Air Traffic Data Systems Air Traffic Data Systems ATRACS
ATRACS — Privacy

ATRACS Privacy Policy

Last updated: 28 October 2026

This policy describes how Air Traffic Data Systems Ltd (“we”, “us”, “ATDS”) handles personal data in connection with ATRACS, the Aviation Training and Competency System, including the ATRACS app for iPad and Android.

1. Who this policy is for

ATRACS is training-records software used by air traffic control units. If you are a Trainee, on-the-job training instructor (OJTI), Assessor, Verifier, Training Manager or other member of staff at a unit using ATRACS, this policy explains what information the app and its supporting systems handle about you.

2. Who controls your information

Each ATRACS installation is run by the air traffic control unit that operates it — your employer, or the organisation you work for (“the Unit”). The Unit hosts its own ATRACS database, on its own server, and decides who has an account, what is recorded, and how long it is kept.

Air Traffic Data Systems Ltd supplies the ATRACS software and, for units that use it, the network relay that lets the app reach the Unit’s own server securely from off site. In data protection terms, the Unit is the data controller for your personal data, and Air Traffic Data Systems Ltd acts as a data processor on the Unit’s instructions.

If you have questions about your own data, or want to exercise your rights (see section 8), the most direct route is usually your Unit — they hold the account and can act on a request themselves. We are glad to help where a request needs something only we can do.

3. What information ATRACS processes

ATRACS is used to record controller training and competency, so the information it holds is what that record needs:

  • Identity. Your name and username, and the roles you hold in ATRACS (for example Trainee, OJTI, Assessor or Verifier).
  • Sign-in. A password, stored only as a salted, irreversible cryptographic hash — ATRACS never stores, and cannot recover, your actual password — along with the time of your last sign-in and a count of failed attempts, used to protect your account.
  • Training records. The discipline and level you are training at; training reports written about your sessions, including the date, hours, the OJTI’s write-up and scores, any fields your Unit has added, your own comments, and your sign-off; and diagrams drawn as part of a report.
  • Assessments and verification. Level assessments, their outcome and the Assessor’s comments, and the Verifier’s decision and comments.
  • Competency checks. For qualified controllers, the competency checks your Unit runs: what was checked and when, the marks and comments recorded, your own comments and acknowledgement, and the resulting expiry date.
  • Endorsements. Whether you hold an OJTI or Assessor endorsement, and its validity date.
  • Pictures you choose to add. If you take a photo or pick one from your device to draw a training diagram on, that picture is stored with the report. ATRACS only uses the camera or photo library when you ask it to, for that purpose.
  • Internal reference number. Where your Unit links ATRACS to MEIDS, the staff reference number that links your ATRACS account to your MEIDS record.

ATRACS does not collect your location, contacts, phone number, or browsing activity, and contains no advertising or analytics tracking of any kind.

4. Where your information is stored

Your Unit’s ATRACS data is stored in a database on infrastructure your Unit controls — typically a server at the Unit’s own site. The app keeps only what it needs to work on your device: your Unit’s code and server address; a time-limited sign-in token, held in the device’s secure keychain; and copies of the diagram pictures it has already downloaded, kept separately for each person who signs in on that device, so they are not fetched again. If the app closes unexpectedly, a description of the error is kept on the device and shown at the next sign-in, so that it can be copied and reported; it is never sent anywhere automatically. Where the app is used away from the Unit’s own network, traffic is carried to that same server through an encrypted relay operated by Air Traffic Data Systems Ltd; the relay forwards traffic and does not keep a copy of it.

5. How your information is used

Your information is used to record and display training reports, assessments, verification and competency checks; to show each person the work waiting for them; to track progress through training levels; to produce training statistics for the Unit’s Training Managers; and to enforce sign-in security. Once a training report has been signed off it is sealed and cannot be altered, so that it remains a reliable training record.

It is not used for advertising, is not sold, and is not shared with any third party except as described in section 6.

6. Who your information is shared with

  • MEIDS, at your own Unit. Where your Unit uses MEIDS, ATRACS reads your name and endorsement dates from the Unit’s MEIDS staff list, and writes a new competency expiry date back to it when a competency check is signed off. MEIDS runs on the same Unit’s systems; this information does not leave the Unit.
  • App distribution. Apple and Google operate the App Store and Play Store that ATRACS is distributed through, under their own privacy terms.
  • Optional document import. A Unit’s Training Manager can choose to have the ATRACS desktop application read a training document, such as a unit training plan, using an AI service (Anthropic) to suggest objectives or competency forms. Only the document the Training Manager selects is sent; staff records and training reports are not.
  • Optional suggested marks for written test answers. Where a Unit turns this on, an answer typed into a competency test is sent to the same AI service (Anthropic) to suggest whether it matches the Unit’s model answer. Only the question, the model answer, any marking notes and the typed answer are sent — never your name, the Unit’s name or the test’s title. The AI only suggests: an Assessor decides every mark.
  • Nobody else. ATRACS has no analytics SDK, no advertising SDK, and no other third-party integration that receives your personal data. The software licence that unlocks a Unit’s installation does not transmit any training or staff data anywhere.

7. How long your information is kept

Your Unit decides how long it keeps training records, consistent with its own record-keeping and regulatory obligations. ATRACS lets the Unit set a retention period for the records of Trainees who have finished or left training (five years unless the Unit chooses otherwise), after which those records become due for deletion. A Unit can also ask us to help remove data it no longer needs to keep.

8. Your rights

Depending on where you are, data protection law (including the UK GDPR) gives you rights over your personal data — to see what is held about you, to have inaccurate data corrected, to ask for data to be deleted, and others. Because your Unit is the data controller, the most direct route is to ask your Unit. If you contact us directly, we will either action it ourselves, where we hold the relevant system, or pass it to your Unit promptly.

9. Security

Traffic between the app and your Unit’s server is encrypted. Passwords are hashed, never stored in plain text. Sign-in is protected against repeated guessing, and sign-in tokens expire. Each person sees only what their role allows. The relay that carries off-site traffic to a Unit’s server does not store the data it forwards.

10. Children

ATRACS is workplace software for air traffic control staff and is not directed at, or knowingly used by, children.

11. Changes to this policy

We will update this page if what ATRACS collects, or how it is handled, changes, and will update the date at the top when we do.

12. Contact

Questions about this policy, or about your data, can be sent to info@airtrafficdatasystems.com — Air Traffic Data Systems Ltd.