Last updated: 23 May 2026
This Privacy Policy describes how Progressive Robot Ltd ("Progressive Robot", "we", "us", "our"), a company registered in the United Kingdom, collects, uses, shares and protects personal data in connection with the Progressive Robot News & Magazine website at blog.progressiverobot.com and related services (the "Services").
We are committed to protecting your privacy while striving to provide the best possible user experience. Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation, the Data Protection Act 2018 and equivalent laws in other jurisdictions, we have a legal duty to protect the personal information we collect from you. This policy explains how we meet that duty.
1. Who we are
The "data controller" responsible for your personal data under UK GDPR is Progressive Robot Ltd. References to "we", "us" and "our" in this policy mean Progressive Robot Ltd unless the context says otherwise.
We have appointed a Data Protection Officer (DPO) and Privacy Officer to oversee our data-protection and privacy practices. You can reach them at:
- Email: [email protected]
- Telephone: +44 (0) 1244 911212
2. What we mean by "personal data"
"Personal data" means any information relating to a living individual who can be identified, directly or indirectly, from that information. This includes obvious identifiers such as your name, email address, postal address and telephone number, and also online identifiers such as your IP address, device identifiers and cookie IDs when they are combined with other information we hold.
3. Personal data we collect
We collect personal data in three broad ways: information you give us directly; information generated by your use of the Services; and information we receive from third parties.
3.1 Information you give us
- Account data: your name (or display name), email address, password (stored only as a salted hash), profile preferences and, if you choose to provide them, profile picture and short biography.
- Communications data: the content of messages you send us by email, contact form, comment or feedback channel.
- Subscription data: your email address and any preferences you record when you sign up to a newsletter or topic alert.
- Payment data: if and when paid features are introduced, billing name, address and a tokenised reference to the payment method. We do not store full card numbers ourselves; card data is handled by regulated payment processors.
3.2 Information generated by your use of the Services
- Device and connection data: IP address, user-agent string, device type, operating system, browser and language settings.
- Usage data: pages viewed, articles read, search terms entered, referring URLs, and approximate timestamps.
- Cookie and similar identifiers: see our Cookies Policy for full details.
3.3 Information from third parties
- Authentication providers: if you sign in using a third-party identity provider, we receive the limited profile information you authorise that provider to share (typically name, email and profile picture).
- Analytics and advertising partners: aggregated, pseudonymised information about the audience and performance of the Services.
4. How we use personal data (and our legal basis)
We process personal data only where we have a lawful basis to do so under UK GDPR. The bases on which we rely are:
- Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)): to create and manage your account, provide the Services you request, deliver newsletters you have subscribed to, and respond to your support enquiries.
- Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)): to operate, secure, defend and improve the Services; to detect and prevent fraud, abuse and unauthorised access; to measure aggregate audience and content performance; and to communicate with you about the Services in a way you would reasonably expect.
- Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)): for non-essential cookies and similar technologies, for direct marketing where required, and for any other processing where consent is the appropriate basis. You may withdraw consent at any time.
- Legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c)): to comply with applicable laws, regulations and lawful requests from public authorities.
- Vital interests / public interest (Art. 6(1)(d)–(e)): in narrow circumstances where this is necessary.
Where we rely on legitimate interests, we balance those interests against your rights and freedoms. You can ask us to explain that balance for any specific processing by contacting our DPO.
5. Sharing personal data
We do not sell your personal data. We share it only with:
- Service providers that process data on our behalf under written contracts — for example hosting, email delivery, analytics, payment processing, content delivery, error tracking and customer-support tooling. These providers are bound by confidentiality and data-protection obligations.
- Professional advisers such as lawyers, auditors and insurers where necessary.
- Public authorities where we are required by law, court order or other lawful process.
- Successors in the event of a merger, acquisition, reorganisation or sale of assets, subject to appropriate safeguards.
6. International transfers
Some of our service providers are based outside the UK or the European Economic Area. When personal data is transferred outside the UK / EEA, we put in place safeguards required by law — typically the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, supplemented where appropriate by additional technical and organisational measures.
7. How long we keep personal data
We keep personal data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, or as required by law. In practice:
- Account data is kept while the account remains active, and for a short period after deletion to deal with disputes and to comply with legal obligations.
- Newsletter data is kept until you unsubscribe or your address is recorded as undeliverable.
- Server logs containing IP addresses are typically retained for no longer than 90 days, unless retained longer for security investigation.
- Comment and contribution data is kept while the underlying article remains published.
At the end of the relevant retention period, personal data is deleted or anonymised.
8. Security
We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data against accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure or access. These measures include encryption in transit (TLS) for the Services, hashed storage of passwords, access controls on our systems, regular patching, and logging and monitoring. No system can be guaranteed perfectly secure; if you become aware of a vulnerability, please report it to [email protected].
9. Your rights
Subject to legal limits, you have the right to:
- Access the personal data we hold about you, and to receive a copy of it;
- Rectify inaccurate or incomplete personal data;
- Erase personal data ("right to be forgotten") in defined circumstances;
- Restrict processing in defined circumstances;
- Object to processing carried out on the basis of legitimate interests or for direct marketing;
- Receive personal data you have provided in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format ("data portability");
- Withdraw consent at any time where processing is based on consent;
- Lodge a complaint with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office or the data-protection authority in your country of residence.
To exercise any of these rights please contact [email protected]. We may need to verify your identity before responding. We aim to respond within one month, as required by UK GDPR.
10. Children
The Services are not directed at children under 16. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 16. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact [email protected] and we will delete it.
11. Automated decisions, AI & profiling
We do not make decisions about you that produce legal or similarly significant effects based solely on automated processing of your personal data. We do use automated systems to recommend articles, prioritise newsletter content, detect abusive behaviour, and operate AI-assisted editorial workflows. The editorial workflow itself, and the way we disclose AI-rewritten articles, is described in our Editorial Policy.
We do not use the content of your reading history or comments to train third-party machine-learning models without your consent.
12. Cookies & similar technologies
The Services use cookies and similar technologies to make the Site work, to remember your preferences, to measure audience and content performance, and (where you consent) for marketing. Full details, including categories, named providers and how to manage your choices, are set out in our Cookies Policy.
13. Third-party links
The Services link to third-party websites and embed third-party content (for example videos and social posts). Those third parties are independent of us and have their own privacy practices. We are not responsible for their content or their handling of personal data.
14. Changes to this Privacy Policy
We may update this policy from time to time. The "Last updated" date above always reflects the most recent revision. Where changes are material we will notify registered users by email or by a prominent notice on the Site.
15. How to contact us
- Data Protection Officer: [email protected]
- Telephone: +44 (0) 1244 911212
- Postal address: Progressive Robot Ltd, United Kingdom (full registered address available on request)
If you are not satisfied with our response, you have the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk, or to the data-protection authority in your country of residence.
