Privacy & cookie policy
What this site stores on your device, how contact-form messages are handled and which third-party services some pages load.
Last updated
The short version
This website does not use analytics. It shows adverts from Google AdSense. Visitors in the UK, EEA and Switzerland are asked for consent through Google's certified consent message, and Google only uses cookies for personalised ads if you agree. Messages sent through the contact form are used only to reply to you. The contact page loads Cloudflare's Turnstile spam check, which is strictly necessary to protect the form and is not affected by your ad choices.
What is stored on your device
| What | Where | Why | How long |
|---|---|---|---|
theme (light or dark) | Your browser's localStorage | Remembers your choice if you use the dark-mode toggle | Until you clear site data |
tgis-climate-client (a random identifier) and tgis-climate-job (your latest job link) | Your browser's localStorage, only if you use the climate tools | Applies the one-job-at-a-time limit and lets you return to a running job | Until you clear site data; the job link is removed when you start a new request |
Google advertising cookies (e.g. __gads, __gpi, IDE) | Cookies set by Google | Serving, personalising and measuring ads, according to the choices you make in Google's consent message | Up to 13 months; see Google's policy |
Neither preference leaves your browser, except that the climate tools send their random identifier with each request, and our server stores only a one-way hash of it. If you never press the theme toggle, nothing is stored and the site simply follows your operating system's light/dark setting.
The contact form
When you send a message through the contact form, the name, email address, optional telephone number, reason, optional budget and timeline, subject and message you enter are emailed to the TechnicalGIS team so that we can reply. We use these details only to respond to your enquiry and do not add you to any mailing list or share them with anyone else. Emails are kept for as long as needed to deal with your enquiry and any follow-up, after which they are deleted.
To protect the form from spam, our server keeps a short-lived record of a one-way hash of your IP address and the time of each submission (deleted after 24 hours) to limit how many messages can be sent from one network. When a submission is blocked as likely spam, we log the time, the hashed IP address, which checks it failed and the length of the message, but not your name, email address or message text; these logs are deleted after about two months. No cookies are used. You can ask us to see or delete a message you sent by contacting us through the same form.
The contact page also loads Cloudflare Turnstile from challenges.cloudflare.com to check
that messages are sent by a person rather than a bot. While the contact page is open, Turnstile processes technical
signals such as your IP address, browser user-agent and TLS fingerprint; it usually runs invisibly and only shows a
"Verify you are human" checkbox when it is unsure. Cloudflare processes these signals on our behalf to protect the
form, and also uses them to improve its bot detection. They are not used for advertising or to profile you. We
treat this check as strictly necessary security for the form, so it doesn't need your consent, and it is loaded
only on the contact page and the climate tools page. See Cloudflare's Turnstile
privacy addendum.
The climate time-series tools
When you submit a request with the climate time-series tools, our server stores the request itself (dataset, place or area, dates and options), a one-way hash of your IP address and a one-way hash of a random identifier that the tool page keeps in your browser's local storage. Both hashes use a key that changes every day, so they cannot be reversed or linked from one day to the next. They are used only to apply the limit of one job at a time and the daily request allowance, and they are removed from job records after seven days. Results are deleted after seven days. The page also remembers your most recent job in local storage, so that you can return to it; this is cleared when you start a new request. No cookies are used. The tool page loads Cloudflare Turnstile to keep the service free of automated requests, on the same basis as the contact form described above.
Advertising
Most pages (not the contact or consulting pages) load adverts from Google AdSense. When the ad script loads, Google receives standard request information such as your IP address, browser user agent and the page you are reading. Google may use cookies or similar technologies to serve, personalise and measure ads.
If you are in the UK, EEA or Switzerland, Google's certified consent message (IAB TCF) asks for your choices first; if you don't consent, Google shows only non-personalised or limited ads. You can review or change your choices at any time with Ad consent settings in the footer. See how Google uses information from sites that use its services and manage ad personalisation at My Ad Center.
Other third-party content
The site's pages, fonts, images and search index are all served from our own server. Some pages load content from other services:
- Interactive maps in tutorials load the Leaflet mapping library and plugins from public content delivery networks (jsDelivr, cdnjs, code.jquery.com and bootstrapcdn) and map tiles from OpenStreetMap and/or Esri. They load lazily, only when you scroll to them.
- The data sources globe is drawn by code and country outlines served from our own server; it does not load any external map tiles.
These providers receive standard request information, such as your IP address and browser user agent, as with any web request. Their own privacy policies apply.
Server logs
Like nearly every web server, our hosting keeps standard access logs (IP address, requested URL, time and user agent) for security and troubleshooting. We do not use these logs to profile visitors.
Contact
Questions about this policy? Please get in touch via the contact page.