This Privacy Notice for MYDIVINGSITES.COM LLC ("we," "us," or "our"), describes how and why we might access, collect, store, use, and/or share ("process") your personal information when you use our services ("Services"), including when you use the site http://www.mydivingsites.com or the app mydivingsites.
This Privacy Policy explains what Personal Data we collect, how we use and share it, and your choices concerning our Personal Data practices. We employ technical, organizational and physical safeguards to protect the Personal Data we collect. However, security risk is inherent in all internet technologies and we cannot guarantee the security of your Personal Data.
If you do not agree with our policies and practices, please do not use our Services.
1. What Information Do We Collect?
In Short: We collect personal information that you provide to us.
We collect personal information that you voluntarily provide when you register on the Services, express an interest in obtaining information about us or our products, participate in activities on the Services, or otherwise contact us.
All personal information you provide must be true, complete, and accurate.
Account Data
When you sign up, some information is required to create an account, such as your name and email address.
Payment Data
If you purchase a subscription, our third-party payment processor (Stripe) will collect and process payment and billing information on behalf of MYDIVINGSITES.COM LLC. We do not collect or store payment card details.
Identity Verification & Certification Review
If you apply for Pro Pack access, identity verification is performed by Stripe Identity, a third-party provider that collects and retains your government ID and selfie image under its own privacy policy — we never receive or store the ID image itself, only the verification outcome and the name it confirms. Certification card photos you submit for Pro Pack review may also be processed by Google's Gemini API, a third-party AI provider, to automatically read the certification details printed on the card for verification purposes.
Social Media Data
We may have pages on social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, X, and LinkedIn. Those platforms may provide us with aggregate analytics regarding the use of our pages.
User Generated Content
Photos, images, videos, community posts, reviews, comments, and other content or information that you generate, transmit, or otherwise make available on the Service, as well as associated metadata.
Additional Information
To customize your experience or enable certain features, you may choose to provide additional information such as your date of birth, height, weight, profile picture, location (city), and favorite activities.
Sensitive Personal Data
You may choose to allow us to collect precise geolocation by turning on location services on your mobile device. You can disallow this at any time by turning off location services.
Information Automatically Collected
In Short: Some information is collected automatically when you visit our Services.
We automatically collect certain information when you visit, use, or navigate the Services — such as your IP address, browser and device characteristics, operating system, language preferences, referring URLs, device name, country, location, and information about how and when you use our Services.
2. How Do We Process Your Information?
In Short: We process your information to provide, improve, and administer our Services, communicate with you, for security and fraud prevention, and to comply with law.
3. When and With Whom Do We Share Your Personal Information?
In Short: We may share information in specific situations and/or with third parties, including the service providers listed below who process information on our behalf.
Service Providers
We use the following third-party service providers ("processors") to operate the Services. Each processes personal information only on our behalf and under its own privacy policy and terms:
- Stripe and Stripe Identity — payment processing and identity verification (see Payment Data and Identity Verification above).
- Google (Gemini API) — automated reading of certification card photos submitted for Pro Pack review.
- Google Cloud Storage — storage of photos, documents, and other files you upload.
- Google Cloud Logging — storage of application logs, which may include your email address and account identifiers, for security and operational purposes.
- Google Firebase — account authentication and, on our mobile app, crash and stability reporting (Firebase Crashlytics), and delivery of account-related emails (such as verification and password reset).
- Cloudflare (Turnstile) — bot and abuse prevention on certain forms, which may process your IP address and browser information.
- Reddit API — used by us to publish content to Reddit as part of our own social media activity; this does not involve sharing your individual account information with Reddit.
Business Transfers
We may share or transfer your information in connection with any merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business.
Affiliates
We may share your information with our affiliates, who will be required to honor this Privacy Notice.
Business Partners
We may share your information with business partners to offer certain products, services, or promotions.
4. Do We Use Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies?
In Short: We use only strictly necessary cookies — the kind required to keep you signed in and to keep the Services secure. We do not use analytics, advertising, or tracking cookies.
We do not run any analytics, advertising, or cross-site tracking technology, so we have no non-essential cookies to ask your permission for. The cookies we do use are limited to what's required to operate the Services: keeping you signed in (session/authentication), and protecting the Services from abuse (security, fraud prevention, and bot mitigation via Cloudflare Turnstile — see Section 3). If we ever add analytics or advertising cookies in the future, we will update this notice and ask for your consent first, as required by law.
Mobile app crash reporting
Our mobile app can send crash and error reports to Firebase Crashlytics (Google) to help us find and fix bugs. If our records indicate you're located in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, this is off by default and we'll ask for your permission before it's ever turned on. If you're located elsewhere, it's on by default, matching how most crash-reporting tools work. Either way, you can turn it on or off at any time in the app under Preferences → Account → "Crash & error reporting."
5. How Do We Handle Your Social Logins?
In Short: If you register or log in using a social media account, we may have access to certain information about you.
Our Services offer you the ability to register and log in using your third-party social media account details (like your Google, Facebook, or Microsoft logins). Where you choose to do this, we will receive certain profile information about you from your social media provider.
6. Is Your Information Transferred Internationally?
In Short: We may transfer, store, and process your information in countries other than your own, using appropriate safeguards.
MYDIVINGSITES.COM LLC is based in the United States, and our infrastructure runs on Google Cloud. As we grow, we may store and process your information in more than one country — including replicating it across Google Cloud's regions — to keep the Services fast and reliable for users wherever they are, rather than to share it with a new third party.
Where this involves transferring personal information out of the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, we rely on appropriate safeguards recognized under GDPR and UK GDPR: Google Cloud is certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (and the UK extension to it) and its data processing terms with us incorporate the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses, both of which are mechanisms specifically designed to ensure your information receives an equivalent level of protection no matter which country it's processed in.
7. How Long Do We Keep Your Information?
In Short: We keep your information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Notice unless otherwise required by law.
We will only keep your personal information for as long as it is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Notice, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law. In practice, this means we keep information indefinitely by default and only remove it when we determine it is no longer needed — we don't apply a fixed calendar expiration to most data, since doing so could delete information you or the community still rely on. What actually triggers us to remove or de-identify information includes:
Account deletion
When you delete your account, we anonymize your profile information immediately (see Section 13) and permanently delete your certifications and personal preferences. Content you contributed to the community (such as dive site entries, dives, and reviews) is retained under the license described in our Terms, but is no longer linked to your identity.
Certification or verification records found to be invalid
If a submitted certification or identity verification is later found to be fraudulent, altered, expired, or otherwise invalid, the related records may be removed or retained longer as needed for fraud prevention and to enforce our Terms.
Your request
If you contact us to request deletion or correction of specific information (see Section 13), we will review and act on that request.
Legal or security necessity
We may retain information longer than we otherwise would where required by law, to resolve disputes, to enforce our agreements, or to investigate and prevent fraud or abuse of the Services.
8. Do We Collect Information From Minors?
In Short: We do not knowingly collect data from or market to children under 18 years of age.
We do not knowingly collect, solicit data from, or market to children under 18 years of age, nor do we knowingly sell such personal information. By using the Services, you represent that you are at least 18 or that you are the parent or guardian of such a minor and consent to such minor's use of the Services.
9. What Are Your Privacy Rights?
In Short: You may review, change, or terminate your account at any time.
Withdrawing Your Consent
If we are relying on your consent to process your personal information, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us at
contactus@mydivingsites.com.
Account Information
If you would like to review or change the information in your account or terminate your account, contact us at
contactus@mydivingsites.com, or use the "Download My Data" and "Delete Account" controls in your account Preferences.
California Privacy Rights (CCPA/CPRA)
If you are a California resident, you have the right to know what personal information we collect (see Section 1), to request deletion of your personal information, and to correct inaccurate personal information. You can exercise these rights directly in the app via the "Download My Data" and "Delete Account" controls in your account Preferences, or by contacting us at
contactus@mydivingsites.com.
We do not sell or share personal information, and we do not use it for cross-context behavioral advertising — we don't run advertising or analytics technology of any kind (see Section 4).
The only Sensitive Personal Information we collect is precise geolocation, and we use it solely to provide the feature you're using it for — orienting the map to your location and generating dive recommendations near you. We don't use it to infer characteristics about you, and we don't disclose it to third parties for cross-context advertising. Because it's used only for the purpose you requested, we're not required to offer a "Limit the Use of My Sensitive Personal Information" control under CPRA — but you can always turn off location access for the Services at any time in your device's settings.
We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of these rights. An authorized agent may submit a request on your behalf with your written permission.
10. Controls for Do-Not-Track Features
Most web browsers and some mobile operating systems include a Do-Not-Track ("DNT") feature. No uniform technology standard for recognizing and implementing DNT signals has been finalized. As such, we do not currently respond to DNT browser signals.
11. Do We Make Updates to This Notice?
In Short: Yes, we will update this notice as necessary to stay compliant with relevant laws.
We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time. The updated version will be indicated by an updated "Revised" date at the top. If we make material changes, we may notify you by prominently posting a notice or by directly sending you a notification.
12. How Can You Contact Us About This Notice?
13. How Can You Review, Update, or Delete the Data We Collect From You?
Based on the applicable laws of your country, you may have the right to request access to the personal information we collect from you, correct inaccuracies, or delete your personal information. You may also have the right to withdraw your consent to our processing of your personal information. To request to review, update, or delete your personal information, please contact us at
contactus@mydivingsites.com.