Effective Date: 8 October 2026 | Last Updated: 8 October 2026
Solaris Marine LTD, registered in England & Wales (Company No. 15837600), with registered office at 5 Berrymoor Court, Northumberland Business Park, Cramlington, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE23 7RZ, United Kingdom. We are the data controller for personal data collected through this website. In this policy "we" and "us" mean Solaris Marine LTD, which works with a team in the UK and an office in China.
When you use the AI chat widget, your message, your last few messages in that conversation (up to 8), and the page you are on are sent through our server to an AI provider so it can write a reply. The main provider is DeepSeek (China). If it is unavailable, Z.ai (GLM) is used as a back-up. We do not save chat transcripts in our database. Please do not put sensitive personal data in the chat. If the assistant offers to open a quote request, nothing is sent to us until you submit the form yourself. Our server also keeps a short-lived, one-way hashed form of your IP address to limit abuse (see 2.6).
When you submit a quote request or the contact form we collect what you type: name, email address, company, phone number (optional), vessel or project details, product interest, quantity, delivery date and your message. We also record which form it came from.
Attachments. If a form lets you attach files, we accept up to 5 files (5 MB each). Documents, images and common drawing formats are forwarded to our team by email if they are small enough (3 MB in total). Other files are not forwarded and we ask you to email them instead. Attachments are not saved in the CRM database; only the file names are recorded. They stay in the mailbox they were sent to.
If you sign up for our newsletter (for example after sending a quote request), we collect your email address and, if you give them, your name, company and the quote reference. The sign-up is emailed to our team. We use it only to send you news and updates, and only if you have asked for it. You can unsubscribe at any time by emailing us (see section 12).
If you join the Invictus CAD early-access list, we collect your name, email address and, if you give them, your company and role, to email you about early access. The legal basis is your consent; you can withdraw it at any time by emailing us.
If you ask to speak to a person, we collect the name, email address and phone number you enter (if any), the page you were on, the earlier AI chat in that window, and everything you type in the live chat. Messages are delivered to our team in a private Telegram group, and the team replies from there. The live chat runs on a server in Hong Kong, reached through Cloudflare. While no one from our team has replied, an AI assistant (DeepSeek, with Zhipu AI as a back-up) may answer your first few messages. Chat sessions are deleted from that server 7 days after they start. If Telegram is unavailable, the chat alert is sent to us by email. Telegram keeps its own copy of the group messages (see section 6).
Staff and invited people who complete our internal AI questionnaire are given a separate notice with that questionnaire, which explains what is collected and why. It does not apply to ordinary visitors to this website.
Our hosting provider (Vercel) and Cloudflare receive your IP address and standard request data when you load the site or use the chat and forms. To block abuse we keep counters of requests per visitor in our database. These use a one-way hash of your IP address (not the address itself), and the counters are deleted after about 2 days.
We use only the following. They keep the site working or remember your choices.
| Name | Purpose | Duration | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
sm_lang | Remembers your language (English or Chinese) across our website subdomains | 1 year | Cookie, essential |
solaris-theme | Remembers your dark/light mode choice | Until you clear your browser | Local storage, essential |
solaris-cookie-consent | Records your cookie banner choice | Until you clear your browser | Local storage, essential |
sm-live-session, sm-chat-draft | Lets a live chat continue if you reload the page, and keeps an unsent chat message | Until the chat ends or you clear your browser | Local storage, essential |
solaris-leads | Keeps a copy of your last quote requests on your own device | Until you clear your browser | Local storage, essential |
sm_lead, sm-relay-direct | Passes your details to the "quote sent" page and notes which chat route works for you | Until you close the tab | Session storage, essential |
Team members who sign in to our portal receive a sign-in cookie that lasts for the session (up to 14 days). We do not use advertising, analytics or tracking cookies on this site. The map on our home page loads map tiles and code from third parties (section 3), which can see your IP address; if you choose "Essential only" on the cookie banner the map is not loaded.
We use the following service providers (processors) and other third parties to run the site. Most act only on our instructions. Some, such as AI and search providers, apply their own terms. We have not fixed the exact server location for every provider, so where we say "may be outside the UK" the data could be handled in the countries listed in section 9.
| Service | Purpose | Data involved | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vercel Inc. | Website hosting and the server code behind the forms and chat | IP address, request data, form and chat content in transit | Servers operated by Vercel, which may be outside the UK, including the United States |
| Neon | Database for the CRM and abuse counters | Enquiries, contacts, research briefs, hashed IP counters, and staff questionnaire answers and files | Servers operated by Neon, which may be outside the UK |
| Microsoft 365 | Our email, including enquiries and attachments | Enquiry content, attachments, email addresses | Microsoft data centres, which may be outside the UK |
| Google (Gmail) | Email sending and receiving for enquiries and attachments | Enquiry content, attachments, email addresses | Google data centres worldwide |
| DeepSeek | AI chat replies, live chat AI replies, and the enquiry check and research brief | Chat messages; enquiry details (including the contact's name and job title, the domain of their email address and their message) and web search results (see 4.1) | China |
| Z.ai / Zhipu AI (GLM) | Back-up AI provider for the same tasks | As for DeepSeek | China or elsewhere outside the UK |
| Tavily or Brave Search | Web search for the research brief | Search terms built from the enquirer's company name, country, product, vessel and location. We do not send the contact's name or email address in these searches. | Servers operated by the search provider, which may be outside the UK |
| Cloudflare | Network front door and security for the live chat and our systems | IP address, chat traffic in transit | Global network |
| Hong Kong server (Tencent Cloud) | Live chat relay between you and our team | Name, email, phone, page, chat messages (kept 7 days) | Hong Kong |
| Telegram | Alerts for new enquiries and live chat messages to our team | Enquiry details and live chat messages | Telegram servers, which may be outside the UK |
| Leaflet (cdnjs / Cloudflare), OpenStreetMap, Esri | Interactive map on the home page | IP address when map files and tiles load | Global |
We do not sell your personal data and we do not share it with anyone for their own marketing.
DeepSeek is our main AI provider. We have asked DeepSeek not to use the data we send to it to train its models. We cannot guarantee how DeepSeek or any other AI provider handles data, so please do not include sensitive information in chat or in enquiries.
We use your personal data to:
When a new enquiry arrives, our CRM runs an automated check. It looks at simple signals in the enquiry (for example whether the email domain matches the company website, or whether a free email address is used for a large company), searches the web for public information about the company, and asks an AI model to summarise what it found. The result is a short research brief and a rating of "looks genuine", "check before quoting" or "possible scam", with reasons. This is advisory only. It is shown to our staff in the enquiry email and in the CRM, and a member of staff decides whether and how to reply. We do not make solely automated decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you, and the system never refuses or deletes an enquiry on its own. If you think a rating about you is wrong, contact us (section 12) and we will review it.
We process personal data under the following lawful bases under UK GDPR:
Where our systems delete data automatically, the period is shown below. For records that are not deleted automatically, we keep them for as long as needed for the enquiry and any resulting business relationship, and to meet legal and accounting obligations, and we review them periodically.
| Data | How long |
|---|---|
| Email correspondence, including enquiries and attachments | For as long as needed for the enquiry and any resulting business relationship, and to meet legal and accounting obligations; reviewed periodically |
| CRM records (company, contact, enquiry, research brief, activity log) | As above |
| Newsletter sign-up | Until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete it |
| AI chat messages | Not stored by us. DeepSeek or Z.ai may keep them under their own terms. |
| Live chat sessions on the Hong Kong server | Deleted 7 days after the session starts (chats are closed after 4 hours without activity) |
| Telegram group messages (enquiry alerts and live chat) | Kept by Telegram until our team deletes them; we do not delete them automatically |
| Hashed IP abuse counters | About 2 days |
| Team sign-in sessions | Up to 14 days |
You can ask us to delete your data earlier (section 7), unless we need to keep it by law.
Under UK GDPR, you have the following rights:
To use any of these rights, contact us at dale.barry@solarismarine.co.uk. We will respond within one month. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). We would appreciate the chance to put things right first.
We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your data. Our website and systems are served over HTTPS (TLS encryption). Server secrets are held as protected environment variables, not in the website code. Access to the CRM needs a personal sign-in and is limited by role and region. Visitor IP addresses used for abuse limits are stored only as one-way hashes. The public forms and chat accept requests only from our own pages and are rate-limited. Email is sent through our Microsoft 365 or Gmail account.
We are based in the United Kingdom, but we work with a team in China and some of the providers above process data outside the UK, including in the United States, China and Hong Kong. China and Hong Kong are not covered by a UK adequacy decision. Where a transfer needs a safeguard, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as the UK International Data Transfer Addendum or standard contractual clauses where the provider offers them, or another mechanism allowed by UK GDPR. You can ask us for more information about the safeguards we use (section 12).
Our website is not intended for individuals under 16 years of age. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children.
We may update this policy from time to time. Changes will be posted on this page with an updated effective date. We encourage you to review this policy periodically.
For all privacy-related inquiries or to exercise your data rights:
Dale Barry, Lead Business Director & Commercial Director
Email: dale.barry@solarismarine.co.uk
Phone: +44 191 250 2038
Address: 5 Berrymoor Court, Northumberland Business Park, Cramlington, NE23 7RZ, UK
© 2026 Solaris Marine Ltd · Registered in England & Wales No. 15837600 · Registered office: 5 Berrymoor Court, Northumberland Business Park, Cramlington, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE23 7RZ, United Kingdom · Privacy · Terms