Social media use
How we use social media to communicate with you.
Our social media channels
We use our Facebook, X, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and websites to communicate with you.
Our official social media channels and websites are managed by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency’s (MCA) communications team.
If you follow our channels, you can expect regular posts covering:
- news and press releases
- safety messaging regarding use of the coast and sea
- photos, videos, podcasts, and other media
- resharing of notable announcements and safety messaging by UK government departments, organisations and partners
Our official Facebook page is:
Additionally, the following coastguard maritime rescue coordination centres (MRCCs) have Facebook pages:
Our official Instagram account:
X
Our official X accounts are:
- @MCA_media – for agency and regulatory news from the MCA
- @HMCoastguard – for safety messaging and cover of search and rescue activities
- @UKShipRegister – for updates regarding the UK flag service and information relevant to UKSR customers
- @UKShipConcierge – for updates regarding the concierge service that helps maritime businesses interact with government departments
Our LinkedIn corporate pages, are used to share more industry-relevant or commercial content. These are:
- Maritime and Coastguard Agency – for agency and regulatory news from the MCA
- UK Ship Register – for updates regarding the UK flag service and information relevant to UKSR customers
- UK Shipping Concierge – for updates regarding the concierge service that helps maritime businesses interact with government departments
- HM Coastguard – this company profile is not actively used to publish content but may be assigned by relevant staff to display their current or previous role within HM Coastguard
YouTube
Our YouTube channel has short videos about coastal safety, search and rescue incidents and the MCA’s regulatory work.
On YouTube we:
- do not publish any abusive, racist, sexist, homophobic comments or other comments we consider to be inflammatory
- will add videos with a coastal safety interest to our playlists from time to time, but this does not imply endorsement by the MCA
Websites
We have four websites that we use to distribute press releases. These are:
- MCA GOV.UK pages – offers updates regarding the work of the MCA, recent projects and activities
- HM Coastguard – offers updates regarding recent incidents at the coast or at sea and general safety messaging
- UK Ship Register – information on vessel registration and joining the UK Flag
- UK Shipping Concierge – supports maritime businesses working with or in the UK
Volunteer social media pages
Our volunteer coastguard rescue teams may also operate social media accounts to help inform and share safety messaging with their local area. These are local pages that are managed by local HM Coastguard volunteers.
On these social media pages, you can expect to find news about local coastguard incidents, as well as coastal and water safety messaging which is relevant to the local area.
Coastguard rescue volunteers are required to adhere to our social media and data privacy policies.
How we moderate our social media channels
Our communications team moderates each channel seven days a week.
We look forward to receiving your comments and participation in the discussions on this page and would like to publish as many as possible. However, we do ask that our followers adhere to certain good practices and conventions of polite and constructive discourse.
We will delete and/or report:
- abusive, racist, sexist, homophobic or inflammatory comments
- nuisance comments considered to be spam
- personal information given such as telephone numbers, address details and driving licence numbers (we do not keep a record of any deleted personal information)
- comments that contain abusive language towards an individual involved in the thread, other organisations or the page administrator
- comments that are completely removed from the topic of conversation or non-relevant to the item posted on the wall
- posts that clearly advertise commercial activity, or solicitations of donations or any kind of money
We encourage open, lively debate but the decision to publish comments received via this site remains at the admin’s discretion. Comments that violate any of the outlined rules will be removed or not be published. We will not edit any of your comments.
We make no commitment to respond to individual and repeat offenders may be muted or blocked indefinitely.
We may at any time, without notice to you, revise this policy and any other information contained in this page.
How we interact on our social media channels
We:
- welcome feedback, ideas and engagement from all our followers
- may follow or like you back if you follow or like us – being followed by us does not imply endorsement of any kind
- do not accept requests to be added as a contact on individuals’ YouTube accounts
- may choose to share content which we consider has relevance to us
- may share from our social media accounts but this does not imply endorsement of any kind
- on X, repost you if you ask us to publicise an event or activity and there’s a connection with your work and MCA’s – for example, if you’re a volunteer lifeguard or rescue officer
- on X, repost (without being asked) posts that we consider relevant to our work and policies
- respond to enquiries on our social media channels
- aim to reply to simple queries from members of the public directing them to an appropriate page on GOV.UK
- do not discuss personal details via our social media channels and will ask customers to contact us by phone or email in these instances
- will endeavour to read all @replies and direct messages, and ensure that any emerging themes or helpful suggestions are passed to the relevant colleagues in the MCA
- cannot engage on issues of party politics, or answer questions that break the rules of the Civil Service Code or general house rules
- make no commitment to respond to every individual comment, reply or post
- do not accept responsibility for Facebook, X, LinkedIn, YouTube or Instagram being unavailable
We are not responsible for the advertising content on social media websites, and we do not choose which adverts appear on our pages.
The usual ways of contacting us for official correspondence are detailed in the contact MCA section of our website.
Reusing our social media content
Under the Open Government Licence, you’re free to:
- copy, publish, distribute, and transmit the information
- adapt the information
- exploit the information commercially and non-commercially for example, by combining it with other information, or by including it in your own product or application
You must acknowledge the source of the information by including this attribution statement:
- “Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0”
Video content reuse
There are different rules about reusing our video content.
You can stream our videos from YouTube, Facebook and X and reshare posts from our accounts and embed videos (where the option to embed is available) in your website, or link to them.
You may not:
- download our videos from YouTube, Facebook, X or any other channel
- upload copies of our videos to your own YouTube channel, other video sharing service or social media channel
Social media privacy policy
Our Social media privacy policy covers how we manage your data if you contact us through social media, and your rights.
Further information
Please contact [email protected] with any queries regarding the MCA’s social media use.