Privacy Policy

I (Tara Thomas) am committed to protecting your privacy and giving you a safe online experience.

In fact I'm committed to that beyond the standard lip service, and I’m continually actively working to find ways to improve that privacy. I’m furious at the commodification of attention, and the complete disregard that huge corporations like Google, Meta, and others have for your privacy, for the security of your data, and for the destructive human outcomes of their business models.

I have long been naive about the implications of the choices I make in the software and platforms I use in my business, and your privacy and data security has suffered as a result of that. So, I’m on a steep learning curve to move away from those business practices and towards a system that prioritises your privacy, the security of your data, and ethical business practice.

The key challenges are;

Pricing. Google wins on every front here by offering integrated business platforms at a super low price. I'm a solo business owner with chronic fatigue and a limited ability to work, so it's no small thing.

Coding. A lot of this change requires moving towards open source platforms, and demands a pretty fucking high level of understanding of coding and web development. I’m a basic bitch on those fronts, but I’m working at it and learning as I go.

Time, energy, and attention. This is a huge investment of my time, energy and attention, and requires research to identify alternatives, learning how to use them, in many cases learning specific coding techniques and tools to integrate the platform into my workflows, trouble shooting glitches, rebuilding work flows to make sure I am still doing all the things, transitioning clients from the old to new systems and making sure I have clear instructions and support for them.

Client ease. It’s cool for me to be changing online ecosystems, but I also need to do that in a way that doesn’t change how shit works for you. You know? Some of you won’t care, some of you won’t know, and some just don’t have the technical skill to work outside of the familiar interactions with places like Google and Facebook. That means I need to make things work in a way that feels exactly the same to you!

Automation. The most popular platforms automate a lot of tasks, like when you book an appointment it updates my client database. The automation requires access, which reduces privacy and security (and increases the points of contact of data collection). In the absence of that, I have to learn to code the automations myself to happen on my own laptop, or do those things manually. I'm doing both right now, moving gradually from manual to little moments of self-coded magic!

You can check out the timeline of my actions on this page by scrolling to the bottom of this page.

I'm currently working on;

• a more robust archiving & destruction of data system.
• GDPR compliance
• understanding the tricksy back end of my website to make sure I'm not inadvertently feeding the machine.