Privacy policy

Who is responsible for your data

For your own account and billing details, we are the data controller. For the operational data you put into the system — your vessels, certificates, drills, maintenance, incidents, and any crew details you enter — you are the controller and we are your processor: we hold and process that information on your instructions, to run the service for you.

What we collect

• Account details — your name, email, and password (stored only as a secure hash).
• Your SMS content — vessel details, certificates and their scans, risk assessments, drills, maintenance records, incidents, policies, and photos you upload.
• Crew details you enter — names, roles and any certificates you record against your crew. You’re responsible for having a basis to enter this; we process it to provide the service to you.
• Billing — if you take a paid plan, your card details are handled by our payment provider and are never stored on our systems.
• Technical data — basic logs needed to run and secure the service (e.g. IP address, timestamps, error diagnostics).

Why we use it (our legal bases)

• To provide the service you’ve signed up for (performance of a contract).
• To keep it secure and working, and to improve it (our legitimate interests, balanced against your rights).
• To meet our own legal obligations (for example, tax and accounting records).

Nova (our AI) and your data

Nova retrieves and cites the Workboat Code and helps you organise your records. It never makes a compliance decision — that stays with you and your surveyor. When Nova answers a question, the relevant text is sent to our AI provider to generate the reply. We do not sell your data, and your content is not used to train third-party AI models.

Who we share it with

We don’t sell your data or share it for advertising. We use a small number of trusted suppliers (sub-processors) purely to run the service, each under a data-processing agreement:

• Cloud hosting and file storage (to run the app and store your uploads).
• Email delivery (for account and notification emails).
• Our AI provider (to power Nova, as above).
• A payment provider (only if you’re on a paid plan).

We may also disclose data if the law requires it. If we ever change who processes your data, we’ll keep this page up to date.

Where it’s kept, and for how long

Your data is stored on secure servers, protected by encryption in transit and access controls. We keep your data for as long as your account is active. If you close your account, we delete or anonymise your data within a reasonable period, except where we must keep certain records to meet a legal obligation. You can export your records at any time.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you can ask to access, correct, delete, or receive a copy of your personal data, and you can object to or restrict certain processing. To exercise any of these, contact us (below). You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk — though we’d appreciate the chance to put things right first.

Cookies and analytics

In the app itself we keep cookies to a minimum — the ones we use are essential to sign you in and keep the service working.

On this website we also use two analytics tools to understand how the site is used and improve it: Google Analytics 4 (anonymised usage — pages viewed, where visitors came from, broad device type) and Microsoft Clarity (anonymised session recordings and heatmaps; Clarity masks text and form inputs by default). Neither is used for advertising, and we don’t sell this data.

These run only if you accept the cookie banner — nothing analytics-related loads until you choose, and the site works exactly the same if you decline. To change your mind later, clear this site’s cookies in your browser and you’ll be asked again. We don’t use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

Contact us

Questions about your data, or want to exercise a right? Email info@smsystems.uk. SMS Workboat is operated by Smart Maintenance Systems Ltd, Unit 2b Nancegollan Industrial Estate, Nancegollan, Helston, England, TR13 0BN, company number 16459454.