G.D.P.R

The use of names on the website.

ADLS members were recently contacted by email concerning the updated data protection rules (GDPR)

This raised a number of questions (and a lively discussion) concerning how and why we record and retain 'names'.

If you read through the boat histories it is clear that although the names of the vessels are vital, the names of crew members and owners are also. It would be impossible for example to separate 'Lightoller' from 'Sundowner' ... or 'Baxter' from 'L'Orage' and why should we?

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Many of these vessels continue to be 'historic' not least because of the part they played in Operations Dynamo, Cycle and Aerial.

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We are now being asked to manage the way that we use personal details - decisions exist when it comes to including even simple things like the names of 'owners' and the whereabouts of individual boats because they can easily then be used to track down not just the boats, but also the individuals concerned. Most of us feel it is a nice touch to include such details, but is it really necessary?

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In the last few weeks for instance a boat record was updated to include both the vessels (new) home port and the surname of the current owner. A few days later the owners were delighted to have contact from ex-owners, thousands of miles away. The ex-custodians were tenacious and cared enough to contact both the home port (by phone) and the ADLS (via email) in order to pass on both stories and memorabilia. It could be argued that this is the very reason that the website exists....but.... not everybody may want this - nor unfortunately can we rely on every such enquiry being welcome.

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If you have time, please check the individual entries for your own particular vessels. If you are concerned that the facts contained are too specific (or even too vague), please let us know.