Datenschutzbestimmungen

This privacy policy explains how Ostsee Link Ferries collects, uses, and protects your personal data when you use our site, this service, or our online platform.

We are committed to protecting your privacy and handling your data transparently and in accordance with applicable data protection laws, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

1. What Personal Data We Collect

We may collect and process various types of personal data about you, depending on your interaction with our service. This includes:

• Identity and Contact Data: Such as your name, address, email address (though we won't use it for communication related to this policy itself as per your request), telephone number (also not used for communication related to this policy), gender, date of birth, nationality.
• Booking and Service Data: Information related to your ferry bookings, including routes, travel dates, passenger names, vehicle details, cabin preferences, special requirements, and onboard service selections.
• Payment Data: Information necessary to process payments for your bookings, such as credit/debit card details (processed securely by payment gateways), billing address.
• Technical Data: Information collected automatically when you use our site, such as your IP address, browser type and version, operating system, referring URL, pages visited, and timings.
• Usage Data: Information about how you use our service, including your navigation patterns and preferences.
• Communication Data: Records of any communication you have with us, although we will not include electronic contact details here for privacy policy contact purposes.

2. How We Collect Your Personal Data

We collect personal data through different methods:

• Direct Interactions: You provide data directly to us when you make a booking, register an account, fill in forms, or communicate with us regarding our services.
• Automated Technologies: As you interact with our site, we may automatically collect Technical and Usage Data using cookies and similar technologies.
• Third Parties: We may receive data from third parties, such as booking agents, payment service providers, and analytics providers.

3. How and Why We Use Your Personal Data

We use your personal data for various purposes, relying on specific legal bases under GDPR:

• To Provide and Manage Your Booking and Our Services (Performance of a Contract): To process your bookings, issue tickets, manage check-in and boarding, facilitate vehicle transport and freight shipping, provide onboard services, and handle related administrative tasks.
• To Process Payments (Performance of a Contract & Legal Obligation): To process transactions securely for services purchased.
• To Communicate with You (Legitimate Interests & Performance of a Contract): To send you service-related information about your booking or respond to your inquiries. (Note: We will not use electronic communication for privacy policy inquiries as per your request).
• To Improve Our Services (Legitimate Interests): To analyse how our site and services are used, troubleshoot issues, perform data analysis, research, statistics, and surveys to enhance our offerings.
• For Safety and Security (Legal Obligation & Legitimate Interests): To ensure the safety and security of passengers, vehicles, vessels, and ports, and to comply with relevant maritime regulations.
• For Marketing Purposes (Consent or Legitimate Interests where permitted): To send you promotional material about our services that may interest you, but only where we have a legal basis to do so. You have the right to object to marketing communications.
• To Comply with Legal Obligations (Legal Obligation): To meet requirements imposed by law enforcement, regulators, or other authorities, such as customs, immigration, and maritime security agencies.
• To Establish, Exercise or Defend Legal Claims (Legitimate Interests): Where necessary for our business interests in protecting our legal rights.

4. Sharing Your Personal Data

We may share your personal data with trusted third parties when necessary for the purposes outlined above. These may include:

• Service Providers: Companies that provide services on our behalf, such as payment processing, IT support, data storage, port handling, and marketing assistance. These providers are contractually bound to protect your data and use it only for specified purposes.
• Port Authorities and Other Governmental Bodies: To comply with legal requirements related to passenger and vehicle manifests, safety regulations, customs, immigration, and border control.
• Other Third Parties: Where required by law, or to protect our rights, property, or safety, or the rights, property, or safety of others.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

5. Data Retention

We will retain your personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. The retention period depends on the type of data and the purpose of processing. For example, booking details may be kept for a certain period after travel for accounting and legal purposes. Technical data may be retained for shorter periods for analysis and security.

6. Your Data Protection Rights

Under data protection law, you have several rights regarding your personal data:

• The Right to Access: You have the right to request copies of your personal data.
• The Right to Rectification: You have the right to request that we correct any information you believe is inaccurate or complete information you believe is incomplete.
• The Right to Erasure (Right to be Forgotten): You have the right to request that we erase your personal data under certain conditions.
• The Right to Restrict Processing: You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data under certain conditions.
• The Right to Object to Processing: You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data under certain conditions, particularly where processing is based on legitimate interests or for direct marketing.
• The Right to Data Portability: You have the right to request that we transfer the data that we have collected to another organization, or directly to you, under certain conditions.
• The Right to Withdraw Consent: Where we process your data based on your consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. This does not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.
• The Right to Lodge a Complaint: You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority if you are concerned about how we are processing your data.

7. Exercising Your Rights

If you wish to make a request to exercise any of your rights, please contact us in writing at the address provided below. We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

8. Data Security

We have implemented appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used, accessed in an unauthorised way, altered, or disclosed. We limit access to your personal data to employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and are subject to a duty of confidentiality. We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

9. Cookies

Our site uses cookies to distinguish you from other users. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our site and also allows us to improve our site. For detailed information on the cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them, please refer to our separate Cookie Policy (if available).

10. Children's Privacy

Our services are not directed at children under the age of 16. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 16 without obtaining prior verifiable parental consent. If we become aware that a child under 16 has provided us with personal data without parental consent, we will take steps to remove such information and terminate the child's account.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. Any changes we make will be posted on this page. We encourage you to review this policy periodically to stay informed about how we are protecting your information.

12. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or our data protection practices, please contact us in writing:

Ostsee Link Ferries
12 Zum Fährterminal,
Rostock, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern,
18112, Germany

This policy is also available in German and Danish.