When I was getting WP and Legal Stuff ready for release, I drafted the privacy policy that is linked to in the site footer. I did this because I would probably be collecting personal information (e.g., names of commenters and email addresses) and it was appropriate, therefore, that I let people know what I’m collecting, who can see it, what I’ll do with it, and so on.

When drafting the policy, it struck me that this is something that other bloggers and site operators – whose structural set up is similar to mine – may also need or wish to do. If you’re in this position, please feel free to create your own policy based on mine. To help you out, I’ve whipped up a form that takes a small number of inputs and then spits out a version of my privacy policy but with my details removed and your details inserted.

The form and output are based on a few assumptions:

• that an individual is operating the blog / site;
• the site is externally hosted;
• you are operating an email subscription list that is managed by a third party service provider such as MailChimp;
• you’re using WordPress for your site;
• you accept comments; and
• you use Google Analytics for site statistics.

If these assumptions aren’t correct in your case, you may need to adapt the output.

Of course, I can’t say whether the output will necessarily cover all bases for you, given your own circumstances and the laws that may apply in your country, but hopefully it’ll provide a helpful starting point.

To obtain your own starter privacy policy based on mine, fill out and submit the short form below. After you submit it, you’ll be presented with the privacy policy which you can copy and paste and use for your own purposes. (You may need to scroll down a bit to see it.)