How We Handle Data
This page explains, in everyday language, what happens to information about you when you read Lab Retriever. In short: hardly anything. The longer version follows, so you can check every part of it.
Who is responsible
Lab Retriever is written and run by a small team publishing under pen names. For anything to do with personal data, including requests under data protection law, write to letters@lab-retriever.com. The same people who write the articles read that inbox.
A site made of finished pages
Every article and page on Lab Retriever is built in advance and delivered to your browser as a ready-made file. There are no accounts to create, no comment boxes, no search tools that send your queries to us, and no database recording who reads what. Because of that, we do not use:
- analytics or visitor-counting tools of any kind;
- ad networks, remarketing pixels or tags that follow you to other sites;
- social media buttons that load code from other companies;
- fingerprinting or any attempt to recognise you between visits.
A single saved answer in your browser
On your first visit, a small card offers two buttons: accept or decline. Your answer is saved in your own browser's local storage so the notice does not reappear on every page. It is not a tracking cookie, it is never sent to us, and it contains nothing but that choice. You can remove it at any time by clearing the site data for lab-retriever.com in your browser settings. More detail is on Cookies Used Around Here.
Hosting logs
Lab Retriever's pages are served by an outside hosting company. To keep the service running and protect it against abuse, the provider's servers briefly record technical details of each request, such as the IP address, the time, the page requested and the browser type. We do not combine these logs with other information or use them to build profiles. They are kept only for a short period, as needed for security and reliability, and then deleted under the provider's own retention schedule. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in a secure, working website.
Messages you send
Writing to us naturally shares your email address with us, along with any name you sign with and the contents of the message. We use this only to read and answer you, and perhaps to correct or improve an article you mention. We do not add you to mailing lists, and we do not pass your message to anyone else. Correspondence is deleted once it is no longer needed for the conversation. The contact form on our Drop Us a Line page simply opens your own email program; nothing is sent until you press send there.
Leaving our pages
Plenty of our articles point to outside websites. After you click through, the privacy rules of that other site take over, and what it gathers is outside our reach.
Your rights
If you are in the European Union, the United Kingdom or another region with similar laws, you have the right to:
- find out what, if anything, we hold about you and get a copy of it;
- get anything inaccurate put right;
- ask for it to be erased;
- ask us to pause processing it, or say no to a particular use;
- take it with you in a machine-readable format, where the law provides for that;
- take a complaint to the supervisory authority in your own country.
Realistically, an email you once sent us is the only personal information we are ever likely to have. Write to the address above and we will respond within the time limits set by law.
Children
Lab Retriever is a general-interest site and does not knowingly collect information from children.
If this page changes
If the way the site works changes, for example if a new feature would involve personal data, we will update this page before that change goes live. You can read the related Site Terms for the rules on using our content.
Last updated: October 2026.