PRIVACY
Privacy overview
A plain-language privacy outline for the HINBook product.
Public records
Published boat facts, broad locations, credited sources, and contributions intended for publication may appear on public profiles.
Private data
Contact details, account trust data, moderation scores and notes, reports, and sensitive ownership evidence stay restricted to authorized safety staff and are not displayed publicly.
Anonymous submissions
Guests may submit without an account. When a signed-in member chooses Post anonymously, HINBook hides their identity publicly but retains the account link privately for safety, abuse prevention, and moderation.
HIN lookup records
When someone deliberately submits a validly formatted HIN lookup, HINBook records the HIN and lookup time, the member account when signed in, the network IP address observed by our hosting service, and limited browser-reported details such as browser, operating system, and mobile or desktop class. We use these records for site security, abuse and fraud prevention, investigation support, and responses to valid legal process. They are not public, and a lookup never establishes identity, possession, intent, or wrongdoing. The full IP is encrypted; detailed request information is access-controlled and limited to authorized administrators. Account, network, and device details are automatically removed after 90 days unless a documented, time-bounded legal hold applies. Hosting and security providers process request data for us, and records may be disclosed to law enforcement only when HINBook validates an applicable lawful request.
Provider recommendations
Provider recommendation totals are public. A member’s name and profile link appear in the recommender list only when that member chooses to be listed and their current profile privacy allows the viewer to see them. Older recommendations remain anonymous unless the member opts in, and blocking, suspension, or deletion can hide a previously visible identity.
Business profiles and messages
Posts and messages sent from a business profile display the business as the public sender. HINBook privately records which authorized operator performed an action for security and accountability. A business inbox is shared only with current operators who have messaging permission; newly authorized or reinstated operators cannot read correspondence from before their current access began. Personal conversations remain separate from business conversations.
Safety screening
Submitted text and images are processed by HINBook safety rules and, when configured, a specialist content-safety provider. Photos are re-encoded before storage to remove GPS, EXIF, and other embedded metadata.
Reader improvement
When a signed-in member scans and confirms a HIN or registration, HINBook may privately retain the reader’s suggestions, confidence, confirmed characters, and a one-way image fingerprint for up to 180 days. Ordinary member correction images are discarded after the fingerprint is calculated. During administrator training, HINBook may also retain a metadata-free crop of the visible identifier for the same period so the trainer can audit and remove it. Nothing becomes public boat media or establishes ownership. Consistent administrator training or broad community agreement can produce a guarded low-confidence alternate; learned alternatives never bypass HINBook’s identifier-format checks. Contributors can remove an active sample from Account → Reader contributions.
Control
Contributors can request corrections or removal review through the contact page. Account holders can control public attribution and request an export or account deletion review. Security or legal preservation requirements may temporarily limit deletion of narrowly scoped records.