Effective Date: June 12th, 2025
Who We Are
This website represents the official online presence of the Village of Medina, New York. Our website address is: https://villagemedina.gov.
We are committed to protecting the privacy and personal information of all visitors to our website. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and safeguard your data.
What Personal Data We Collect and Why
Comments
When visitors leave comments on our site, we collect the data shown in the comments form, as well as the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string. This information is used to help detect and prevent spam.
An anonymized string (hash) generated from your email address may be sent to the Gravatar service to determine if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available at: https://automattic.com/privacy. Once your comment is approved, your profile picture—if available through Gravatar—will be visible alongside your comment.
Media
If you upload images to the website, you should avoid including embedded location data (EXIF GPS). Visitors to the website may be able to download and extract location data from uploaded images.
Contact Forms
Information submitted through contact forms is used solely for communication purposes. We do not share this information with third parties unless required to do so by law or for technical troubleshooting.
Cookies
If you leave a comment, you may opt-in to save your name, email address, and website in cookies. These are for your convenience, so you don’t have to re-enter your details when posting future comments. These cookies will remain for one year.
When logging in, we set temporary cookies to determine if your browser accepts cookies. These contain no personal data and are deleted when your browser is closed. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for one year. Selecting “Remember Me” will keep you logged in for two weeks. Logging out will remove all login cookies.
If you edit or publish an article, a cookie is saved in your browser containing only the post ID of the article. This cookie expires after one day.
Embedded Content from Other Websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g., videos, images, or articles). Embedded content from third-party websites behaves in the same way as if you visited the external website directly. These sites may collect data about you, use cookies, and track your interaction with their content, particularly if you are logged in to their services.
Analytics
Our website may collect anonymous analytics data to help us understand user behavior and improve site performance. This may include information such as pages visited, time spent on the site, and general geographic data. No personally identifiable information is collected through analytics.
Who We Share Your Data With
We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information. Data may be shared with third-party service providers solely for the purposes of spam detection, hosting, or website maintenance, and only under strict data protection obligations.
How Long We Retain Your Data
Comments and their associated metadata are stored indefinitely to allow for automatic recognition and approval of future comments.
For users who register on the website (if applicable), we store the personal information provided in their user profile. All users can view, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except the username). Website administrators can also access and modify this data.
Your Data Rights
If you have an account or have left comments on this site, you may request an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you’ve provided. You may also request the erasure of your personal data. This excludes data we are required to retain for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
Where Your Data Is Sent
Visitor comments may be checked using automated spam detection services. We ensure these tools are compliant with applicable data protection standards.