Privacy Policy
Privacy Notice for Owners/Skippers of Fishing Vessels
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS DOCUMENT?
Marine Environmental Solutions Limited (MES) is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal
information.
This privacy notice describes how we collect and use personal information about you in accordance with the General Data
Protection Regulation (GDPR).
MES is a “data controller”. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about
you. We are required under data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice.
This notice applies to Owners and/or Skippers of Fishing Vessels who are participating in the Fisheries Observer scheme. We
may update this notice at any time but if we do so, we will provide you with an updated copy of this notice as soon as
reasonably practical.
It is important that you read and retain this notice, together with any other privacy notice we may provide on specific
occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about you, so that you are aware of how and why we
are using such information and what your rights are under the data protection legislation.
DATA PROTECTION PRINCIPLES
We will comply with data protection law. This says that the personal information we hold about you must be:
1. Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.
2. Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible
with those purposes.
3. Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.
4. Accurate and kept up to date.
5. Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.
6. Kept securely.
THE KIND OF INFORMATION WE HOLD ABOUT YOU
Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be
identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).
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We will collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you:
• Personal contact details such as name, title, addresses, telephone number.
• Vessel name, PLN and agent, if applicable.
HOW IS YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION COLLECTED?
We collect personal information about individuals, either directly from the individuals or we may sometimes collect additional
information from third parties such as Vessel Agents and the Marine Directorate.
HOW WE WILL USE INFORMATION ABOUT YOU
We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal
information in the following circumstances:
1. Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.
2. Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights
do not override those interests.
We may also use your personal information in the following situations, which are likely to be rare:
1. Where we need to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests).
2. Where it is needed in the public interest or for official purposes.
Situations in which we will use your personal information
We need all the categories of information in the list above to allow us comply with legal obligations. In some cases we may
use your personal information to pursue legitimate interests of our own or those of third parties, provided your interests and
fundamental rights do not override those interests. The situations in which we will process your personal information are
listed below.
· To arrange Fisheries Observer trips and obtain feedback.
If you fail to provide personal information
If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may be prevented from complying with our legal obligations.
Change of purpose
We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we
need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal
information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.
Please note that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the
above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.
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INFORMATION ABOUT CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS
We do not envisage that we will hold information about criminal convictions.
AUTOMATED DECISION-MAKING
We do not envisage that any decisions will be taken about you using automated means, however we will notify you in writing
if this position changes.
DATA SHARING
We may have to share your data with third parties, including third-party service providers.
We require third parties to respect the security of your data and to treat it in accordance with the law.
We may transfer your personal information outside the EU.
If we do, you can expect a similar degree of protection in respect of your personal information.
Why might you share my personal information with third parties?
We will share your personal information with third parties where required by law, where it is necessary to administer the
working relationship with you or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so.
Which third-party service providers process my personal information?
”Third parties” includes third-party service providers (including contractors and designated agents). It is currently not
anticipated that any third-party service providers will process personal information about you.
How secure is my information with third-party service providers and other entities in our group?
All our third-party service providers are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information
in line with our policies. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes.
We only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.
What about other third parties?
We may also need to share your personal information with a regulator or to otherwise comply with the law.
Transferring information outside the EU
We will not transfer the personal information we collect about you outside the EU.
DATA SECURITY
We have put in place measures to protect the security of your information. Details of these measures are available upon
request.
Third parties will only process your personal information on our instructions and where they have agreed to treat the
information confidentially and to keep it secure.
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We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used
or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those
employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your
personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable
regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.
DATA RETENTION
How long will you use my information for?
We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for
the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. Details of retention periods for different aspects
of your personal information are available in our retention procedure which is available from our Data Privacy Manager. To
determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal
data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process
your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.
RIGHTS OF ACCESS, CORRECTION, ERASURE, AND RESTRICTION
Your duty to inform us of changes
It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your
personal information changes during your working relationship with us.
Your rights in connection with personal information
Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:
• Request access to your personal information (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you
to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
• Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or
inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.
• Request erasure of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information
where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your
personal information where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).
• Object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third
party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this
ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing
purposes.
• Request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing
of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
• Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.
If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your
personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please contact the Data
Privacy Manager in writing.
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No fee usually required
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may
charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply
with the request in such circumstances.
What we may need from you
We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the
information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal
information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.
RIGHT TO WITHDRAW CONSENT
In the limited circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your
personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any
time. To withdraw your consent, please contact the Data Privacy Manager. Once we have received notification that you have
withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to,
unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.
DATA PRIVACY MANAGER
We have appointed a Data Privacy Manager to oversee compliance with this privacy notice. If you have any questions about
this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, please contact the Data Privacy Manager. You have the right
to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data
protection issues.
CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY NOTICE
We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time, and we will provide you with a new privacy notice when we
make any substantial updates. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal
information.
If you have any questions about this privacy notice, please contact the Data Privacy Manager at s.gove@sff.co.uk or +44
(0)1224 646966.