Creative Commons Privacy Policy for Wordpress Users

1. A Small Thank You to the Wordpress Community: Free Privacy Policies

At Magnum IP Legal Services, we’ve benefited from the amazing contributions of the WordPress community for a number of years, and we’ve been inspired in particular by the fantastic work of Matt Mullenweg.

Instead of returning the favour by contributing our own code in the form of a plugin or a theme, we’ve decided to publish the following Privacy Policies as our first works to be released under a Creative Commons Licence.

2. Do you need a Privacy Policy?

In our view, there are three main reasons for web sites to display a privacy policy:

• The Law: Many businesses (and all those with an annual turnover of more than AUD $3 million) are required by law to deal with personal information in accordance with the National Privacy Principles (which includes having a privacy policy). Click here to see whether you are required by law to have a privacy policy. Further, regardless of your size, if you ever sell your assets (including your user database) you will need a privacy policy in place or else you’ll have to get the consent of each person in your list before you can transfer their details
• Google Adwords: If you advertise using Google Adwords and collect personal information on your landing page, Google will evaluate your landing page (in part) based on whether or not you display a privacy policy for users. The better landing pages pay less for their clicks.
• Fairness: Even if you are not required to have a privacy policy, most people today expect you to have one. In truth, it is only fair if you are collecting people’s personal information that you tell them how you will use it.

3. Are you looking for a Wordpress-ready Privacy Policy for use outside Australia?

Magnum IP Legal Services is based in Australia, and the privacy documents we have created are designed for use by Australian-based web sites with predominantly Australian users. However, we’d like to invite lawyers and law firms with experience in privacy law from other jurisdictions to pitch in and release localised versions of our works.

If you decide to join in, please let us know and we’ll provide a link to your web site and your modified policy.

4. Who these Privacy Policies are For (and Who They’re Not For)

Although we’ve specifically written this privacy policy with WordPress users in mind, we won’t object if you are not using a Wordpress site(!)

The privacy policies have been drafted with a few general scenarios in mind:

• on Web Sites only (i.e. it’s not suitable for use in an offline environment or a business that collects personal information both offline and online)
• by those operating wholly in Australia (i.e. it’s not specifically designed for use in other countries, although people are welcome to contribute variations for other jurisdictions in accordance with the licence terms)
• by most types of organisations, including those operating commercial and non-commercial web sites (although it is not suitable for use by government sites, health service providers and organisations that hold health-related information, credit reporting agencies or credit providers)
• by individuals and organisations that are committed to protecting the personal information of others and who do not sell marketing lists or collect information for the purposes of market research. In other words, you only disclose personal information to third parties in very limited circumstances, and – except for the sale of all of the assets relating to your business and web site – never for profit
• by individuals or individual entities that are not part of a corporate group or some other trading group
• by individuals and organisations that only collect and hold “regular” personal information and not “sensitive” information or health-related information.*

Please do not use any of the privacy policies if they are not designed for your circumstances as outlined above.

When drafting this privacy policy, we haven’t specifically considered the requirements of third party verification seals such as that provided by Truste. If there is particular demand for this, we will consider adding this in at a future date.

* “Sensitive” information means information or opinion about an individual’s racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, membership of a political association, religious beliefs or affiliations, philosophical beliefs, membership of a professional or trade association, membership of a trade union, sexual preferences or practices, criminal record or health information about an individual. Health information can include information about allergies and treatments in the case of emergency.

** If you use personal information to send commercial messages, it’s extremely likely that you’re going to be subject to the requirements of the Spam Act 2004 (Cth). The Spam Act does not require a formal policy, but you should be familiar with your obligations. See: ACMA Web Site (the Australian Communications and Media Authority) for further information.

5. The Privacy Policies

We currently offer three versions. Please read the notes on this page carefully before using them. We’ve also prepared some notes on use which you should read.

a. Basic

A version for basic (non-blog style) web sites which include a “contact us” form or allow email enquiries. It also assumes that Google Analytics is employed to deliver web analytics. This privacy policy is really for people who are using WordPress as a content management system rather than a blogging platform.

Download: Creative Commons Privacy Policy – Basic (13.57 KB), v.1.0 (2-Apr-2010) (Txt File)

b. Standard

For web sites that do all of the things covered by the “Basic” version plus have a blog. Comments may or may not be allowed, and you might allow interaction via paid or free membership and social networking services (e.g. Linked In, FaceBook, Twitter).

Download: Creative Commons Privacy Policy – Standard (16.59 KB), v.1.0 (2-Apr-2010) (Txt File)

c. Comprehensive

For web sites that do all of the things covered by the “Standard” version plus receiving money online (whether for products or services, memberships or subscriptions, pay-per-view content and the like). We have assumed that the web site uses Paypal to process payments.

Download: Creative Commons Privacy Policy – Comprehensive (18.29 KB), v.1.0 (2-Apr-2010) (Txt File)

d. Other

We may choose to release other versions under the Creative Commons Licence if there is particular demand, although we would normally charge for amendments required for individual circumstances.

Each of these Privacy Policies by Magnum IP Legal Services are provided under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.

6. Register to Receive Notifications of Updates

Although we do not promise to do so, we may decide to update the documents from time to time to improve them or to keep up to date with changes in the law. If you would like to receive notification of these updates, please register your details here.

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7. Legal Terms

Please read the terms of the Creative Commons Licence before using our Privacy Policy. A summary can be viewed here, and the full version can be accessed here.

The provision of our privacy policies is also subject to our Terms of Use. Before using our privacy policy, we strongly recommend that you familiarise yourself with the National Privacy Principles, and the other content provided on the web site of Australia’s Privacy Commissioner.