What this website knows about you, and what it does not.

Who is responsible

This website belongs to Verna McFelin, based in Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand. I am the person responsible for the information collected through it, and I handle it in line with the Privacy Act 2020. You can reach me at verna.mcfelin@gmail.com.

When you write to me

There is no form on this website to fill in. When you get in touch you are sending an ordinary email straight to my own address, and the website plays no part in it and keeps no copy. Your message sits in my mailbox like any other letter, I read it, and I reply to it. I will not add you to any mailing list because you wrote to me.

When you subscribe to my newsletter

My newsletter, and the free booklet that comes with it, are handled by Substack rather than by this website. When you press subscribe you are taken across to Substack, and it is Substack that receives your email address, sends you the welcome letter and delivers the booklet. This website never sees your address and does not store it. That means your subscription is covered by Substack’s privacy policy as well as by this page. You can unsubscribe at any time using the link at the bottom of every email I send, and I will never sell, rent or share that list with anybody.

Visitor numbers kept by this website

So that I can see which writing people are actually reading, this website records a little information each time a page is opened: which page it was, which website you arrived from, which country the visit came from, whether you were on a phone, a tablet or a computer, which browser you used, and a random string of characters saved in your browser so that one person reading five pages is not counted as five different people.

It does not record your IP address, your name, your email address, or anything else that identifies you personally, and it does not follow you around other websites. It is a counter, not a profile. This is the only information this website stores about visitors.

Google Analytics

This website also uses Google Analytics, which is a service run by Google that reports on visitor numbers and which pages are popular. It sets cookies in your browser and sends information about your visit, including your IP address, to Google, who process it on their own servers. I only ever see it as totals and charts, never as individual people. You can read Google’s privacy policy, and if you would rather it did not run at all, Google publishes a browser add-on that switches it off on every website you visit.

Cookies and browser storage

There are only two things this website leaves in your browser. Google Analytics sets its own cookies, as described above. The visitor counter saves a random identifier so that repeat visits are not counted twice. Neither is used for advertising, and clearing your browser data removes both.

Where it is kept

The visitor numbers are held in a database provided by Supabase, and the website itself is hosted by Vercel. Both of those companies keep their servers outside New Zealand, so that information is held overseas. Both are required to protect it to a standard comparable to the Privacy Act.

What I will never do

I will never sell your information, rent it out, or trade it. I will never hand it to an advertising network. I will never pass your details to another organisation unless you have asked me to or the law requires it. And I will not keep anything longer than there is a reason to keep it.

Your rights

Under the Privacy Act 2020 you can ask me what information I hold about you and ask for a copy of it, and you can ask me to correct it if it is wrong. Those are your rights under the Act, and I have to answer you as quickly as I can and within twenty working days at the outside.

New Zealand law does not give you a general right to have information deleted, the way European law does. I will do it anyway. If you ask me to remove something I hold about you, and there is no reason I am obliged to keep it, I will remove it.

All of that covers anything you have emailed me and your place on my newsletter list, as well as anything held on this website. Write to me at verna.mcfelin@gmail.com. If you are not happy with how I have handled it, you are entitled to complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.

If this page changes

If the way this website handles information changes, I will update this page and change the date at the top of it. This version was last updated on 12 September 2026.