Last updated: 6 August 2026
Who I am
This website is a personal academic site published by Dr. Timothy Arrowsmith. It hosts research summaries, essays and commentary on motorcycle culture, safety and regulation. It is not operated by a company, and it is not a commercial service.
If you have a question about this policy, or about information held about you, write to me at tim@timarrowsmith.com.
The short version
I collect very little. If you leave a comment, I hold what you typed into the comment form. Beyond that, I use Google Analytics to see roughly how many people read which posts, and my hosting provider keeps standard server logs. I do not sell your information, I do not share it for advertising, and I do not send marketing email.
What I collect, and why
Comments
When you leave a comment, the form collects the name and email address you enter, your website address if you choose to give one, and the content of your comment. WordPress also records your IP address and browser user-agent string, which help identify spam. Your email address is not published. If you tick the box to save your details, WordPress stores them in cookies on your own device so you need not retype them; that is entirely for your convenience and you can decline it.
Comments are published on a public web page. Please do not include anything in a comment that you would not want indexed by a search engine.
Comment avatars
Comment avatars are served by Gravatar, a service operated by Automattic. When a comment is displayed, a hashed version of the commenter’s email address is sent to Gravatar so that it can return the corresponding image. This transmits the visitor’s IP address to Automattic. Gravatar’s own privacy policy governs what it does with that data.
Analytics
I use Google Analytics 4 to understand which posts are read and roughly where readers come from. It sets cookies which distinguish one visitor from another across visits. The reports I see are aggregated: page views, approximate location at city level, referring site, device type. I do not use Google Analytics to build advertising audiences, and I do not link it to any advertising product.
Fonts
Typefaces are loaded from Google Fonts, which transmits your IP address to Google in order to serve the font files.
Server logs
My hosting provider records standard web server logs — IP address, timestamp, page requested, browser type — as part of operating and securing the site. These are ordinary technical records, not something I analyse.
WordPress functional cookies
If you log in to the site as an author or administrator, WordPress sets cookies to remember interface preferences. These are not set for ordinary readers.
What I do not do
I do not sell personal information. I do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising. I do not run advertising on this site, I do not operate a mailing list, and I do not use tracking pixels from social networks. I do not attempt to identify individual readers from analytics data.
Who else sees your information
Only the service providers named above, in the course of doing what they do: my hosting provider, Google (analytics and fonts) and Automattic (Gravatar). Each acts under its own terms and privacy policy. I may also disclose information where I am legally required to do so, or where it is necessary to protect the security of the site.
How long I keep it
Comments and their associated metadata are retained indefinitely, so that follow-up replies can be recognised and threads remain readable. Analytics data is retained according to the retention period configured in Google Analytics, after which Google deletes it. Server logs are retained by my host on its own schedule, typically a matter of weeks. If you ask me to delete your comments, I will do so.
Your rights
Whatever the strict legal position, I will honour the following requests from any reader, wherever you live:
- To know what information I hold about you and where it came from.
- To have it deleted, including any comments you have left.
- To have it corrected if it is wrong.
- To opt out of analytics — see below.
- Not to be treated differently for exercising any of these. There is no membership or paywall here, so there is nothing to withdraw.
Write to tim@timarrowsmith.com and I will respond as promptly as I reasonably can. I may need to ask a question or two to confirm which comments are yours.
If you are in the United Kingdom or the European Economic Area, you additionally have rights under the UK GDPR and GDPR, including rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability and objection, and the right to complain to your national supervisory authority — in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Opting out of analytics
You can opt out of Google Analytics on every site you visit by installing Google’s browser add-on. You can also block or delete cookies through your browser settings; nothing on this site will stop working if you do. This site honours the Global Privacy Control signal where your browser sends one.
Children
This site is written for an adult, largely academic readership. It is not directed at children, and I do not knowingly collect information from anyone under sixteen. If you believe a child has left a comment containing personal information, tell me and I will remove it.
Security
The site runs over HTTPS. No website can promise perfect security, but I keep WordPress and its components updated and my host applies its own protections.
Changes
If I change this policy I will update the date at the top. Material changes will be noted on the page itself.
Contact
Dr. Timothy Arrowsmith — tim@timarrowsmith.com