Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Marine Survey Writer ("we", "us", "our") collects, uses, and shares information about you when you use our web and mobile applications and related services (the "Services"). Marine Survey Writer is a product of Donkey Labs and is operated by Martin Cavey, a Jersey-based sole trader. By using the Services, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

1. Who we are and how to contact us

Data controller: Martin Cavey
Email: [email protected]

2. Information we collect

• Account information — email address and password (stored in hashed form), and your account status.
• Practice information you provide — your name, practice name, address, telephone number, business email, website, qualifications, logo, and report boilerplate (conditions of survey, disclaimers, terms) used to build your reports.
• Survey content you create — vessel details, dictated audio recordings, transcripts, photos, findings, draft reports, and exports. This content may include personal data about third parties (for example your client's name); you are responsible for ensuring you may lawfully record and store that information, and we process it solely to provide the Services to you.
• Usage and device information — device type, operating system, app version, IP address, and diagnostic information used to keep the Services working.
• Communication information — details you provide when contacting us.

3. How we use your information

• Provide and maintain the Services — store and display your surveys, assemble draft reports from your recordings and transcripts, sync across devices, and produce your exports.
• Transcription — your audio recordings are converted to text by speech-recognition software running on our own servers. Your recordings are not sent to any third-party transcription service.
• Automated report drafting — the resulting transcripts are sent to Anthropic (Anthropic PBC, United States), whose Claude model drafts your report from what you dictated. See section 5 for what this means for your data. Your data is not used to train AI models.
• Improve the Services — understand how the product is used so we can fix problems and improve features.
• Communicate with you — administrative messages, responses to enquiries, and (only where you have agreed) product updates. You may opt out of non-essential email at any time.
• Security and legal compliance — prevent unauthorised access and meet our legal obligations.

Under Jersey data protection law we process your personal data only where we have a valid legal basis, such as your consent, performance of a contract with you, compliance with a legal obligation, or our legitimate interests (e.g. improving and securing the Services).

4. How we share your information

We do not sell your personal information. We may share it:

• Hetzner Online GmbH (Germany) — provides the server on which we run our own database and transcription. Your survey text and transcripts are held on that server, which we operate ourselves; Hetzner supplies the hardware and does not process your data for its own purposes.
• Anthropic PBC (United States) — receives the text transcript of your dictation in order to draft your report. Anthropic does not receive your audio recordings or your photographs. Under Anthropic's commercial API terms, inputs and outputs are not used to train their models.
• Cloudflare, Inc. — delivers the website and application, and provides the storage (Cloudflare R2, EU jurisdiction) in which your audio recordings, photographs and our encrypted database backups are held. The storage is private, accessed only through our own server, and Cloudflare does not process your data for its own purposes.
• PayPal — processes subscription and per-report payments. We never receive or store your full card details.
• Resend — sends service emails, such as the notice before your recordings are deleted.
• When you choose to share — the reports and archives you export are yours; where you send or share them is under your control.
• Business transfers — in connection with a merger, sale of assets, or acquisition, subject to confidentiality protections.
• Legal requirements — where required by law or to protect our rights, property, or the safety of our users or the public.

They may process your data only to perform services for us and must protect it appropriately. We do not use advertising networks or analytics that profile you.

5. Transcription and AI drafting — what leaves our servers

Because a survey can contain commercially sensitive information about a vessel, its owner and its condition, it is worth being precise about this.

• Your audio recordings are never sent to any third-party transcription or AI service. They are held in our private storage and transcribed by speech-recognition software running on our own server.
• Your photographs are never sent to any AI service. They are held in our private storage and placed into your report and your archive by your own device.
• The transcript text is sent to Anthropic so that Claude can draft the report in survey register. This is the only content that goes to a third-party AI provider, and it happens only when you tap "Create report" or "Regenerate draft".
• We do not retain your transcripts with Anthropic beyond what is needed to return the draft, and Anthropic's commercial terms do not permit training on API inputs or outputs.

6. International transfers

Your surveys, recordings, photographs and backups are stored in the European Union (Germany). Transcript text is transferred to Anthropic in the United States for report drafting, and Cloudflare and PayPal may process data outside the EU. Where personal data is transferred outside Jersey or the EEA, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as approved standard contractual clauses or adequacy decisions, as required by Jersey law.

7. Data retention and deletion

Everything is kept for as long as your account is entitled — while you have an active subscription (including a cancelled subscription still inside its paid period), unused report credits, or a report-credit purchase within the last 12 months.

When your subscription ends — cancelled or not renewed — your account and all associated data are permanently deleted 14 days after the end of the paid period. That removes everything: surveys, reports, transcripts, recordings and photographs. We email you when the paid period ends and again 7 days before deletion; restarting a plan or buying a report credit before the deletion date keeps the account exactly as it is. The same happens 14 days after the end of the 12-month window following your last report-credit purchase, and 90 days after signup for accounts that never take a plan or credit. On an account without an active plan, recordings and photographs may additionally be removed 30 days after you last work on a survey, ahead of the account itself, with an email seven days beforehand.

At any time you can use Download archive on the report screen to obtain a single file containing your report, every recording and every photograph. That copy is yours to retain for as long as your professional or insurance obligations require. If you later upload that archive back into a survey on a lapsed account, the restored files are kept for 7 days and then deleted again; on an entitled account they are kept like any other media.

Your report text and transcripts are kept for as long as your account exists and are never deleted on that cycle, so you can always reopen, edit, regenerate and re-export a survey. Practice details, boilerplate and account information are likewise kept until you delete them or close your account.

You can delete an individual survey — and with it every recording, photograph and draft — from the dashboard at any time. Archiving a survey does not delete anything and does not change the retention cycle.

To delete your entire account and all associated data, open Settings → Delete account in the app. Deletion requires an explicit confirmation, and once confirmed it is immediate, permanent and irreversible — your account, surveys, recordings, photos, drafts and practice details are destroyed and cannot be recovered, by you or by us. Export your reports and download your archives first. In the rare case that our storage system is briefly unavailable at that moment, any remaining files are removed automatically, normally within a day. You can also request deletion by emailing [email protected] from your account email address.

Backups. Our database is backed up daily in encrypted form and held for 30 days, after which each backup is destroyed. Deleted data may therefore persist in a backup for up to 30 days, isolated from further processing, before it disappears permanently.

We retain personal information only as long as necessary to provide the Services, comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. Where deletion is not immediately possible (e.g. in backups), data is stored securely and isolated from further processing until it can be deleted.

8. Your rights (Jersey)

Under the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018 you have rights including access, rectification, erasure, restriction, objection, data portability, and the right to withdraw consent at any time. To exercise any of these rights, contact [email protected]; we may need to verify your identity before responding.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Jersey Office of the Information Commissioner (JOIC) — see jerseyoic.org.

9. Cookies and similar technologies

The Services use only the session storage required to keep you signed in. We do not use advertising trackers.

10. Third-party links and services

The Services may link to third-party websites or services. This Privacy Policy does not apply to those third parties; please read their privacy policies before using them.

11. Security

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your information, including encryption in transit (HTTPS), encryption at rest, per-account data isolation, and access controls. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

12. Children's privacy

The Services are a professional tool and are not intended for children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13; if you believe a child has provided us with personal data, contact us and we will delete it where required by law.

13. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time; the "Last updated" date above will change when we do, and we may notify you of significant changes via the app or by email. Continued use of the Services after changes take effect means you accept the updated policy.

14. Contact

Donkey Labs
Email: [email protected]