UK Life Explained 英國生活說明書 Practical notes for building a life in the UK

Privacy Notice

Last updated: 6 November 2026

UK Life Explained is a non-profit personal website. It is run by one individual based in the United Kingdom, publishing under the name UK Life Explained, who is the data controller for this notice. Contact: contact@uklifeexplained.com. We publish an email address rather than a postal one because the site is run by a private individual and not a company.

What we collect

This is a free personal hobby and experience-sharing website, without advertising, paid endorsements, affiliate commissions, user accounts or membership activities. It does not promote the operator’s profession, employment, clients or commercial partnerships. We do not sell personal information.

Photographs

Articles use photographs of streets, trails, restaurants, events and similar places to document and illustrate the author’s experiences. Our lawful basis for publishing limited incidental photographic data is legitimate interests in editorial and personal-experience publishing. We reduce the privacy impact by avoiding names and identification, not matching photographs against other information, and blurring recognisable bystanders and registration marks where appropriate. We keep a photograph only while it remains relevant to the article or site archive and review this if someone objects. If you appear in a photograph, or a vehicle connected with you is identifiable, email the page address and a short description to contact@uklifeexplained.com. We will review the image promptly and can blur or remove it where appropriate.

Cookies, external media and search

Your analytics and external-media choices are separate. Accepting the Terms, continuing to read or changing language does not give optional consent. Privacy settings in the footer and the floating button let you accept, reject or change each choice. Choices are stored in your browser for up to 180 days; reading the site does not extend this period. Old media permissions are not treated as new consent. If your browser cannot save a choice, analytics remains off; you can still explicitly load a single media item. Allowing external media automatically loads supported YouTube, Google Maps and Instagram embeds, which may receive your IP address and browser data and use their own cookies. A single-item load does not permit analytics or other media. Withdrawing media permission removes loaded embeds but cannot undo information already sent or clear a provider’s cookies. Source links remain available without loading embeds. Search runs in your browser; a shared or reopened search URL may still appear in ordinary hosting logs.

Why and how long

We use correspondence to answer your request and rely on legitimate interests. We normally delete it within 12 months after the matter is closed unless it is reasonably needed for security or a legal claim. Hosting logs are retained under SiteGround’s operational policy. Photograph retention is described above.

Sharing and international transfers

Our hosting and email providers process information to provide those services. Google processes optional analytics only after your analytics choice; embedded providers receive data when you allow their content. Providers may process information outside the UK under applicable terms and data-protection arrangements.

ICO data protection fee

Based on the actual personal, recreational and free experience-sharing purposes and the limited processing described here, the operator has self-assessed the current operation as fee-exempt. This is not ICO approval or a guarantee, and these Terms do not create an exemption. The assessment must be revisited if actual purposes or processing change, including any analytics activation. Fee exemption does not remove other data-protection obligations.

Your rights

You may ask for access, correction, deletion, restriction or object to processing where applicable. Email us first. You may also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Optional article analytics

Only after you choose analytics, Google Analytics measures readership of published articles and their language versions, to help us communicate free personal content clearly. It is not used for advertising, commercial or professional promotion, or advertising audiences. Google receives a browser identifier, controlled article address/title, article group and language, and technical information. Page views and automatic session/engagement events may occur. Search text, postcodes, URL queries and fragments are excluded from the page information we send. Google signals, advertising personalisation and enhanced measurement are disabled. The analytics cookie is configured for 28 days without renewal on activity; event and user data retention is set to two months without reset on activity. Aggregated reports may remain longer; the two-month setting does not erase all reports. Google may process information outside the UK under its applicable terms and data-protection arrangements; see Google’s Privacy Policy. You can refuse or withdraw in Privacy settings without losing article access. Withdrawal stops new collection and creates a deletion request using an already available analytics identifier, without loading Google to obtain one. The necessary browser retry record lasts until the server accepts it or at most seven days. If retry storage is unavailable, the existing identifier is retained solely to retry until acknowledgement; keep the page open if no persistence is possible. A failed or expired unsent request is reported, never described as deleted. Our private queue keeps pending requests for operator processing with Google; after submission the local identifier is removed and a minimal receipt is kept for 30 days and removed through manual operator cleanup, not automatic expiry. A queued or submitted request does not mean Google has completed deletion.