Last updated: 2026.05.06.
1. Who we are
This website is operated by Walter Fontanini, PhD.
Website: wfontanini.com
For any privacy-related request, you may contact the website owner at:
Email: website followed by the necessary sign, and then by the domain name
This website presents academic work, publications, teaching activities, psychological and reflective-writing pathways, newsletters, and related professional services.
2. Scope of this Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy explains how personal data may be collected, used, stored and protected when you visit this website, subscribe to a newsletter, use a contact form, purchase a digital product, or request information about academic or psychological services.
This website does not allow public comments on posts and does not operate as a public discussion forum.
3. Personal data we may collect
Depending on how you use the website, we may collect the following categories of personal data:
Contact data: name, surname, email address, telephone number if voluntarily provided, and any information included in a message sent through a contact form or by email.
Newsletter data: email address, name (if provided), subscription preferences, confirmation status, and basic interaction data, such as email open or link-click statistics, when provided by the newsletter platform.
Purchase data: name, email address, billing information, payment status, product purchased, invoice-related information, and transaction metadata necessary to process and document a purchase.
Technical data: IP address, browser type, device information, operating system, approximate location derived from technical data, referring pages, pages visited, and security logs.
Professional or academic enquiry data: information voluntarily provided in relation to lectures, conferences, publications, collaborations, supervision, teaching, or other professional requests.
Psychological-service enquiry data: information voluntarily provided when requesting information about writing therapy, reflective pathways, online consultations, or related psychological services. Visitors are asked not to send sensitive health information through ordinary contact forms unless explicitly requested through an appropriate professional channel.
4. Purposes of processing
Personal data may be processed for the following purposes:
To respond to enquiries sent through the website or by email.
To manage newsletter subscriptions and send updates, articles, educational content, or information about services and products.
To process payments, deliver digital products, issue receipts or invoices, and manage customer communication.
To organise academic, teaching, conference, publication, or consultancy-related communication.
To provide preliminary information about psychological or reflective-writing services.
To maintain website security, prevent abuse, detect technical errors, and protect the website from unauthorised access.
To comply with legal, tax, accounting, professional, or regulatory obligations.
To improve the clarity, usability and effectiveness of the website.
5. Legal bases for processing
Personal data may be processed on one or more of the following legal bases:
Consent: for example, when you subscribe to a newsletter or agree to receive communications.
Contractual necessity: when processing is necessary to deliver a purchased product, provide a requested service, or take steps before entering into a professional agreement.
Legal obligation: when data must be retained for accounting, tax, regulatory or legal purposes.
Legitimate interest: for website security, basic analytics, professional correspondence, fraud prevention, and the ordinary management of a professional website, provided that such interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms.
Explicit consent or professional necessity: where special categories of personal data are ever processed in the context of psychological services, they will be handled only where a suitable legal basis applies and with appropriate safeguards.
6. Newsletter
If you subscribe to the newsletter, your email address and any other information you voluntarily provide will be used to send you the requested communications.
You may unsubscribe at any time by using the unsubscribe link included in the newsletter or by contacting the website owner.
Newsletter management may be carried out through a third-party email platform, such as beehiiv. In that case, your subscription data may be processed through that platform to manage mailing lists, send emails, record subscription status, and measure basic email engagement.
7. Payments and digital products
If you purchase a digital product, course, workbook, reflective-writing pathway, or other service through the website, payment may be processed by a third-party payment provider, such as Stripe.
The website owner does not normally receive or store full credit-card details. Payment providers process payment information in accordance with their own technical and legal standards.
Purchase-related data may be retained where necessary for delivery, invoicing, accounting, customer support, fraud prevention, and legal compliance.
8. Contact forms and email communication
When you contact the website owner through a form or email, the information you provide will be used to respond to your message and manage the relevant communication.
Please do not include highly sensitive personal, medical, psychological, legal, or financial information in ordinary contact forms unless it is necessary and you understand that online communication may not be appropriate for urgent or emergency situations.
Contacting the website owner through this website does not automatically create a therapeutic, clinical, supervisory, academic, or contractual relationship.
9. Psychological and reflective-writing services
Some pages of this website may describe psychological support, writing therapy, reflective-writing pathways, grief-related writing exercises, or other personal development services.
Digital reflective-writing products and newsletters are educational and reflective tools. They do not replace psychotherapy, psychiatric care, medical advice, emergency support, or legal advice.
If you are experiencing an emergency, acute psychological distress, suicidal thoughts, or risk of harm to yourself or others, you should contact the appropriate emergency services or local healthcare provider immediately.
10. Comments
Public comments are disabled on this website.
Because comments are not enabled, the website does not intentionally collect comment-form data, comment metadata, Gravatar data, or public user-generated comment content.
11. Media uploads
Visitors are not permitted to upload media files publicly to this website.
If media upload functionality is ever enabled, users should avoid uploading files that contain embedded location data or other hidden metadata.
12. Cookies
This website may use cookies or similar technologies for the following purposes:
To ensure the technical functioning and security of the website.
To remember basic preferences.
To support embedded content, newsletter forms, payment pages, or other third-party services.
To collect basic analytics, if analytics tools are enabled.
Some cookies may be strictly necessary for the website to operate. Other cookies, such as analytics or marketing cookies, should be used only where legally appropriate and, where required, after consent.
A separate Cookie Policy or cookie banner may provide more detailed information about the specific cookies used on this website.
13. Embedded content from other websites
Pages on this website may include embedded content, such as videos, podcasts, images, forms, payment links, newsletter forms, maps, or articles from third-party websites.
Embedded content from other websites behaves as if the visitor had visited the external website directly. These third parties may collect data, use cookies, embed additional tracking, and monitor your interaction with the embedded content, especially if you have an account with that service and are logged in.
Examples may include video platforms, newsletter platforms, payment providers, academic repositories, social media platforms, or publication databases.
14. Analytics and security tools
This website may use technical tools to understand website traffic, improve usability, prevent spam, protect against brute-force attacks, detect malicious activity, or maintain website security.
Such tools may process technical data such as IP address, browser information, device data, timestamps, and visited pages.
If analytics tools are used, they should be configured in a privacy-conscious manner where possible.
15. Who we share data with
Personal data is not sold.
Personal data may be shared only where necessary with selected service providers, including:
Website hosting providers.
Email and newsletter platforms.
Payment processors.
Accounting, tax, legal, or professional advisers.
Website security, backup, or analytics providers.
Public authorities, courts, regulators, or law-enforcement bodies, where legally required.
Each provider is expected to process personal data only for the relevant service-related purpose and in accordance with applicable data protection requirements.
16. International transfers
Some third-party service providers may process data outside the country where you are located, including outside the European Economic Area.
Where this occurs, appropriate safeguards should be used where required by applicable law, such as standard contractual clauses, adequacy decisions, or equivalent legal mechanisms.
17. Data retention
Personal data is retained only for as long as necessary for the purposes for which it was collected.
Contact form and email correspondence may be retained for as long as necessary to manage the communication and any related professional relationship.
Newsletter data is retained until you unsubscribe or request deletion, unless retention is otherwise legally justified.
Purchase and invoice-related data may be retained for the period required by applicable tax, accounting, or legal obligations.
Security logs may be retained for a limited period necessary to protect the website and investigate misuse.
Data that is no longer necessary will be deleted, anonymised, or securely archived where appropriate.
18. Your rights
Depending on the applicable law and the circumstances of processing, you may have the right to:
Request access to your personal data.
Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data.
Request the deletion of your personal data.
Request restriction of processing.
Object to processing based on legitimate interests.
Withdraw consent where processing is based on consent.
Request data portability where applicable.
Lodge a complaint with a competent data-protection authority.
To exercise your rights, contact:
Email: [insert professional email address]
Requests will be handled in accordance with applicable data-protection law.
19. Supervisory authority
If you are located in Hungary or if the processing falls under Hungarian jurisdiction, you may contact the Hungarian National Authority for Data Protection and Freedom of Information:
Nemzeti Adatvédelmi és Információszabadság Hatóság — NAIH
Visitors from other European Union or European Economic Area countries may also contact their local data protection authority.
20. Security
Reasonable technical and organisational measures are used to protect personal data against unauthorised access, loss, misuse, alteration, or disclosure.
However, no website, email system, payment system, or online service can guarantee absolute security. Visitors should avoid sending unnecessary sensitive information through ordinary website forms or unencrypted email.
21. Children
This website is not directed at children.
Newsletter subscriptions, product purchases, and professional service enquiries are intended for adults. If a parent or guardian believes that a child has provided personal data through the website, they may contact the website owner to request that the personal data be deleted.
22. Changes to this Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy may be updated from time to time to reflect changes in the website, services, legal requirements, or third-party tools.
The date of the latest update will be indicated at the top of this page.