What we do with your information.

This explains what Armada Films does with personal information. It comes in two halves, because the website and the film work are different things. The website part is short. The filming part is the one that matters.

Who we are

Armada Films Ltd, trading as Armada Films. We are a video production company in Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands.

For the information described on this page we are the data controller, which means we decide how it gets used and we are the ones answerable for it. Anything on this page, email hello@armadafilms.com.

The website

The contact form

Send a brief through the form and we receive your name, your email address, the project type you picked from the list, and whatever you write in the brief box. That is the whole of it. There is no account to create and nothing goes into a database.

The message is delivered by Resend, an email service, and lands in our inbox, where it then sits as an ordinary email. We reply to the address you gave us.

There is one field in the form that nobody ever sees. It is there to catch automated spam, and anything that fills it in gets dropped without being read.

You can skip the form and email hello@armadafilms.com instead. Same inbox, same result.

Analytics

We use Vercel Analytics and Vercel Speed Insights to see which pages people look at and how quickly the site loads. Neither one sets a cookie. Neither one follows you to other websites. What comes back to us is counts and timings. It is not a profile of you.

Cookies

This site sets none. There is no consent banner because there is nothing to consent to. The one thing that does set a cookie here is a video player, which is covered next.

The video players

The films are hosted on Vimeo and YouTube rather than by us. When a player loads, that company receives your IP address and the address of the page you are on, and sets a cookie called __cf_bm. That cookie belongs to Cloudflare, it exists to tell people apart from bots, and it lasts about half an hour.

Every player on this site is loaded with a do not track instruction, which stops Vimeo's own analytics from running, and YouTube films are pulled from its no cookie domain. That includes the showreel playing behind the headline on the homepage. What those companies do with the request your browser makes to fetch a film is covered by their own terms: Vimeo and YouTube.

Fonts

Worth a line because it usually goes the other way. The typefaces are served from this site. Your browser makes no request to Google to read this page, even though these started life as Google fonts.

Server logs

The site runs on Vercel. Like any web host, their servers keep short term records of requests, and those include IP addresses. We do not read them as a matter of course. They exist so the site can be kept running and abuse can be spotted.

Filming people

Pointing a camera at somebody is processing their personal data. A face is personal data. So is a voice, and so is whatever a person says on camera. Most privacy notices from production companies leave this part out, which is odd, because it is the bulk of what we actually do.

If you appear in something we make

We hold your image and your voice inside the footage, your name where it appears on screen or in a credit, and whatever you told us while the camera was running. If we are paying you, we also hold contact and payment details, and those reach our accountant and the tax record.

Crew

Contact details and payment details, kept for as long as the working relationship and the accounts need them.

People who appear in the background

At an event or out on a street, people end up in shot without being the subject of it. Where a shot makes someone identifiable and they are the focus of it, we ask them. Where it is a wide of a busy room, generally we do not. Either way, if you find yourself in something and would rather not be, get in touch and we will sort it out.

Releases

For most paid work we ask the people on camera to sign a release. It sets out what the footage can be used for, where it can run and for how long. If you signed one, that document governs, and this notice sits underneath it rather than replacing it. If you did not sign one and you are identifiable, tell us and we will deal with it.

Where the footage ends up

Finished work goes to the client who commissioned it. It may also appear in the portfolio on this site, in a showreel, on our social accounts, and in entries for awards and festivals. Showing the work is how a production company demonstrates it can do the job.

How long we keep footage

Indefinitely. Rushes, project files and masters go to archive and are not deleted on any schedule. A client can come back years later wanting a recut or a new version, and an archive that has been tidied away is no use to anyone.

The honest limit on that: if something you appear in has already been published or licensed, asking us to delete our copy will not pull it back off the internet or out of a client's hands. What we can do is stop using it ourselves from that point on, and tell you plainly what is beyond our reach.

When we are working to a client's instructions

Sometimes a client asks us to film their staff, their customers or their members. In that situation they decide what is being collected and why, and we are acting on their instructions rather than our own. Their privacy notice governs that footage, not this one. Ask them, or ask us and we will point you at the right person.

Who else sees your information

Nobody buys it, because we do not sell it. It reaches another company only where that company is doing a job for us or for the production:

• Vercel, who host this site and provide the analytics
• Resend, who deliver the contact form emails
• Google, who run our email
• Vimeo and YouTube, who host the films
• The client who commissioned a piece of work, and their agency where they use one
• Crew on a production, where they need something to do their job
• Our accountant, for anything that touches an invoice
• Anyone we are required by law to tell

Where in the world it goes

Vercel, Resend, Google, Vimeo and YouTube are United States companies, so information they handle leaves the Cayman Islands. The Data Protection Act permits that where the information is properly protected at the other end, and we rely on the contractual terms each of those companies offers for exactly that purpose.

How long we keep things

• Footage and project files: indefinitely, as above
• Enquiries and the email conversation that follows: kept as part of the record of who we have talked to and worked with, with no fixed deletion date
• Anything touching an invoice: at least five years, which is the minimum the Companies Act sets for a Cayman company's books of account, and in practice often longer
• Analytics: held by Vercel on their own schedule, and never tied to your name

Marketing

We do not send marketing email. Sending a brief through the form does not put you on a list, because there is no list.

That may change. If we start a newsletter it will be opt in, you will have said yes on purpose, and every email will carry a one click unsubscribe. Asking us about a project will never be treated as signing up for anything.

Automated decisions

We do not make any. Nothing here involves software deciding something about you without a person involved.

Children

This website is not aimed at children. Where someone under eighteen appears in something we film, we get consent from a parent or guardian, and that is handled on the production itself rather than through this page.

Your rights

Under the Data Protection Act you can:

• be told what we are doing with your information, which is what this page is for
• get a copy of the information we hold about you
• have anything inaccurate corrected
• ask us to stop, or to limit what we are doing with it
• tell us to stop using it for direct marketing
• object to a decision about you being made by automated means
• complain, and seek compensation if you have suffered damage

Email hello@armadafilms.com to use any of them. For a copy of your information the Act gives us thirty days, counted from the day after your request arrives, and there is no charge for it. If we need something from you to find your records we will ask straight away.

Complaining

Come to us first if you are willing, because most things get fixed faster that way. You are not obliged to. You can go directly to the Office of the Ombudsman, which regulates data protection in the Cayman Islands:

Changes to this notice

When this changes we will update the page and change the date at the top. If something changes in a way that affects people who appear in our work, we will say so rather than quietly editing the wording.