Privacy Policy: Data Collection and User Rights

Overview

YSATT provides maritime-focused information for visitors interested in destinations, boatyard services, cruising safety, regulations, environmental programs, and association resources. People use the site in practical ways: checking a clearance note before a passage, finding a local service contact, or reading up before speaking with a harbor office.

This Privacy Policy exists because even a straightforward information site creates records. A page request may create a server log. A contact form creates a message. A newsletter or research subscription creates a record of the address used to receive updates.

We keep this policy plain so readers can see the route their information takes. If you have a privacy question that is not answered here, please use the Contact page and mark the message as a data-related inquiry.

Data We Collect

Most visitors can read YSATT without giving us a name. Some technical information is still created by normal web traffic, the same way a marina gate log records entry and exit times without asking for a full voyage plan.

We do not ask visitors to submit sensitive personal information through the public site. Please do not place passport numbers, financial account details, medical information, or other sensitive records into general contact fields unless we specifically request them through a secure process.

Cookies and Tracking

Cookies are small browser files used to remember a setting or help a site work correctly. On a marine information site, the common use is modest: keeping a consent choice, measuring whether pages load properly, and helping editors understand which guidance visitors actually reach.

Essential cookies

Essential cookies support site functionality. They may store cookie consent choices, protect forms from abuse, maintain a session, or preserve basic interface settings. Without them, parts of the site may not behave reliably.

Analytics cookies

Analytics cookies may help us understand traffic, page performance, and user behavior in aggregate. For example, we may look at whether visitors find regulatory pages from the main navigation or arrive directly from a search result. This helps us repair weak pages and remove clutter.

Advertising cookies

Advertising cookies are not required to read the site. They may be used in the future if YSATT implements personalized advertising or similar audience-based tools. If that happens, cookie notices and consent choices should reflect the tools in use at that time.

Third-Party Services

YSATT may rely on outside services to operate the site. That does not mean those providers own the relationship with our readers. It does mean some technical data can pass through their systems while they perform a limited function for us.

Analytics providers

Current or future analytics tools may process page views, device information, approximate location derived from IP address, and interaction events. We use analytics to maintain the site and understand which pages need revision.

Advertising networks

If advertising networks are added later, they may use cookies or similar technologies to serve, limit, measure, or personalize ads. We would treat that as a material tracking change and update notices where needed.

CDN and hosting services

Content delivery networks and hosting providers help deliver pages, protect against abuse, and keep the site responsive for readers connecting from different ports, islands, and shore facilities. Their systems may process IP addresses, user agents, timestamps, and security events as part of normal delivery.

Purposes of Processing

We process information for practical site operations, not for collecting data for its own sake. The main purposes are site improvement and maintenance, performance monitoring through analytics, and communication with people who contact or subscribe to YSATT.

• Site improvement and maintenance: We use logs and feedback to fix broken links, improve navigation, investigate outages, and keep public information readable.
• Performance monitoring: Analytics and technical logs help us see whether pages load slowly, whether errors are recurring, and whether high-use resources need clearer placement.
• Contact and communication: Contact form and subscription information lets us reply to messages, send requested updates, manage mailing preferences, and keep records of correspondence.
• Security and abuse prevention: Technical records may help identify spam, automated scraping, form abuse, or traffic patterns that threaten normal site access.

Privacy choices in this setting have limits: some technical records are necessary to deliver a page safely and diagnose faults.

Data Subject Rights

You may ask what personal data we hold about you, request correction, request deletion, or ask us to stop using your information for certain communications. The cleanest route is to send a request through the Contact page from the email address connected to the request.

Access to personal data

You can request a copy or summary of personal information connected to your email address, contact submission, or subscription record. We may need enough information to confirm that the request is legitimate before releasing details.

Deletion on request

You can ask us to delete contact form messages, subscription records, or other personal information where retention is not needed for security, legal, operational, or dispute-related reasons. When deletion is possible, we will remove the relevant record from active systems or schedule it for removal through routine processes.

Tracking opt-out

You can use browser controls, cookie settings, or consent tools to reduce tracking. If you unsubscribe from an email list, we may retain a limited suppression record so the same address is not added again by mistake.

Retention Periods

We keep information only as long as it has a useful operational, communication, security, or compliance purpose. Retention is different for each record type because a server error log, a contact request, and a newsletter subscription do different jobs.

Storage durations

Server logs are generally kept for short operational periods unless needed to investigate security issues, abuse, or persistent faults. Contact messages may be kept while a question, request, or service-related discussion remains active. Subscription records are kept while the subscription is active and for the time needed to manage unsubscribe or suppression preferences.

Deletion routines

Deletion may occur through scheduled cleanup, manual review, account removal, unsubscribe processing, or provider-level retention settings. Backup copies may persist for a limited period after deletion from active systems until backup rotation replaces them.

Policy Changes

We may update this Privacy Policy when site functions, service providers, tracking tools, or legal requirements change. The revised date at the top of the page identifies the current version.

For routine edits, we may update this page directly. For material changes, such as adding a new advertising network or changing how subscription data is used, we may provide a more visible notice on the site or through the affected communication channel.

A routine server log entry can contain four concrete signals before a visitor writes a single message: IP address, user agent, referrer, and timestamp.