Floodline terms and conditions
Floodline, in Scotland, is operated by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA). It provides live flooding information and advice on how to prepare for or cope with the impacts of flooding 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Signing up to Floodline indicates your acceptance of the following terms and conditions. Please read the terms and conditions carefully.
In these terms and conditions, “we”, “our” and “us” means SEPA.
Registration
You can register for Floodline using the following methods:
- Online at SEPA’s self-service portal
- By calling Floodline on 0345 988 1188
We will ask you to provide the following information:
- Name
- Address including postcode
- Telephone number(s) (landline and / or mobile)
- Email address(es)
Your account details
It’s important to keep your account details up to date and make other people living at any registered address aware that they may receive telephone calls from Floodline (if you’ve given us a landline number).
If you register any addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses that are not your own, you must obtain each owner’s permission in advance. If you have not provided us with an email address and need to make changes to your account, or you need support, please call Floodline.
After you have registered for Floodline, we will remind you periodically to check your account details. These reminders will be sent by email, or if you haven’t provided us with an email address, by SMS, phone call (including voicemail) or letter.
If flood alerts and / or warnings sent to your registered email address(es) and / or telephone number(s) repeatedly fail or we receive “message undelivered” notifications, and we are unable to reach you, you will be deregistered from Floodline.
Your online account
If you provided an email address during registration, we will create an online account for you. We will use this email address to send you information, related to delivering the Floodline service, such as reminders to update your account details. You can provide additional email addresses to receive flood alerts and / or warnings.
You can change your name, username (which is an email address), password, registered telephone numbers and email addresses, through your online account.
You can also do the following through your online account:
- Change how you receive flood alerts and / or warnings
- Add or remove regions for which you receive flood alerts and / or warnings
- Deregister from Floodline.
How you receive flooding information
If you choose to receive flood alerts and / or warnings by phone: please check with your telephone provider that you don’t have any inbound call or message barring on your phone, as this may prevent the messages from being delivered.
You can choose more than one way to receive flood alerts and / or warnings. We will contact all registered telephone numbers and email addresses at the same time.
Call charges
The cost of calling Floodline varies depending on your service provider, your call package and whether a landline or mobile is used. All public bodies are encouraged to use 03 numbers, which are charged at the same rate as calls to 01 and 02 geographical numbers and must be included within free call bundles in phone packages.
Flooding messages from Floodline
After registering for Floodline, you can choose to receive:
- Regional flood alerts
- Local flood warnings (including severe flood warnings)
Regional flood alerts (Flooding is possible – Be prepared)
A regional flood alert is issued when flooding is possible, and you should “be prepared.” It covers a large region (usually a council area) and considers flooding from surface water, rivers and the sea. They are usually issued between 08:00–18:00, however they may be issued outwith these hours in exceptional circumstances.
If your registered address is not within a flood warning area, you will have an option to sign up for wider regional flood alerts.
Local flood warnings (Flooding is expected - Take action)
A flood warning is issued when flooding is expected in a defined local area, and you should “take action.” It is only available in areas where we can forecast flooding from certain rivers or coastlines. They may be issued at any time of the day or night.
By registering for local flood warnings, you will receive both:
- Flood warnings and
- Severe flood warnings.
Flood warnings and severe flood warnings are only issued for areas where we have river and coastal monitoring and the capacity to forecast local conditions.
Severe flood warnings (Severe flooding – Danger to life)
Severe flood warnings will only be issued in exceptional circumstances where the impacts of flooding threaten life or where evacuation is required.
Delivery of messages
We cannot accept responsibility for any loss or damage caused by: flooding; by issuing, or failing to issue, flood alerts and flood warnings; or by our customers not accessing a flood alert or flood warning in time to take action.
We are not responsible for the delivery of messages to your handset. Factors, such as signal reception, your phone being switched off, call barring or technical difficulties with your provider, may affect your ability to receive messages.
We are not responsible for the delivery of messages to your email account. Factors, such as spam settings, internet access and technical difficulties may affect your ability to receive messages.
Disclaimer
Whilst all reasonable effort is made to ensure information provided via Floodline is up to date, we do not provide any guarantees or warranties that the information will be current, accurate and complete. We are not liable for any loss or damage that may come from using Floodline, including any direct, indirect or consequential loss.
Ultimate responsibility lies with you to act upon any information provided through Floodline. We will not be responsible if such information is misinterpreted and / or misused by you.
We cannot guarantee that Floodline will be available at all times and will not be liable for any system downtime or other associated issues.
Protecting your information
We take protecting your data as a priority. For information on how we handle personal information, please read the SEPA privacy policy.
There is a specific privacy notice for Floodline. This explains how we collect and use personal information for the purposes of providing you with our flooding information service. This is available at Registering for Floodline
Please ensure you have read these.
You agree not to use Floodline in any way that constitutes a breach of the Data Protection Act 2018.
Under the Data Protection Act 2018 you are entitled to request access to information that SEPA holds about you and ask for any necessary changes to ensure that such information is accurate and up to date.
SEPA is subject to the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004.
If it is necessary to protect someone in an emergency, we may share your personal information collected through Floodline, with the relevant emergency service.
Deregister from Floodline
You can deregister from Floodline at any time:
- By using your online account
- By calling Floodline on 0345 988 1188
When you deregister from Floodline, we will stop sending you flood alerts / warnings and your Floodline account will be closed.
Cyber security
You must make sure that the way you use Floodline does not expose you or us to the risk of viruses, malicious computer code or other forms of interference which, can damage your or our computer system.
We are not responsible for any loss, disruption or damage to your data or computer system that might happen, when you use Floodline.
Changes to these terms and conditions
These terms and conditions may have changed since you registered for Floodline.
We have the right, at our sole discretion and at any time, to change or modify the Floodline flood information service and these terms and conditions. Such changes shall be effective immediately.
Your continued use of Floodline after any changes shall constitute your acceptance of any changes to the Floodline service and any revised terms and conditions.
Your statutory rights
Nothing within these terms and conditions interferes with your statutory rights or obligations.
Enforcement of these terms and conditions
We might decide not to exercise or enforce any right available to us under these terms and conditions. We can always decide to exercise or enforce that right at a later date. Doing this won’t mean we automatically waive the right on any other occasion.
If any of these terms and conditions are held to be invalid, unenforceable or illegal for any reason, the remaining terms and conditions will still apply.
Governing law
These terms and conditions are governed by Scots law.
In the event of any dispute which relates to these terms and conditions, or your use of Floodline, you agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Scottish Courts.
Further information
If you have any queries regarding the service, please call Floodline. Alternatively, you can complete the contact form on our website.
If you are a user of British Sign Language (BSL), the Contact Scotland BSL service gives you access to an online interpreter, enabling you to communicate with us using sign language. For more information see Contact Scotland BSL.
If you would like this information in an accessible format, such as large print, audio recording or braille, please contact SEPA by emailing equalities@sepa.org.uk.
Last update 5th March 2024