Privacy Policy

01 Who we are

SEA-V is a digital platform for seafarers to manage career records, sea time, certificates, references, and related documents, build a CV, and share an optional public profile. For privacy enquiries or data subject requests, email admin@sea-v.com.

SEA-V is run by Jack Sorrell, who is the data controller under UK GDPR (and EU GDPR where it applies) for the account and career data you provide. Contact: admin@sea-v.com. The service providers listed in section 07 process data on our behalf as processors.

02 What we collect

Depending on how you use SEA-V, we may process:

• Account data — name, email address, and login credentials (passwords are held by our authentication provider and never visible to us)
• Profile data — photo, rank, qualification, nationality, passports and visas held, date of birth, location, availability, career overview, and contact details you choose to save
• Career records — vessels, sea time, navigation passages, tenders, onboard experience (including captioned photos), milestones and achievements, specialist qualifications, hobbies and interests, references
• Employment documents — Seafarer Employment Agreements and their addendums, certificates, payslips, reference letters, and other files you upload
• CV choices — the template, wording, and which items you include on your CV, saved to your account so they follow you between devices
• Referee details — the name and email address of anyone you ask to verify a reference, and what they enter when they respond (see section 06)
• Feedback — messages you send through “Report an issue”, with the page and app version they were sent from
• Technical data — IP address, browser type, and error reports processed to keep the service running and secure (see section 07)

03 Sensitive and high-risk data

You may upload financial or identity-related documents (for example payslips, employment agreements, CoC scans, medical certificates). These are private — payslips, salary, leave package, employment agreements and addendums, and certificate files are never shown on your public profile and are only accessible to your own account.

A medical fitness certificate (such as an ENG1) is health information. We only store the file if you tick a box agreeing to it when you upload, and you can withdraw that at any time by deleting the file. Your public profile only shows that you hold one — never its dates or whether it is in date.

Do not upload documents you are not entitled to store. You are responsible for the accuracy and lawfulness of content you add to your account.

04 Why we use your data

• To create and manage your account
• To store and display your career records inside the app
• To calculate sea time and milestone progress
• To generate your CV and optional public profile
• To send reference verification requests you ask us to send
• To email you when a certificate you saved is about to expire (90 and 30 days before) — turn this off any time in Profile settings
• To keep the service secure, fix errors, and prevent abuse
• To respond to support and data protection requests

Our lawful bases under UK/EU GDPR are contract (providing the service you signed up for) and legitimate interests (operating, securing, and improving the platform, and contacting the referees you name). Where required, we rely on consent — for example when you make your profile public — and on your explicit consent to store a medical certificate. We do not sell your data, use it for advertising, or use it to train AI models.

05 Public profile (your choice)

Public visibility is off by default. If you enable “Make my public profile visible”, the following may be viewed by anyone with your public link:

• Shown when public: name, photo, rank, availability, location, nationality, your age (calculated from date of birth — the date itself is never shown), the countries of passports and visas you hold (never document numbers), career overview, vessels and their details and photos, total sea time and sea-time-based milestone progress, navigation passages and map, tenders, onboard experience entries and their photos, certificates (name, issue and expiry dates only; for a medical certificate, only that you hold one), specialist qualifications, milestones and achievements (verified and self-declared, marked as such), verified references, and hobbies and interests
• Never shown publicly: email, phone, date of birth, salary, leave package, passport and visa numbers, payslips, employment agreements and addendums, certificate numbers, issuing authorities and certificate files, your CV choices, and referees’ email addresses
• A referee’s CoC (Certificate of Competency) number is never shown — your profile only notes that one is on file
• A public profile is a normal web page, so search engines such as Google may find it and show it in results. Turning it off removes it from SEA-V straight away; search results can take a few weeks to drop it
• You can turn your public profile off at any time in Profile settings

06 References and referees

When you ask SEA-V to verify a reference, we email the referee you name with a single-use link that expires after 14 days. We use their name and email address only to send that request.

If the referee confirms, we store what they enter — their name, rank, reference text, any note, date, signature, and optionally their CoC number. A confirmed reference, including the referee’s name, rank, note, and signature, may appear on your public profile if it is enabled. Their email address and CoC number are never shown publicly. If they decline or ignore the request, nothing is recorded as verified. Referees can contact admin@sea-v.com to have their details removed.

Captains confirming sea service. When you ask your captain to confirm a sea time entry, we email them a single-use link to a testimonial filled in from that entry, its vessel, and your name, date of birth, nationality and discharge book number. If they confirm, we save their name, position, CoC details, comment, typed signature, email address and the days they confirm to your private record, and print them on your testimonial. None of this appears on your public profile.

07 Storage, security, and service providers

Your records and files are stored privately under your own account and protected by access rules that let only you read your private data. The service is served over HTTPS. You can also turn on two-step login in Profile settings, so signing in needs a code from an authenticator app as well as your password.

We use these providers to run SEA-V:

• Supabase — database, sign-in, and file storage, hosted in London (UK)
• Vercel — hosts the website, with anonymous page-speed measurement (Speed Insights, no cookies)
• Resend — sends reference verification emails and certificate expiry reminders
• Sentry — receives error reports when something breaks, hosted in the EU (Germany). Reports are set up to exclude your name, email, and anything you type into forms
• jsDelivr, cdnjs, and unpkg — deliver standard code libraries the pages use; CARTO and OpenStreetMap — provide map images on navigation maps. Like any website request, these see your IP address but receive none of your records

If a personal data breach occurs that puts your rights at risk, we will report it to the Information Commissioner’s Office within 72 hours and tell affected users without undue delay, as UK GDPR requires.

08 Retention and deletion

We keep your data while your account is active. You can delete your account yourself at any time in Profile settings → Delete my account: this permanently removes your records and uploaded files. Anything not removed automatically will be deleted on request, subject to any legal obligation to keep certain records.

• Referee and captain verification links are deleted 90 days after they expire
• A reference the referee declined is deleted one year after they declined it
• Messages sent through Report an issue are deleted after two years
• If you do not sign in for three years, we will email you; if you still do not sign in within 30 days, your account and everything in it is deleted

The first three happen automatically every day.

09 Your rights

Depending on your location, you may have rights to:

• Access a copy of your personal data
• Correct inaccurate data
• Request deletion of your account and associated records
• Object to or restrict certain processing
• Receive your data in a portable format
• Complain to a data protection authority — in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office

You can download a copy of everything in your account — your records and every file you uploaded — yourself, in Profile settings → Download my data. To exercise any other right, email admin@sea-v.com from your registered address. We may need to verify your identity before acting on a request. We reply within one month.

Complaints. If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal data, you can complain to us first: email admin@sea-v.com with “Data protection complaint” in the subject line, or use Report an issue inside the app. We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days, look into it, and tell you the outcome without undue delay, keeping you updated if it takes longer. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at any time, or, if you live in the EU, to the data protection authority in your country.

10 Cookies and browser storage

SEA-V does not set cookies, and we use no advertising, tracking, or analytics cookies from anyone else. That is why there is no cookie banner.

We do keep a small amount of information in your browser’s own storage, only to make the service work:

• Sign-in session — keeps you signed in (essential)
• A copy of your own records — so pages load quickly; cleared when you sign out or close the tab
• Temporary file links — short-lived links to view your own documents (cleared when you close the tab)
• Your CV draft — a local copy alongside the one saved to your account
• Small preferences — for example your recent searches, whether the CV settings panel is folded, and which badge celebrations you have already seen

None of this is shared with third parties or used to track you. You can clear it at any time through your browser settings; you will need to sign in again.

11 Where your data is held

Your account, records, and files are stored in London (UK). Error reports are held in the EU (Germany). Some providers (Vercel, Resend) are US-based companies and may process limited data, such as email addresses for referee emails or website requests, outside the UK. Where they do, it is covered by their data processing terms, which include the safeguards UK GDPR requires for international transfers.

12 Children

SEA-V is intended for professional seafarers and is not directed at children under 16. We do not knowingly collect data from children.

13 Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The “Last updated” date at the top will change when we do.