Short version: this site collects very little. There is no advertising, no analytics tracking you around the web, and no data sold to anyone. If you write to us or subscribe to the newsletter, we keep what you sent us so we can reply or send the newsletter, and nothing more.
The longer version follows, because you have the right to know exactly what happens.
Who is responsible
Aswin Lutchanah, publisher of ilovebelval.com, is the data controller. The publisher is established in France.
Contact for any privacy question: contact@ilovebelval.com
What we collect, and why
If you use the contact form
We receive your name, your email address, the subject you selected and your message.
Why: so we can read and answer you. Legal basis: your consent, given when you send the form. How long: we keep messages for up to two years, so we can follow up on a conversation and understand the history of a correction. After that they are deleted.
If you suggest a place, an event or a story
There are two forms for this, Suggest a place and Suggest an event, and you can also write through the contact form. On the two forms we receive your email address, how you know the place or event, your name if you give it, and everything you tell us about the place or event itself: a name, an address, opening hours, a date, a price, links to a website, a social profile or a photo.
We treat that as business information and use it only to decide whether to cover the subject and to check the facts before we publish. We do not publish your name as the source unless you ask us to. If your suggestion includes personal details about someone else, please send only what is already public, or what that person is happy for you to share.
Why: to check the suggestion and, if it belongs on the site, publish it; and to ask you a question if a detail is missing. Legal basis: your consent, given when you tick the box on the form. How long: a suggestion is kept for up to two years, whether or not it is published, so we can follow up and understand where an entry came from. After that your name, email address and how you know the place are deleted. A suggestion that is refused is deleted sooner.
If you subscribe to the newsletter
We receive your email address, and the date and time you confirmed your subscription.
Why: to send you the newsletter you asked for. Legal basis: your consent. We use double opt-in, meaning nothing is sent until you click the confirmation link in the first email. How long: until you unsubscribe. Every newsletter carries an unsubscribe link, and unsubscribing removes you from the list.
Our newsletter is handled by MailPoet, which runs on this website’s own hosting. Your email address stays on our server and is sent through our host. It is not passed to a third-party mailing service.
We do not measure whether you open the newsletter or which links you click.
When you simply read the site
Our host records standard server logs: the IP address of the request, the time, the page requested, and your browser type.
Why: keeping the site secure and diagnosing faults. This is normal for any website and happens before we see anything. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in running a secure, functioning site. How long: logs are retained by our host for a limited period under their own policy.
What we do not do
We do not use advertising trackers, remarketing pixels or behavioural profiling.
We do not sell, rent or share your data with anyone for their own purposes.
We do not make automated decisions about you.
We do not require an account, and we do not build a profile of what you read.
Who else is involved
o2switch hosts the site, in France, and therefore stores its data. They act on our instructions.
That is the whole list of services that handle your data on our behalf. Our newsletter software runs on that same hosting rather than on someone else’s service, so no third party receives your data. If this ever changes, this page changes.
To show live weather, transport and road information, our server fetches public data from Open-Meteo, Mobiliteit.lu, CITA and Bison Futé. These requests come from our server, not from your browser: none of your information reaches them, and they cannot see that you visited.
My Belval
My Belval lets you keep places, events and stories in one private list, without creating an account.
When you choose to save something, the public details needed for your list are stored in your browser’s local storage: its title, link, content type, event time, venue, useful action links, and where they are published, the venue’s public coordinates, opening hours, phone number and student-discount note. Your own ordering, any optional reminder setting and any private note you add are stored there too. This information stays on your device. I Love Belval does not receive your list, your reminder settings or your notes, and the feature creates no account, visitor identifier or cross-device profile.
Your list is arranged by when things happen, worked out in your browser from your own clock. Nothing about that arrangement is stored or sent.
When you heart or unheart an item, the public content reference and a “save” or “remove” action are sent to I Love Belval. These update aggregate popularity totals for that place, event or story, including recent seven-day and thirty-day trends, and the public “Trending this week” labels. Totals are stored per public content item and date. No IP address, browser identifier or individual history is stored in those tables. As with any web request, the hosting infrastructure may temporarily process technical information such as an IP address in server logs; those logs are not combined with these totals to identify visitors.
My Belval does not use cookies. Its local storage is created only after you explicitly choose to save something, import a shared list, or choose which kind of place the “Belval right now” panel should show. It is used only to provide the features you asked for.
Your list stays available in the same browser until you remove items, press “Clear”, clear the site’s data in your browser, or use a browser mode that deletes local data automatically. It is not synchronised between devices.
“Belval right now” shows how many places are open at this minute, a few of their names, and a chart of how many are open in each hour of today. It is the same public information for every visitor, is not based on anything you have saved, and asks nothing of your device beyond its clock. The names shown are drawn at random from what is open, so that everywhere listed gets a turn; if you have saved somewhere that is open, it is shown first, and that comparison happens only in your browser.
Whether a saved place is open is worked out on your device from opening hours already published on that place’s own page. My Belval does not request your location at any point, and contains no code that could.
Walking-time estimates use public coordinates for consecutive places in your list. When an existing Google Maps short link has not yet been resolved, the I Love Belval server may follow that editor-provided link once after an explicit save and cache the public venue coordinates. That request comes from our server, not from your browser, and does not send your location to Google. Google receives a visit from your browser only if you choose to open a Directions or walking-route link, which Google handles under its own privacy information.
Weather advice uses a forecast for the fixed Belval area, fetched and cached by the I Love Belval server. It does not use or request your location, and your browser does not contact the weather provider.
If you choose a browser reminder for a saved event, your browser asks for notification permission at that moment. The choice, and whether it has already fired, stay in local storage. Reminders are checked on your device and work only while I Love Belval remains open. Downloaded calendar files can carry the same reminder and are handled by the calendar app you choose.
Nothing from your list is shared unless you press “Share my plan” and choose where to send it. Sharing creates a link carrying the list in the part of the URL after the # symbol. That fragment can contain public item details such as titles, I Love Belval links, event times, venues, addresses and public venue coordinates. It does not contain your private notes, reminder settings, your display choices, phone numbers, student-discount text, or booking, menu, ticket and directions links.
Browsers do not send that fragment to I Love Belval when the shared page opens. The app or person you send it to receives the whole link, however, and anyone holding it can view the list it carries. The fragment is encoded for transport but is not encrypted.
Opening a shared link saves nothing. Local storage is created only if you press “Add to My Belval”. The import adds only items not already saved in that browser, and each newly imported item updates the same anonymous aggregate total as an individual heart.
Calendar files are generated on your device only when you ask for one, and can include your private note and chosen reminder. Directions, walking routes, calls, booking, menu and ticket actions open the linked provider only after you choose them, and that provider handles the visit under its own privacy information.
Stories you have opened
When you reach the end of one of the short stories on the homepage, its name is added to a small list in your browser’s local storage, so the row of circles can show which ones you have already read. The list holds story names only: no dates, no count, no identifier. It stays on your device and is never sent to I Love Belval. Clearing your browser’s site data removes it.
Working offline
If you visit the site more than once, your browser keeps copies of the pages and images you have already opened, so the site still opens when you have no signal. When a page is shown from that copy, a bar at the foot says so and gives the date it was last seen. Nothing is sent to I Love Belval; clearing your browser’s site data removes it.
Places you have been to
Tapping “Been there?” on a place adds its name to a list in your browser’s local storage, so the site can show you which of Belval’s places you have visited, and build “Your Belval” from it on your own device. The list holds place names only: no dates, no identifier. It stays on your device and is never sent to I Love Belval. Clearing your browser’s site data removes it.
The map of Belval
The map on this site is drawn by us, once, from OpenStreetMap data, and served from ilovebelval.com like any other page. No map tiles, scripts or fonts are loaded from a third party, no request leaves this site when you open it, and no cookie is set. If you have saved places in My Belval or marked places as visited, the map shows your own marks by reading them from your browser’s local storage; they are never sent to us or to anyone else.
WhatsApp Channel
We run an optional WhatsApp Channel for local updates. The link on this website does not load any WhatsApp content or set any WhatsApp cookies while you stay here.
If you follow the link, WhatsApp processes your use of the Channel under its own terms and privacy policy. WhatsApp does not show your phone number to other followers, and does not normally show it to the Channel administrator either, unless the administrator already has your number saved as a contact.
Following the Channel is voluntary and you can unfollow at any time. For more, see the WhatsApp Channels Privacy Policy.
Your rights
Under the GDPR you have the right to:
- ask what data we hold about you, and get a copy
- have inaccurate data corrected
- have your data deleted
- restrict or object to how we use it
- receive your data in a portable format
- withdraw consent at any time, which for the newsletter is one click on the unsubscribe link
To use any of these, email contact@ilovebelval.com. We will respond within one month.
If you are not satisfied with how we have handled your data, you can complain to a data protection authority. You may go to the authority in the country where you live, where you work, or where you think the problem occurred.
Because the publisher is established in France, our own authority is:
Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (CNIL) 3 Place de Fontenoy, TSA 80715 75334 Paris Cedex 07 France www.cnil.fr
If you are in Luxembourg, you can equally go to:
Commission nationale pour la protection des données (CNPD) 15, Boulevard du Jazz L-4370 Belvaux Luxembourg cnpd.public.lu
People and businesses described on this site
We publish information about businesses, venues and institutions in Belval: their addresses, opening hours, published contact details and what they offer. This is business information, published on the basis of our legitimate interest in informing people who live in and visit the neighbourhood.
We photograph buildings, streets and interiors, not individuals. If you appear identifiably in one of our photographs and would rather not, tell us and we will remove or replace it.
If you run a business listed here and want a detail corrected or your published contact details changed, get in touch.
Children
This site is not aimed at children and we do not knowingly collect data from them.
Changes
If this policy changes we will update this page and change the date below. Substantial changes affecting newsletter subscribers will be announced in the newsletter.
Last updated: 7 September 2026