Skip to content
← Home

Privacy Policy

July 2026

Overview

We collect what we need to answer you, run the trips and sessions you book, and send you the updates you actually asked for. We never sell your data. Photos of you only go public with your explicit yes. That's the whole philosophy — the rest of this page is the detail, and you're welcome to hold us to it.

Who's responsible

Sina und Fabian Ritter GbR, Kösliner Str. 27 A, 76139 Karlsruhe, Germany. Your contact for everything privacy: Sina Ritter, hello@sinaritter.com. (Full company details in the Impressum.)

What we collect, and why

When you visit this site — server logs record your IP address, browser type, and pages visited. Legal basis: our legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR) in keeping the site secure and running. Analytics: this site uses Google Analytics, configured privacy-first. When you write to us or apply — contact and application forms collect your name, email, country, and what you tell us: for expedition and mentorship applications that includes dive certification, experience, and what you're hoping to get out of it. We ask because fit matters — and Sina reads every application personally. Legal basis: taking steps toward a contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) and our legitimate interest in answering you. Providing it is voluntary — but an empty application is a hard one to say yes to. When you join the newsletter or a waitlist — name and email, with double opt-in. Legal basis: your consent (Art. 6(1)(a)), revocable any time — every email has an unsubscribe link that actually works. When you book editing coaching — your booking details, payment (handled by Stripe; we never see your full card details), and the raw files you send before the session. Your files stay yours: we use them only to prepare and run your session, and we delete our copies 14 days after we finish. Session recordings only exist if you ask for one. When you order a print — name, shipping address, payment via Stripe, shared with the print lab and shipping partner only as far as needed to get the frame onto your wall.

Photography — your image, your call

This one deserves its own section, because photographing people is part of what we do. If you book a photo package or join an expedition with documentation included, we photograph and film you in the water. Legal basis: the contract you booked (Art. 6(1)(b)). You receive your images; that's the product. Publication is a separate question — always. Your face on our portfolio, our social channels, or anywhere public happens only with your explicit written consent, asked per use, never buried in fine print. You can say yes to some uses and no to others, and you can change your mind later (Art. 7(3) GDPR) — we'll take the image down from our channels going forward. What consent withdrawal can't undo: copies already printed, licensed, or lawfully published before you withdrew. On group trips, you may appear in the backgrounds of other guests' photo and video packages — small groups, shared water, it happens. By joining an expedition you accept this; if a specific image bothers you, tell us and we'll fix it. The sharks, whales, and reefs in our portfolio have not provided consent, but they also aren't personal data. Wildlife and landscape photography is outside this policy — happily.

Who we share it with and where your data travels

Nobody buys your data from us — not now, not ever. We share it only with the services that keep this operation running: hosting, email delivery, newsletter, payments, print fulfillment. Each processes data on our behalf under data processing agreements (Art. 28 GDPR). If you book dive packages or accommodation at Liquid Shark Divers, that contract — and the data in it — sits with Liquid Shark Divers Pvt Ltd, Maldives, under its own privacy terms. I live and work between Germany, the Maldives, French Polynesia and the world — my inbox travels with me. Your data is stored with providers based in the EU/EEA where possible; when we access it from outside the EU, that happens under the safeguards agreed with those providers. Third-country transfers beyond that only occur with recognized GDPR safeguards in place.

How long we keep it

Only as long as the purpose lives: enquiries until answered and a reasonable follow-up window; applications for 12 months in case a spot opens; newsletter data until you unsubscribe; booking and payment records as long as German commercial and tax law makes us (up to 10 years — that one's not our choice); your raw files until shortly after your session. Then it goes.

Your rights

You can ask us what we have about you (access), fix it (rectification), delete it (erasure), restrict or object to processing, take it with you (portability), and withdraw any consent — all without giving a reason, all free. Email hello@sinaritter.com and it'll be handled personally and promptly. If you think we've handled your data badly, we'd genuinely rather hear it from you first — but you also have the right to complain to a supervisory authority. Ours is the Landesbeauftragte für den Datenschutz und die Informationsfreiheit Baden-Württemberg (baden-wuerttemberg.datenschutz.de).

No robots deciding things

No automated decision-making, no profiling. Every decision about your application, your booking, or your images is made by a human — usually the same one who'll meet you in the water. Questions? hello@sinaritter.com. A human answers.