Privacy Policy

Who we are

The data controller is the Ukrainian Seafarers' Trade Union of Odessa (USTU), 1 Kulykove Pole Sq., 65079, Odesa, Ukraine.

Data contact: ustuod@ukr.net, phone +380 95 002 12 68.

What data we collect

Through the site's forms we collect only what you send us:

• Join form (seafarer): name, contact (email or phone), vessel name, message.

• Enquiry form (shipowner): company name, email, role, vessel flags, message.

• Confidential report form: issue type, description and, optionally, a contact. An anonymous mode is available — then no contact is collected.

• Analytics: if you consent, Google Analytics collects anonymised visit statistics with an anonymised IP address. Nothing loads before consent.

Why and on what basis

We process enquiries and membership requests to reply and provide union support — on the basis of your consent and our legitimate interest as a trade union in handling enquiries (Art. 6 GDPR).

Analytics is processed solely on the basis of your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.

Business contacts and correspondence

If we write to your company about cooperation, we use business contact details that the company has published itself — on its website or in public maritime directories (usually a general address such as info@ or crewing@).

We process them on the basis of our legitimate interest in establishing cooperation with shipowners and ship managers (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). We keep only the company name, the address we wrote to, where we found it, and our correspondence.

If you do not wish to hear from us, reply to our email or write to ustuod@ukr.net. We will stop at once and add the address to our do-not-contact list, which we keep only to make sure we never write again.

If no cooperation follows, we delete the contact details within 24 months of our last exchange.

Who we share data with

We do not sell data and show no ads. Data is processed only by our technical providers:

• Resend — delivering form emails.

• Vercel — website hosting and temporary storage of enquiries.

• Google Analytics — anonymised statistics (only with consent).

• Google (Gmail) and ukr.net — email services for our business correspondence.

Online assistant

Questions you ask the USTU online assistant are processed to generate an answer.

The text of your question is sent to our technical processor OpenRouter and the selected language model (currently a Google model), without your name or contact details.

We keep a record of the conversation with a hashed value of your IP address (not the IP address itself) for up to 90 days, for quality and security purposes.

Your chat history is stored only in your browser (on your device), expires automatically after 30 days, and can be removed at any time with the "Clear chat" button.

Do not enter personal data in the chat. For a confidential enquiry, use the form at /en/report.

How long we keep it

Enquiry data is kept only as long as needed to handle your matter and the union relationship, then deleted or anonymised.

Analytics statistics are retained by Google under its own terms.

Your rights

You have the right to access, rectify, erase, restrict or object to the processing of your data, and to data portability.

To exercise these rights, email ustuod@ukr.net.

Cookies and analytics

Necessary technical storage is required for the site to work and only stores your consent choice.

Analytics cookies (Google Analytics) are enabled only after you press “Accept” in the banner.

You can withdraw consent any time via the “Cookie settings” link at the bottom of the site, or in your browser settings.

Contact

Privacy questions: ustuod@ukr.net, phone +380 95 002 12 68.

Policy updates

We may update this policy. The current version is always on this page, dated at the bottom.