Policy Version: 01/12/2025
ASPACE is funded via a UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) grant for the project Marine Spatial Planning Addressing Climate Effects (MSPACE, grant NE/V016725/1), part of the Sustainable Management of Marine Resources programme (UK). ASPACE has also benefitted from funding support from ActNOW (Horizon Europe grant #101060072 and UKRI grant #10042858), and from the AXA Investment Managers Award 2022 to Ana M Queirós. Additional support is provided by NERC grant EQUIFy (NE/Z504099/1) and the NERC / INSITE Industry Consortium grant VALMAS.
The ASPACE platform (website) is provided by Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) (“we”, “our” or “us”). PML is the controller of personal data obtained via the website, meaning we are the organisation legally responsible for deciding how and for what purposes it is used.
We take your privacy very seriously. Please read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on who we are and how and why we collect, store, use and share any information relating to you (your personal data) in connection with your use of our website. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal data and how to contact us or a relevant regulator in the event you have a complaint.
We collect, use and are responsible for certain personal data about you. When we do so we are subject to the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). We are also subject to the EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR) in relation to the service provided by ASPACE in the European Economic Area (EEA).
Given the nature of our website, we do not expect to collect the personal data of anyone under 18 years old. If you are aware that any personal data of anyone under 18 years old has been shared with our website, please let us know so that we can delete that data.
This privacy policy relates to your use of our website only.
The personal data we collect about you depends on the particular activities carried out through our website. We will collect and use the following personal data about you:
You must provide this personal data in order to have an account with ASPACE unless we tell you that you have a choice.
Sometimes you can choose if you want to give us your personal data and let us use it. Where that is the case we will tell you and give you the choice before you give the personal data to us.
We collect and use this personal data for the purposes described in the section “How and why we use your personal data” below.
We collect personal data from you:
Under data protection law, we can only use your personal data if we have a proper reason, e.g.:
A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your personal data, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests. We will carry out an assessment when relying on legitimate interests, to balance our interests against your own. You can obtain details of this assessment by contacting us (see “How to contact us” below).
The table below explains what we use your personal data for and why.
| What we use your personal data for | Our reasons |
|---|---|
| Creating and managing your account with us | For our legitimate interests, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you |
| Providing materials and services to you | To perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract |
| Conducting checks to identify you and verify your identity | For our legitimate interests, to minimise inappropriate use of the website and protect other users. |
| Enforcing legal rights or defend or undertake legal proceedings |
Depending on the circumstances:
|
| Necessary cookies, required for the secure operation of certain site features including uploading and downloading materials are always active. These do not store any personally identifiable data | We do not obtain your consent for our legitimate interests in order to minimise inappropriate use of the website and protect other users. |
| Communications with you not related to marketing, including about changes to our terms or policies or changes to the Website or other important notices |
Depending on the circumstances:
|
| Protecting the security of systems and data used to provide the services | To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. We may also use your personal data to ensure the security of systems and data to a standard that goes beyond our legal obligations, and in those cases our reasons are for our legitimate interests, i.e. to protect systems and data and to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for you and/or us |
| Statistical analysis to help us understand our user base | For our legitimate interests, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service |
| Updating and enhancing user records |
Depending on the circumstances:
|
| Disclosures and other activities necessary to comply with legal and regulatory obligations that apply to our business, e.g. to record and demonstrate evidence of your consents where relevant | To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
| The audit of the ASPACE funding authority (NERC, ESRC, the EU) (to the extent not covered by “activities necessary to comply with legal and regulatory obligations” above) | For our legitimate interests, i.e. to comply with the ASPACE funders obligations so we can demonstrate we operate at the highest standards. |
More details about how we use your personal data and why are set out in the table above.
See “Who we share your personal data with” for further information on the steps we will take to protect your personal data where we need to share it with others.
We routinely share personal data with:
We only allow those organisations to handle your personal data if we are satisfied they take appropriate measures to protect your personal data. We also ensure contractual obligations are imposed on them to ensure they can only use your personal data to provide services to us and to you.
We or the third parties mentioned above occasionally also share personal data with:
If you would like more information about who we share our data with and why, please contact us (see “How to contact us” below).
We will not keep your personal data for longer than we need it for the purpose for which it is used.
| Purpose | Processing operation | Lawful basis relied on under UK GDPR and EU GDPR | Relevant categories of personal data |
|---|---|---|---|
| Communications with you not related to marketing, including about changes to our terms or policies or changes to the products or other important notices | Addressing and sending communications to you as required by data protection laws, i.e. the UK GDPR or Data Protection Act 2018 | Processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject (Article 6(1)(b)) | Your email address, organisation name and country of residence |
If you stop using your account we will delete or anonymise your account data after seven years.
Following the end of the relevant retention period, we will delete or anonymise your personal data.
The EEA, UK and other countries outside the EEA and the UK have differing data protection laws, some of which may provide lower levels of protection of privacy.
It is sometimes necessary for us to transfer your personal data to countries outside the UK and EEA. In those cases we will comply with applicable UK and EEA laws designed to ensure the privacy of your personal data.
As we are based in the UK we may also transfer your personal data from the EEA to the UK.
Under data protection laws, we can only transfer personal data to a country outside the UK/EEA where:
If you would like further information about data transferred outside the UK/EEA, please contact us or our Data Protection Officer (see “How to contact us” below).
A cookie is a small text file which is placed onto your device (e.g. computer, smartphone or other electronic device) when you use our website. We only use necessary cookies on our website, which we define as cookies that are essential to the secure operation of the website. These are required for the secure operation of certain site features including uploading and downloading materials.
The cookies we use do not contain personally identifiable information. You may choose to disable these cookies by adjusting your browser settings but this will impact certain site functionalities.
You generally have the following rights, which you can usually exercise free of charge-see table below. For further information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they do and do not apply, please contact us (see “How to contact us” below).
| Access to a copy of your personal data | The right to be provided with a copy of your personal data |
|---|---|
| Correction (also known as rectification) | The right to require us to correct any mistakes in your personal data |
| Erasure (also known as the right to be forgotten) | The right to require us to delete your personal data-in certain situations |
| Restriction of use | The right to require us to restrict use of your personal data in certain circumstances, e.g. if you contest the accuracy of the data |
| Data portability | The right to receive the personal data you provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and/or transmit that data to a third party-in certain situations |
| To object to use |
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| Not to be subject to decisions without human involvement |
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| The right to withdraw consents |
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If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please email, call or write to us-see below: “How to contact us”. When contacting us please:
We have appropriate security measures to prevent personal data from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed unlawfully. We limit access to your personal data to those who have a genuine need to access it.
We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.
Please contact us if you have any queries or concerns about our use of your personal data (see below “How to contact us”). We hope we will be able to resolve any issues you may have.
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with:
We may change this privacy policy from time to time-when we make significant changes we will take steps to inform you, for example via email.
You can contact us and/or our Data Protection Officer by post, email or telephone if you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you, to exercise a right under data protection law or to make a complaint.
| Our contact details | Our Data Protection Officer’s contact details |
|---|---|
|
Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Prospect Place, Plymouth, PL1 3DH +44 (0)1752 633 100 |
Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Prospect Place, Plymouth, PL1 3DH legal@pml.ac.uk +44 (0)1752 633 100 |