Effective date: October 11, 2026
CPE World (cpeworld.org) is an independent online publication based in the United States. A small group of analysts writes our articles on business continuity, disaster recovery and emergency preparedness. This policy explains what personal information the site collects, why, and what you can do about it.
The short version
You can read everything on this site without giving us anything. There are no reader accounts, no newsletter, no ads, no analytics and no comment sections. We collect personal information in only two situations: when you write to us through the contact form, and when your browser requests a page and our server logs that request. We do not sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.
Messages you send us
The form at /contact asks for your name, your email address, your organization (optional) and your message. We store what you submit on our own server and use it for one purpose: reading and answering your message, including any follow-up. We don't add you to a mailing list or use your message to build a profile of you.
We keep messages only as long as we need them to handle your request and any follow-up, then delete them. You can ask us to delete yours sooner.
Please don't send sensitive information such as health details, account numbers or government ID numbers. Nothing we do requires it.
Server and security logs
Our server records basic details of each request: your IP address, your browser's user agent, the URL requested and the date and time. We use these logs to keep the site secure, block abusive traffic and troubleshoot problems. Logs are kept for up to 30 days and then deleted, unless a specific entry is needed longer to investigate an attack or abuse.
Cloudflare
The site is delivered through Cloudflare, our content delivery network and security provider. Every request passes through Cloudflare first, so it processes request data such as your IP address and browser details on our behalf to deliver pages and filter out malicious traffic. It may set strictly necessary security cookies, listed in our Cookie Policy, and describes its own data handling in its privacy policy.
Cookies and tracking
We do not use analytics, advertising or tracking cookies, and we don't use tracking pixels, fingerprinting or similar techniques. Apart from Cloudflare's security cookies, the site sets one strictly necessary session cookie, and only for our own staff when they sign in to the editorial dashboard. Readers never receive it.
Because we don't track visitors across websites, a Do Not Track signal has nothing to switch off; the site behaves the same either way.
Who else sees your information
We don't sell personal information, and we don't share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We disclose it only:
- to the service providers that run the site for us (Cloudflare and the company that hosts our server), which may use it only to provide their services to us;
- when the law requires it, for example in response to a valid subpoena or court order; or
- when needed to protect the site, our writers or others against fraud, abuse or security threats.
Categories of information (US state privacy laws)
Using the categories in state privacy laws, in the past 12 months we collected:
- Identifiers: name, email address and IP address;
- Professional information: the organization you name, if any;
- Internet activity: the server log details described above; and
- The content of your message.
We collect this directly from you (the contact form) or automatically from your browser (logs), and use it only for the purposes in this policy. We don't collect sensitive personal information as those laws define it, and we don't use anything for targeted advertising or profiling.
Your rights in California and other states
If you live in California (under the CCPA, as amended by the CPRA), Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut or another US state with a comprehensive privacy law, you may have the right to:
- know what personal information we hold about you and get a copy of it;
- have it corrected or deleted;
- opt out of its sale, sharing or use for targeted advertising (we do none of these); and
- exercise these rights without being treated differently for doing so.
To make a request, use the contact form and say what you're asking for. We may ask for details to confirm the request is yours, usually the email address you wrote from. An authorized agent can make a request for you with your signed permission. We respond within the time the law requires, generally 45 days, and will tell you if we need the extension some laws allow. If we decline a request, we'll explain why, and you can appeal by replying to our answer. If we deny the appeal, you can contact your state attorney general.
We treat a Global Privacy Control signal from your browser as an opt-out of sale and sharing; since we do neither, nothing changes on our side.
Visitors from the EU and UK
If the GDPR or UK GDPR applies to you, we rely on our legitimate interests to keep security logs and to answer the messages you send us. You have the right to access, correct or delete your personal data, to restrict or object to our use of it, and to receive it in a portable format. Use the contact form to exercise them, or complain to the data protection authority where you live or work. We are based in the United States, so your information is processed there and, through Cloudflare's network, possibly in other countries.
Children
CPE World is written for working professionals and is not directed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their personal information. If you believe a child has sent us information through the contact form, let us know and we will delete it.
Security
We protect what we hold with reasonable measures: HTTPS on every page, restricted access to our server and Cloudflare's filtering in front of it. Only the people who run the site can read contact messages. No system is perfectly secure, but collecting very little means there is very little to expose.
Changes to this policy
If we change how we handle personal information, we'll update this page and the effective date, and point out any significant change here.
Contact
Questions and requests about privacy go through the contact form.