Terms & Conditions

Who we are

BoatID is run by BoatID Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales, company number 17396584. By using BoatID, you're agreeing to these terms. You can reach us at hello@boatidmail.com.

What BoatID is

BoatID is a free, independent registry for privately owned sea boats up to 10 metres, their engines and their trailers. It gives your boat a permanent record and a public page that helps identify it if it's ever lost or stolen.

BoatID is not a legal register of ownership. We check that the details you give us are consistent and complete, but we don't verify legal title the way a solicitor or the DVLA does for a vehicle. Registering a boat with BoatID doesn't prove you own it in a legal sense, and a BoatID record isn't a substitute for reporting a theft to the police or registering with Immobilise.

Eligibility

You need to be 18 or over to create an account. The information you give us — about yourself and about your boat, engine or trailer — needs to be accurate and honest.

Your account

BoatID doesn't use passwords — we email you a link to sign in instead. That means keeping your email account secure is what keeps your BoatID account secure. Let us know straight away if you think someone else has access to your account.

Registration and verification

Individual registration is free, and it always will be. When you register a boat, engine or trailer, we run some automated checks and a person reviews what you've submitted before it's confirmed. We can reject a registration, or ask you for more information, if something doesn't look right — and we can remove a record later if we find it was registered dishonestly.

Theft reports

If you report a boat or trailer stolen, you need to give us a genuine crime reference number from the police. Making a false theft report is a serious misuse of BoatID, and we'll remove records or accounts involved in one. Reporting a theft on BoatID doesn't replace reporting it to the police, and we can't guarantee a stolen boat will be recovered.

Public record pages

Once a boat, engine or trailer is verified, its details become visible on a public record page — that's the whole point of BoatID, and it's what makes the record useful for identification. By registering, you're agreeing to that information being public. As set out in our Privacy Policy, your personal details are never shown there — only the boat, engine and trailer information is.

Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• register a boat, engine or trailer that isn't genuinely yours
• submit false or misleading information, including false theft reports
• try to disrupt, overload, or gain unauthorised access to BoatID
• use BoatID for anything unlawful

Our name and branding

The BoatID name, logo and branding belong to BoatID Ltd. Please don't use them without asking us first.

Liability

BoatID is provided free of charge, on an "as is" basis. We do our best to keep it accurate and available, but we can't guarantee it'll be uninterrupted or error-free, and we're not liable for losses arising from your use of BoatID — including reliance on a record's accuracy, or a boat being stolen or not recovered. This doesn't affect any liability we can't legally exclude, such as for fraud.

Ending your account

You can ask us to delete your account and records at any time via our contact page. We can also suspend or remove an account or record that breaks these terms.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as BoatID grows. If we make a significant change, we'll update the date at the top of this page.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales.