Privacy Policy

Welcome to The National Wales (thenational.wales). We are an independent, Welsh-led, and community-focused news platform committed to providing authentic, high-quality journalism for the people of Wales. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, protect, and disclose information obtained from visitors and users (“you”) of our website, thenational.wales (“Site”).
We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal data in accordance with applicable laws, including the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). This policy outlines our practices concerning the information we gather when you visit our Site, interact with our content, leave comments, or engage with us through other channels mentioned on the Site.
Who We Are
TheNational.Wales is operated by Harry Jazz and associates. Our mission is to rebuild The National Wales as a trusted source for Welsh news, free from external bias and dedicated to reflecting the full spectrum of life across the nation.
Information We Collect
We collect information to provide and improve our services, manage our Site, and communicate with our readers. The types of information we may collect include:
Personal Information You Provide Directly:
Comments: When you leave comments on the Site, we collect the data shown in the comments form (typically your name, email address, website (optional)), and also your IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection. Contacting Us: If you contact us directly (e.g., via email or through social media links provided), we may receive additional information about you such as your name, email address, social media handle, the contents of the message and/or attachments you may send us, and any other information you may choose to provide.
Information Collected Automatically:
Log Files: Like most websites, we gather certain information automatically and store it in log files. This information may include internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet Service Provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and clickstream data. We use this information to analyze trends, administer the Site, track users’ movements around the Site, and gather demographic information.
Cookies and Tracking Technologies: We use cookies and similar tracking technologies (like web beacons or pixels) to track activity on our Site and hold certain information. Cookies are files with a small amount of data which may include an anonymous unique identifier.
Necessary Cookies: Essential for the Site to function (e.g., session cookies, comment cookies that remember your details).
Analytics Cookies: We use tools like Google Analytics (potentially via the Site Kit plugin) to collect information about how visitors use our Site. This helps us understand traffic patterns and improve the Site. Google’s Privacy Policy can be found here: https://policies.google.com/privacy.
Functionality Cookies: Used to recognize you when you return to our Site and remember your preferences.
Third-Party Cookies: Embedded content (e.g., videos, images, articles, social media feeds like X/Twitter embeds) from other websites may behave in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content.
You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of our Site.
How We Use Your Information
We use the information we collect for various purposes, including:
To provide, operate, and maintain our Website.
To publish your comments and manage community interaction.
To improve, personalize, and expand our Website and content offerings.
To understand and analyze how you use our Website.
To communicate with you, either directly or through one of our partners, including for customer service, to respond to your inquiries, and potentially for marketing and promotional purposes (only with your explicit consent where required).
To detect and prevent spam and ensure the security of our Site.
To comply with legal obligations.
To fulfill any other purpose for which you provide it.
Data Sharing and Disclosure
We value your privacy and do not sell your personal information. We may share your information in the following limited circumstances:
Service Providers: We may employ third-party companies and individuals to facilitate our Site (“Service Providers”), provide the Site on our behalf, perform Site-related services (e.g., hosting, maintenance, analytics, comment spam detection like Akismet if used), or assist us in analyzing how our Site is used. These third parties have access to your Personal Data only to perform these tasks on our behalf and are obligated not to disclose or use it for any other purpose.
Legal Requirements: We may disclose your Personal Data if required to do so by law or in response to valid requests by public authorities (e.g., a court or a government agency).
Protection of Rights: We may disclose your information where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding potential violations of our policies, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person, or as evidence in litigation in which we are involved.
Business Transfers: If we are involved in a merger, acquisition, or asset sale, your Personal Data may be transferred. We will provide notice before your Personal Data is transferred and becomes subject to a different Privacy Policy.
Publicly Visible Information: Information you provide in comments is publicly visible.
With Your Consent: We may disclose your personal information for any other purpose with your consent.
Data Security
We use administrative, technical, and physical security measures to help protect your personal information. While we have taken reasonable steps to secure the personal information you provide to us, please be aware that despite our efforts, no security measures are perfect or impenetrable, and no method of data transmission can be guaranteed against any interception or other type of misuse. Any information disclosed online is vulnerable to interception and misuse by unauthorized parties.
Data Retention
We will retain your Personal Data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. We will retain and use your Personal Data to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations (for example, if we are required to retain your data to comply with applicable laws), resolve disputes, and enforce our legal agreements and policies.
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
Usage data (like log files and analytics data) is generally retained for a shorter period, except when this data is used to strengthen the security or to improve the functionality of our Site, or we are legally obligated to retain this data for longer time periods.
Your Data Protection Rights (Under UK GDPR)
If you are a resident of the United Kingdom or the European Economic Area (EEA), you have certain data protection rights. We aim to take reasonable steps to allow you to correct, amend, delete, or limit the use of your Personal Data.
The right to access: You have the right to request copies of your personal data.
The right to rectification: You have the right to request that we correct any information you believe is inaccurate or complete information you believe is incomplete.
The right to erasure: You have the right to request that we erase your personal data, under certain conditions.
The right to restrict processing: You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.
The right to object to processing: You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.
The right to data portability: You have the right to request that we transfer the data that we have collected to another organization, or directly to you, under certain conditions.
If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the details below. We may need to verify your identity before responding to such requests.
You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk), if you believe that our processing of your personal data infringes data protection laws.
Third-Party Links
Our Site may contain links to other websites that are not operated by us (e.g., links to X/Twitter profiles or source articles). If you click on a third-party link, you will be directed to that third party’s site. We strongly advise you to review the Privacy Policy of every site you visit. We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third-party sites or services.
Children’s Privacy
Our Site is not intended for use by children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under this age. If you become aware that a child has provided us with Personal Data, please contact us. If we become aware that we have collected Personal Data from children without verification of parental consent, we take steps to remove that information from our servers.
Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page and updating the “Effective Date” at the top. You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.
Contact Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or wish to exercise your data protection rights, please contact us: