Whitsunday Air Charters Virtual
Main Website: whitsundayairvirtual.org
Flight Operations: flightops.whitsundayairvirtual.org
Privacy Contact: contact@whitsundayairvirtual.org
Data Controller / Website Operator: Taij Lauder
Last Updated: 9 September 2026
Whitsunday Air Charters Virtual ("Whitsunday Air Virtual", "we", "us" or "our") respects the privacy of its members, visitors and users.
This Privacy Policy explains how personal information may be collected, used, stored, disclosed and protected when you use our websites, flight operations systems, flight-tracking services and community platforms.
This policy applies to:
Whitsunday Air Charters Virtual is a virtual airline and flight-simulation community. It is not a real-world commercial airline or charter operator.
Where the European Union General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR"), UK GDPR, Australian privacy legislation or another applicable privacy law applies, we aim to process personal information in accordance with those requirements.
For the purposes of applicable data-protection laws, the operator and data controller of Whitsunday Air Charters Virtual is:
Taij Lauder
Whitsunday Air Charters Virtual
Email:
contact@whitsundayairvirtual.org
Privacy enquiries, requests for access or deletion, objections to processing and privacy complaints should be submitted using the email address above.
When you contact us through our website, we may collect:
We primarily use this information to respond to your enquiry and communicate with you.
If you register through our Flight Operations portal, we may collect:
Passwords should be protected using appropriate cryptographic hashing or equivalent security measures rather than being stored as readable plain text.
When you log into FlightOps, we may process information such as:
This information may be used for authentication, website operation, security, fraud prevention and troubleshooting.
As part of your virtual-airline membership, we may process:
When pilots participate in Whitsunday Air Charters Virtual flights, we may collect and maintain simulated flight reports commonly known as PIREPs.
Flight information may include:
Flight information may be used for pilot statistics, rankings, awards, fleet management, flight validation, operational records and community activities.
Whitsunday Air Charters Virtual uses or may use smartCARS, provided by TFDi Design, as a virtual flight-tracking application.
When smartCARS is used, information may be transmitted between your flight simulator, the smartCARS application, applicable TFDi Design infrastructure and our FlightOps/phpVMS system.
Information processed through smartCARS may include:
Some flight-tracking information may be transmitted periodically or in real time while a flight is being operated.
smartCARS is provided by TFDi Design, which operates independently from Whitsunday Air Charters Virtual.
If you use a TFDi Design account or TFDi-provided smartCARS features, TFDi Design may independently process account, authentication and flight-related information under its own privacy policy and terms.
Optional smartCARS features may also allow simulated flight activity to appear on services such as a global traffic map.
smartCARS may provide a "Remember Me" or similar feature. Users should avoid enabling saved-login functionality on shared or untrusted computers.
Our Flight Operations Portal is powered by phpVMS, a virtual-airline management platform.
phpVMS may be used for:
Our main website may provide Newsky-related functionality for virtual-airline operations.
Information obtained or displayed through Newsky may include:
Where Newsky processes information independently through its own services, its own privacy policy and terms apply.
Our Newsky functionality may allow a user to enter a Newsky API key. Where this is stored using browser sessionStorage, the key is intended to remain only for the relevant browser session.
Whitsunday Air Charters Virtual may use Discord for community communication.
Information associated with Discord participation may include:
Discord operates independently and processes information under its own privacy policy and terms.
Some virtual-airline information may be intentionally displayed publicly or to other members.
This may include:
Users should avoid publishing information they consider sensitive or do not want publicly associated with their virtual-airline activity.
FlightOps may use Gravatar or another third-party service to display profile images.
Where Gravatar is used, information derived from your email address may be transmitted to Gravatar to determine whether an associated profile image exists. Gravatar's own privacy terms apply to its independent processing.
When you access our websites, hosting, server and security systems may automatically process:
This information may be used for website operation, security, abuse prevention, technical support and troubleshooting.
Our websites may use:
These technologies may be used to maintain login sessions, provide security, remember necessary settings and operate integrated services.
Where applicable law requires consent for non-essential cookies or tracking technologies, appropriate consent should be obtained before those technologies are activated.
We may send administrative emails necessary to operate your membership or account. These may include registration information, account decisions, password resets, security notices and important operational communications.
Where users separately opt in to non-administrative or promotional email, that preference will be treated separately from necessary administrative communications.
You may withdraw consent for optional communications by contacting contact@whitsundayairvirtual.org .
We may use personal information to:
We do not sell personal information to data brokers or advertisers.
Where GDPR or UK GDPR applies, we rely on one or more lawful bases depending on the processing involved.
Certain processing may be necessary to provide virtual-airline membership and services requested by you.
We may process information where reasonably necessary to operate the virtual airline, maintain records, protect our systems, manage membership and prevent misuse.
We may rely on consent for genuinely optional processing, such as certain non-administrative communications. Consent may be withdrawn at any time.
We may process or retain information where reasonably necessary to comply with an applicable legal obligation or lawful request.
Information may be shared where reasonably necessary with:
We aim to disclose only information reasonably necessary for the relevant purpose.
Our services operate online and may involve providers located in countries other than the country in which you live.
Where GDPR or UK GDPR applies and we are responsible for an international transfer, we will seek to rely on an appropriate lawful transfer mechanism or safeguard where required.
Personal information is retained only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this policy.
Pilot account and membership information may be retained while an account remains active and for a reasonable period afterwards.
Historical PIREPs and virtual flight records may be retained for longer because they form part of the operational and statistical history of the virtual airline.
Where appropriate, personal identifiers may be removed or anonymised when continued identification is no longer necessary.
If your membership ends or your account is closed, some account information may be deleted, anonymised or made inactive.
Certain historical flight information may remain where reasonably necessary to preserve flight statistics, aircraft history, operational records or other legitimate virtual-airline information.
We take reasonable technical and organisational measures intended to protect personal information against unauthorised access, loss, misuse, alteration and disclosure.
Users are responsible for securing their FlightOps password, email account, Discord account, TFDi account, smartCARS credentials, Newsky API keys and devices.
No internet-connected system can be guaranteed to be completely secure.
If we become aware of a personal-data breach, we will assess the incident and take reasonable measures to contain and address it.
Where required by applicable law, we will notify the appropriate regulator and/or affected individuals.
Where GDPR or UK GDPR applies, you may have rights including:
To exercise a privacy right, contact: contact@whitsundayairvirtual.org .
We may request reasonable information to confirm your identity before disclosing, changing or deleting account information.
Our systems may automatically calculate simulated flight statistics, scores, landing rates, rankings, awards or similar information.
These calculations relate to participation in a recreational virtual-airline community and are not intended to make decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects.
Our flight-simulation community may attract users of different ages. Children and young people should use our services with appropriate parental or guardian involvement where required by applicable law.
Where local law requires parental or guardian consent, users below the applicable age should not provide personal information without the necessary consent.
Parents or guardians may contact contact@whitsundayairvirtual.org with privacy concerns.
Our websites may contain links to services operated by third parties. We are not responsible for the privacy, security or content practices of independent external websites.
Users should review the relevant third party's privacy policy before providing personal information to that service.
We may update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes to our websites, integrations, services, privacy practices or legal requirements.
When this policy is updated, the "Last Updated" date at the top of this page will be changed.
For questions, privacy requests or complaints relating to this Privacy Policy or your personal information, contact:
Taij Lauder
Whitsunday Air Charters Virtual
Email:
contact@whitsundayairvirtual.org
Main Website:
https://whitsundayairvirtual.org/
Flight Operations:
https://flightops.whitsundayairvirtual.org/
