Last Updated: January 2025
Introduction
Welcome to The Flying Engineer’s Privacy Policy. Your privacy is critically important to us, and we are committed to protecting your personal information while providing you with the best possible aviation industry platform.
PUBLISHING OFFICE SRL, operating as The Flying Engineer (“we,” “us,” “our”), owns and operates the website www.theflyingengineer.com. This Privacy Policy explains in clear, accessible language how we collect, use, protect, and share information when you visit our website or use our services. We believe you should always know what data we collect from you and how we use it, and that you should have meaningful control over both.
This policy applies to all users of our website, whether you’re browsing as a visitor, have claimed a business listing, or are a paying subscriber to one of our premium packages. By using The Flying Engineer, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy.
Information We Collect
When you interact with The Flying Engineer, we collect information that you provide directly to us, information we collect automatically, and information from other sources. Let us explain each type in detail.
Information You Provide to Us
When you create an account with us, claim a business listing, or contact us for support, you voluntarily provide certain personal information. This typically includes your name, email address, phone number, company name, and professional role. If you’re representing a business, we also collect business-specific information such as your company’s address, description of services, certifications, and other details that help aviation professionals find and evaluate your services.
For those who upgrade to our paid packages, we collect billing information necessary to process payments. This includes your billing address and payment card details, though it’s important to note that sensitive payment information is processed directly by our secure payment partners like Stripe or PayPal – we don’t store your complete credit card numbers on our servers.
When you communicate with us through email, contact forms, or our support system, we keep records of those conversations to help resolve your issues and improve our services. Similarly, if you participate in surveys or provide testimonials, we collect that feedback with your permission.
Information We Collect Automatically
Like most modern websites, we automatically collect certain technical information when you visit The Flying Engineer. Your browser sends us information such as your IP address, browser type and version, operating system, and the pages you visit on our site. We track how you interact with our platform – which features you use, what searches you perform, how long you spend on different pages, and what brought you to our site in the first place.
This automatic collection happens through various technologies, primarily cookies and similar tracking tools. These small files placed on your device help us remember your preferences, keep you logged in, understand how you use our platform, and improve your experience. We use different types of cookies for different purposes – some are essential for the website to function properly, while others help us analyze usage patterns or deliver relevant content.
We also collect general location information based on your IP address. This helps us understand where our users are located globally, comply with regional regulations, and provide location-relevant content when appropriate. However, we don’t collect precise GPS-level location data.
Information from Other Sources
To provide comprehensive and accurate business listings, we sometimes gather publicly available information from other sources. This includes data from business registries, aviation authority databases, company websites, and professional directories. For example, if an aviation company hasn’t yet claimed their listing on our platform, we might populate basic information from public sources to ensure our directory is as complete as possible for users searching for aviation services.
We may also receive information from our business partners, such as when they refer users to our platform or when we participate in joint marketing initiatives. Additionally, if you connect your social media accounts to your Flying Engineer profile, we receive basic profile information from those platforms according to your privacy settings there.
How We Use Your Information
Understanding how we use your information is crucial to maintaining trust. We use the data we collect for several important purposes, always with the goal of providing value to the aviation community while respecting your privacy.
Providing and Improving Our Services
First and foremost, we use your information to deliver the services you’ve requested. This includes creating and managing your account, processing your subscription payments, displaying your business listing to potential clients, and providing customer support when you need help. We use your contact information to send important service-related communications, such as updates to our terms, security alerts, or notifications about your account status.
We also analyze how people use The Flying Engineer to improve our platform continuously. By understanding which features are most popular, where users encounter difficulties, and what types of content are most valuable, we can make informed decisions about how to enhance our services. This analysis is typically done with aggregated data that doesn’t identify individual users.
Communications and Marketing
With your consent, we send newsletters featuring aviation industry news, platform updates, and relevant opportunities. If you’re a listed business, we might notify you about potential leads or inquiries from interested parties. We always provide clear options to control these communications – you can adjust your preferences in your account settings or unsubscribe from marketing emails at any time.
For our business users, especially those on premium packages, we provide analytics and insights about how their listings are performing. This includes information about views, inquiries, and engagement metrics that help businesses understand their reach on our platform.
Safety and Security
We use information to maintain the security and integrity of our platform. This includes detecting and preventing fraud, investigating suspicious activities, enforcing our terms of service, and protecting against automated abuse. We monitor for unusual patterns that might indicate security threats and take appropriate action to protect our users and our platform.
Legal Compliance
We process information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, such as tax reporting, responding to legal requests from authorities when required, and maintaining records as required by law. In the aviation industry, certain regulatory requirements may also apply to the information we maintain about aviation businesses and professionals.
How We Share Your Information
We understand that how we share your information is just as important as how we collect and use it. We are committed to sharing your information only in ways that are transparent, necessary, and aligned with your expectations.
Public Listings and Profiles
When a business creates or claims a listing on The Flying Engineer, certain information becomes publicly visible as part of our directory service. This includes the company name, description of services, public contact information, and any other details the business chooses to make public. This public visibility is the core value proposition of our platform – connecting aviation businesses with potential clients and partners. However, businesses always maintain control over what information appears in their public listing and can update or remove it at any time.
Service Providers and Partners
We work with carefully selected third-party service providers who help us operate our platform effectively. These include payment processors who handle transactions securely, email service providers who help us communicate with you, cloud storage providers who host our data, and analytics services that help us understand platform usage. These providers are contractually obligated to protect your information and use it only for the specific services they provide to us.
We maintain strict agreements with these service providers that limit how they can use your information. They are not permitted to use your data for their own purposes or share it with others except as necessary to provide services to us.
Business Transfers
If The Flying Engineer is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction. In such cases, we would notify you before your information becomes subject to a different privacy policy. We would provide you with notice via email and prominent notice on our website, giving you the opportunity to review any changes and decide whether to continue using our services.
Legal Requirements and Protection
We may disclose your information when we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to comply with law, regulation, or legal request; to protect the safety, rights, or property of The Flying Engineer, our users, or the public; to detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security, or technical issues; or to protect against harm to the rights, property, or safety of our users or the public as required or permitted by law.
We carefully review each request to ensure it’s legally valid and appropriate. When possible and legally permissible, we notify users about legal demands for their information.
Data Security
The security of your information is paramount to us. We implement a comprehensive security program that includes administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect your information from unauthorized access, use, alteration, and disclosure.
Our security measures include encryption of data in transit and at rest, regular security assessments and audits, access controls limiting who can view personal information, secure data centers with physical security controls, regular backups to prevent data loss, and incident response procedures for potential breaches. We use industry-standard encryption protocols for all data transmission, particularly for sensitive information like passwords and payment details.
However, it’s important to understand that no method of electronic transmission or storage is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee absolute security. We encourage you to use strong, unique passwords for your account and to be cautious about sharing your login credentials.
If we become aware of a security breach that affects your personal information, we will notify you as required by applicable law. This notification will include information about what happened, what information was involved, what we’re doing about it, and what steps you can take to protect yourself.
Your Rights and Choices
We believe you should have control over your personal information. Depending on your location and applicable laws, you have various rights regarding your personal data.
Access and Portability
You have the right to request access to the personal information we hold about you. This means you can ask us to confirm whether we’re processing your personal data and request a copy of that data. You can access much of your information directly through your account dashboard, but if you need additional information, you can contact us at privacy@theflyingengineer.com.
You also have the right to receive your personal data in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format, and to transmit that data to another service provider where technically feasible.
Correction and Deletion
If you believe any information we hold about you is incorrect or incomplete, you have the right to request correction. For information in your account or business listing, you can usually make these updates directly through our platform. For other corrections, please contact us.
You also have the right to request deletion of your personal information, subject to certain exceptions. We may need to retain certain information for legal obligations, dispute resolution, fraud prevention, or to enforce our agreements. When you request deletion, we’ll review the request and delete information where we’re not required to retain it.
Opt-Out Rights
You can opt out of receiving marketing communications from us at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in any marketing email, adjusting your account preferences, or contacting us directly. Please note that even if you opt out of marketing communications, we may still send you service-related messages that are necessary for your account.
You can also control cookies through your browser settings. Most browsers allow you to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, some features of our website may not function properly without cookies.
Additional Rights for European Users
If you’re located in the European Economic Area, UK, or Switzerland, you have additional rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). These include the right to object to processing based on legitimate interests, the right to restrict processing in certain circumstances, the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority, and the right to withdraw consent where we rely on consent for processing.
To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at privacy@theflyingengineer.com. We’ll respond to your request within the timeframes required by applicable law, typically within 30 days.
International Data Transfers
The Flying Engineer operates globally, serving the international aviation community. As such, your information may be transferred to, stored, and processed in countries other than your country of residence. Our primary data processing occurs in Romania, where our company is headquartered, but we also use service providers located in various countries, including the United States.
When we transfer personal data internationally, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place to protect your information. For transfers from the EEA to countries not deemed adequate by the European Commission, we use Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the European Commission, or rely on other legal mechanisms such as your explicit consent.
By using our services, you acknowledge that your information may be transferred internationally as described in this policy. We take steps to ensure that wherever your data is processed, it receives an adequate level of protection.
Children’s Privacy
The Flying Engineer is a professional platform intended for aviation industry professionals and businesses. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 18 years of age. Our services are not directed to children, and we request that children not provide personal information through our platform.
If we become aware that we have collected personal information from a child under 18, we will take steps to delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe we may have collected information from a child under 18, please contact us immediately at privacy@theflyingengineer.com.
Data Retention
We retain your personal information for as long as necessary to provide our services, comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. The specific retention period depends on the type of information and the purpose for which it was collected.
For account information, we typically retain data for the duration of your account plus a reasonable period afterward to allow for account reactivation and to comply with legal requirements. Financial records are retained for seven years as required by tax and accounting regulations. Marketing preferences and communications are retained until you withdraw consent or request deletion. Security logs and fraud prevention data may be retained for shorter periods unless needed for investigation or legal proceedings.
When information is no longer needed, we either delete it securely or anonymize it so that it can no longer identify you. We use industry-standard methods to ensure deleted data cannot be recovered.
California Privacy Rights
If you’re a California resident, you have additional rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). These include the right to know what personal information we collect, use, disclose, and sell; the right to delete personal information in certain circumstances; the right to opt-out of the sale of personal information (though we don’t sell personal information); and the right to non-discrimination for exercising your privacy rights.
California residents can make requests by emailing privacy@theflyingengineer.com or calling our US office at (315) 670-7274. We’ll verify your identity before processing any request to ensure we’re protecting your information appropriately.
Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technologies, legal requirements, or for other operational reasons. When we make changes, we’ll update the “Last Updated” date at the top of this policy.
For significant changes that materially affect how we handle your personal information, we’ll provide prominent notice. This might include email notification to registered users, a banner on our website, or requiring you to review and accept the updated policy. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically to stay informed about how we’re protecting your information.
If you disagree with any changes to this Privacy Policy, you may close your account and stop using our services. Continued use of our services after changes become effective constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.
Contact Us
We welcome your questions, concerns, and feedback about our privacy practices. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Data Protection Contact: PUBLISHING OFFICE SRL
Attn: Privacy Officer
Calea Turzii 111c
Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Email: privacy@theflyingengineer.com
Phone: US: (315) 670-7274 | UK: (020) 3239-8488
General Inquiries: info@theflyingengineer.com
For users in the European Economic Area, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority if you believe we haven’t adequately addressed your concerns.
We aim to respond to all privacy-related inquiries within 30 days. For complex requests, we may need additional time and will keep you informed of our progress.
Thank you for trusting The Flying Engineer with your information. We are committed to protecting your privacy while building the world’s premier aviation industry platform.