Privacy policy
This documents describes our practices in relation to the collection and storage of personal data on Votomatic.
Anonymity
As a Votomatic user, we do not know who you are. The Votomatic website does not have access to any personal information about you. We are unable to trace the political opinions you express here to your identity.What data do we collect?
Each time you take the Votomatic quiz, we store a record of your answers in our logs, along with your computer’s IP address and an indication of the language in which you answered the questions (English or Irish). We use these data to compile cumulative statistics. Knowing our users’ IP addresses helps us recognize repeat sessions and analyse usage patterns.
Each time you submit a comment, we again store your computer’s IP address on our records. This helps us detect and block cases of “comment flooding” (submitting too many comments too quickly from a single source).
We promise not to use the data we have collected for any other purposes than those described here.
We intend to keep the data on our records indefinitely so that we can compare the cumulative statistics from this website with the cumulative statistics from similar websites we have run in the past and plan to run in the future.
What is an IP address?
An IP address is a sequence of numbers that identifies your computer uniquely on the Internet. In most cases, a different IP address is assigned to your computer randomly every time it connects to the Internet. An IP address reveals nothing about who you are. An IP address could only be traced to your identity if combined with information your ISP (internet service provider, such as Eircom or UPC) knows. It is illegal for ISPs to reveal such information. Therefore, Votomatic has no way of determining who you are, even if it wanted to.Cookies
Votomatic places two cookies in your browser: one which identifies your language preference (English or Irish) and one which contains a reference to your quiz results. The latter makes it possible for Votomatic to show you your quiz results again, even after you have navigated away from the results page. This cookie is deleted from your browser automatically two days after your last visit to the results page.
What is a cookie?
A cookie is a small piece of information which a website asks your browser (such as Mozilla Firefox or Microsoft Internet Explorer) to remember. A website may ask your browser to remember certain information about how you have used the website before, so that it can customize your experience the next time you visit. If you want to, you can tell your browser to refuse to accept cookies. If you do that, however, be aware that some features of the websites you visit will no longer work. In the case Votomatic, the website will no longer remember your language preference as you move from one page to the next, and you will no longer be able to see revisit your quiz results once you’ve navigated away from the results page.Facebook
Votomatic is available not only as a stand-alone website but also as a Facebook application. The Facebook application operates according to the same privacy principles as the stand-alone website. Even though the Facebook application appears embedded in the Facebook website, it does not have access to your Facebook account. Therefore, we have no way of connecting your political opinions with your personal information.
Third-party services
The Votomatic website makes use of several third-party services, including Google Analytics for analysing website traffic and Google AdSense for serving contextual advertising. These services have their own privacy and data security policies.