Privacy Policy

Last updated 18 August 2026. This policy explains what personal information Transatlantic Express collects, why we need it, who we share it with and what you can ask us to do about it. Freight is an information business as much as a transport one: a shipment cannot cross a border without names, addresses and signatures, so we would rather be specific about what we hold than hide behind generalities.

1. Who we are

Transatlantic Express is a freight forwarding, customs brokerage and warehousing business operating from 120 Harbour Point, New York, NY 10004, United States, and from our European gateway at 44 Waalhaven Quay, 3089 Rotterdam, Netherlands. We are the data controller for the information described in this policy. For customs declarations we also act as a processor on behalf of importers and exporters who instruct us, in which case your own instructions and the requirements of the relevant customs authority govern what we do with the data.

You can reach our privacy contact at info@transatlantic-expres.com or on +1 507 201 9651. Please put “privacy” in the subject line and it will be routed to the right person rather than to the freight queue.

2. Information we collect

We collect only what we need to quote, move, clear, deliver and invoice a shipment, plus what the law obliges us to keep. In practice that falls into six groups:

• Contact and business details: your name, job title, employer, email address, telephone number and postal address, and the same for consignees and collection contacts you give us.
• Shipment data: origins, destinations, commodity descriptions, weights, dimensions, values, incoterms, references, purchase order numbers and any special instructions.
• Customs and compliance data: tax and EORI numbers, importer of record details, licences, certificates, powers of attorney and, where required by an authority, identity documents.
• Delivery evidence: signatures, delivery timestamps, photographs of goods and packaging at collection and delivery, and vehicle location data on our own fleet movements.
• Account and billing data: login identifiers, account settings, invoices, payment records and credit references. We do not store full card numbers; card payments are processed by our payment provider and only the last four digits and the authorisation result are visible to us.
• Website and portal data: pages visited, tracking searches, approximate location derived from your internet address, device and browser type, and diagnostic logs.

We do not seek special category data such as health, ethnicity, religion or political opinion. Occasionally such information appears incidentally, for example on an identity document a customs authority requires, in which case we hold it only for the period the authority requires and restrict access to the staff who must see it.

3. How we use your information

Every use listed below is tied to something you or the law asked us to do:

• Preparing quotations and lane studies, including checking destination restrictions for your commodity.
• Accepting bookings, arranging collection, carriage, storage and delivery, and communicating milestones and exceptions.
• Preparing and filing customs declarations, licence applications, preference claims and duty deferment entries.
• Screening parties, goods and end uses against sanctions and export control lists before a shipment moves.
• Issuing invoices, collecting payment, operating credit accounts and recovering debts.
• Investigating claims, damage and service failures, including root cause analysis and corrective action.
• Operating your account area, authenticating logins and producing the reporting you ask for.
• Improving service quality, training our staff and monitoring performance against the commitments we publish.
• Sending service messages about your shipments, and, only where you have asked for them, occasional updates about lanes, rates and regulatory changes.

We do not sell personal information, we do not rent mailing lists, and we do not use your shipment data to build profiles for advertising. We do not make automated decisions that have a legal or similarly significant effect on you without human review.

4. Legal bases

Where the General Data Protection Regulation or comparable legislation applies, we rely on the following bases. Performance of a contract covers everything needed to quote, move, clear, deliver and invoice a shipment. Compliance with a legal obligation covers customs declarations, sanctions screening, tax records and the retention periods that authorities impose. Legitimate interests cover fraud prevention, security, service improvement, claims investigation and business-to-business communication with existing customers, in each case balanced against your interests and never in a way we would be uncomfortable explaining to you. Consent covers optional marketing and non-essential cookies, and can be withdrawn at any time without affecting the service you receive.

5. Sharing your information

Freight cannot move without sharing data, but it can move without sharing more than necessary. We disclose information to:

• Carriers, airlines, shipping lines, hauliers, rail operators, terminals and our partner hubs, limited to what they need to move and release the cargo.
• Customs, tax, aviation security, quarantine and border authorities, where a declaration or a lawful request requires it.
• Insurers, surveyors and loss adjusters, where cover has been arranged or a claim is being assessed.
• Our payment provider, bank and, where an account is overdue, credit reference or collection agencies.
• Professional advisers, auditors and regulators, under duties of confidence.
• Technology suppliers who host and support our systems, under written contracts that restrict them to acting on our instructions.

We do not give partner hubs commercial information such as your buying rates, and we do not disclose your customer list, volumes or pricing to any other customer. If we are ever compelled to disclose data by legal process, we will tell you unless we are prohibited from doing so.

6. International transfers

Our network spans 180 countries, so shipment data necessarily crosses borders: a consignment to Singapore cannot be cleared without the data reaching Singapore. Where we transfer personal data out of the United Kingdom or European Economic Area to a country without an adequacy decision, we rely on the appropriate safeguards, normally the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses or the United Kingdom addendum, together with a transfer risk assessment. Transfers to customs authorities are made under the legal obligation that requires the declaration. You can ask us which safeguard applies to a specific lane and we will tell you.

7. Retention

We keep records for as long as they are needed and for as long as the law requires, which in freight is longer than most people expect:

• Customs entries, declarations and supporting documents: 7 years, which is the period authorities expect them to be producible.
• Transport documents, delivery evidence and photographs: 7 years, so a claim or an audit can always be evidenced.
• Invoices and accounting records: as required by tax law in the relevant jurisdiction, normally 6 to 7 years.
• Claims files: 7 years from closure, or longer where litigation is contemplated.
• Account and login records: for the life of the account, then 12 months after closure.
• Quotations that did not become bookings: 24 months, so we can honour a repeat enquiry.
• Marketing preferences: until you withdraw consent, plus a suppression record so we do not contact you again by mistake.
• Website and portal logs: 13 months.

8. Your rights

Depending on where you are, you may have the right to ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you, to have inaccurate data corrected, to have data erased where we no longer have a lawful reason to keep it, to restrict or object to processing, to receive your data in a portable format, and to withdraw consent to marketing at any time.

We will respond within one month and we do not charge for a first request. Two honest limits apply. First, we cannot delete data we are legally obliged to keep, such as a filed customs entry. Second, we may need to verify your identity before disclosing anything, which protects you rather than us.

To exercise a right, email info@transatlantic-expres.com. If you are unhappy with our response you may complain to your supervisory authority, and in the Netherlands that is the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens. We would appreciate the chance to put it right first, and asking us does not remove your right to complain.

9. Security

Access to shipment and account data is restricted by role, so warehouse staff see arrivals without seeing your pricing and finance staff see invoices without being able to place bookings. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest, administrative access requires multi-factor authentication, and access is reviewed regularly and removed the day somebody leaves.

We train our staff on phishing and social engineering, because that is how freight companies are actually attacked. For the avoidance of doubt: we will never ask you to confirm bank details by email, we will never ask for your password, and we will never send you a new payment account by message alone. If you receive such a request, telephone the freight desk on the number published on this website and tell us. If a breach ever affects your data and creates a risk to you, we will notify you and the relevant authority within the statutory deadlines and tell you what we are doing about it.

10. Cookies and tracking

We use strictly necessary cookies to keep you signed in, to remember your consent choices and to protect the site against abuse. These cannot be switched off without breaking the site. We also use a small number of analytics cookies to understand which pages and lanes people look for, and these are set only with your consent and can be withdrawn at any time through the cookie settings link in the footer.

Our tracking and contact pages embed Google Maps so that shipment positions and our gateway locations can be shown on a map. When a map loads, Google receives your internet address and standard technical information as the data controller for that service, subject to its own privacy terms. If you would rather not load the map, the same milestone information is available in text form on the tracking result and in your account.

We honour recognised browser signals such as Global Privacy Control where they are sent, and we do not use cross-site advertising trackers on this website.

11. Children

Our services are sold to businesses and we do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 16. If you believe a child’s data has reached us, tell us and we will delete it unless a customs or legal obligation requires otherwise.

12. Changes to this policy

When we change this policy we update the date at the top and, where the change is significant, we tell account holders by email rather than relying on you to notice. Previous versions are available on request, which matters if you need to show an auditor what was in force at the time of a shipment.

13. Contact

Privacy questions, access requests and complaints should go to info@transatlantic-expres.com, or by post to Transatlantic Express, 120 Harbour Point, New York, NY 10004, United States, or 44 Waalhaven Quay, 3089 Rotterdam, Netherlands. The freight desk on +1 507 201 9651 is answered 24 hours a day and can put you through to the right person.

14. Related policies

Privacy is only one part of the paperwork around a shipment. The three documents below explain the commercial and regulatory rules that sit behind the data we collect.

• Terms & Conditions — the contract that makes us your customs agent, which is the legal reason most of your shipment data has to be collected and declared at all.
• Refund & Claims Policy — the evidence you send when you open a claim, and how long that claim file is held.
• Prohibited & Restricted Items Policy — controlled commodities bring extra data requirements, including licences, permits and end-user statements.

Data protection questions, access requests and erasure requests all go to info@transatlantic-expres.com, or you can use the contact form and mark it for the compliance desk.