduled maintenance runs hourly, so deletion takes place on the next successful run after the relevant period expires. Restricted backup copies may remain until the backup rotation removes them. If a backup is restored, deletion requests and overdue cleanup must be reapplied before the site returns to service.

Your choices and rights

Depending on the circumstances, you can ask to access, correct or erase your personal information, restrict its use, or object to processing based on legitimate interests. Contact info@retrodad.co.uk with the relevant post or poll details. We may need enough information to verify your request, particularly where you used a nickname or a browser identifier. We normally respond within one month; some rights have exceptions.

You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). We do not use your comments or votes to make automated decisions with legal or similarly significant effects.

Last updated: 16 October 2026.