This notice explains which personal data we collect, why, and what your rights are. It applies to our website, our client and supplier relationships, our inspections and the online tools we provide to clients and partners.
1. Who we are
RVJ Cargo Inspections B.V. is the controller of your personal data.
- Zekeringstraat 32C, 1014 BS Amsterdam, the Netherlands
- KVK 72714018 (Netherlands Chamber of Commerce)
- Email: info@rvj-ci.com
- Phone: +31 20 244 5665
Our offices in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Antwerp and Accra are part of the same company. This notice applies to all of them.
Questions about privacy go to info@rvj-ci.com. We have not appointed a data protection officer, as the law does not require one for our work.
2. Which data we use and why
We only collect what we need for the purposes below. We do not sell personal data, and we do not use it for advertising.
Visitors to our website
Our website sets no cookies and uses no analytics or tracking tools. Our hosting provider records technical data for each visit, such as your IP address, browser and the time of the request. It uses this data to deliver the website and to keep it secure, and keeps it for a short period only.
Some of our invitation links contain the name of a company. When you open such a link, we count the visit for that company. We do not record who you are.
Legal basis: our legitimate interest in a secure, working website.
When you contact us
When you use our contact form or email us, we receive your name, company, email address, phone number (if you give it) and your message. We use these to answer you and to follow up on your request. The form sends your message to the right team: operations, our back office or our cocoa desk.
Legal basis: taking steps at your request before a contract, and our legitimate interest in answering questions.
Clients and their contact persons
To carry out inspections for your company, we use the business contact details of the people we work with: name, job title, email address and phone number. We also keep nominations, instructions, reports, correspondence and invoices.
New clients can complete an online onboarding form. It asks for company details, contact persons for operations, finance and quality, billing details and an optional company profile. We check your VAT number with the European Commission’s VIES service. When you submit the form, we record the name and job title of the person who submitted it and the time, as proof of your acceptance of our terms and conditions.
Client data is only visible to our management and back office.
Legal basis: performance of our contract with your company, our legal obligation to keep financial records, and our legitimate interest in managing our client relationships.
Users of our client dashboard
Some clients have access to an online dashboard with their inspection data. To give you access, we keep your name, email address, organisation and the time of your last login. You log in with a one-time code that we send to your email address.
Legal basis: performance of our contract with your company.
Inspection agencies and external surveyors
When we work with another inspection agency, we use the contact details of that agency and the names of the surveyors it assigns to a job. We agree the work with the agency, not with individual surveyors.
Legal basis: performance of our contract with the agency, and our legitimate interest in planning and documenting the inspection.
People we meet during inspections
During an inspection we work with masters, skippers, terminal staff and other surveyors. Our reports and documents can contain their name and role, the vessel or location and, where a document requires it, a signature. People can also be visible in photos we take as evidence of the cargo and its handling.
Legal basis: our legitimate interest, and that of our clients, in carrying out and documenting the inspection. Reports can be needed later as evidence, for example in a GAFTA or FOSFA arbitration.
Use of AI tools
Our staff may use AI tools approved under our internal AI policy, for example to draft text or summarise documents. We only use providers that process data under a data processing agreement and do not use our data to train their models.
3. Who receives your data
Within RVJ, only staff who need your data for their work have access, and access depends on their role.
Our clients receive the inspection reports and documents they commissioned. We may share data with arbitration bodies, insurers, legal advisers or authorities if this is needed for a claim, a dispute or a legal obligation.
We use the following service providers. Each processes data on our behalf and under our instructions.
| Provider | What for | Where the data is |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft (through our IT partner Reliance) | Email, documents, accounts | European Union |
| Netlify | Website and contact form | United States |
| Resend | Sending emails from our website and online tools | European Union (Ireland) |
| Supabase | Database and login for our online tools | European Union (Germany) |
| Vercel | Hosting of our online tools | European Union (Germany) |
| Sentry | Error monitoring of our online tools, without personal data in the reports | European Union (Germany) |
| GitHub | Software code and encrypted backups | United States |
| Anthropic | AI tools (see section 2) | United States |
4. Data outside the European Union
Some providers are based in the United States. Transfers to them are covered by the EU-US Data Privacy Framework or by the standard contractual clauses of the European Commission. Our backups at GitHub are encrypted, and GitHub does not have the key.
Our staff at our office in Accra, Ghana, can access the data they need for their work, under the same rules and security measures as our other offices.
5. How long we keep your data
| Data | How long |
|---|---|
| Messages through our website or by email that do not lead to work | 2 years after the last contact |
| Contact details of clients, agencies and their staff | As long as we work together, and 2 years after that |
| Inspection reports, photos, nominations and job records | 7 years after the inspection |
| Invoices and financial records | 7 years, as required by Dutch tax law |
| Onboarding form and acceptance of our terms | As long as we work together, and 7 years after that |
| Access to the client dashboard | Until your access ends, and 2 years after that |
| Technical data from website visits | A short period set by our hosting provider |
We keep data longer only if the law requires it, or if it is needed for a claim or a dispute that is still open.
6. Security
We protect personal data with technical and organisational measures. These include encrypted connections, access based on role, multi-factor authentication for our staff, and a change log in our online tools that cannot be altered.
7. Your rights
You have the right to:
- access the personal data we hold about you;
- have incorrect data corrected;
- have your data deleted, unless we must keep it;
- restrict how we use your data;
- object to our use of your data based on our legitimate interest;
- receive your data in a common format, so you can pass it on.
Email your request to info@rvj-ci.com. We may ask you to confirm your identity. We reply within one month.
If you are not satisfied with how we handle your data, please let us know first. You also have the right to file a complaint with the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl) or with the authority in your own country.
We do not make decisions about you based only on automated processing.
8. Changes to this notice
We update this notice when our services or the law change. The version and date at the top show which version applies. If a change affects you directly, we will tell you.