Privacy Policy, Terms of Use and Content Concerns Procedure
Last updated: 10 September 2026 · Version 2026-09-10-2
This combined notice explains how OperationDynamo.navy (“Operation Dynamo Archive”, “we”, “us”) operates this historical research website, the terms on which it may be used, how personal information is handled, and how to raise a privacy, accuracy, rights or removal concern.
Our Contact Us form is the contact point for general enquiries, data-protection requests and content concerns.
1. Operator and scope
OperationDynamo.navy is a digital historical archive concerning Operation Dynamo, the Dunkirk evacuation, associated ships, service personnel, civilians, honours and source documents. This notice applies to this website, registered user accounts, newsletter subscriptions, contact messages and requests concerning indexed archive content.
OperationDynamo.navy is an independent historical research project. It is not part of, affiliated with, sponsored by, approved by or operated on behalf of the Royal Navy, the Ministry of Defence or any other naval or government authority. The .navy domain is used solely because it provides a relevant address for the subject matter of the archive; it does not indicate official status, naval ownership or endorsement.
For UK data-protection purposes, OperationDynamo.navy determines the purposes and means of the processing described here and acts as the controller. Questions should be sent to the contact address above.
2. Website terms of use
By using the website, you agree to use it lawfully and responsibly. You must not:
- attempt to bypass authentication, access controls, rate limits or technical restrictions;
- scrape, harvest or systematically extract records in a way that burdens the service or creates an unauthorised competing dataset;
- introduce malware, probe vulnerabilities, disrupt availability or interfere with another user;
- misrepresent archive material, remove provenance, or imply our endorsement;
- use personal information obtained from the archive to harass, discriminate against, identify or cause harm to any living person;
- submit unlawful, defamatory, threatening, misleading or infringing material.
We may restrict or suspend access, preserve relevant evidence and report suspected unlawful activity where reasonably necessary to protect the archive, its users or others.
Questions specifically about these Terms and Conditions should be submitted through the Contact Us form using the “Terms and Conditions” category.
Accounts
Registration may be opened or closed at our discretion. You are responsible for accurate account information, protecting your credentials and notifying us of suspected unauthorised access. Accounts may be suspended for misuse, security reasons or breach of these terms.
Accounts are personal to the individual to whom they are issued and must not be shared, transferred, lent or made available to another person. You must not disclose your password, authentication details or protected account access, or allow another person to use your account to view or obtain restricted material. Each researcher or other authorised user must use an account issued in their own name. If you believe that another person has accessed or used your account, you must notify us promptly and change your password. We may suspend or revoke an account where account sharing or unauthorised use is suspected.
Private electronic correspondence
Email and other electronic communications sent by OperationDynamo.navy to a named recipient are private and confidential, are intended solely for that recipient and must not be forwarded, copied, published, quoted, posted online or otherwise disclosed or used without our prior written consent, unless the communication expressly states that it may be shared.
This restriction does not prevent a recipient from making a disclosure that is required by law, a court or a competent regulator; reporting a suspected crime or safeguarding concern; exercising a statutory right; or sharing the communication confidentially with a solicitor, insurer or other professional adviser who is under an appropriate duty of confidentiality. Any permitted disclosure must be limited to what is reasonably necessary. A person who receives a communication in error must notify us, must not use or disclose it and should delete it securely.
Our email footer identifies the current version and date of these Terms of Use and links to this page. By continuing to use the website or correspond with us, you acknowledge that your use and correspondence are subject to the latest version, to the extent permitted by law. This email notice does not amend or override any separately agreed written contract, and a change to these Terms will not retrospectively alter rights or obligations that have already accrued.
Intellectual property and permitted use
The website design, database selection and arrangement, original commentary, transcriptions and software may be protected by copyright and database rights. Underlying historical documents and images may have separate owners, custodians, licences or usage restrictions. Inclusion does not mean that material is free of rights.
You may view the site and make limited extracts for personal study, private research, criticism, review or other uses permitted by law. Reproduction, republication, commercial exploitation, bulk redistribution or machine-learning ingestion requires permission unless a legal exception clearly applies. Source and archive references should be retained.
Academic and research citation
Where a publication, thesis, dissertation, report, presentation, exhibition, teaching resource or other research output materially relies on the Archive’s original indexing, database arrangement, research summaries, commentary or record-matching work, the Operation Dynamo Archive should be acknowledged as the research or discovery source. This acknowledgement should appear alongside, and does not replace, any credit required for the original author, photographer, rights holder, holding archive, collection or catalogue reference.
The credit shown below as [Operation Dynamo, editor, researcher] is a placeholder. The name and wording to replace that placeholder will be provided when an eligible research account is issued. The account holder should use the supplied credit in relevant academic or research outputs:
[Operation Dynamo, editor, researcher], Operation Dynamo Archive, available at: https://www.operationdynamo.navy (accessed [date]).
For an individual record, the suggested citation is:
[Operation Dynamo, editor, researcher], ‘[vessel, person or record title]’, Operation Dynamo Archive, [original holding archive, collection and catalogue reference where applicable], [full record URL] (accessed [date]).
These formats may be adapted to the citation style required by a university, publisher or other institution, provided the supplied editorial and research credit and the relevant underlying source attribution are retained. Citation does not grant permission to reproduce protected material, establish that a use is fair dealing or replace any permission, acknowledgement or licence required by the underlying source.
Crediting the Operation Dynamo Archive is additional attribution only. It does not replace the need to obtain any required permission from the collection owner, copyright holder, archive, photographer, author or other relevant rights holder, and it does not replace the requirement to credit the collection owner and the original source in the form they specify. Permission or access granted by the Operation Dynamo Archive applies only to rights that the Archive is legally entitled to administer.
Default restriction on reuse of displayed images
Unless an item-specific rights statement or open licence expressly permits broader reuse, our permission to access images displayed through this website is limited to personal study, classroom teaching and bona fide academic or historical research conducted on a non-commercial basis. Commercial publication, advertising, merchandise, paid media, licensing, resale, redistribution or other commercial exploitation is not authorised by OperationDynamo.navy and requires any permission necessary from the relevant copyright holder.
The archive, library or institution holding a physical or digital record is not necessarily its copyright holder and may not be able to grant copyright permission. Before reproducing an image, users must check the item-specific credit, catalogue reference, rights statement, contractual conditions and applicable licence; identify the actual rights holder where required; and obtain permission directly from the person or body entitled to grant it.
This default website restriction does not remove rights that a user obtains independently under an item-specific open licence, public-domain status or a statutory copyright exception. For example, material expressly available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 remains governed by that licence, including its attribution conditions and exclusions.
Image processing and AI-assisted modifications
Some images displayed on this website may have been modified from the original photograph or scan where physical obstructions, handling equipment, page curvature, shadows, glare, framing or other conditions affected image capture. Processing may include rotation, perspective correction, colour or contrast adjustment, background removal, cropping, stitching, reconstruction of obscured edges, or filling gaps. These processed images are research and access aids and must not be treated as exact facsimiles of the original record.
Artificial-intelligence-assisted tools have been used in some cases to enhance legibility, crop or reframe images, remove visual obstructions, reconstruct backgrounds, or fill missing areas. Such processing can introduce inaccurate, inferred or invented visual detail. It does not alter the underlying archival record and should not be relied upon as evidence of wording, markings, layout, condition or content that cannot be verified independently.
Users should always consult the original image source and, where accuracy matters, the original physical or digital record held by the identified archive or custodian. The catalogue reference, provenance and item-specific rights statement should be retained when citing or discussing an image. Material findings must be checked against the unmodified source rather than relying solely on a processed image displayed by OperationDynamo.navy.
Copyright status and rights-holder notifications
We make reasonable, good-faith efforts to investigate the copyright status and provenance of material displayed on the website, identify and credit rights holders where known, obtain permission or a suitable licence where required, and use material only where we reasonably believe that publication is authorised or otherwise permitted by law. Historical collections can contain incomplete, conflicting or unavailable rights information, so an attribution, licence or rights assessment may occasionally be incomplete or incorrect.
If you believe that material on this website infringes copyright or has been used under an incorrect rights statement, please use our Contact Us form. Please provide the exact page URL, identification of the work concerned, the basis of your claim, your contact details, evidence that you own the relevant rights or are authorised to act for the owner, and the correction or other outcome requested.
We will assess a sufficiently detailed notice under the review procedure in section 8. While a claim is investigated, we may request further evidence or temporarily restrict access where proportionate. Depending on the evidence and applicable law, an outcome may include corrected attribution or rights information, confirmation or amendment of a licence, replacement of an image, restricted access, removal, or no change. Receipt or investigation of a notice is not an admission of infringement or liability and does not waive any legal right, defence or exception.
Lt Col G. P. Orde index and NMM 940.542.1 (1940), volumes i–iii
The searchable material described on this website as Lt Col G. P. Orde’s List or the Orde index is an independently compiled research and discovery aid. For the collections NMM 940.542.1 (1940), Orde volumes i, ii and iii, we do not display source images or source text because copyright ownership and the applicable publication or licensing basis have not been conclusively determined. Page-level text shown for those collections consists only of our independently written summaries. Those summaries are not transcriptions, facsimiles, editions or substitutes for the original records.
The separately presented indexes consist of factual references, classifications and tags compiled or extrapolated from the records into new structured metadata. Their selection, arrangement and terminology may therefore differ from the wording and organisation of the source. They identify research leads rather than reproducing Orde’s expression, and remain subject to correction and verification against the originals.
Project research has located correspondence dated 16 July 1945 from the Admiralty Historical Section which describes the work as the Admiralty Staff History of “Dynamo,” intended as a confidential book for official information and not for public availability. This evidence may indicate that the report was prepared in the course of Orde’s Royal Navy duties for the Admiralty and may consequently be subject to Crown copyright or an applicable government licence. That conclusion has not yet been established, the present rights holder has not been identified, and OperationDynamo.navy does not represent that the report is presently licensed under the Open Government Licence or any other government licence.
The summaries and factual indexes are provided to indicate the likely relevance of the archive material and help researchers decide whether to visit the holding archive to inspect the original records. Users needing further guidance may contact us through the Contact Us form.
The underlying work is Dunkirk Withdrawal: Operation Dynamo, May 26–June 4, 1940: Alphabetical List of Vessels Taking Part, With Their Services. Orde compiled it soon after the evacuation from official and private reports, government and Admiralty papers, French Admiralty information and interviews. It is organised mainly by vessel and records identifying details, operational accounts, information sources and crew honours, with cross-references and notes where evidence conflicted. It is an important historical source rather than an infallible modern register: possible omissions remain, and some vessels have marginal or doubtful connections.
OperationDynamo.navy does not claim ownership of copyright in the underlying source document, and inclusion of an indexed fact, reference or transcription does not imply a licence, assignment, approval or endorsement from its author, archive, custodian or rights holder. Copyright and related rights remain with their respective owners. Anyone with substantiated rights information or a concern about a particular transcription should use the Contact Us form and identify the exact entry concerned.
The National Archives reading-room photographs - limited scope
A defined subset of images used in this project consists of photographs personally taken by the site operator of Dunkirk-related records consulted in the reading rooms at The National Archives (“TNA”). This subset includes the relevant page photographs displayed from the Small Craft Service List and The Red Book / Red List, 1939–40. In written correspondence dated 3 July 2025, TNA confirmed that it waived reproduction fees for the non-commercial use of those personally taken photographs.
That confirmation expressly states that it is not a copyright licence. Our basis for publishing an image within this defined subset therefore depends on both: (a) the reproduction-fee waiver for non-commercial use; and (b) our reasonable assessment that the particular information is available for the particular use under the Open Government Licence v3.0 (“OGL”), or that another lawful permission, exception or basis applies.
Where the OGL applies, our attribution is: Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source catalogue references should also be retained where displayed. The material is used without suggesting official status, approval or endorsement by TNA or any government body.
This position is deliberately source-specific. It applies only to qualifying photographs personally taken in TNA reading rooms and identified in our records as belonging to that subset. It does not create a blanket licence for every item held by TNA, every Dunkirk-related document, the complete Orde document, material obtained from another archive or website, images supplied by another person, commercial reuse, or any other collection indexed on OperationDynamo.navy.
The OGL does not cover personal data, third-party rights that the information provider is not authorised to license, or certain other excluded material. Those matters require a separate rights and privacy assessment and, where necessary, permission from the relevant rights holder. Each of our other archive sources is assessed under its own copyright status, licence, permission, statutory exception and contractual terms; the TNA fee waiver must not be relied upon for them.
Lloyd’s Yacht Register, 1939 - Lloyd’s Register Foundation Heritage Centre
Images, catalogue information and related material from the Lloyd’s Yacht Register, 1939 that originate from the Lloyd’s Register Foundation Heritage Centre remain proprietary to the Lloyd’s Register Foundation and/or its licensors, who reserve copyright, database right and other intellectual property rights. OperationDynamo.navy does not claim ownership of those underlying materials and does not grant any independent or commercial licence to them.
The Foundation makes Heritage Centre information available under its Educational Licence solely for qualifying education and research purposes. Among other requirements, users must not modify source documents or related graphics, use graphics separately from their accompanying text, remove copyright or other notices, or omit the required acknowledgement of Lloyd’s Register Foundation and its Heritage Centre website. Material incorporated into research must be clearly identified as subject to that Educational Licence. The licence also contains further conditions concerning publication, disclosure of research findings, exclusions, warranties and permitted users.
Anyone viewing or reusing this material must read and comply with the Foundation’s current Terms of Use and Educational and research licensing terms. Use outside the licence, including commercial research, commercial publication or other commercial exploitation, requires a separate licence or permission from the Foundation and/or the relevant rights holder. OperationDynamo.navy cannot grant that permission.
Other Records and future indexed collections
“Other Records” is a discovery category rather than a single rights source. Records within it, and any collection added later, may be held by different archives and may be governed by different copyright owners, database rights, licences, permissions, access agreements and statutory exceptions. Inclusion in our search index, transcription of a factual reference, display of metadata, or a link to a source does not transfer ownership or imply that the underlying document or image is free to reproduce.
The item-specific source credit, catalogue reference and rights statement take precedence over any general collection description on this website. Where no clear reuse permission is displayed, users must treat the material as protected, restrict use to viewing and legitimate non-commercial study, and obtain any permission required from the actual rights holder before reproducing, publishing, redistributing, adapting or commercially exploiting it.
3. Historical archive material
Meaning of an indexed documentary collection
An “indexed documentary collection” on this website is a research and discovery aid created from one or more source documents. We may identify and selectively transcribe factual references, organise them into consistent database fields and subject categories, and aggregate or summarise related entries to create a searchable taxonomy of people, vessels, dates, places, events and subjects. An index is interpretive and selective: it is not a facsimile, edition or complete reproduction of its underlying document, and its classifications and summaries may require correction as research develops.
Vessel status and participation
OperationDynamo.navy is an online documentary archive and research-discovery service. We do not inspect, authenticate, certify or value vessels, and we do not determine whether any vessel qualifies for membership of an organisation or for official recognition as a Dunkirk Little Ship.
The inclusion or absence of a vessel, person or event—and any search result, index entry, transcription, research summary or correspondence from us—does not confirm or disprove participation in Operation Dynamo. It reflects only the material identified within the collections available to us at the time. Other archives, organisations and researchers may hold additional or conflicting evidence. Users requiring an authoritative determination must consult the original records and the appropriate recognised organisation or a suitably qualified professional.
Errors, omissions and non-reliance
Our descriptions and research summaries are finding aids, not warranties concerning a vessel’s history, provenance, value or status.
Records may be derived from wartime documents, official lists, registers, OCR, catalogues, later research and third-party sources. The website and its indexes may contain errors, omissions, missing records, incomplete information, historical misspellings, incorrect dates, mistaken identities, duplicate or mismatched entries, OCR errors, transcription mistakes, translation errors, inconsistent terminology and conflicting accounts. A record’s absence from an index does not establish that a person, vessel, event or document did not exist or take part.
Search results, OCR text, transcriptions, summaries, charts, counts, database matches and catalogue descriptions are research aids only. They are not certified, exhaustive or authoritative records and must not be relied upon as accurate or complete. Wherever possible, users should inspect the associated page image and verify the information against the original record, the holding archive and other independent primary sources.
A person’s or vessel’s inclusion does not imply endorsement, wrongdoing or a complete account. Dates, ranks, names, awards, service details and source matches may be corrected or revised as evidence is reviewed. Users must not rely on this website as the sole basis for publication, attribution, legal or administrative proceedings, genealogy, eligibility or entitlement decisions, financial decisions, safety-critical work, or any other consequential purpose. Anyone proposing such use is responsible for obtaining appropriate archival verification and professional advice.
If you identify a possible omission or mistake, please use the Contact Us form and provide the page URL, the disputed text and supporting source evidence. We may correct, annotate or retain the entry after reviewing the available evidence; reporting a concern does not guarantee a particular amendment or removal.
User contributions: photographs, documents and research submissions
The contribution facilities allow registered users and guests to submit one or more vessel photographs, scans, PDFs, documents, descriptions, source references and associated metadata for private editorial review. Guest contributors must provide a name and working email address and validate the submission through the time-limited link we send. A submission does not become public merely because it has been uploaded or email-validated. An administrator must separately approve each item, and we may approve, reject, defer, restrict, annotate, correct accompanying metadata or remove an item. There is no right to publication, continued publication or a particular review outcome.
For photographs, contribution metadata may include the vessel, photograph group, date or year, description, copyright-holder name and source statement. For documents it may include the vessel, title, description, original filename, contributor credit and archive or source reference. The approved public credit will normally use the information supplied in the form. Contributors must provide accurate attribution and tell us if the credited name should differ from their contact name.
By selecting the rights confirmation and submitting files, the contributor confirms that they are at least 18 years old; that they own the copyright or have all permissions and authority necessary to provide each item on these terms; that the item and its proposed publication are not unlawful, defamatory, misleading, confidential, subject to an undisclosed contractual or archive restriction, or an infringement of copyright, privacy, data-protection, moral or other rights; and that the metadata and rights-holder information are accurate to the best of their knowledge. Possessing a print, scan or digital copy does not by itself establish copyright ownership. Material copied from a website, book, archive, employer, photographer, family member or other third party must not be submitted unless the contributor can authorise the uses described here.
The contributor grants OperationDynamo.navy a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to privately receive, store, back up and review the contribution and, if approved, to reproduce, publish, communicate and display it as part of the archive and related archive communications. This includes creating thumbnails and access copies and making proportionate technical changes needed for security, accessibility, file conversion, sizing, cropping, colour or contrast correction, layout and presentation. We will not knowingly make a derogatory treatment of a work and will preserve the approved credit and source information where reasonably practicable. Copyright is not assigned to us: the contributor and any other rights holders retain ownership and may continue using and licensing their work.
Do not upload unnecessary personal, medical, financial, identity, contact or other sensitive information. A contributor uploading material that identifies a living person must consider that person’s privacy and have a lawful basis and any permission reasonably required for the intended archival publication. Material principally concerning a child, a private domestic commission, a vulnerable person, confidential correspondence or special-category personal information must not be submitted without first contacting us and establishing appropriate authority. We may redact, restrict or reject material to protect people or comply with legal obligations.
A contributor may ask to correct a credit, withdraw an unpublished submission or request review of published material through the Contact Us form. We will consider withdrawal and removal requests promptly, but removal is not automatic where retention is reasonably necessary for legal claims, fraud or abuse prevention, an editorial audit trail, freedom of expression, or lawful archiving and historical research. Where material is removed from public display, limited records may remain in secured backups or a confidential audit record for the applicable retention period.
Suggested vessel-log additions and amendments
Registered users may use a vessel page to suggest a new Operation Dynamo movement log or an amendment to an existing log row. A suggestion is a research submission only: it does not edit the public archive when submitted, does not create a right to publication and does not imply that OperationDynamo.navy accepts its accuracy. Each submission must identify meaningful supporting evidence, such as an archive and catalogue reference, source page, reliable publication or stable source URL, and must explain what that evidence establishes.
We may verify the evidence against other sources; correct spelling, dates, locations, coordinates or formatting; combine a suggestion with other research; ask for further information; retain it pending further review; or approve, annotate, reject or remove it. OperationDynamo.navy has final editorial control over its database and map and the ultimate decision whether, when and in what form a suggested contribution is published. An administrator must approve a suggestion before it can alter a public movement log. Approval does not certify the submission as complete or authoritative, and an approved entry may be revised or withdrawn if later evidence requires it.
By submitting a suggestion, you confirm that it is made in good faith, that you have accurately identified the evidence, that you have not knowingly supplied unlawful, misleading or infringing material, and that you permit us to store, review, edit and publish the factual information and your explanatory text for the archive’s research and public-interest purposes. Do not paste substantial copyrighted passages or upload material you are not entitled to provide. We may retain the submission, decision and account association as an editorial audit trail and to prevent abuse, subject to the privacy provisions below.
These editorial review conditions also apply to every item in the vessel “User Contributed Collection”. Approval does not certify accuracy or rights ownership and does not amount to endorsement of a contribution’s contents.
Registered users may also report that a particular index entry or collection page has been matched to the wrong vessel. A reason is required and the report does not remove or suppress a record when submitted. An administrator will review the report and may approve or reject it after checking the available evidence. If approved, the specific record-to-vessel association is excluded from matching results; the underlying historical record is retained. OperationDynamo.navy may reverse or revise an exclusion if further evidence changes the identification and retains final editorial control over all matching decisions.
4. Personal information we process
| Information | Purpose | Lawful basis | Typical retention |
|---|---|---|---|
| Account name, email, password hash and verification records | Create, secure and administer accounts | Contract and legitimate interests in service security | Account lifetime, then ordinarily up to 90 days except necessary security records |
| Newsletter email and subscription date | Send archive news and registration updates | Consent | Until consent is withdrawn, the address is invalid, or the list is retired |
| Contact name, email, subject, message and delivery status | Receive, answer and audit enquiries and concerns | Legitimate interests; legal obligation where the message exercises a legal right | Ordinarily 24 months after the matter closes; longer where needed for legal claims or an active dispute |
| Contributor name and email; uploaded photographs, scans and documents; original filenames; vessel association; titles, descriptions, dates, photograph groups, copyright-holder names, source references; email-validation records; review status, notes and account association where applicable | Receive files privately, validate the contributor’s email, assess provenance and rights, communicate about the submission, conduct editorial review, credit approved material, publish approved archive contributions and maintain a proportionate rights and decision record | Steps requested before entering the contribution; contract where contribution terms govern the submission; legitimate interests in archive development, rights administration, security and editorial accountability; and, for approved material, legitimate interests and applicable archiving or historical-research provisions | Incomplete staged photograph drafts ordinarily up to 7 days; completed but unverified submissions ordinarily up to 30 days; rejected contributions ordinarily up to 12 months after review; approved contributions retained as part of the enduring archive. Information may be kept longer where necessary for a dispute, legal claim, safeguarding, security or documented archival purpose. |
| Archive search terms, search date, results count, IP address, browser information and account identifier when signed in | Operate and improve search, identify missing records or common research needs, diagnose faults and prevent misuse | Legitimate interests in archive improvement, service operation and security | Ordinarily up to 12 months; longer where required to investigate a security incident or legal claim |
| Session identifier, pages viewed, route, page or record type, resource identifier, query string and account identifier when signed in | Understand use of ship, people and other archive records; maintain session-level audit trails; improve navigation; diagnose faults and prevent misuse | Legitimate interests in archive improvement, service operation, auditing and security | Ordinarily up to 12 months; longer where required to investigate a security incident or legal claim |
| IP address, request data, cookies and technical logs | Security, fraud prevention, diagnostics and service operation | Legitimate interests | Ordinarily up to 90 days unless an incident requires longer preservation |
| Historical names, service details, images and source references | Historical research, indexing, preservation, education and public understanding | Legitimate interests and, where applicable, archiving or historical-research provisions | Retained as part of the enduring archive, subject to periodic relevance and safeguards review |
Sources and recipients
Information may come directly from you, public records, archives, published registers, document custodians, researchers or other credited sources. It may be handled by authorised administrators and service providers supporting hosting, email, security and maintenance. We may disclose information where required by law, to protect legal rights or safety, or in connection with a lawful organisational transfer.
We do not sell personal information. We do not use solely automated decision-making that produces legal or similarly significant effects.
Search submissions are recorded in our database, including searches returning no results. Each search record includes the requesting IP address and browser user-agent; it is associated with an account only when the searcher is signed in. Please do not enter unnecessary sensitive or confidential personal information into the search box.
Successful website page views are also recorded against the current session identifier. This includes the type of page viewed and, for a ship or person record, the relevant record identifier. A user ID is added only when the visitor is signed in.
Security
We use proportionate technical and organisational controls, including access restrictions, password hashing, validation, rate limiting and database logging. No internet service can guarantee absolute security. Please do not send unnecessary sensitive information through ordinary forms or email.
6. Your data-protection rights
Depending on the circumstances, living individuals may have rights to be informed, access personal information, correct inaccuracies, request erasure or restriction, object to processing, receive certain portable data and withdraw consent. Newsletter consent may be withdrawn at any time by contacting us. You may also complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office.
Delete your account
You can request deletion of your Operation Dynamo Archive account at any time using our account deletion request form. Choose “Delete my account”, provide the email address used for the account and submit the request. You do not need to be signed in. We will verify that the request came from the account holder before completing it.
Deleting an account removes or anonymises the account and associated personal information where applicable. Limited information may be retained where reasonably necessary for legal obligations or claims, service security, fraud and abuse prevention, contribution and editorial audit records, or lawful archiving and historical-research purposes. The account deletion request form is the deletion mechanism for both the website and the Operation Dynamo Archive mobile app.
Rights are not always absolute. Applicable exemptions and competing rights may include freedom of expression and information, legal obligations, legal claims, and archiving or historical research where the relevant conditions and safeguards are met. We will consider each valid request on its facts.
UK data-protection rights generally concern identifiable living individuals. Concerns about a deceased person may still be reviewed under our accuracy, provenance, confidentiality, copyright and ethical standards, but they are not automatically treated as the deceased person’s data-protection request.
Known status of Operation Dynamo veterans
Published reporting indicates that the last known British veterans of Operation Dynamo have died. The BBC reported in August 2023 that Lawrence Churcher, believed to be the last known Royal Navy veteran of the evacuation, had died aged 102. Forces News subsequently reported in May 2025 that Duncan McInnes BEM, described as the last known British Dunkirk veteran, had died aged 105.
On that evidence, we reasonably expect the core 1940 service records indexed by this archive to concern deceased participants. However, “last known” is not a definitive population record and these reports do not establish that every Allied or civilian participant, or every person identified in later supporting material, is deceased. We therefore do not use age or veteran status as a blanket substitute for checking a credible concern involving a potentially living individual.
Sources: BBC News, 14 August 2023 and Forces News, 19 May 2025.
To protect personal information, we may ask for proportionate evidence of identity or authority. Formal rights requests are handled without undue delay and normally within one calendar month after any reasonably required verification or clarification. A complex request may take up to two further months where the law permits; we will explain an extension.
7. Content concerns, corrections and removal requests
We welcome properly evidenced notices concerning accuracy, privacy, copyright, confidentiality, safety or other legal rights. A notice should be sent through the Contact Us form.
To allow a fair and reliable assessment, please provide:
- your full name and a working email address;
- the exact page URL and a precise description or screenshot of the material concerned;
- whether you are the subject, a rights holder, an authorised representative or another interested person;
- the specific inaccuracy, harm or right relied upon—not simply disagreement with the historical record;
- reliable supporting evidence, source citations and, where acting for another person or estate, evidence of authority;
- the outcome requested: correction, added context, attribution, restricted access or removal;
- any urgency, safety risk, court order, statutory deadline or confidential information requiring special handling.
Do not send original identity documents unless requested. You may redact irrelevant details. A statutory data-rights request does not need special wording; the information above helps us identify the material and respond accurately.
Assessment principles
A request does not create an automatic right to removal. We will consider authenticity, provenance, accuracy, the status and sensitivity of the information, whether a person is living, the requester’s rights and authority, risk of substantial damage or distress, copyright or confidentiality, freedom of expression and information, research and educational value, public interest, archival integrity and available less intrusive measures.
Possible outcomes include correcting transcription, adding context or a disputed-status note, improving attribution, limiting access, removing a search result while preserving an underlying record, temporarily restricting material during investigation, removing material, or taking no action. We may preserve a confidential audit copy where lawful and necessary.
8. Review and appeal procedure
- Triage: we aim to acknowledge a sufficiently identifiable concern within 10 working days. Urgent and credible risks to safety, active legal restrictions or highly sensitive information may be prioritised.
- Clarification: if the page, claim, identity, authority or evidence is unclear, we may request focused additional information. Ordinary editorial review may pause until it is supplied. Statutory deadlines are handled according to applicable law.
- Evidence review: we may examine source images, catalogue entries and other records; consult a custodian, contributor, specialist or rights holder; and invite a response where fairness requires it.
- Decision: we aim to provide a reasoned outcome for an ordinary content concern within 30 calendar days after receiving sufficient information. Complex historical, ownership or legal disputes may take longer, and we will provide an update.
- Internal appeal: a requester may seek one reconsideration within 30 days of the decision, identifying a material factual error, overlooked evidence or new evidence. The appeal should not merely repeat the original submission.
- Final position: after appeal, further duplicate correspondence may be closed unless it raises materially new evidence, a new legal basis or a changed risk. This does not limit a person’s statutory rights or ability to approach a regulator or court.
We may decline to adjudicate private disputes that cannot be reliably resolved from documentary evidence. Where appropriate, competing accounts may be recorded rather than one account being erased.
Private disputes
OperationDynamo.navy does not provide consultation, mediation or arbitration services. We are an online documentary archive and cannot become involved in, investigate or determine private disputes. This includes disputes concerning the sale, purchase, ownership, description, provenance, authenticity, value, insurance or recognised status of a vessel, representations made by a buyer, seller, broker or other party, and any resulting claim or proceeding. Providing access to a record, answering a research enquiry or correcting archive content does not make us a party, witness, expert, consultant, arbitrator or adviser in such a dispute.
Parties to a private dispute must obtain their own copies of relevant original records from the holding institution and seek independent professional or legal advice where appropriate. We may decline or close correspondence asking us to express an opinion for use in a dispute, contact another party, authenticate evidence, prepare an expert report or support a claim. This does not prevent anyone from submitting a properly evidenced archive correction, copyright notice, data-protection request or other matter that we are required to consider under applicable law.
9. Availability, disclaimers and liability
The website and archive are provided for historical research and general information. They are not legal, genealogical or professional advice. We do not guarantee uninterrupted availability, completeness, accuracy, fitness for a particular purpose, continued access to any record, or that external links and media will remain available.
Research assistance and correspondence supplied in response to enquiries are provided on the same informational and non-reliance basis as material published on the website. They do not constitute authentication, certification, valuation, provenance advice, legal advice or an expert report.
Nothing in these terms excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation. Subject to that, and to the extent permitted by law, we are not responsible for indirect or consequential loss, loss arising from reliance on unverified archive content, third-party services, or unauthorised use of material by another user.
10. Changes, severability and governing law
We may update this notice to reflect legal, operational or archive changes. The date above identifies the current version. Material changes may be highlighted on the website. If any provision is unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue to apply.
These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. The courts of England and Wales will have jurisdiction, subject to any mandatory consumer or data-protection rights that apply where you live.