Privacy

Who runs Atlas of Wales

Atlas of Wales is run by Mateusz Moskal, trading as Atlas of Wales. It is not a limited company or a separate legal entity — it is one person building a map of Wales.

No postal address is published. Please use email.

The short version

• There are no accounts and no login. Nothing you do here is tied to an identity.
• Privacy-friendly aggregate site statistics run by default, solely to improve Atlas of Wales. They count how the site is used in total — never who you are. You can switch them off at any time under Privacy choices, and if your browser sends a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal they never run at all.
• Your saved places stay in your own browser and are never sent to us.
• The map is drawn by Mapbox. On any page with a map, your browser talks to Mapbox directly, and Mapbox keeps its own record — including a randomly generated identifier — in your browser. That part is not ours, and it is described below.
• Your session is never recorded or replayed.
• There is no advertising and no marketing tracking.
• If you send feedback, it is read by one person and kept for no more than 12 months.

Feedback

Every guide, atlas and map page has a feedback button in the corner. (This page and the contact page do not — they are the two exceptions.) Sending feedback is entirely voluntary — you can use the whole site without it.

What is sent

Your answers to the three questions, anything you write in the comment box, your email address if you choose to give one, whether you ticked the contact box, and some technical context about where you were: the page path, the page title, the kind of page, the place it covers, your device type and window size, the page you arrived from, a build version, and the time you submitted.

Your email and being contacted are two separate choices

The email field is optional — leave it blank and the feedback still sends, anonymously. Separately, there is an unticked box saying you are happy to be contacted about that feedback. Giving an address is not the same as agreeing to be contacted, so we ask both.

If you tick the box and give an address, it is used only to reply to you about that feedback. It is never added to a mailing list, never used for marketing, and never shared.

The comment box

Anything you type into the comment box is stored with your feedback. Please don't include information you would not want kept — the box is there for telling us what to improve, not for personal details.

Where it goes, and for how long

Feedback is submitted through Netlify Forms, the form service built into the platform that hosts this site. It is kept for a maximum of 12 months, then deleted. You can ask for your feedback to be deleted sooner by emailing the address above.

What is stored in your browser

Atlas of Wales sets no cookies. A few small things are stored in your own browser, on your own device, so the site works the way you left it. Everything in the first list below is written by Atlas of Wales, stays in your browser, and is never sent to us — there is no account, and no copy of it exists anywhere else. None of it contains a name, an email address, or an identifier for you.

The map is the exception, and it is listed separately. On pages that draw a map, Mapbox writes its own entries into your browser — including a randomly generated identifier — and sends that identifier to Mapbox. It is not written by us and we cannot see it, but it is stored on your device by this site's use of Mapbox, so it belongs on this page.

Nothing in either list is written before you do something. Opening a page of Atlas of Wales writes none of the entries below; they appear when you save a place, change a setting, dismiss a note, or open a map.

Written by Atlas of Wales

• Saved places The places you save, and whether you marked each one as saved, want to visit, or visited, with the date you did. This is the same single record that Your Atlas reads — Your Atlas stores nothing of its own. Stored only in this browser. Clearing your browser data or switching device will remove it — there is no account to restore it from.
• Your choice about site statistics If you make a choice in Privacy choices, that choice is stored here — whether statistics are on or off, that you answered, and when. Nothing else. Until you choose, nothing is stored and the default described under Analytics applies.
• Privacy note seen Whether you have already read and dismissed the small privacy note shown on a first visit. It records only that you have seen it — it is not a choice about statistics, and dismissing the note changes nothing. Your actual choice, if you make one, is stored separately, in the entry above.
• Map appearance Whether you switched the map between its day and night look.
• Map tour Whether you have already been shown the short introduction to the map, so it is not offered again — and, for the current tab only, that you have just finished it, so the sound invitation does not arrive in the same breath.
• Sound preference Whether you turned the map's optional ambient sound on.
• Welcome note Whether you have already dismissed the early-access welcome message.
• Feedback sent A note, for this browser tab only, that you have already sent feedback. It disappears when you close the tab.

Written by Mapbox, on pages with a map

• Mapbox map record A few entries created by the Mapbox map software itself, under names beginning mapbox.. They hold a randomly generated identifier for your browser, the time it was generated, and the time Mapbox last successfully reported a map being opened. The identifier is regenerated roughly once a day. It is sent to Mapbox, not to us — see Mapbox below.

This is a description of what is stored and why, not a promise about exact names: as the site is built, entries may be added, renamed or retired, and this page is updated when they are. What does not change is the shape of it — Atlas of Wales's own storage stays on your device, holds only settings and the places you chose, and is never sent to us.

You can clear all of it at any time through your browser's "clear site data" or "clear browsing data" settings.

Analytics

Privacy-friendly aggregate site statistics run by default, and you can switch them off at any time. They exist for one purpose: to show, in total, which parts of Atlas of Wales are actually used, so the next thing built is the right thing. They are not used for advertising, for profiling, for marketing, or for anything else — and there is no purpose they could later be reused for without this page changing first.

The service is Plausible — a privacy-focused, cookie-free analytics service that reports visitor numbers in aggregate and does not build profiles of individual people. The statistics create no identifier for you and store none in your browser. (The map is a separate matter: Mapbox creates its own identifier, described under what is stored in your browser and Mapbox. The two are unconnected — nothing joins them, and the statistics never see it.)

Switching them off. Open Privacy choices and turn site statistics off. It takes effect immediately, for the rest of that visit and every visit after it: nothing further is measured or sent, and nothing already measured is re-sent or resurrected if you change your mind later. Your choice is remembered in your own browser, so clearing your site data will also clear it.

Browser privacy signals always win. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal, statistics stay off — even if they were switched on before. The signal is checked every time, the script is not loaded, and nothing on this site can override it.

A first-time visitor sees a small note saying that statistics are running and where to turn them off. It is information, not a request: it has no accept or reject buttons, it blocks nothing on the page, and dismissing it changes no setting.

What site statistics see, and do not see

It counts one visit to the page you are on, and seven things that can happen on it: the map being opened, a guide being opened, a place being saved, feedback being sent or failing to send, and the map or a save failing. Each carries only the page it happened on, the county, and the place — all of which are already part of the public web address. The address reported is a tidied one: no part of it after a ? or a # is ever sent.

Nothing else is measured. It never collects:

• anything you type, including feedback text, email addresses or search terms;
• where you are, or any map coordinates;
• how you move, pan, zoom or hover around the map;
• a recording or replay of your session;
• which links you click, which files you download, or which forms you submit;
• advertising or marketing data of any kind;
• an identifier for you, of any kind.

In particular, nothing you write or provide reaches the statistics: not the text of your feedback, not your email address, not the places you saved or how you marked them, not any map coordinate, and not anything you type into the search box. Those things either never leave your browser at all, or — in the case of feedback — go only to the feedback form described above, which is a separate system.

The legal position, and what is still under review

Two separate questions apply here, and they are worth keeping apart.

The technology. UK law on storing or reading information on your device is the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR). PECR provides an exception for storage or access used only for statistical purposes, to measure how a site is used, by the site's own operator. Aggregate site statistics of the kind described above are intended to fall within that statistical-purposes exception, which is why they are not presented to you as a consent request. If your browser sends a privacy signal, they do not run regardless.

The data. Separately, to the extent any of this involves personal data under the UK GDPR, the lawful basis relied on is legitimate interests — the interest being understanding, in aggregate, how Atlas of Wales is used so it can be improved. A documented legitimate interests assessment — weighing that interest against your rights and reasonable expectations, and recording the outcome — was completed on 6 August 2026. The outcome was to proceed with changes, subject to conditions: the statistics dashboard stays private, the optional automatic tracking of outbound links, file downloads and form submissions stays switched off, feedback submissions are reviewed monthly and deleted once they are more than twelve months old, and the assessment is reviewed again by 6 August 2027, or sooner if anything material changes. It was carried out by the operator of this site. No legal advice was taken, and it is not a guarantee of legal compliance. Legitimate interests is not, on its own, what permits statistics to run by default: the PECR statistical-purposes exception above is the reason there is no consent banner, the two are not interchangeable, and that first question remains an open one.

You can object to processing based on legitimate interests. The immediate way to do that is to switch site statistics off in Privacy choices, which stops it at once and permanently for that browser. You can also get in touch.

Other services this site relies on

Netlify — hosting

The site is hosted by Netlify. Like every web host, Netlify's servers receive the standard information a browser sends when it asks for a page: your IP address, your browser type, the page you requested, and the time. This is how the internet works; there is no version of the site without it. Netlify also handles the feedback form described above.

Netlify monitors those same requests so the site can be kept running — whether pages are loading, and whether anything is failing. That happens on Netlify's servers, not in your browser, and it is separate from the site statistics above: it is part of running a website at all rather than something you can switch, so switching site statistics off does not change it.

Mapbox — the map

The map is drawn using Mapbox. When you open the map page, or a guide page with a map on it, your browser requests the map software, the map style, fonts and map tiles from Mapbox directly — they are not served by us and do not pass through us. The map is the whole point of Atlas of Wales, so this is not optional on those pages. The landing page counts as one of them: it carries a live preview of the Atlas map, and once that preview loads, everything above applies to it too. The county atlases, Your Atlas, this page and the contact page draw no map and make no request to Mapbox at all.

Because those requests go straight to Mapbox, Mapbox receives your IP address and the usual technical information a browser sends, together with which map tiles you asked for — which is to say, roughly which part of Wales is on your screen, and how closely you are looking at it.

Mapbox also creates an identifier. The Mapbox map software generates a random identifier for your browser, stores it in your browser alongside a timestamp, and sends it to Mapbox with a small technical report each time a map is opened — the identifier, which version of the map software is running, and when. That report goes to Mapbox's own event service. It is part of how Mapbox meters and monitors its service; it is not something we switch on, and we never see it.

The identifier is random and is regenerated roughly once a day. It is not your name, your email address, or anything you have told us — we hold no name to attach to it, and nothing on this site links it to you. But it is an identifier for your browser, so it is not accurate to say the map leaves nothing behind. What Mapbox does with it, and under what terms and transfer arrangements, is Mapbox's own — and confirming that is still an open item on our side, recorded honestly here rather than glossed over.

If you would rather not have this happen, the only reliable way is not to open pages with a map on them. Blocking Mapbox in your browser will also stop it — and will stop the map from drawing.

Google Search Console — how the site appears in search

Google Search Console shows which search terms bring people to Atlas of Wales, in aggregate. It places nothing in your browser and tells us nothing about you as an individual.

What Atlas of Wales does not do

• No user accounts and no login. None exist, so there is nothing to sign up to and no profile to build.
• No session recording or replay. Your visit is never played back. This is not a feature that is coming later — it is excluded.
• No advertising, no ad networks, no marketing tracking, no profiling.
• No newsletter and no mailing list. There is nowhere to sign up, and an email left with feedback is never added to one.
• No selling or sharing of your information.

Your choices

• Don't send feedback, or send it without an email address.
• Ask for feedback you have sent to be deleted.
• Clear your saved places, or clear all site data, in your browser at any time.
• Switch site statistics off in Privacy choices — they run by default, and turning them off is immediate and permanent for that browser. Turning on Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track in your browser has the same effect, and cannot be overridden by this site.
• Ask what is held about you, and ask for it to be corrected or removed.

Email the address on the contact page for any of these.

Changes to this page

Atlas of Wales is in early access and still being built. When what happens to information changes, this page changes with it, and the date at the top is updated. If anything here is unclear or looks wrong, please say so — that is genuinely useful.