Privacy Policy
Version 1.7 — Effective date: 10 October 2026
This policy explains how Near Max Ltd collects, uses, and protects your personal data when you use Marine Inspect.
This policy explains how Near Max Ltd collects, uses, and protects your personal data when you use Marine Inspect.
1. Who We Are (Data Controller)
The data controller for your personal data is Near Max Ltd, a company incorporated in England and Wales (Company No. 09222812), trading as Marine Inspect.
Contact: support@marine-inspect.co.uk
If you have any questions about how we handle your data, or wish to exercise any of your rights, please contact us at the address above.
2. What Personal Data We Collect
2.1 Account data
When you register, we collect: your name, email address, and authentication identifiers. This data is necessary to create and manage your account.
2.2 Professional profile data
You may optionally provide your professional name, contact details, qualifications, and branding assets (such as a company logo) for inclusion in generated reports. When you send a Coding Survey to a Certifying Authority, the authority sees your professional details, including qualifications, membership numbers, insurer, policy reference and MCA approval number, and your signature on the Documentation of Compliance.
2.3 Survey and inspection data
The core purpose of the Service is to record and process marine survey data. This may include vessel details, inspection findings, photographs, voice notes, and location data captured during surveys. This data may contain personal data relating to vessel owners and other third parties (see section 6). When you send a Coding Survey to a Certifying Authority, the authority receives the survey, including owner details, location and photographs.
2.4 Payment data
When you make a purchase, we collect your billing name and address. Payment card details are processed directly by Stripe, Inc. We do not store your full card number, CVV, or expiry date.
2.5 Usage and technical data
We automatically collect: IP addresses, device identifiers, browser type, operating system, pages visited, feature usage, session metadata, and access logs. This data is used for security, fraud prevention, and service improvement. Questions you ask Beacon, our guidance assistant, are kept to improve Beacon. They are deleted when you close your account.
2.6 Communications
When you contact us via email or the in-app support form, we retain the content of your communications and your contact details to respond and to maintain a record of the interaction.
2.7 Certifying Authority rosters and staff
A Certifying Authority may list you on its roster of authorised surveyors, with your contact and professional details. The roster is the authority's record, and it stays with the authority if you close your Marine Inspect account. If you work for a Certifying Authority, we hold your account details and the actions you take in scrutiny, which form part of the authority's record.
2.8 Vessel owners signing a declaration
When a surveyor asks a vessel owner or managing agent to sign an owner's declaration, we record the name, company and position entered, the email address the form was sent to, the time and the IP address, as evidence of the signature. The signed form shows the name, company and position, and goes to the surveyor and to the Certifying Authority. These details form part of the surveyor's survey record, as section 6 explains.
2.9 Surveyor directory
Marine Inspect keeps a public directory of independent marine surveyors at marine-inspect.co.uk/surveyors. It helps boat owners find a surveyor for their area and their kind of boat.
What a listing shows. A surveyor's name, firm and the town they are based in, with a pin on a map that shows the area to within about 2 km and never an address. A listing can also show the regions they cover, their qualifications, the surveys they offer, the boats and hull materials they work on, the year they started and a short description. Their email address, phone numbers and website are shown to a visitor one listing at a time, after a check that confirms the visitor is a person. A listing never shows professional body memberships, or whether the surveyor uses Marine Inspect.
Where the details come from. We added the first listings from publicly available sources on the internet, including the public listings of professional marine surveying bodies. A surveyor can also apply to be listed.
Our lawful basis. We list the surveyors we add on the basis of our legitimate interests in helping boat owners find independent surveyors. We email each of them to say what their listing shows, where the details came from, and how to correct or remove it. A surveyor who applies is listed with their consent.
Applications. An applicant names one professional body membership, or their professional indemnity insurer, as evidence. We use it only to check the application, and we delete it with the application when we decide. It never appears on a listing.
Keeping a listing up to date. A listed surveyor can claim their listing with a free Marine Inspect account, then correct it from their account whenever they like. They claim it through the personal link we email them, or from Settings in an account that already holds the listing's email address. If the account does not hold that address, we first send a 6-digit code to the address on the listing, so a listing joins only the account of someone who can read its email. A surveyor who applies from their account, with an email address the account has confirmed, has the listing join that account when we approve it. We email the listing's address whenever it joins an account. We record which account manages each listing, and never show it on the directory. A surveyor can also ask us to correct their listing by writing to support@marine-inspect.co.uk.
Removing a listing. A listed surveyor can remove their listing at any time: through the personal link we email them while no account manages it, from their account once one does, or by writing to support@marine-inspect.co.uk. This is also how to object to being listed. Closing the Marine Inspect account that manages a listing removes the listing too. We may also pause or remove any listing at any time, for example when its details look wrong. Removal takes effect straight away. We then keep only a coded marker, made from the email address and from the name and town, so that we never add the person again. The marker cannot be turned back into those details.
Feedback about a listing. A visitor can send us private feedback about their experience with a listed surveyor, with an email address if they would like a reply. Feedback is never published. If we pass it on to the surveyor, we never name the visitor.
Visitors. Searching the directory needs no account. A visitor who shares their location has it rounded in their browser to about 2 km before it is used, and we never store it. A town a visitor types is looked up on our own servers, in place data we hold ourselves.
How long we keep it. A listing stays up until the surveyor removes it, or we do. A removed listing is deleted at once, with any feedback about it. Feedback is deleted 24 months after we decide on it. An application that is never confirmed is deleted after 7 days, and every other application is deleted when we decide on it.
2.10 Boat owner accounts
If you create a boat owner account, we are the controller of the information you give us.
- What we hold: your name and email address; where your boat is kept, rounded to about 2 km, and how far to search; the kind of boat and survey you told us about; the surveyors you save, your notes and the dates you contacted them; the notes and dates you keep about a saved surveyor who has left the directory; which surveyors' contact details you opened today, with running totals and the last day you went past the daily allowance; and when you accepted the Boat Owner Terms.
- Why, and on what basis: to provide the account you asked for (contract). We record which surveyors' contact details you open today, and keep running totals, to protect the surveyors we list from collection of their details (legitimate interests). The list of surveyors is kept for the current day only.
- Who sees it: you, and our team. To run the service and protect the surveyors listed, our team can see your account details, your search, the surveyors you saved and how many contact details you have opened. Nobody but you sees your notes. Surveyors never see your shortlist. Our sub-processors in section 4 host it.
- How long: until you delete your account. We keep the record of your acceptance of the Boat Owner Terms as section 7 sets out.
- Marketing: we send marketing emails only to boat owners who have chosen to receive them.
- Your rights: section 9 applies. You can download your data from your account page on the website. You can delete your account there or in the app.
3. How We Use Your Data and Our Lawful Basis
| Purpose | Lawful basis (UK GDPR Art. 6) |
|---|---|
| Creating and managing your account | Performance of a contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) |
| Providing the Service (survey tools, report generation, storage) | Performance of a contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) |
| Processing payments and managing subscriptions | Performance of a contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) |
| Sending transactional emails (account notices, payment receipts) | Performance of a contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) |
| Security monitoring, fraud prevention, and abuse detection | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) |
| Maintaining access logs and audit trails | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) / Legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c)) |
| Maintaining report verification records (surveyor name, vessel, hashes, approval timestamp, email) | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) — establishment/exercise/defence of legal claims (Art. 17(3)(e)) |
| Retaining financial records | Legal obligation — Companies Act 2006 (Art. 6(1)(c)) |
| Responding to support requests | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) |
| Improving the Service | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) |
| Creating anonymised data to run, improve and develop our products and services | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) |
| Investigating and fixing operational issues | Performance of a contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) / Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) |
| Listing independent surveyors in the surveyor directory, and telling each one | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) |
| Listing surveyors who apply to the surveyor directory, and checking their application | Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)) |
| Reviewing private feedback about a directory listing | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) |
| Provide a boat owner account | Contract |
| Record how many surveyors' contact details an account opens each day | Legitimate interests (protecting the surveyors listed) |
We do not use your personal data for automated decision-making or profiling that produces legal or similarly significant effects.
4. Sub-processors
To deliver the Service, we share data with the following third-party sub-processors. Each is bound by appropriate data processing agreements and provides adequate safeguards for your data.
| Sub-processor | Role | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Stripe, Inc. | Payment processing | USA (SCCs / UK IDTA) |
| Amazon Web Services (AWS) | Cloud infrastructure, database, and file storage | UK (eu-west-2, London) |
| Clerk, Inc. | User authentication and identity management | USA (SCCs / UK IDTA) |
| Anthropic, PBC | AI-assisted report generation and Beacon, our guidance assistant (processes survey content you submit for a report, and the questions you ask Beacon) | USA (SCCs / UK IDTA) |
| PostHog, Inc. | Product analytics and usage tracking | Germany, EU (Frankfurt) — EEA (UK IDTA / SCCs) |
| Functional Software, Inc. (Sentry) | Crash reporting for the mobile application | Germany, EU (UK IDTA / SCCs) |
| Cloudflare, Inc. | Turnstile, the check that a visitor is a person, on the surveyor directory's contact details, feedback, application and new-link forms, on report verification and on promotional sign-up (receives the visitor's browser details and IP address) | USA (SCCs / UK IDTA) |
SCCs = Standard Contractual Clauses. UK IDTA = UK International Data Transfer Agreement. These mechanisms ensure lawful transfer of personal data to countries outside the UK/EEA under UK GDPR.
We will notify you of any material changes to sub-processors. An up-to-date list is always available at this page.
5. International Data Transfers
Your core account data and survey data are stored on AWS infrastructure in the eu-west-2 (London) region. Some sub-processors (Stripe, Clerk, Anthropic, and Cloudflare) are based in the United States. Data transfers to these providers are covered by UK-approved Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) or the UK International Data Transfer Agreement (IDTA), ensuring your data receives adequate protection. Usage analytics events (page views, feature interactions) are transmitted to PostHog, Inc. and stored in the EU (Frankfurt, Germany). This transfer is covered by the UK International Data Transfer Agreement (IDTA). PostHog does not receive survey content. It receives interaction events, such as page URLs and feature clicks, linked to your account. Crash reports from the mobile application are sent to Sentry and stored in the EU. They carry no account identity.
6. Your Clients' Data — Your Responsibilities
When you use the Service to process personal data belonging to third parties (such as vessel owners or clients), you are the data controller for that data under UK GDPR. Near Max Ltd acts as your data processor. This means:
- You must have a lawful basis for collecting and storing your clients' personal data.
- You must provide appropriate privacy notices to your clients.
- You are responsible for responding to data subject requests from your clients.
When you send a Coding Survey to a Certifying Authority, the authority is responsible for its own copy.
A Data Processing Agreement (DPA) governing this relationship, as required by UK GDPR Art. 28, is available at marine-inspect.co.uk/dpa and is incorporated into the Terms & Conditions by reference.
7. Data Retention
| Data type | Retention period |
|---|---|
| Account data (profile, billing, credentials) | Deleted promptly on account closure |
| Survey and inspection records | 7 years from the date of each survey, with owner contact details and location removed (see note below) |
| Coding Surveys with an approved Documentation of Compliance | Kept whole for 7 years from the date of each survey (see note below) |
| Coding Surveys sent to a Certifying Authority and not withdrawn | Kept whole for the authority until its agreement with us ends, then returned to it and deleted |
| Report verification records | 7 years from the date of report approval (retained independently of account status; see note below) |
| Financial and transaction records | 7 years (Companies Act 2006) |
| Terms acceptance records | Duration of account + 6 years after closure |
| Access logs and audit trails | As long as necessary for security and legal compliance (minimum 12 months) |
| Support messages sent through the app | Deleted when you close your account |
| Email correspondence with our support team, including a copy of each message sent through the app | 3 years from the last interaction |
| Certifying Authority roster and submission records | As long as the authority keeps its account with us |
| Beacon questions | Deleted when you close your account |
| Surveyor directory listings | Until the surveyor removes their listing, or we do. A removed listing is deleted at once, leaving only a coded marker so the person is never added again |
| Surveyor directory applications | Deleted when we decide on them. An application that is never confirmed is deleted after 7 days |
| Feedback about a directory listing | Deleted 24 months after we decide on it, or at once when the listing is removed |
| Boat owner profile, shortlist, notes and the notes kept about a surveyor who left | Until the account is deleted |
| Contact details opened | Today's list until midnight; totals and the last day past the allowance until the account is deleted |
Note on payment processor records: On account deletion, your Stripe customer profile (including email address and stored payment methods) is deleted. Transaction records (charges, invoices, and payment history) are retained by Stripe for statutory accounting purposes in accordance with the Companies Act 2006. Near Max Ltd's obligation to retain financial records relates to these transaction records, not to your personal contact details.
Note on survey records: When you delete your account, your login, profile, contact details and company data are deleted. Survey and inspection records are kept for up to 7 years with owner contact details and survey location removed, because marine survey reports may be relied upon in legal proceedings, professional liability claims or regulatory matters years after the inspection. Coding Surveys with an approved Documentation of Compliance are kept whole, because a Certifying Authority may rely on them. That includes owner details, and your professional details and signature as they appear on them. This retention is based on Near Max Ltd's legal obligations and legitimate interests under UK GDPR Art. 17(3)(b) and (e) and cannot be waived on request. The table above sets out how long each kind of record is kept.
Note on report verification records: When you approve a report in Marine Inspect, the platform creates a separate verification record containing: your professional name, the vessel name and type, the survey date, cryptographic hashes of the survey and report, the approval timestamp, and your email address (used as an identity check in the public verification lookup). For a Documentation of Compliance the record also holds the vessel's area category and use type, the Certifying Authority named on it, the certification recommendation and the number of deficiencies. Where a Certifying Authority approves a later version, the record notes which version superseded it and when. This record is held by Near Max Ltd in its capacity as data controller — it is not survey content and is not part of the survey record described above. Verification records are retained for 7 years from the date of report approval. They persist even if you close your account, because reports you approved may already have been relied upon professionally, and any loss adjuster or insurer must be able to verify them independently. This retention is based on Near Max Ltd's legitimate interests and legal obligations under UK GDPR Art. 6(1)(f) and Art. 17(3)(e) (establishment, exercise, or defence of legal claims). Verification records cannot be deleted on request. Your email address is held solely as a second-factor identity check and is not disclosed to third parties querying the verification system — it is used only to confirm that the person making the verification request knows the surveyor's professional contact details.
8. Cookies
The Marine Inspect web portal uses only the following cookies:
- Session and authentication cookies — set by our authentication provider to maintain your logged-in session. These are strictly necessary for the Service to function.
- Terms acceptance cookie — a first-party cookie that records whether you have accepted the current version of our Terms, to avoid redirecting you on every page load.
We also use PostHog for product analytics. PostHog sets one first-party cookie (ph_*_posthog, 365-day expiry) and uses browser localStorage to record anonymous usage events (page views, feature interactions). Your account ID, name and email address are sent with these events so we can associate usage patterns with an account. No survey content is sent to PostHog. No advertising or third-party tracking cookies are used. Under UK PECR, analytics cookies require consent unless they are strictly necessary; by continuing to use the Service you consent to this analytics cookie.
9. Your Rights
Under UK GDPR, you have the following rights in respect of your personal data held by Near Max Ltd:
- Right of access — request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
- Right to rectification — request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data.
- Right to erasure — request deletion of your personal data (subject to legal retention obligations).
- Right to data portability — request your data in a structured, machine-readable format.
- Right to restriction — request that we restrict processing of your data in certain circumstances.
- Right to object — object to processing based on legitimate interests.
To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at support@marine-inspect.co.uk. We will respond within one calendar month as required by UK GDPR. We may need to verify your identity before processing your request.
Note: deletion of your account and export of your data are also available directly through your account Settings page.
10. Right to Complain
If you believe we have not handled your personal data in accordance with UK GDPR, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO):
- Website: ico.org.uk
- Telephone: 0303 123 1113
- Post: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF
We would appreciate the opportunity to address your concerns before you contact the ICO, so please reach out to us first.
11. Security
We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against unauthorised access, loss, or destruction. These include: encrypted data storage and transmission (TLS), access controls, activity logging and monitoring, and regular security reviews. However, no internet transmission is completely secure and we cannot guarantee absolute security.
12. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of material changes by bumping the Terms & Conditions version, which triggers the in-app re-acceptance flow for all users. The current version is always available at this page.
Questions about this Privacy Policy? Contact us at support@marine-inspect.co.uk