Sponsor for PC Pals Forum

Registration Agreement

The terms, "forum" and "boards", are indicative of the collective areas which together make up the PC Pals Forum. Registration and use of the forum implies acceptance of the following terms and conditions:

You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use this forum to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually offensive, racist, sectarian, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise in violation of any law. Spam, flooding, advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, and solicitations are also explicitly forbidden on this forum.

You agree that you will at no time post in a manner designed or intended to demean, humiliate or mock any other user, or member of staff of this forum. You will at all times observe "Good forum etiquette", be polite and respectful towards all members, administrators, moderators and the forum owners. You agree that you will at no time create posts/threads intended to be deliberately contentious, malicious, critical of and/or harmful to the community, its members, staff and the board owners, or that would create, foment or otherwise cause ill feeling amongst the membership. All queries or comments about the running of the board should, unless otherwise invited by the staff in a thread or poll, be made via PM contact with an administrator.

We reserve the right to remove or edit objectionable messages or images, including those which may have health implications, e.g. images likely to affect those suffering from epilepsy or migraine. We will make every effort to do so, within a reasonable time frame, if we determine that removal is necessary. This is a manual process, however, so please realise that we may not be able to remove or edit particular messages immediately.

You agree that you will at no time act in any way which may bring the forum, its members, staff or owners into disrepute.

You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyrighted material is owned by you, or you have the copyright holder's permission. It is permissible to post a short quote with a link to the original source. Although forum staff do not and cannot guarantee to review all messages posted and are not responsible for the content of any of these messages, we reserve the right to delete any message on receipt of a complaint, or for any other reason at our discretion.

If you are ever unsure of whether a post would breach the rules, then please send a personal message (PM) to a forum staff member, requesting guidance. Equally, if you feel that a post another member has made breaches the rules, use the 'Report to moderator' button which appears at the bottom of each post and PM. All reported posts will be considered by a forum administrator, but we do not guarantee that every complaint will be upheld, and in all cases, the decision of the forum administration team is final.

You remain solely responsible for the content of your messages, and you agree to indemnify and hold the forum’s administrators and moderators harmless from and against any liability (including libel and slander), claims, damages, losses, costs and expenses (including solicitor's fees) relating to any acts or omissions by users or to materials or information transmitted by users in connection with the use of the discussion forum.  You understand that each message expresses the views of its author, and not necessarily the views of PC Pals Forum, the forum administrators or moderators.  The owners of this forum also reserve the right to reveal your identity (or any other related information collected on this service) in the event of a formal complaint or legal action arising from any situation caused by your use of this forum. Please note that, with each post, your IP address is recorded. Posts may be edited for a limited time after posting. Once this editing period has expired, editing or removal of posts may be requested by contacting a member of forum staff.

We ultimately reserve the right to decide what is acceptable or not, and the decisions of moderators and administrators are final. Working around the technicalities of these rules will not be tolerated. If a short ban is imposed for infringement of the rules, rejoining the forum under a new name will be dealt with by a permanent ban. Similarly, joining the forum with multiple accounts is prohibited. We further reserve the right to impose restrictions on a member's usage of any given part(s) of the forum, for any reason. If a restriction is imposed, any steps taken to circumvent this, will result in a full and permanent ban.

These rules apply to public posts, personal messages, signatures, profiles and any other comments you make on our forum. Please note that the content of any personal message you receive is confidential and may not be revealed to a third-party, or posted in the forums (however, if you consider a message to be offensive or in other ways against the rules of the forum, you may forward it to a member of staff for action to be considered against the sender).

You agree to provide a valid, contactable, email address in your profile at all times. Without such an address, it will be impossible for your password to be reset or a reminder sent. If an email address is changed after registration, to a non-contactable or invalid address, access to the forum may be withdrawn. You may note that there is a 'Birthdate' field available in your Profile. This information will only be used to highlight your birthday on our forum calendar, viewable only by forum staff. You may leave this field blank if you wish.  You may also note that there is a ‘Gender’ field available in your profile, which may also be left blank.

These boards are intended to be a friendly environment and to this end we do not accept foul language, or links to sites of an adult nature.

You may not post home addresses, personal phone numbers, mobile phone numbers, email addresses or other personal information about any individual, regardless of whether the information is in the public domain elsewhere, with the exception of formal contact email addresses to assist other members in resolving problems.  You should also not post any of your own personal details, such as those listed above, in any public posts.  Although you may request an account deletion in accordance with the GRPR, in these cases, your user ID will be anonymised, and your IP address will be removed, but actual post content is not subject to GDPR, so may remain.

Security

We urge all members to use a strong password, i.e. alpha-numeric with a mixture of upper and lower case letters and, ideally, one or more punctuation marks. We reserve the right to 'lock' accounts unused for a period of 90 days or more, or where there is evidence that attempts have been made to access the account illegally by a third-party. In the event of such a lock, an email address will be provided to request that access be re-enabled.

EU Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive

Please note that the forum software places a cookie, a text file containing bits of information (such as your username and password), in your browser's cache. This is ONLY used to keep you logged in/out (if you so choose), and to enable the forum to function correctly for you, while you are logged in, by monitoring which posts remain unread by you. The software does not collect or send any other form of information to or from your computer nor does it exchange information with other web sites. If you choose not to allow cookies to be saved, via your browser settings, you will need to log in each time you use the forum. If you choose to reject cookies, via your browser settings, functionality of this forum will be extremely limited. We suggest that you allow the forum cookie to be saved in your browser's cache, but this may be cleared at the end of each browser session.

Data Protection

You have the right to: be informed, access, rectify, erase, restrict processing, data portability and object. Details on your rights, in a accordance with the EU General Data Protection Regulations, can be found in our GDPR Compliance Statement.

The only data we collect is data in which you supply, with the exception of your IP address, hostname and your most recent click. As we are an anonymous forum, little personal data is collected and we do not require you to provide any additional personal data, with the exception of your email address. We also collect your IP address/hostname (in the event of a ban needing to be placed on your account, for the purposes of dealing with hacking, and if we are required to contact your ISP), and your username (for post identification). Further, the forum automatically uses a cookie, a text file containing bits of information (such as your username and password), in your browser's cache. This is ONLY used to keep you logged in/out. The software does not collect or send any other form of information to your computer.

We reserve the right to reveal information we hold about you (or any other related information collected on this service) in the event of a formal complaint or legal action arising from any situation caused by your use of this forum, in accordance with the laws of the United Kingdom. In accordance with GDPR, if we become aware of a data breach, we are obliged, within 72 hours, to notify any users involved.

Complaints Procedure

On occasion, you may disagree with a decision made by a member of staff in the course of their duties on the forums. In the first place, you should contact the individual concerned by Personal Message, and ask for clarification of the reasons for their decision. If you do not accept the reasoning behind their action and you wish to complain or appeal against their decision, you should contact a forum administrator by emailing admin@pc-pals.com. Starting a new public thread in direct response or opposition to a staff decision, or any other moderation action, may result in the thread being removed, and the member responsible may be banned.

GDPR Requirement

We reserve the right to update this agreement from time to time.  You will be required to agree to any such policy changes before continuing to use this forum, in accordance with GDPR legislation.  This policy is effective from 20th May 2018.

Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy sets out how PC Pals Forum uses and protects any information that you provide when you use this website. PC Pals Forum is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified when using this website, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy statement. PC Pals Forum may change this policy from time to time by updating this page. You will be required to agree to any such policy changes before continuing to use this forum, in accordance with GDPR legislation.  This policy is effective from 20th May 2018.


What information we collect about you
   
We may collect the following information when you use our website:
-Username
-Email Address
-Date of Birth
-IP Address
-Other data collected that could directly or indirectly identify you.

Cookie Policy
A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer's hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.
 
Cookies on this website are ONLY used to keep you logged in / out (if you so choose), and to enable the forum to function correctly for you while you are logged in, by monitoring which posts remain unread by you. The software does not collect or send any other form of information to or from your computer nor does it exchange information with other web sites. If you choose not to allow cookies to be saved via your browser settings, you will need to log in each time you use the forum.  If you choose to reject cookies via your browser settings, functionality of this forum will be extremely limited. We suggest that you allow the forum cookie to be saved in your browser's cache, but this may be cleared at the end of each browser session.

How to control and delete cookies
PC Pals will not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you. However, if you wish to restrict or block the cookies which are set by our forum, you can do this through your browser settings. The Help function within your browser should tell you how.

Alternatively, you may wish to visit http://www.aboutcookies.org which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of browsers. You will also find details on how to delete cookies from your computer as well as more general information about cookies.

Please be aware that restricting cookies will impact on the functionality of the forum.

Cookies on this forum
We use both session cookies and persistent cookies on this forum.

We may send to you the following cookies:

    SMFCookie11
    PHPSESSID

If at any time you have questions about our privacy practices or any of your data protection rights, you may reach us at admin@pc-pals.com

How we use information we collect
We may collect, store and use the following information for the sole purpose of administrating these forums:

    Your IP address and any information that you provide to us for the purpose of registering with these forums including your email address.
    Information about your computer including operating system and browser type / version.
    Information that you provide to us for the purpose of subscribing to our forum services such as email notifications and / or newsletters.
    Information about your use of these forums including referral source, length of visit and page views.  

We do not provide your information to any third parties for the purpose of direct marketing.

Data about Usage of Services
Is automatically collected when you use and interact with our Services, including metadata, log files, cookie/device IDs and location information. This information includes specific data about your interactions with the features, content and links (including those of third-parties, such as social media plugins) contained within the Services, Internet Protocol (IP) address, browser type and settings, the date and time the Services were used, information about browser configuration and plugins, language preferences and cookie data, information about devices accessing the Services, including type of device, what operating system is used, device settings, application IDs, unique device identifiers and error data, and some of this data collected might be capable of and be used to approximate your location.

How we store and secure information we collect
We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorized access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online. All forum data is stored on our hosts servers, which are fully compliant with all required security protocols.

While we implement safeguards designed to protect your information, no security system is impenetrable and due to the inherent nature of the Internet, we cannot guarantee that data, during transmission through the Internet or while stored on our systems or otherwise in our care, is absolutely safe from intrusion by others.

Compliance with legal, regulatory and law enforcement requests.
We cooperate with government and law enforcement officials and private parties to enforce and comply with the law. We will disclose any information about you to government or law enforcement officials or private parties as we, in our sole discretion, believe necessary or appropriate to respond to claims and legal process (such as subpoena requests), to protect our property and rights or the property and rights of a third party, to protect the safety of the public or any person, or to prevent or stop activity we consider to be illegal or unethical.

Communicating with you.
We may contact you directly such as necessary to deliver transactional or website related communications. This contact will be via the email address you have registered with us.

You may update your subscription preferences with respect to receiving communications from us by signing into your account and visiting your Profile > Notifications page.

Transfer of personal data abroad.  
If you utilize our Services from a country other than the country where our servers are located, your communications with us may result in transferring your personal data across international borders.

Links to other websites
Our website may contain links to other websites. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.

Controlling your personal information
We will not sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties unless we have your permission or are required by law to do so. You may request details of personal information which we hold about you under by visiting your member Profile > Modify Profile > Export Data.

If you believe that any information we are holding on you is incorrect or incomplete, please email us at admin@pc-pals.com as soon as possible. We will promptly correct any information found to be incorrect.