A little clarity
about privacy.

Who operates this website?

Cheshire Photo Courses is a service provided by THINKITTECH LTD. Questions about your information can be sent to hello@cheshirephotocourses.co.uk.

Information you provide

The enquiry form asks for your name, email address and the tuition or session you are interested in. You can also provide your preferred teaching language, a phone number, preferred location, up to three possible dates, usual days, preferred part of the day, starting hour and session length. The optional photography profile covers your confidence with key concepts, experience, preferred subjects, motivations and course goals, plus an additional message.

Please only include information relevant to your enquiry. No payment information is collected, the form is not a booking, and submitting it does not subscribe you to marketing emails.

Why we use your information

For tuition enquiries, we use the information to respond, plan private sessions or identify compatible small groups, compare availability and take steps at your request before a possible booking. For general questions and basic website security, we rely on our legitimate interests in responding to correspondence and protecting this service. We use Google Analytics only with your consent. You can withdraw that consent at any time using “Cookie settings” in the footer; this does not affect processing that took place before withdrawal.

We do not use enquiry information for automated decisions. Grouping suggestions are reviewed by Emanuele rather than decided automatically.

How your information is handled

A successful submission is written to a private CSV enquiry register stored by this website outside the public web directory. The register includes the information entered on the form, a reference, submission time, review status, a hashed network address and limited browser information. It can be filtered to compare availability and review possible spam. The existing notification email contains the core enquiry and optional photography profile, not the expanded phone and scheduling fields.

Access to the private register should be limited to Emanuele and authorised website administrators. The hosting and email providers process information needed to provide those services. Enquiry records and correspondence are kept while needed to organise the request and any resulting booking, then reviewed for deletion. You can ask about the information held or request correction or deletion; information required for a legal obligation may be retained separately.

Page ratings and comments

You can leave a helpful/not-helpful rating, an optional comment, or both. Ratings are stored against the page and a hashed random browser identifier. English and Italian versions of the same page share ratings and approved comments.

If you submit a comment, we store its text, your optional public name and private email, the page, language, submission time, moderation status and notification status in our private database. Comments and the name you choose become public only after administrator approval and your agreement on the form. Your email is never published. Leave your name blank to appear as “A reader”. Please do not include sensitive personal information in a public comment.

A new comment triggers an email to Emanuele with its reference and a link to the private review area; the notification does not contain your comment text or email address. Administrators can approve, reject or delete comments, and retry failed notifications. Rejected submissions are not saved as comments; rate-limit records contain hashed identifiers, not comment bodies. We review stored feedback and private contact details for deletion when no longer needed. Contact us to ask for access, correction or removal, or to withdraw agreement to publication. Optional contact details are used only to respond to your feedback, not to subscribe you to marketing.

Optional WhatsApp group

You can ask to be invited to a private course WhatsApp group once a suitable group is being organised. This choice is optional and is recorded separately from the enquiry itself. If you join, other members will be able to see your WhatsApp profile name and phone number. You can change your mind before joining by contacting Emanuele. WhatsApp then processes information under its own privacy arrangements.

Cookies and similar technologies

The site uses essential cookies and local storage to keep the enquiry form secure and remember your privacy choice. It also offers optional cookies that help us understand and improve the site. At present, the optional category consists of Google Analytics cookies. They are not loaded or set before you choose “Accept optional cookies”, and rejecting them does not affect the rest of the site.

cpc_session

An essential session cookie used by the contact and page-feedback forms to protect submissions and show their results. It expires when you close your browser.

cpc_feedback_voter

Set after you send feedback, this essential cookie remembers a random browser identifier for up to 180 days so you can update your rating without adding another vote on the same page. It contains no name or email address. Clearing cookies or using another browser can result in another vote; counts are not verified unique people.

cpc_analytics_consent

A record in your browser’s local storage that remembers whether you accepted or rejected analytics. It is kept for up to six months, then we ask again.

_ga

An optional Google Analytics cookie used to distinguish pseudonymous visitors. Google’s default expiry is two years, although browsers may shorten it.

_ga_4S3TVP57NX

An optional Google Analytics cookie used to maintain session state. Google’s default expiry is two years, although browsers may shorten it.

Your appearance preference

You can choose Focus and its colours through “Website appearance” in the footer. This is optional and does not enable Google Analytics. If you select “Remember my appearance on this device”, we store the appearance name, palette and time of your choice in this browser’s local storage as cpc_appearance, for up to six months from your selection.

Without that option, your choice is kept in tab storage (cpc_appearance_tab) so it continues as you navigate. It is normally removed when you close the tab; browser tab restoration may preserve it. The preference is not sent to our server or used for advertising, and does not automatically transfer to other devices.

To change your choice or stop remembering it, open “Website appearance”, uncheck the remember option and apply. “Reset to original appearance” in the footer removes both preferences from this browser and the current tab. You can also clear site data in your browser. These controls are independent of “Cookie settings”, which manages analytics.

Optional analytics cookies

When enabled, Google Analytics may receive information such as the pages and page titles you view, the referring site, approximate location derived from your network address, and browser or device information. We use measurement ID G-4S3TVP57NX to understand overall site use and improve the website. With your consent, we also measure course-enquiry clicks, form starts and successful enquiries, including the selected course category and site language. We do not send the name, email address, message or photography profile entered in the enquiry form to Google Analytics. Google signals and advertising personalisation are disabled in the site’s tag configuration.

Google processes Analytics information on our behalf and may process it outside the UK, including in the United States, subject to its contractual and international-transfer safeguards. For more detail, read Google Analytics’ EU, Swiss and UK privacy information (opens in a new tab) and Google’s Privacy Policy (opens in a new tab). User-level Analytics data is retained according to the retention setting applied to the Analytics property; aggregated reports may be kept for longer. We review the data we need and access to the property.

You can change your choice at any time through “Cookie settings” in the footer. Choosing “Reject optional cookies” stops further Analytics collection on that page and removes Analytics cookies that this site can access. You can also clear cookies and site data in your browser.

Optional photograph map

The photograph map uses Google Maps. It loads only when you choose “Open Google Maps” on the map page. Google then receives technical information such as your IP address and browser information, and processes it under its Privacy Policy. Google’s Maps terms also apply. This choice is separate from Analytics and is not remembered after you leave or reload the page. “Close the map” removes the embedded map and stops its further requests; it does not undo information already sent to Google. You can explore the place list and photographs without opening Google Maps. This feature does not request your device location.

Technical information & security

The hosting server may record technical access logs, including network addresses and requested pages. To reduce abuse, the website keeps a short-lived submission counter using a hashed network address. Successful enquiry records also contain a hashed network address and limited browser information so suspicious patterns can be reviewed without storing the raw address in the CSV register.

Spam protection with Google reCAPTCHA

The contact page, and the feedback form when you open it, load Google reCAPTCHA v2 to distinguish human enquiries from automated submissions. Google receives technical information from your browser, such as your network address and device information, and uses a security cookie called _GRECAPTCHA. Our server sends Google the verification token; it does not include your name, email, message or photography profile in the verification request.

The check is required to submit the form and works independently of your Analytics cookie choice. If you cannot complete it, you can email us directly. Google's Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Your rights

You can ask to access or correct your personal information. Depending on the circumstances, you can also request erasure, restriction of processing or a portable copy of information you have provided. Where processing is based on consent, you can withdraw it at any time.

You have the right to object to processing based on our legitimate interests. Contact us using the email below to make a request.

Your questions & choices

Email hello@cheshirephotocourses.co.uk with privacy questions or requests about your personal information. You can also find information about data protection rights or raise a concern with the Information Commissioner’s Office (opens in a new tab).

External websites

Links to portfolios and other websites take you to services with their own privacy arrangements. No external portfolio is embedded in this website.

Aggregate post-link counts

Some links shared in posts contain a code common to every reader. The server counts requests to the linked page, storing only the post reference, date and daily total. This helps us understand which invitations bring visits to the website. Repeat visits may be counted again; we do not measure unique people.

The counter does not save IP addresses, visitor identifiers, individual browsing histories, referrers or browser information, or link visits to registrations. It uses request headers transiently to filter known bots and previews where possible. It sends no data to Google or Meta and operates independently of optional Google Analytics cookies. Normal hosting and security logs are separate.

You can exclude this browser from the counts. Only if you choose exclusion, we save a preference cookie, cpc_post_stats_optout, for up to six months; it contains only the value 1, not an identifier. We also honour Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control signals.

Aggregate counting is enabled for post links.