Tommikka

…. Major tangent ….. I used to work with someone who’s ‘hobbies’ included deer management and being the police POC to finish off deer on the side of the road. Most of his shooting was by camera, but he always had a rifle & ammunition locked in the appropriate safes in the back of his pickup When he discovered that I made trips out to the regional offices and would sometimes be passing a specialist gun shop he would get his orders in and either try to come with me for items that had to be purchased in person or sent me with his certificate or just his ID when it could be picked up by anyone Funnily his preferred hunting and target grade ammunition’s were classified the other way around, and needed extra documentation to purchase hunting grade that he would just use for target practice and less documentation to purchase target grade which he would use for hunting kills (Because he considered that grade more finely accurate and gained cleaner/more humane kills)

Under the GDPR, personal data is that which identifies/links to you as a living individual, which includes your name, DOB, address/postcode, email, telephone number, memberships number etc Sensitive personal data covers areas such as: race ethnic background political opinions religious beliefs trade union membership genetics biometrics (where used for identification) health sex life or orientation https://www.gov.uk/data-protection Trade unions are listed, which can be particularly sensitive when considering employment, protest groups are not listed but are a fair call with regards to the potential links to beliefs / politics and sensitivities on differing opinions and the influence it could have on someone’s opinion of you in unrelated areas. Membership of a group does not fall into the same level, unless there would be factors relating to the type of group. Airsoft could be something you feel touchey about publicising it. However, you are attempting to buy an Airsoft gun from someone which implies you play Airsoft and they are also legally liable if they sell to you without a valid purpose. You have given them the elements of personal data, and there would be no GDPR breach in confirming status under the UKARA. The entire purpose of the UKARA player database is to validate an individuals status, and the GDPR declaration states that information will be shared among parties - and they are not restricted to retailers only (it does state that they are the primary purpose). The specifics on the wording from the UKARA may vary over time and also with a site specific form as you sign up as a member of a site which is then added to the central UKARA player database. Note that a seller does not get provided with the members details. The UKARA or a site confirm or deny that the records match

I could show you photos of me with Airsoft RIFs, at Airsoft sites & I also own Airsoft RIFs (subject to a case in court …. I own many Paintball RIFs) … and I had successfully imported Airsoft RIFs circa 2007/2008 However I do not play Airsoft, do not intend to play Airsoft and if I intended to purchase an Airsoft RIF could do so under other justifications I have run Airsoft events, and could justify a valid purpose if I were to run another - but I have no ‘need’ to self purchase Airsoft RIFs for any such event ….. back to your question …. On the face of it I could produce photos that would appear to show me skirmishing, I would be defrauding you but you could probably ‘reasonably’ claim that you had done sufficient due diligence … unless your due diligence included looking at my post history …. (if anyone actually went to the effort of tracking down a sale, as I won’t be bringing myself to the wrong kind of attention with the police)

Note - for the ‘lawful basis’ context, the OP would be the law checking up on someone. As opposed to using the UKARA as a source to confirm the information provided. Anyone who would be committing a GDPR offence with UKARA data would be the data holders. Either the central UKARA register, or the sites register. The data is collected for specified purposes, which include checking a registered players details are valid. The data should not be held longer than required ….. so in theory expired memberships could be deleted and validation would come back as failed But legacy data can be retained for a reasonable period to protect sellers if they needed to legally justify a past sale. The guy is being a dick, but they are also correct that UKARA details are not required and the seller could ‘legally’ sell based on other ‘evidence’ such as photos of playing (But it is up to the seller what they accept as it is the seller who is legally responsible for any UKARA offence) (((PPS as a former ‘former police officer’, what would be their opinion of gov.uk websites & the motor insurance industry providing open access to whether or not a vehicles registration has valid MOT, road duty & insurance, including a full MOT history of failures ? That can tell you a fair bit of ‘personal’ information about the owners

The UKARAs GDPR policy does not say that data is collected/held solely for retail sales. https://ukara.org.uk Paragraphs 5,6&7 cover access to data. 5 covers the primary use for retailers to validate a sale 6 covers the Border Agency etc for validating imports 7 can cover validation of private sales 5.The system is designed to allow retailer members of UKARA to verify the legal status of purchasers, to comply with the relevant section of the Violent Crime Reduction Act as related to Realistic Imitation Firearms. 6.The system can also be accessed on an individual look up basis by the UK Boarder Agency to allow player imports of RiFs & 24/7 Intelligence department, Hampshire Police also in reference to imports. All retained data is accessible to the administrator and programming technical staff. 7.Any other third-party access to data would only be permitted when the terms of the Data-Protection act have been for-filled for legal access requirements. For GDPR data must be held and used for valid purposes, in the case of UKARA data it must be shared in an appropriate manner to validate sales. Arguably a UKARA registered member could complain that confirm/deny is not made for a private sale - eg I get registered, I try to buy a RIF in classifieds and give my number & postcode to the seller. If the UKARA or site refused to acknowledge then I could complain under the GDPR that they are holding my details but not using it to validate my status

I used to review Amazon items a lot via a ‘reviews’ site. Sellers would advertise a ‘deal’ in exchange for reviews. Many were overpriced items ‘reduced’ to the standard price, so people thought they were getting a deal In general buyers only review when the item/experience was bad or a percentage of those prompted by Amazon after delivery Good sellers wanted believable feedback that had opinions, photos etc and the system rated reviewers. If you gave 5 star reviews all of the time then you were no good to them, but if your review history was fair and objective then you would get good offers from genuine retailers who wanted to get word out on their products Under Amazon’s rules you were required declare that you had an offer price or free item etc The rules were revised and the sellers are not permitted to use any ratings of reviewers which means it has basically become ‘dodgy discounts’ The rule change stops retailers from being allowed to pick for good reviewers, and has perhaps dropped down to just people with an extreme like/dislike

Definately a point there about reviews …. They are not everyone’s feedback but are likely to be subsets of certain cohorts: I had a bad time, or I was shouted at and am upset I had the most awesome time of my life and cannot keep it to myself I was told to do a review by my boss Most people don’t review everything they do. You get a bias, and particularly that if you’re happy then you’re happy but if you’re angry then you tell the world that you’re angry.

…. and the sneaky bugger was dressed in green - not playing fair

Challenge or shoot. The same applies to random players milling around in a ‘non agressive’ stance We like to encourage sneaky players, so if you cannot identify a player (cannot see team colours) and they aren’t showing that they are eliminated (hand up, dead rag etc) then assume that they are active opposition You are in your rights to point a gun at them & challenge them, tap them for a silent kill or shoot. (All of the above are of course rule dependant) I like the idea of team colours in clothing, but there will always be someone who decides to wear a DPM vest on a tan t-shirt. Then for armbands you can wear them on both arms (so there’s no doubt of left/right arm - and it also allows for ripping off the arm bands to signify opposition, or in a compliant group you can have red left, blue right (so if you see the colour then you know, and if you don’t see the colour then you can work it out (to a degree this could be used with removable arm bands on elimination - if you are red and don’t see a blue armband on the right then they are friendly or eliminated - but can still cause problems ) Ghillies etc don’t want an obvious colour showing - but they ought to be capable of disappearing if they are a ninja sniper. If you can hide like a bush then you can tuck your elbow I dislike armbands on ankles, backs, vests, goggles etc. If a player chooses to wear them on unusual places for added recognition (because they don’t like being shot in the back by friendlies) then they can wear extras ….. when they argue about wearing on their arm as well as their back then I know it’s a deliberate choice to avoid being identified from the front

Reviews can be biased, and it could be a sore loser who blames favouritism or it could be factually correct. Ideally rentals and regulars or rentals & own gunners could be split. Back in my beginning days of paintball it was fairly common for walk-on own gunners to turn up and play among rentals and to talk of ‘punter hunting’ Then sites would shift over to running a walkon day, or splitting the walkons and rentals to play different areas of the site. You would still get a mix, and when we played at our local rental site we would not play the first game, allowing staff the chance to orient the rentals and the rental players to get a feel. We would then join in from game two and split ourselves in half across the groups. (and then we would tend to hunt each other down) If players are sensible then that can be a reasonable approach. But there can also be the impression that a poor rental is up against ‘professionals’. I often saw players that I would think are seasoned regulars, but they would turn out to be the geardo who had just maxed out their credit card for their first games Airsoft skirmish sites seem to be often run at a level somewhere between paintball regulars and rentals, therefore unless it’s a large rental group it’s run as a skirmish between rental and regulars. It’s not always the case that a rental is a first time player. When a site we had been regulars at closed down and was taken over by new management we arrived ‘undercover’ for their open day as family groups with strict instructions to the kids to not reveal our dirty secret ….. that was for about the first hour or so when we had a chance to suss out the new management and we then got a chance to chat & build a new relationship

There are many businesses built on customers using this logic

…. And curry pot noodles ….. however I cancelled a hotel the other day, and my pre-payment had been by credit card. But as I had already paid off the credit card I now have over £400 in credit on my credit card. That won’t transfer back and will sit in credit. So I’m going to just have to spend my credit credit

Like that classic text I sent to a team mate - “Got batteries & lube, all ready for the weekend” I enjoyed the weekend

Sadly my laughing smiley now looks as if I’m laughing at your mystery fix, as opposed to the original version. Hey, ho, never mind Lost to the mysteries of time

Have you been looking in my bank account ? I had a concerned moment mid July when I read my bank balance ….. “Where’s all that money gone?” Then I remembered …. I’ve bought this and that, commissioned a number of custom items plus spent a lot of time in London with the accompanying social life ….. and August will be much better …. Until the 2nd of August, when I received photos of long standing limited edition custom design pre-order and had a balance to pay …… But I’m going to give one of Julys custom things an outing on Saturday and pick up Augusts custom on Sunday …. And of course buy accessories

I’m going to go against the flow and say no to Baofengs My number one recommendation would be any PMR with no further licence requirements For the OPs need for long PTT to look at the cables supplied or identify the socket types for an aftermarket PTT cable / headset But it depends on their definition of ‘long’ PTT cable, I have seen very long and pretty short cables coming by default with handsets and wide varieties of after market cables, or a bit of DIY work. A thing to be wary of with aftermarket cables is slightly different tolerances in quality/plug length and also different wiring when the plugs look the same If however the OP has a need for team privacy, longer range etc then to a licenced option and perhaps the UV5R

As above: Support & comfort. They must be suitable for the terrain, and hold your ankle together. But the fit also needs to be good to minimise you losing your footing (If say you normally allow for chunky socks and insoles but go out one day in normal socks then you foot may move a fraction inside the boot which is hardly noticeable until you are on uneven ground and stumble) Then can you spend all day in them? You want something ‘solid’ and flexible in the right places, but you don’t want something that is going to make you feel like you have lead feet by the end of the day. I’ve worn most forms of footwear on fields, excluding stilettos but including sandals. Out in the woods = Classic old school Doc Martens, British Army old issue boots (before the browns), steel toe capped work boots and many walking boots. Indoor / urban = I have sometimes gone for a pair of soft boots, similar to Converse but even thinner soles. A degree of ankle support if you could call it that, excellent grip on concrete, but anything uneven on the ground and they get like it was barefoot Good grass / Astro turf = For photography where I may kick into a momentary sprint I have Adidas astro football boots, and Exalt cleats. The Exalts have sets of replaceable cleats for ‘optimum grip’, and also very flexible soles - great for maneuvering on grass but I can feel gravel stab my feet on the paths For quite a while I was wearing the real brand of these knock offs: These ones come from a few Hong Kong outlets for very little £s, which makes me very doubtful of them. But my ‘proper’ pair served me well for a few years until the stitching on one of the panels was suffering and I offloaded them to a team mate (Edit after the cogs have been ticking away - mine were Magnum Spider Multicam boots) (Edit part 2 - I forgot to elaborate on the sandals. It’s a terrible idea to wear British army sandals for a Vietnam themed game on a dry July day picking up grit on the soles of your feet and slicing your ankles in the undergrowth) I have strangely sized feet, and normally have to choose between sizes 12 & 13 depending on the cut of the style, and recently had to go up to 14 for some Berghaus hiking boots. I’ve actually bought those for long durations of standing rather than walking in the wilds as support when I had a foot issue earlier this year, but they are my go to boots for anything other than day to day use.

Be wary of what materials and colours you use If you can, chop up something and dye each piece …… or the easier option would be to buy some DPM

Cue Michael Yon photo of the Rifles ….. Desert DPM dyed ‘green’ to allow for the mixed terrain of Afghanistan, and resulted in the introduction of MTP

Absolutely. We’ve agreed many times on disclaimers & excessive briefs, but in the context of filming ….. a number of years back the training on military urban sites kicked up a few gears, just when paintball & Airsoft games were having a surge of ‘special site’ events. An absolute rule was put into place that no video recording was to be made on a site, the rule was distributed in the lead up to the game, stressed in the brief - and of course immediately on game on a player walked past range staff attaching a head cam. (To be told in no uncertain terms to turn it off) On the Monday or Tuesday very irate calls circulated as footage appeared on YouTube. With a lot of luck (not for the culprit) the originator was known and made to remove the footage immediately His ‘excuse’ was the team mate in front of him had been the one told to switch off now, and not him. Only the swift action by event organiser allowed further use of the site that year … and onwards. Filming is allowed again, but was politically sensitive at the time

What they said up above……. Except that screenshots might have the opposite effect in some cases these days …. On my iPhone I’ve just tested out a photo & screenshotted it - original photo size 5.2mb, screenshot of it 12.3mb I use ‘image size’ to downscale images on my phone, and when my limit was low I did a first stab at deleting old unwanted image attachments then downsized others https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/image-size/id670766542

The proof of the pudding would be: 1) Would I be able to sign up? 2) Would I manage to make a purchase under its defence? I don’t play Airsoft I do get involved with Airsoft I could reasonably claim that any purchase I attempt would be for the purposes of Airsoft skirmishing at a suitably insured site * Except for the limited edition Agency twin Hitman pistol set: At my friendly retailer ….. Look at our shiney things Will you sell them to me No You know that I do run some airsoft? Yes You know that I could produce a complete game format, rules and structure reliant on those pistols in the next half an hour? Yes Would you sell them to me? No Would you believe me if I said I’ve become an airsofter? Collapsed in a hysterical fit

Not necessarily in the product area, but there were small US businesses who decided to stop UK sales due to the changes. Its a judgement call for any business. Is the administration and any other potential hassle with overseas sales worth the level business that it brings in? A small number of sales aren’t worth the expense of registering in foreign countries to handle VAT/sales taxes and then having to account for all the sales then pay the total at the relevant point in time

TikTok?

Tethering itself wouldn’t be a problem, but you noted that his data allowance isn’t up to much