Privacy Policy & Terms of Membership

Effective Date: October 28, 2026

Welcome to Fotogram Photo Club (FPC). Your privacy and intellectual property are critically important to us. This document explains what personal data we collect when you visit or interact with our website (https://fotogramphotoclub.com), our membership terms, and the copyright rules regarding our photography contests.

By checking the consent boxes on our forms, you explicitly state: “I have read and agree to the Privacy Policy. I consent to the processing of my personal data for membership and communication purposes.”

1. Who We Are

Our website address is: https://fotogramphotoclub.com. We are an international educational photography community headquartered in Turkey.

2. Photo Contests & Copyright Terms

By submitting your photographs to any contest, exhibition, or gallery hosted by Fotogram Photography Club (FPC), you agree to the following intellectual property terms:

Copyright Ownership: You retain full ownership and copyright of all images you submit. FPC does not claim ownership over your photos.
Usage License: By submitting your work, you grant FPC a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to display, reproduce, and distribute your images solely for promotional, educational, and exhibition purposes related to the club (including but not limited to website galleries, social media features, and club catalogs).
Credit: FPC will always credit you as the photographer whenever your work is displayed or shared.
Originality Warranty: You warrant that you are the sole creator and copyright owner of the submitted photos, and that your submission does not infringe upon the rights of any third party.

3. Terms of Membership

By registering as a member of Fotogram Photography Club, you agree to comply with our community standards:

Account Responsibility: You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials and for all activities that occur under your account.
Community Conduct: Members must respect intellectual property rights. Uploading plagiarized, offensive, or unauthorized content will result in immediate termination of membership.
Termination: FPC reserves the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate our terms, local laws, or community guidelines without prior notice.

4. Information We Collect and Why We Collect It

Website Analytics (WP Statistics)

We use the WP Statistics plugin to analyze traffic and optimize your user experience.

Data Processed: If you are logged in as a registered member, we associate your account (username/ID) with your page views to understand member engagement.
Storage: All analytics data is stored securely on our own local server and is never transmitted to any third parties.

Contact and Subscription Forms

When you submit a form on our website (such as membership application, contact forms, or newsletter subscriptions):

Data Processed: We capture your email address, name, any personal data entered into the form fields, and your IP address (collected specifically for spam protection).
Retention & Sharing: Form submission data is retained for 30 days. It may be shared internally with our workers or contractors solely to perform necessary actions based on your request.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site, we collect the data shown in the comments form, along with the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to aid in spam detection.

Gravatar Integration: An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available at https://automattic.com.
Public Display: After your comment is approved, your profile picture becomes visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media Uploads

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download the images and extract any location data from them.

Spam Protection (Third Parties)

We use Google reCAPTCHA to protect our website from spam and abuse. Your use of reCAPTCHA is subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service, which can be found at https://google.com. Visitor comments may also be verified through an automated spam detection service.

5. Cookies

We use cookies to improve functionality and remember your preferences:

Comment Cookies: If you leave a comment, you may opt-in to saving your name, email address, and website in cookies for your convenience. These last for one year.
Login Session Cookies:
- Visiting our login page sets a temporary cookie to test if your browser accepts cookies. It contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
- Logging in sets cookies to save your login information and screen choices. Login cookies last for two days; screen options cookies last for one year.
- Selecting “Remember Me” extends your login persistence to two weeks. Logging out removes these login cookies immediately.
Article Editing Cookies: If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie is saved indicating the post ID of the article. It contains no personal data and expires after one day.

6. Embedded Content from Other Websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g., videos, images, articles, social links). Embedded content from third-party websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website directly.

These external websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, especially if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

7. How Long We Retain Your Data

Comments: If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely so we can recognize and approve follow-up comments automatically.
Registered Profiles: For users who register on our website, we store the personal information provided in their user profile indefinitely.
Form Data: Form submissions are retained for 30 days.

8. What Rights You Have Over Your Data

Profile Management: All registered users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also view and edit that information.
Data Export & Erasure: If you have an account on this site or have left comments, you can request an exported file of the personal data we hold about you. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
Password Resets: If you request a password reset, your current IP address will be included in the reset email for security tracking.

9. International Compliance (GDPR & KVKK)

As an international club based in Turkey, we respect global data privacy standards. You have the right to access, rectify, or request the erasure of your data at any time under relevant data protection laws (including GDPR and KVKK).

10. Contact Us

If you have questions, concerns, or requests regarding your personal data, copyright terms, or this policy, please feel free to reach out to us through our Contact page or email.