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Aeronautical rescue service (ARCC)

Personal data we process

Whose personal data is processed by Air Navigation Services ("data subjects")

  • Stakeholder representatives, aircraft and ELT owners, and ICE persons, and persons directly or indirectly involved in aircraft accidents and search and rescue assignments.  
  • For telephone communications, customers who contact the unit by telephone or who the unit contacts by telephone. 

Personal data provided to Air Navigation Services by the data subject or a representative of the organisation that is a data subject

  • Contact details and other identification information for the persons responsible for airports, including their name, telephone number and organisation.
  • Personal data contained in recordings collected via air traffic telephone communications, e.g. speech, including communication metadata such as time and duration of messages.

Personal data disclosed to Air Navigation Services

  • Information from the aircraft register and the ELT register maintained by the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency: owner's name, address, telephone number, email address, organisation, aircraft registration number, ELT ID. and contact details and other identification information for ICE persons.
  • Air Navigation Services also processes personal data necessary for carrying out search and rescue tasks on a case-by-case basis and for investigating accidents, the nature of which is determined on a case-by-case basis and which may also contain sensitive personal data, such as the patient data of persons rescued.

Purposes of processing

Air Navigation Services processes personal data to maintain the readiness of the Aeronautical Rescue Coordination Centre (ARCC) and, on a case-by-case basis, to carry out search and rescue tasks in accordance with section 153 of the Aviation Act, the regulations issued by the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency and other applicable laws. The processing of personal data is based on the fulfilment of the statutory obligations of Air Navigation Services. 

For special categories of personal data, the processing of personal data is based on substantial public interest pursuant to Article 9(2)(g) of the General Data Protection Regulation, which is based on the Aviation Act and the regulations issued under it by the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency on the performance of search and rescue assignments. The processing of personal data belonging to special categories of personal data is occasional and special care and safeguards are observed in the processing of the data.

Personal data retention periods

Air Navigation Services retains the contact details and other identification data of the persons responsible for each airport as long as the person is in that position.  Contact information obtained from Traficom's registers is retained as long as the information in the register remains unchanged. Personal data processed in connection with search and rescue services are retained for the period that is appropriate for the tasks related to the investigation carried out by Air Navigation Services.