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GCAQE & GCARS Privacy Policy

1.      Introduction

1.1   We are committed to safeguarding the privacy of users of the Global Cabin Air Quality Executive (GCAQE) website (https://www.gcaqe.org/) and the Global Cabin Air Reporting System (GCARs) app (https://gcars.app/); in this policy we explain how we will treat your personal information.

 

1.2   If you are under 18 years of age, you must not disclose to us any of your personal information.

 

1.3   You must not disclose to us any personal information of another person.

 

2.      Your personal information

 

2.1   In this Section we have set out:

(a)   details of the personal information that we collect;

 

(b)   the methods by which that information is collected (where non-obvious);

 

(c)    the purposes for which we may use that information; and

 

(d)   the legal basis of the processing.

 

2.2   We will collect and use any information about that you submit when completing a questionnaire using our app ("questionnaire information"). You acknowledge that this may include sensitive information, for instance medical information about you. We may use your questionnaire information in various ways.

 

(a)   We will use the questionnaire information for the purposes of scientific research. This will include providing non-identifying questionnaire information to third party research organisations.

 

(b)   If you provide an additional consent, we will provide your questionnaire information to your union and/or your Member of Parliament or other political representative.

 

(c)    We may use any contact details that you supply to us to communicate with you for the purposes of obtaining additional information relating to your report.

 

(d)   We may use your questionnaire information when contacting you, where we wish to bring to your attention possible risks to your health.

 

(e)   We will publish the non-identifying data derived from your questionnaire information and listed in Annex A to this policy. This does not constitute personal data.

        The legal basis for all the processing of your personal data referred to in this Section 2.2 is your explicit consent.

 

2.3   We may collect and use information about your device and about your use of the app and website ("usage information"). The usage information may include including your IP address, geographical location, browser type and version, operating system, referral source, length of visit, page views and navigation paths. The source of the usage information is our web server's user tracking system. We will use this information for the purposes of monitoring the use of the app and website and to keep our app and website secure and prevent fraud. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely our interest in properly and securely administering the app, the website and our services generally.

 

2.4   We may process personal information contained in any other communication that you submit to us regarding the app or website, including enquiries made using our website contact form, and in communications that we send to you ("communications information"). The communications information may be processed for the purposes of communicating with you and keeping records of communications. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely our interest in properly and securely administering the app, the website and our services generally.

 

3.      Disclosing personal information

 

3.1   Access to your questionnaire information is strictly limited during our standard operations. The only persons who have technical access to your personal data comprised in questionnaire information are the GCARS Administrator, the GCAQE Head of Research and GCAQE Chairman.

 

3.2   In addition to those disclosures referred to elsewhere in this policy, we may disclose your personal information: 

 

(a)   to the extent that we are required to do so by law;

 

(b)   in connection with any ongoing or prospective legal proceedings;

 

(c)    in order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights (including providing information to others for the purposes of fraud prevention and reducing credit risk); and

 

(d)   to any person who we reasonably believe may apply to a court or other competent authority for disclosure of that personal information where, in our reasonable opinion, such court or authority would be reasonably likely to order disclosure of that personal information.

 

3.3   Except as provided in this policy, we will not provide your personal information to third parties.

 

4.      International data transfers

 

4.1   You consent to us sending your personal information to you via email, which you acknowledge may involve the international transfer of your personal information.

 

4.2   Subject to Section 4.1, your personal information that we collect will be stored on our servers within the UK or in the EEA and will not be transferred outside the UK and EEA.

 

5.      Retaining personal information

 

5.1   This Section sets out our data retention policies and procedure, which are designed to help ensure that we comply with our legal obligations in relation to the retention and deletion of personal information.

 

5.2   Personal information that we process for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes.

 

5.3   Without prejudice to Section 5.2, we will usually delete personal data falling within the categories set out below at the date/time set out below:

 

(a)   usage information will be deleted not more than 36 months following collection; and

 

(b)   questionnaire information and communications information will be deleted between 6 and 7 years following collection (although questionnaire information may be retained in anonymised form indefinitely, for so long as it may be useful for scientific research purposes).

 

5.4   Notwithstanding the other provisions of this Section, we will retain documents (including electronic documents) containing personal data: 

 

(a)   to the extent that we are required to do so by law;

 

(b)   if we believe that the documents may be relevant to any ongoing or prospective legal proceedings; and

 

(c)    in order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights (including providing information to others for the purposes of fraud prevention and reducing credit risk).

 

6.      Security of personal information

 

6.1   We will take reasonable technical and organisational precautions to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your personal information.

 

6.2   We will store all the personal information you provide on our secure (password- and firewall-protected) servers.

 

6.3   All communications between our servers and your web browser will be protected by encryption technology; and personally-identifying information (such as your name and contact information) in our database will be stored in encrypted form.

 

6.4   If we provide you with an access code for the app, you are responsible for keeping the access code confidential.

 

6.5   We will from time to time transfer information to third party research organisations, but that data will always be anonymised before transfer.

 

7.      Amendments

 

7.1   We may update this policy from time to time by publishing a new version within our app and on our website.

 

7.2   You should check this page occasionally to ensure you are happy with any changes to this policy.

 

8.      Your rights

 

8.1   In this Section 8, we have listed the rights that you have under data protection law.

 

8.2   Your principal rights under data protection law are:

 

(a)   the right to access - you can ask for copies of your personal data;

 

(b)   the right to rectification - you can ask us to rectify inaccurate personal data and to complete incomplete personal data;

 

(c)    the right to erasure - you can ask us to erase your personal data;

 

(d)   the right to restrict processing - you can ask use to restrict the processing of your personal data;

 

(e)   the right to object to processing - you can object to the processing of your personal data;

 

(f)    the right to data portability - you can ask that we transfer your personal data to another organisation or to you;

 

(g)   the right to complain to a supervisory authority - you can complain about our processing of your personal data; and

 

(h)   the right to withdraw consent - to the extent that the legal basis of our processing of your personal data is consent, you can withdraw that consent.

 

8.3   These rights are subject to certain limitations and exceptions. You can learn more about the rights of data subjects by visiting https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/.

 

8.4   You may exercise any of your rights in relation to your personal data by written notice to us, using the contact details set out below.

 

9.      Updating information

 

9.1    Please let us know if the personal information that we hold about you needs to be corrected or updated.

 

10.     About cookies

 

10.1   A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser and is stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server.

 

10.2    Cookies may be either "persistent" cookies or "session" cookies: a persistent cookie will be stored by a web browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by the user before the expiry date; a session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed.

 

10.3    Cookies do not typically contain any information that personally identifies a user, but personal data that we store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies.

 

11.      Cookies that we use

 

11.1    We may use cookies for the following purposes:

 

(a)   authentication and status - we use cookies to identify you when you visit the GCAQE website and as you navigate the website, and to help us determine if you are logged into the website;

 

(b)   security - we use cookies as an element of the security measures used to protect the website and services generally;

 

(c)    analysis - we use cookies to help us to analyse the use and performance of the website; and

 

(d)   cookie consent - we use cookies to store your preferences in relation to the use of cookies more generally.

 

12.    Google Analytics

 

12.1   We use Google Analytics. Google Analytics gathers information about the use of the GCAQE website by means of cookies. The information gathered is used to create reports about the use of the website. You can find out more about Google's use of information by visiting https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/ and you can review Google's privacy policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy.

 

13.     Managing cookies

 

13.1   Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies and to delete cookies. The methods for doing so vary from browser to browser, and from version to version. You can however obtain up-to-date information about blocking and deleting cookies via these links:

 

(a)   https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95647(Chrome);

 

(b)   https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-and-disable-cookies-website-preferences(Firefox);

 

(c)    https://help.opera.com/en/latest/security-and-privacy/(Opera);

 

(d)   https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/17442/windows-internet-explorer-delete-manage-cookies(Internet Explorer);

 

(e)   https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/safari/manage-cookies-and-website-data-sfri11471/mac(Safari); and

 

(f)    https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10-microsoft-edge-and-privacy(Edge).

 

13.2   Blocking all cookies will have a negative impact upon the usability of many websites.

 

13.3   If you block cookies, you will not be able to use all the features on the website.

 

14.    Our details

 

14.1   The app and website are owned and published by Global Cabin Air Quality Executive, a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee and registered in the United Kingdom (registration number 12023262) with its registered office at 10 Queen Street Place, London, United Kingdom, EC4R 1BE.

 

14.2   Our postal address is at c/o The GCARS Director, Global Cabin Air Quality Executive Ltd, First Floor, 10 Queen Street Place, London, EC4R 1BE

 

14.3   You can contact us:

 

(a)   by post, using the postal address given above;

 

(b)   by email, using the email address published on the GCAQE website; or

 

(c)    using the contact form published on the GCAQE website.

 

Annex 1

 

List of data categories that we may publish

  • Flight number

  • Flight date

  • Time of incident

  • Aircraft registration or tail number

  • Airport of departure

  • Airport of arrival

  • Aircraft manufacturer

  • Aircraft type

  • Airline

  • Country of airline

  • Number of people on board

  • Number of crew on board

  • Number of passengers onboard

  • Phase of flight

  • Estimated duration of incident

  • Were there multiple events on the flight?

  • Evidence of smoke/fumes/smell/odour/fire

  • Location of smoke/fumes/smell/odour/fire

  • If fumes, your description of the fumes such as: acrid, chemical, de-icing, dirty socks, exhaust, electrical, fuel, musty or mouldy, oily/ burning oil, Vomit, wet dog or other

  • Intensity of fumes

  • Duration of fumes

  • Emergency services utilised

  • Emergency evacuation using escape slides

  • If emergency evacuation undertaken, was this on the runway or before arrival at gate?

  • Was an emergency or PAN declared?

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