Privacy notice

Version: draft 29 September 2026.

1. Who we are

This website belongs to the research project Against the flow: upstream tidal transport and trapping of spilled plastic pellets in the River Tyne, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

Newcastle University is the data controller for personal data collected through this website. That means it decides how your data is used and is responsible for protecting it. The project lead is Dr Matthew Perks, School of Engineering, Newcastle University TBC: confirm school.

Contact the project about your data at privacy@tynenurdles.org.uk. You can also contact the University's Data Protection Officer at rec-man@ncl.ac.uk, or write to the Data Protection Officer, Newcastle University, Executive Office, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU.

2. What we collect

When you submit an observation

• Your photos and videos, exactly as you send them, including their embedded information (metadata), such as the date and time, GPS location and device model (see section 5).
• Observation details: date, time, place description, optional coordinates, number of pellets, type of location, amount collected and any comments.
• Optional contact details: your name and email address, only if you choose to give them.
• Your choices: the consents and publication preferences you selected, the version of this notice you agreed to, and the time you submitted.

When anyone visits the website

• Security logs: your IP address, browser type, the pages you requested and the time. We use these only to keep the website secure, prevent abuse and fix faults.

We do not use advertising, tracking cookies or third-party analytics. See our cookie statement.

3. Why we use it and our legal basis

We don't ask for special category data, such as information about health, ethnicity or religion. If an image happens to reveal it, for example a person in the background, we process it only for research and under the safeguards described here (Article 9(2)(j) and the Data Protection Act 2018, Schedule 1, paragraph 4). We will remove or blur it wherever possible.

Separately from the legal basis, and as a matter of research ethics, we ask for your agreement before using your submission. We make no automated decisions about you. We may use computer software to detect pellets in images, but it never makes decisions about people.

4. Photos, videos and the people in them

• Please avoid photographing people who could be identified, especially children, and vehicle registration plates.
• If people appear in a submission, we use the image only for research analysis. Before any image is published, we blur or crop out faces, registration plates and anything else that could identify someone, and remove all metadata.
• We never publish your images unless you chose a publishing option.
• Images that are inappropriate, or that were clearly taken without the knowledge of the people shown in a private setting, are deleted.

5. Date, time and location stored in your files

Photos and videos taken on phones and cameras usually contain hidden information (metadata). This includes the date and time they were taken and, if location was switched on, precise GPS coordinates. It may also include the make and model of the device.

We keep your files exactly as you send them, with this information intact. The date, time and position of an observation are central to the research. They let us match each sighting to the tide and river conditions at that moment, and to our computer models of where pellets travelled. Keeping the original files unaltered also means we can show that the evidence hasn't been changed.

• We copy the date, time and GPS coordinates into the research record for your observation.
• Only named members of the research team can see the original files or their metadata.
• We never publish the metadata. Any image we publish, with your permission, is a new copy with all metadata removed. Any location we publish is for the observation site only, and is never linked to your name unless you asked to be credited.
• GPS coordinates in a photo can reveal where you were, including your home if you took other photos there. Please only send photos taken at the river. If you'd rather not share a photo's location, switch off location in your camera settings before taking it, or don't submit that photo.
• If you use the "Use my current location" button, your browser asks your permission first, and we record only the coordinates for that observation.

You're asked to confirm that you understand this before submitting.

6. Who can see your data

• The research team: only named researchers at Newcastle University and the University of Liverpool who need access for the project. Their access is protected by multi-factor authentication. TBC: data sharing agreement with the University of Liverpool
• Our hosting provider: Amazon Web Services (AWS) stores the website and submissions in its London (UK) data centres, and processes the data only on our instructions. Files are automatically scanned for malware using AWS GuardDuty.
• Project partners and the public: they receive only aggregated or anonymised results (for example maps showing where pellets were reported), plus any images you allowed us to publish.
• Nobody else, unless the law requires it. We never sell your data or use it for marketing.

Your contact details are stored separately from your observation and are never shared outside the research team.

7. Where and how we store it

• Submissions are stored in the United Kingdom (AWS London region).
• Emails you send to our project addresses are received by AWS in Ireland (EU). They are forwarded to the research team, and the copy held by AWS is deleted after 7 days.
• All data is encrypted when it is sent to us and while it is stored.
• Submissions are held in a private store that cannot be reached from the internet without authorisation. Each file is scanned for malware.
• Access is limited to named researchers and recorded in audit logs.

8. How long we keep it

When we delete data, it can remain in encrypted backups for up to 35 days before it is automatically overwritten.

9. Your rights

You have the right to:

• ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• ask us to correct it
• ask us to delete it, or to withdraw your submission
• object to, or ask us to restrict, how we use it
• withdraw your consent to publication or contact at any time

To use any of these rights, email privacy@tynenurdles.org.uk and quote your submission reference if you have it. We will respond within one month.

Withdrawing your submission: we can delete your submission at any time until it has been anonymised and combined into research results or published. After that point, it may not be possible to remove your contribution from results already produced. However, we will delete your original files and any contact details. Data protection law allows some rights to be limited for research where honouring them would seriously impair the research. We will tell you if this applies.

10. Questions and complaints

If you have a concern about how we handle your data, please contact us first at privacy@tynenurdles.org.uk or the University's Data Protection Officer.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK data protection regulator: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, telephone 0303 123 1113.

We will update this notice if our practices change. Each submission records the version of the notice that was in place when it was made.