Privacy Policy

MEK Marine Privacy Policy

Last Updated: April 16, 2018

Thank you for using MEK Marine!

This Privacy Policy describes how we collect, use, process, and disclose your information, including personal information, in conjunction with your access to and use of the MEK Marine Platform and the Payment Services.

When this policy mentions “MEK Marine,” “we,” “us,” or “our,” it refers to the MEK Marine company that is responsible for your information under this Privacy Policy (the “Data Controller”).

• The Data Controller is MEK Marine, LDA.

1. INFORMATION WE COLLECT

There are three general categories of information we collect.

1.1 Information You Give to Us.

1.1.1 Information that is necessary for the use of the MEK Marine Platform.

We ask for and collect the following personal information about you when you use the MEK Marine Platform. This information is necessary for the adequate performance of the contract between you and us and to allow us to comply with our legal obligations. Without it, we may not be able to provide you with all the requested services.

• Account Information. When you sign up for an MEK Marine Account, we require certain information such as your first name, last name, email address, and date of birth.
• Profile and Listing Information. To use certain features of the MEK Marine Platform (such as booking or creating a Listing), we may ask you to provide additional information, which may include your address, phone number, and a profile picture.

1.1.2 Information you choose to give us.

You may choose to provide us with additional personal information in order to obtain a better user experience when using MEK Marine Platform. This additional information will be processed based on your consent.

• Additional Profile Information. You may choose to provide additional information as part of your MEK Marine profile (such as gender, preferred language(s), city, and a personal description). Some of this information as indicated in your Account settings is part of your public profile page, and will be publicly visible to others.
• Address Book Contact Information. You may choose to import your address book contacts or enter your contacts’ information manually to access certain features of the MEK Marine Platform, like inviting them to use MEK Marine.
• Other Information. You may otherwise choose to provide us information when you fill in a form, conduct a search, update or add information to your MEK Marine Account, respond to surveys, post to community forums, participate in promotions, or use other features of the MEK Marine Platform.

1.2 Information We Automatically Collect from Your Use of the MEK Marine Platform and Payment Services.

When you use the MEK Marine Platform and the Payment Services, we automatically collect information, including personal information, about the services you use and how you use them. This information is necessary for the adequate performance of the contract between you and us, to enable us to comply with legal obligations and given our legitimate interest in being able to provide and improve the functionalities of the MEK Marine Platform and Payment Services.

• Geo-location Information. When you use certain features of the MEK Marine Platform, we may collect information about your precise or approximate location as determined through data such as your IP address or mobile device’s GPS to offer you an improved user experience. Most mobile devices allow you to control or disable the use of location services for applications in the device’s settings menu. MEK Marine may also collect this information even when you are not using the app if this connection is enabled through your settings or device permissions.
• Usage Information. We collect information about your interactions with the MEK Marine Platform such as the pages or content you view, your searches for Listings, bookings you have made, and other actions on the MEK Marine Platform.
• Log Data and Device Information. We automatically collect log data and device information when you access and use the MEK Marine Platform, even if you have not created an MEK Marine Account or logged in. That information includes, among other things: details about how you’ve used the MEK Marine Platform (including if you clicked on links to third party applications), IP address, access dates and times, hardware and software information, device information, device event information, unique identifiers, crash data, cookie data, and the pages you’ve viewed or engaged with before or after using the MEK Marine Platform.
• Cookies and Similar Technologies. We use cookies and other similar technologies, such as web beacons, pixels, and mobile identifiers. We may also allow our business partners to use these tracking technologies on the MEK Marine Platform, or engage others to track your behavior on our behalf. While you may disable the usage of cookies through your browser settings, the MEK Marine Platform currently does not respond to a “Do Not Track” signal in the HTTP header from your browser or mobile application due to lack of standardization regarding how that signal should be interpreted. For more information on our use of these technologies, see our Cookie Policy.  

1.3 Information We Collect from Third Parties.

MEK Marine and MEK Marine Payments may collect information, including personal information, that others provide about you when they use the MEK Marine Platform and the Payment Services, or obtain information from other sources and combine that with information we collect through the MEK Marine Platform and the Payment Services. We do not control, supervise or respond for how the third parties providing your information process your personal data, and any information request regarding the disclosure of your personal information to us should be directed to such third parties.

• Third Party Services. If you link, connect, or login to your MEK Marine Account with a third party service (e.g. Google, Facebook, WeChat), the third party service may send us information such as your registration and profile information from that service. This information varies and is controlled by that service or as authorized by you via your privacy settings at that service.
• Your References. If someone has written a reference for you, it will be published on your MEK Marine public profile page with your consent.
• Background Information. For Members in the United States, to the extent permitted by applicable laws, MEK Marine and MEK Marine Payments may obtain reports from public records of criminal convictions or sex offender registrations. For Members outside of the United States, to the extent permitted by applicable laws and with your consent where required, MEK Marine and MEK Marine Payments may obtain the local version of police, background or registered sex offender checks. We may use your information, including your full name and date of birth, to obtain such reports.
• Other Sources. To the extent permitted by applicable law, we may receive additional information about you, such as demographic data or fraud detection information, from third party service providers and/or partners, and combine it with information we have about you. For example, we may receive background check results (with your consent where required) or fraud warnings from service providers like identity verification services for our fraud prevention and risk assessment efforts. We may receive information about you and your activities on and off the MEK Marine Platform through partnerships, or about your experiences and interactions from our partner ad networks.

2. HOW WE USE INFORMATION WE COLLECT

We use, store, and process information, including personal information, about you to provide, understand, improve, and develop the MEK Marine Platform, create and maintain a trusted and safer environment and comply with our legal obligations.

2.1 Provide, Improve, and Develop the MEK Marine Platform.  

• Enable you to access and use the MEK Marine Platform.
• Operate, protect, improve, and optimize the MEK Marine Platform and experience, such as by performing analytics and conducting research.
• Provide customer service.
• Send you service or support messages, updates, security alerts, and account notifications.
• If you provide us with your contacts’ information, we may process this information: (i) to facilitate your referral invitations, (ii) send your requests for references, (iii) for fraud detection and prevention, and (iv) for any purpose you authorize at the time of collection.
• To operate, protect, improve, and optimize the MEK Marine Platform and experience, and personalize and customize your experience (such as making Listing suggestions or ranking search results), we conduct profiling based on your interactions with the MEK Marine Platform, your search and booking history, your profile information and preferences, and other content you submit to the MEK Marine Platform.

We process this information given our legitimate interest in improving the MEK Marine Platform and our Members’ experience with it, and where it is necessary for the adequate performance of the contract with you.

2.2 Create and Maintain a Trusted and Safer Environment.

• Detect and prevent fraud, spam, abuse, security incidents, and other harmful activity.
• Conduct security investigations and risk assessments.
• Comply with our legal obligations.
• Resolve any disputes with any of our Members and enforce our agreements with third parties.

We process this information given our legitimate interest in protecting the MEK Marine Platform, to measure the adequate performance of our contract with you, and to comply with applicable laws.

2.3 Provide, Personalize, Measure, and Improve our Advertising and Marketing.

• Send you promotional messages, marketing, advertising, and other information that may be of interest to you based on your preferences (including information about MEK Marine or partner campaigns and services) and social media advertising through social media platforms such as Facebook or Google).
• Personalize, measure, and improve our advertising.
• Administer referral programs, rewards, surveys, sweepstakes, contests, or other promotional activities or events sponsored or managed by MEK Marine or its third party partners.
• Conduct profiling on your characteristics and preferences (based on the information you provide to us, your interactions with the MEK Marine Platform, information obtained from third parties, and your search and booking history) to send you promotional messages, marketing, advertising and other information that we think may be of interest to you.

We will process your personal information for the purposes listed in this section given our legitimate interest in undertaking marketing activities to offer you products or services that may be of your interest. You can opt-out of receiving marketing communications from us by following the unsubscribe instructions included in our marketing communications or changing your notification settings within your MEK Marine Account.

3. SHARING & DISCLOSURE

3.1 With Your Consent.

Where you have provided consent, we share your information, including personal information, as described at the time of consent, such as when you authorize a third party application or website to access your MEK Marine Account or when you participate in promotional activities conducted by MEK Marine partners or third parties.

3.2 Compliance with Law, Responding to Legal Requests, Preventing Harm and Protection of our Rights.

MEK Marine and MEK Marine Payments may disclose your information, including personal information, to courts, law enforcement or governmental authorities, or authorized third parties, if and to the extent we are required or permitted to do so by law or if such disclosure is reasonably necessary: (i) comply with our legal obligations, (ii) to comply with legal process and to respond to claims asserted against MEK Marine, (iii) to respond to verified requests relating to a criminal investigation or alleged or suspected illegal activity or any other activity that may expose us, you, or any other of our users to legal liability, (iv) to enforce and administer our Terms of Service, the Payment Terms or other agreements with Members, or (v) to protect the rights, property or personal safety of MEK Marine, its employees, its Members, or members of the public.

Where appropriate, we may notify Members about legal requests unless: (i) providing notice is prohibited by the legal process itself, by court order we receive, or by applicable law, or (ii) we believe that providing notice would be futile, ineffective, create a risk of injury or bodily harm to an individual or group, or create or increase a risk of fraud upon MEK Marine’s property, its Members and the MEK Marine Platform. In instances where we comply with legal requests without notice for these reasons, we will attempt to notify that Member about the request after the fact where appropriate and where we determine in good faith that we are no longer prevented from doing so.

3.3 Service Providers.

MEK Marine and MEK Marine Payments uses a variety of third party service providers to help us provide services related to the MEK Marine Platform and the Payment Services. Service providers may be located inside or outside of the European Economic Area (“EEA”). In particular, our service providers are based in Europe, India, Asia Pacific and North and South America.

For example, service providers may help us: perform product development, maintenance and debugging,  allow the provision of the MEK Marine Services through third party platforms and software tools (e.g. through the integration with our APIs), or provide customer service, advertising, or payments services. These providers have limited access to your information to perform these tasks on our behalf, and are contractually bound to protect and to use it only for the purposes for which it was disclosed and consistent with this Privacy Policy.

MEK Marine and the MEK Marine Payments will need to share your information, including personal information, in order to ensure the adequate performance of our contract with you.

3.4 Business Transfers.

If MEK Marine undertakes or is involved in any merger, acquisition, reorganization, sale of assets, bankruptcy, or insolvency event, then we may sell, transfer or share some or all of our assets, including your information in connection with such transaction or in contemplation of such transaction (e.g, due diligence). In this event, we will notify you before your personal information is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

3.5 Aggregated Data.

We may also share aggregated information (information about our users that we combine together so that it no longer identifies or references an individual user) and other anonymized information for regulatory compliance, industry and market analysis, demographic profiling, marketing and advertising, and other business purposes.

4. OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION

4.1 Google Maps/Earth.

Parts of the MEK Marine Platform use Google Maps/Earth services, including the Google Maps API(s). Use of Google Maps/Earth is subject to Google Maps/Earth Additional Terms of Use and the Google Privacy Policy.

5. THIRD PARTY PARTNERS & INTEGRATIONS

The MEK Marine Platform may contain links to third party websites or services, such as third party integrations, co-branded services, or third party-branded services (“Third Party Partners”). MEK Marine doesn’t own or control these Third Party Partners and when you interact with them, you may be providing information directly to the Third Party Partner, MEK Marine, or both. These Third Party Partners will have their own rules about the collection, use, and disclosure of information. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of the other websites you visit.

6. YOUR RIGHTS

You may exercise any of the rights described in this section before your applicable MEK Marine Data Controller and Payments Data Controller by sending an email mail@MEK Marine.com. Please note that we may ask you to verify your identity before taking further action on your request.

6.1 Managing Your Information.

You may access and update some of your information through your Account settings. If you have chosen to connect your MEK Marine Account to a third-party application, like Facebook or Google, you can change your settings and remove permission for the app by changing your Account settings. You are responsible for keeping your personal information up-to-date.

6.2 Rectification of Inaccurate or Incomplete Information.

You have the right to ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete personal information concerning you (and which you cannot update yourself within your MEK Marine Account).

6.3 Data Access and Portability.

In some jurisdictions, applicable law may entitle you to request copies of your personal information held by us. You may also be entitled to request copies of personal information that you have provided to us in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format and/or request us to transmit this information to another service provider (where technically feasible).

6.4 Data Retention and Erasure.

We generally retain your personal information for as long as is necessary for the performance of the contract between you and us and to comply with our legal obligations. If you no longer want us to use your information to provide the MEK Marine Platform to you, you can request that we erase your personal information and close your MEK Marine Account. Please note that if you request the erasure of your personal information:

• We may retain some of your personal information as necessary for our legitimate business interests, such as fraud detection and prevention and enhancing safety. For example, if we suspend an MEK Marine Account for fraud or safety reasons, we may retain certain information from that MEK Marine Account to prevent that Member from opening a new MEK Marine Account in the future.
• We may retain and use your personal information to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations. For example, MEK Marine and MEK Marine Payments may keep some of your information for tax, legal reporting and auditing obligations.
• Information you have shared with others (e.g, Reviews, forum postings) may continue to be publicly visible on the MEK Marine Platform, even after your MEK Marine Account is cancelled. However, attribution of such information to you will be removed. Additionally, some copies of your information (e.g, log records) may remain in our database, but are disassociated from personal identifiers.
• Because we maintain the MEK Marine Platform to protect from accidental or malicious loss and destruction, residual copies of your personal information may not be removed from our backup systems for a limited period of time.

6.5 Withdrawing Consent and Restriction of Processing.

Where you have provided your consent to the processing of your personal information by MEK Marine you may withdraw your consent at any time by changing your Account settings or by sending a communication to MEK Marine specifying which consent you are withdrawing. Please note that the withdrawal of your consent does not affect the lawfulness of any processing activities based on such consent before its withdrawal. Additionally, in some jurisdictions, applicable law may give you the right to limit the ways in which we use your personal information, in particular where (i) you contest the accuracy of your personal information; (ii) the processing is unlawful and you oppose the erasure of your personal information; (iii) we no longer need your personal information for the purposes of the processing, but you require the information for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims; or (iv) you have objected to the processing pursuant to Section 6.6 and pending the verification whether the legitimate grounds of MEK Marine override your own.

6.6 Objection to Processing.

In some jurisdictions, applicable law may entitle you to require MEK Marine and MEK Marine Payments not to process your personal information for certain specific purposes (including profiling) where such processing is based on legitimate interest. If you object to such processing MEK Marine and/or MEK Marine Payments will no longer process your personal information for these purposes unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for such processing or such processing is required for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

Where your personal information is processed for direct marketing purposes, you may, at any time ask MEK Marine to cease processing your data for these direct marketing purposes by sending an e-mail to opt- mail@MEK Marine.com

6.7 Lodging Complaints.

You have the right to lodge complaints about the data processing activities carried out by MEK Marine and MEK Marine Payments before the competent data protection authorities. You have the right to file a complaint with its lead supervisory authority, the Information Commissioner's Office.

7. OPERATING GLOBALLY

To facilitate our global operations MEK Marine and MEK Marine Payments may transfer, store, and process your information within our family of companies or with service providers based in Europe, India, Asia Pacific and North and South America. Laws in these countries may differ from the laws applicable to your Country of Residence. For example, information collected within the EEA may be transferred, stored, and processed outside of the EEA for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy. Where we transfer store, and process your personal information outside of the EEA we have ensured that appropriate safeguards are in place to ensure an adequate level of data protection.

7.1 EU-US & Swiss-US Privacy Shield.  

MEK Marine and MEK Marine Payments comply with the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework and the Swiss-US Privacy Shield Framework as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of personal information transferred from the European Union and Switzerland to the United States, respectively. If there is any conflict between the terms in this Privacy Policy and the Privacy Shield Principles, the Privacy Shield Principles shall govern. To learn more about the Privacy Shield program, and to view our certification, please visit https://www.privacyshield.gov/.

Under the Privacy Shield Framework, MEK Marine and MEK Marine Payments are subject to the authority of the Federal Trade Commission. If you have any questions or concerns relating to our Privacy Shield certification, contact us at MEK Marine, Inc, Legal Department, 888 Brannan Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 or via email. If we are not able to resolve your concern, you may also contact your European Data Protection Authority or Commission or seek assistance from our designated Privacy Shield independent recourse mechanism, JAMS. In certain circumstances, you may also have the right to pursue binding arbitration through the Privacy Shield Framework, as described in Annex I to the Privacy Shield Principles.

If we have received your personal information under the Privacy Shield and subsequently transfer it to a third party service provider for processing as described in this Privacy Policy, we will remain responsible if these providers process your personal information in a manner inconsistent with the Privacy Shield Principles, except where we can establish that MEK Marine or MEK Marine Payments was not responsible for the violation.

7.2 Other Means to Ensure an Adequate Level of Data Protection.

If MEK Marine Ireland is the Data Controller and your information is shared with corporate affiliates or third party service providers outside the EEA, we have - prior to sharing your information with such corporate affiliate or third party service provider – established the necessary means to ensure an adequate level of data protection. This may be an adequacy decision of the European Commission confirming an adequate level of data protection in the respective non-EEA country or an agreement on the basis of the EU Model Clauses (a set of clauses issued by the European Commission). We will provide further information on the means to ensure an adequate level of data protection on request.

7.3 California & Vermont Residents.

MEK Marine Payments will not share information it collects about you with its affiliates or third parties (both financial and non-financial), except as required or permitted by your state’s law.

7.4 California Privacy Rights.

California law permits Members who are California residents to request and obtain from us once a year, free of charge, a list of the third parties to whom we have disclosed their personal information (if any) for their direct marketing purposes in the prior calendar year, as well as the type of personal information disclosed to those third parties. See the “Contact” section for where to send such requests. MEK Marine and MEK Marine Payments do not share personal information with third parties for their own direct marketing purposes without your prior consent. Accordingly, you can prevent disclosure of your personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes by withholding consent.

8. SECURITY

We are continuously implementing and updating administrative, technical, and physical security measures to help protect your information against unauthorized access, loss, destruction, or alteration. Some of the safeguards we use to protect your information are firewalls and data encryption, and information access controls. If you know or have reason to believe that your MEK Marine Account credentials have been lost, stolen, misappropriated, or otherwise compromised or in case of any actual or suspected unauthorized use of your MEK Marine Account, please contact us following the instructions in the Contact Us section below.

9. CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

MEK Marine reserves the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time in accordance with this provision. If we make changes to this Privacy Policy, we will post the revised Privacy Policy on the MEK Marine Platform and update the “Last Updated” date at the top of this Privacy Policy. We will also provide you with notice of the modification by email at least thirty (30) days before the date they become effective. If you disagree with the revised Privacy Policy, you may cancel your Account. If you do not cancel your Account before the date the revised Privacy Policy becomes effective, your continued access to or use of the MEK Marine Platform will be subject to the revised Privacy Policy.

10. CONTACT US

If you have any questions or complaints about this Privacy Policy or MEK Marine’s information handling practices, you may email us or contact us at: