The Aarmoury ¦ Instrument
Privacy policy
Sealed
This page covers the aarmoury.uk website and a small Facebook app I use to post to my own Facebook Pages. I’m Paul Taylor, I’m responsible for both, and you can get hold of me at [email protected].
- Responsible
- Paul Taylor
- Contact
- [email protected]
- Cookies
- None
- Analytics
- None
- Adverts
- None
- Data sold to
- Nobody (nobody's asked)
- Lawful basis
- Legitimate interests
- Complaints
- Me first, then the ICO
The short version
The Facebook app exists so that I can schedule posts to Pages I run, from software I run on my own server. It isn’t offered to anyone else; it doesn’t advertise, and it doesn’t sell data to anyone (it would struggle to find a buyer). Unless you’re me, you’ve never logged into it, and it knows nothing about you.
It barely knows anything about me.
The Facebook app
The app connects Meta’s systems to a self-hosted copy of Postiz, an open-source social media scheduler, running on a server I own in the UK. Only I can log in. Registration is closed, and the server isn’t reachable from the public internet, which rules out most of the traditional ways these things go wrong.
- Facebook Where my Pages live
- The app Holds an access token per Page
- My server In the UK, not on the public internet
- Backups Encrypted, one copy in the EU
When I connect one of my Pages, Meta gives the app:
- an access token that lets it publish to that Page;
- the Page’s name, ID and profile picture, so I can tell my Pages apart (harder than it sounds at 6am);
- permission to read engagement and insights on the Page’s posts.
The engagement and insights permissions are there because Postiz asks for them and won’t connect without them, with all the flexibility of a car park barrier. Insights are totals, such as how many people saw a post, not a list of who those people were. The engagement permissions could in principle let Postiz see comments and reactions on my posts, which may include commenters’ public names. I don’t use Postiz to collect those and I don’t export them anywhere. Anything like that stays on my server, and it’s no more than anyone scrolling past the post on Facebook could already see.
The app doesn’t:
- request or see anything about people who like, follow or visit my Pages beyond what’s described above;
- use data for advertising, profiling or anything machine-learning shaped;
- share data with anyone except Meta, who had it first.
The Google app
aardvark-seo is a small Google app that lets software on my own computer read Google Search Console data for websites I run, so I can see how they’re doing in search without clicking through dashboards. Only I can sign in to it.
When I sign in, Google gives it a token that lets it read search performance figures (searches, clicks, positions), indexing status and sitemaps for my sites. Those figures are totals, not information about individual visitors. The token is stored on my own computer and nowhere else.
It doesn’t collect anything about the people who visit my sites, share data with anyone, or use it for advertising. To revoke its access, I remove it from my Google account’s third-party access settings.
Where it’s kept, and for how long
Data is held on my server and in encrypted backups, one of which is kept with a storage provider in the EU. Access tokens are kept until I disconnect a Page or they expire, whichever Meta decides comes first. Anything stored with a Page goes when that Page is disconnected, or sooner if you ask.
Why I’m allowed to
The lawful basis under UK GDPR is legitimate interests. In this case, my interest is being able to publish to Pages I run without having to be awake every time a post goes out.
This website
aarmoury.uk is hosted by Krystal and served through Cloudflare. Both keep the usual technical logs that web servers keep, like IP addresses, browser type, and the pages requested. This is for security and to keep things running. I do not use those logs to identify anyone. The site is currently closed for forging, so there is not much to log.
The site doesn’t set cookies or run analytics. If you use the theme toggle, your browser remembers if you prefer light or dark. That is stored on your device and not sent to me. I am not judging your choice. Nothing on these pages is loaded from anyone else’s servers.
Not even the font.
Your rights
Under UK data protection, law you can ask for a copy of any personal data I hold about you, ask me to correct it, ask me to delete it, ask me to restrict how it’s used, or object to how it’s used. Email [email protected] and I’ll respond within a month. That’s the legal limit, and considerably longer than I’ll need.
To remove data held by the Facebook app specifically, follow the data deletion instructions.
If you’re unhappy with how I’ve handled something, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk. I’d appreciate the chance to sort it out first (the ICO’s in-tray is already big enough).
Changes
If anything here changes, I will update this page and the date at the top. There is no mailing list to tell you about it. That might be the most privacy-friendly feature here.