SkyShifter Privacy Policy
Last updated: 23 September 2026
This policy describes how Air Traffic Data Systems Ltd (“we”, “us”, “ATDS”) handles personal data in connection with the SkyShifter duty-rostering application, including the SkyShifter mobile app for iOS and Android.
1. Who this policy is for
SkyShifter is duty-rostering software used by air traffic control units. If you are an air traffic controller, watch manager, or other member of staff at a unit using SkyShifter, this policy explains what information the app and its supporting systems handle about you.
2. Who controls your information
Each SkyShifter 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 SkyShifter 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 SkyShifter software and, for units that use it, the network relay that lets the mobile app reach the Unit’s own server securely. 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 SkyShifter processes
SkyShifter is used to build and view duty rosters, so the information it holds is what a roster needs:
- Identity. Your name, and the watch or team you belong to.
- Sign-in. A username and password. Passwords are stored as a salted, irreversible cryptographic hash — SkyShifter never stores, and cannot recover, your actual password.
- Rostering data. Your shift assignments, leave, and any shift-swap or cover requests you make or receive, including any short note a rostering manager attaches explaining a change.
- Professional qualifications. The operational ratings and endorsements you hold and their validity dates, and — where your Unit records it — the expiry date of your aeromedical certificate. SkyShifter stores only the expiry date, never any medical record, diagnosis, or reason.
- Device push token. If you enable notifications, an opaque identifier for your phone’s SkyShifter install, issued by Apple or Google, used only to deliver roster notifications to you. It identifies an installed copy of the app, not you personally, and is not a phone number — SkyShifter does not collect or store phone numbers or email addresses for staff at all.
- Internal reference number. Where your Unit links SkyShifter to another workforce system it already uses, an internal reference number for that link.
SkyShifter does not collect your location, contacts, photos, or browsing activity, and contains no advertising or analytics tracking of any kind.
4. Where your information is stored
Your Unit’s SkyShifter data is stored in a database on infrastructure your Unit controls — typically a server at the Unit’s own site. Where the mobile 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 build and display the duty roster, to run shift-swap and cover offers, to check whether a rating or certificate is current, to send you push notifications about your own roster (if you enable them), and to enforce sign-in security.
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
- Push notification delivery. On Android, SkyShifter uses Firebase Cloud Messaging (Google) to deliver notifications; on iOS, it goes directly to Apple’s own Push Notification service. In both cases only an opaque device token and the notification text pass through that service — never your name, ratings, or roster data.
- App distribution. Apple and Google operate the App Store and Play Store that SkyShifter is distributed through, under their own privacy terms.
- Nobody else. SkyShifter 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 is verified entirely offline and does not transmit any roster or staff data anywhere.
7. How long your information is kept
Your Unit decides how long it keeps rostering records, consistent with its own record-keeping obligations. SkyShifter does not automatically delete a person’s record when they leave — it is marked with a leaving date instead, so that past rosters remain accurate — but a Unit can 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 mobile app and your Unit’s server is encrypted end to end. Passwords are hashed, never stored in plain text. Sign-in is protected against repeated guessing. The relay that carries mobile traffic to a Unit’s server does not store the data it forwards.
10. Children
SkyShifter is workplace software for rostered 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 SkyShifter 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.