BLUF Privacy

Version: en-2, 12 October 2021

BLUF Privacy Policy, 2021-en

BLUF Ltd, the company that operates BLUF.com, stores and processes your personal data. We are based in the UK, but with regard to the privacy of user data, we aim to comply with best standards, and share as little data as possible. In particular, we aim to ensure ongoing compliance with European Union data protection laws, including, but not limited to, the General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR").

This document explains the information we store and process; you must consent to it to remain a member of BLUF.com. We reserve the right to amend this policy from time to time.

If you do not consent to it, your profile will be removed from BLUF.com and your data will be irrevocably deleted. Your consent to these terms provides the legal basis on which we store and process your data.

If you are not a member of BLUF.com

Your email address will be stored if you request a subscription to one of our mailing lists, along with your IP address and the date on which you requested a subscription. Your address will be used to send you the information you requested, and bi-monthly reminders of how to change your subscriptions. If you unsubscribe, your data will be deleted within two months.

Data that we store and process on BLUF.com if you are a member

This is the information that we store about you, and how it is processed to provide the functionality of the BLUF.com website (“site”) and apps.

Your email address is used to help identify your BLUF.com account and to send you notifications about your account, or other email messages that you have chosen to receive.
Your profile text, tags, the locations you enter and other data that makes up your profile, such as club memberships, is stored and used to display your profile to other members, and to allow other members to search for profiles.
Your photos are stored in order that they may be displayed to other members alongside your profile details, or in lists of members (for example "Online now").
Messages you send to, and receive from, other members, or post in the BLUF forum or database are stored on our servers.
A record of updates to your account (including, but not limited to, travel plans, change of name, new photos added) is stored to enable the display of member activity ("Today on BLUF") and lists of members with recent updates.
A record of profiles you have visited is kept to enable you to view your history of profile views, and so that we can tell other members when you viewed their profile.
Your preferences are stored, to enable us to display the site in your preferred language, as well as other options, such as the number of members to display per page, the site colour scheme, order of displaying members and so on.
Your login, logout and last activity times for each session are stored in our database, to enable session management (for example, logging you off if you leave your computer).
The IP address from which you connect to BLUF.com may be stored, as part of our security checks.
The type of computer or software you use to connect to BLUF.com may be stored, and used to help us ensure the site and/or apps are compatible with as many devices as possible, or to display information in the manner best suited to your device (including, but not limited to, automatically selecting a language for you, based on information supplied by your device).
Your mobile phone number, if you give it to us, will be stored and used only for the purpose of allowing you to recover your account.
Other information may be stored and processed to provide the functions of the BLUF site and apps, for example, indicating if you are the author of an article, or are entitled to a BLUF card, or if you have given an app on one of your mobile devices permission to access BLUF.com.
If you have administrative privileges on BLUF.com, additional information will be stored to create an audit trail of administrative actions you have taken, such as editing event information, publishing a blog or magazine article, or sending a mailshot.

Identity information

In the event that we need to verify your identification (for example, if we are required to by law), we partner with Stripe to perform ID checks. No scans, images, or identifying information regarding your ID documents are retained. We store only a record of your date of birth, and that your information has been verified. This record will be destroyed immediately, if your profile is deleted.

Cookies and tracking

We use cookies in order to keep track of who's logged in to the site. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies, and to allow you to choose a language when you are not logged in. We do not use any third party tracking or analytics services.

Data that we share

BLUF.com does not share your personal data with any other third party or service, outside BLUF.com or BLUF Ltd, save for the following exceptions:

To send you emails, our email service provider Postmark receives your email address.
When you make a payment via Stripe or Paypal, we share your BLUF number as part of the transaction details, to enable us to record payments to your account.
If you register your mobile phone number for account recovery purposes, our delivery partner will receive your number in order to deliver SMS messages, so you can recover your account.
If you use a BLUF app for iPhone or Android, a unique identifier for your mobile device will be shared with Google in order to send you notifications.
If a complaint is made by you, or by another member or by an authorised legal representative, regarding your BLUF account, BLUF.com reserves the right to use some or all of your personal data to determine our response to the complaint, but we will not share it with another third party or service unless absolutely necessary, and will always aim to share the minimum amount of data possible.
If we receive a complaint from a law enforcement agency, we will comply with any and all warrants to share your personal data with that mandated law enforcement agency.

Data retention policy

This section explains how long we keep your data:

Profile, preferences, account information, donation records, your notes, viewing history and photos are kept in our database until your profile is deleted. Your profile information includes social media links, details of club and BLUF local memberships. Your account information includes your subscriptions to BLUF mailing lists and message groups.
Messages are irrevocably deleted one year after they were created, if both sender and receiver have marked them as trash. If either sender or receiver has archived them, they are retained indefinitely. If sender or receiver profile is deleted, associated messages are marked as trash and will be irrevocably deleted automatically as outlined above.
Photo messages that have been marked as trash are irrevocably deleted ninety (“90”) days after they were created;
Session information (when you logged in or out, what browser you used, and in some circumstances your IP address) is retained for 90 days, after which time it is irrevocably deleted;
Locations and Travel plans are deleted ninety-one (“91”) days after the location update or the departure date of the Travel Plan;
Member updates (records of when you added new photos, posted in a forum, and so on) are deleted after one year.
On deletion of your profile, all your data will be irrevocably deleted after 60 days, with the exception of records of donations, which BLUF.com reserves the right to retain for accounting and tax purposes.

Registration and contacts

BLUF Ltd is registered as a data controller with the Information Commissioner's Office in the UK. Our Data Protection Officer can be emailed via dpo@bluf.ltd.uk Our nominated EU representative, under Art. 27 of the GDPR, is Nigel Whitfield OÜ, Sakala tn 7-2, Tallinn, Estonia, bluf-gdpr@nigelwhitfield.eu

BLUF Rules

If you are a member of BLUF.com then by accepting these new terms and conditions, you also agree to abide by the BLUF.com rules for members.