Privacy Policy

Last updated: 18 August 2026

1. Data controller

Marine-News.gr is a privately operated, non-commercial hobby website and community.

Controller: Nikolaos Agrafiotis

Privacy contact: n.agrafiotis@marine-news.gr

2. Data we process

When you create an account we process your username, email address, password hash, account status and email-verification/security information. If you complete a profile, we also process the profile information you choose to provide. Forum topics, posts, reactions, reports, notifications and job/community interactions are stored as required to provide those services.

For security and abuse prevention, the service may process a pseudonymised network identifier, security-event timestamps and anti-bot verification results. The online counter uses a one-way hash of the active PHP session identifier and does not store the visitor's IP address in the online-presence table.

3. Purposes and legal bases

Account, authentication and requested community functions are processed to provide the service you request. Security, fraud prevention, moderation and service integrity are pursued as legitimate interests, subject to applicable balancing requirements. Optional analytics or marketing technologies, if introduced, are disabled until consent is given.

4. Recipients and processors

Hosting, email delivery and infrastructure providers may process data as necessary to operate the service. If Cloudflare Turnstile is enabled, anti-bot verification data is sent to Cloudflare for security verification. The site does not enable optional analytics or marketing technologies through this package unless the visitor has consented.

5. Retention

Account and community content is retained while needed to operate the account/community and meet legal or moderation requirements. Security rate-limit records are automatically eligible for deletion after two days. Online-presence records older than 30 minutes are periodically removed. Verification codes expire after 10 minutes.

6. Your rights

Subject to applicable law, you may request access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability where applicable, or object to certain processing. Where processing relies on consent, consent can be withdrawn without affecting earlier lawful processing. You may also lodge a complaint with the competent data-protection authority.

7. Cookies and local storage

See the Cookie Policy. Cookie preferences can be changed at any time through “Cookie Settings” in the footer.

8. Security

The service uses password hashing, CSRF protection, email verification, login OTP, rate limiting, secure session settings and optional server-validated anti-bot protection. No internet service can guarantee absolute security.