Cowes Week Limited | Version 1.0 | Last updated: 01July 2026
This Privacy Policy explains how Cowes Week Limited collects, uses, shares and protects your personal data, and the rights you have. It applies to our website at www.cowesweek.co.uk, to entries, ticket and hospitality sales, to our newsletters and notifications, and to your attendance at and involvement in the Cowes Week regatta.
For the purposes of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, the data controller is:
Cowes Week Limited
Registered in England and Wales, company number 06310930
Registered office: Regatta House, 18 Bath Road, Cowes, Isle of Wight, PO31 7QN
Email: admin@cowesweek.co.uk | Telephone:01983 295 744
ICO registration number: Z1104835
If you have any questions about this policy or how we handle your personal data, please contact us using the details above, marking your message for the attention of the person responsible for data protection.
We collect and process the following categories of personal data:
|
You are… |
Data we collect |
|---|---|
|
A newsletter / notification subscriber |
Name (if provided) and email address; your subscription preferences; records of the emails we send and whether they are opened or clicked. |
|
A competitor / entrant |
Name, contact details (email, phone, postal address), boat and class details, club affiliation, sail number, crew details you provide, and payment information for your entry. |
|
A ticket, hospitality or merchandise customer |
Name, billing and (where relevant) delivery address, email, phone, order details and payment information. |
|
A visitor to our website |
Technical data such as IP address, device and browser type, and information collected through cookies and similar technologies (see our Cookie Policy). |
|
An enquirer or correspondent |
Your name, contact details and the content of your enquiry or correspondence. |
|
A person photographed or filmed at the event |
Images and video footage in which you may be identifiable (see our Photography & Filming Policy). |
|
A supplier, sponsor or partner contact |
Business contact details and correspondence relating to our relationship. |
We do not routinely collect special category data (such as health data). If you provide us with health or accessibility information — for example to help us make reasonable adjustments — we will use it only for that purpose and on the basis of your explicit consent or another lawful basis.
We collect personal data when you subscribe to our newsletters or regatta notifications; enter the regatta; buy tickets, hospitality or merchandise; contact us; interact with our website; or attend the event. We also receive some data from third parties, such as our entry and results systems, ticketing platform, and, where you have agreed, from clubs or partner organisations.
|
Purpose |
Lawful basis (UK GDPR Art 6) |
|---|---|
|
Processing entries and administering the regatta and results |
Performance of a contract with you; and our legitimate interests in running the event. |
|
Selling and fulfilling tickets, hospitality and merchandise |
Performance of a contract with you. |
|
Taking payment and preventing fraud |
Performance of a contract; legal obligation; and legitimate interests. |
|
Sending newsletters, e-shots and regatta notifications |
Your consent; or, for existing customers about similar services, our legitimate interests under the “soft opt-in” in PECR. You can opt out at any time. |
|
Responding to enquiries and providing customer service |
Legitimate interests; and, where relevant, steps to enter into a contract. |
|
Operating, securing and improving our website |
Legitimate interests; and, for non-essential cookies, your consent. |
|
Publishing event photography and video |
Legitimate interests in promoting the event and reporting results (see our Photography & Filming Policy). |
|
Keeping accounting records and meeting legal and regulatory duties |
Legal obligation. |
Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have assessed that our interests are not overridden by your interests or rights. You can ask us for more information about that assessment.
We will only send you marketing emails where you have subscribed, or where you are an existing customer, you have not opted out, and the marketing relates to our own similar services. Every marketing email contains an unsubscribe link, and you can also opt out at any time by emailing admin@cowesweek.co.uk. Opting out of marketing will not stop service messages we must send you (for example, about an entry or order you have placed).
We share personal data only where necessary, with:
We do not sell your personal data. We may disclose data where required by law, to protect our rights, or in connection with a sale or reorganisation of our business.
Where our providers process data outside the UK, we ensure an appropriate safeguard is in place, such as UK “adequacy” regulations or the International Data Transfer Agreement / Addendum, so your data receives an equivalent level of protection.
We keep personal data only for as long as necessary for the purposes described above, then delete or anonymise it. Our retention periods are set out in our internal Data Retention Schedule; in summary: entry, ticket and transaction records are generally kept for up to 7 years to meet accounting and tax obligations; marketing subscription data is kept until you unsubscribe and then suppressed; enquiries are kept for up to 2 years; and event images may be retained as part of the historical archive of the regatta. Further detail is available on request.
Under UK data protection law you have the right to: be informed about how we use your data; access a copy of your data; have inaccurate data corrected; have data erased in certain circumstances; restrict or object to processing (including objecting to direct marketing and to processing based on legitimate interests); data portability; and to withdraw consent where we rely on it. To exercise any of these rights, contact us at admin@cowesweek.co.uk. We will respond within one month. There is normally no charge.
We hope to resolve any concern you raise. You also have the right to complain to the UK's data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), at ico.org.uk, by calling 0303 123 1113, or by writing to Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF. We would appreciate the chance to address your concerns first.
We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data against loss, misuse and unauthorised access, and we require our processors to do the same. No transmission over the internet is completely secure, but we take reasonable steps to protect your information.
Our website and sales are directed at adults. Where young people take part in the regatta, we process their data with the involvement of a parent, guardian or club as appropriate. If you believe we hold a child's data without proper authority, please contact us.
We may update this policy from time to time. The current version is always available on our website and is dated above. Material changes will be notified where appropriate.
Cowes Week Limited | Version 1.0 | Last updated: 01 July 2026
Cookies are small text files placed on your device when you visit a website. Similar technologies include pixels, tags, local storage and device fingerprinting. They help a website work, remember your choices, and understand how the site is used. This policy explains how we use them on www.cowesweek.co.uk and how you can control them. It should be read alongside our Privacy Policy.
We use cookies in line with the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), as amended by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, and the UK GDPR. For cookies that are not strictly necessary and do not fall within a statutory exemption, we ask for your consent before setting them. Strictly necessary cookies do not require consent. You can accept, reject or change your preferences at any time using our cookie settings.
Some cookies are set by third parties whose content we embed or use, such as our video host, social media platforms, ticketing provider and analytics provider. We do not control these cookies; please see the relevant provider's own cookie/privacy information for details.
When you first visit the site you can accept or reject non-essential cookies through our banner, and you can change your choice at any time via the cookie settings link. You can also control cookies through your browser settings, including deleting or blocking them, although some parts of the site may not work properly if you block strictly necessary cookies. For general guidance see www.aboutcookies.org or your browser's help pages.
We may update this Cookie Policy as our site and the law change. The current version is always available here and is dated above.
Questions about our use of cookies can be sent to admin@cowesweek.co.uk, or Cowes Week Limited, Regatta House, 18 Bath Road, Cowes, Isle of Wight, PO31 7QN.
Cowes Week Limited | Version 1.0 | Last updated: 01 July 2026
Cowes Week is a major public sailing regatta. Photography and filming take place throughout the event, on the water and ashore, to record the racing and results, to promote the regatta, and for news and media coverage. This policy explains how images and footage are captured and used, how we handle personal data in them, and how you can raise a concern or objection. It should be read with our Privacy Policy.
Official images and footage are captured by our appointed event photographer and videographer, by accredited media, and by our partners and broadcasters. Members of the public and competitors also take their own photographs and video. We can only control the official and accredited coverage; we cannot control images taken by other attendees, media or third parties.
We use images and footage to report and promote the regatta, including on our website, social media channels, in newsletters, in the event programme, in press and PR, in future marketing, and in the historical archive of Cowes Week. We rely on our legitimate interests in recording and promoting a major public event, balanced against the reasonable expectations of those attending a public regatta. Where we use an image in a way that requires consent (for example a formal endorsement or advertising featuring an identifiable individual), we will obtain that consent separately.
By entering the regatta, buying a ticket or hospitality, or attending event areas, you should expect that you may be photographed or filmed, and that such images may be published as described above. Crowd, racing and general scene-setting images are used without individual notification. If you are the main, identifiable subject of an image and you would prefer we did not use it, you can ask us to stop (see clause 7).
Competitors' names, boats, sail numbers, clubs and results are published as part of the regatta record, and competitors and their boats are routinely photographed and filmed while racing. This is an inherent part of taking part in the event and is covered by the Notice of Race and these arrangements.
We take particular care with images of children. We avoid publishing a child's full name alongside an identifiable image without the agreement of a parent, guardian or responsible club official, and we will promptly review and, where appropriate, remove any image of a child on request from a parent or guardian. If you have a concern about an image of a child, please contact us using the details below and we will treat it as a priority.
If you do not wish to be actively photographed, please tell the photographer or a member of event staff at the time. To ask us to stop using, or to remove from our own channels, an image in which you are identifiable, email admin@cowesweek.co.uk with enough detail to locate it (where and roughly when it was taken, and a description). We will consider your request, and will remove or stop using the image from material we control unless there is an overriding reason to retain it (such as its use in the historical archive or an accurate news report). We cannot remove images already published by third parties, media or other attendees, but will where possible point you to the relevant party.
Accredited media and partners operate under our accreditation terms and are expected to act responsibly and lawfully. Drones and other aerial filming are permitted only with our authorisation and in accordance with Civil Aviation Authority rules and event safety requirements.
Images of identifiable people are personal data. You have rights over that data, including to object to processing based on legitimate interests, as set out in our Privacy Policy. This policy explains how to exercise the most common requests relating to event images.
Cowes Week Limited, Regatta House, 18 Bath Road, Cowes, Isle of Wight, PO31 7QN. Email admin@cowesweek.co.uk, telephone 01983 295 744.
© Cowes Week Limited. Registered in England and Wales no. 06310930.
