Privacy Policy

This privacy policy sets out how Absolute Escapes Limited uses and protects any information that you give when you use this website.

We respect your privacy and are determined to protect your personal data. The purpose of this privacy notice is to inform you as to how we look after your personal data when you visit our website (regardless of where you visit it from). We’ll also tell you about your privacy rights and how the data protection law protects you.

1. WHO WE ARE AND IMPORTANT INFORMATION

What is the purpose of this privacy notice?

This privacy notice aims to give you information on how we collect and process your personal data through your use of this website, including any data you may provide through this website when you send us an enquiry, confirm a booking or make a payment towards your holiday.

This website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.

You must read this privacy notice together with any other privacy notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This privacy notice supplements the other notices and is not intended to override them.

Data controller

Absolute Escapes Limited is the controller and responsible for this website and your personal data (collectively referred to as “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy notice). Our contact details are Absolute Escapes Ltd, Dovecot Studios, 10 Infirmary Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1LT | Email info@absoluteescapes.com | Telephone: +44 (0)131 610 1210.

Third-party links outside of our control

This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements.

When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.

2. THE PERSONAL DATA WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. You can find out more about personal data from the Information Commissioners Office.

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you, which we have grouped together as follows:

• Identity Data – this includes first name, last name, title, date of birth, gender.
• Contact Data – this includes billing address, delivery address, email address, telephone numbers.
• Financial Data – this includes bank account, payment card details.
• Transaction Data – this includes details about payments to and from you, other details of products and services you have purchased from us.
• Technical Data – this includes IP address, browser type and version, location, operating system and platform, other technology on the devices you muse to access this website.
• Profile Data – this includes purchases or orders made by you, your interests, preferences, feedback.
• Usage Data – this includes information about how you use our website, products and services.
• Marketing and Communications Data – this includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties, your communication preferences.

We do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

If you fail to provide personal data

Where we need to collect your personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with goods or services). In this case, we may have to cancel a product or service you have with us but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

3. HOW WE COLLECT YOUR PERSONAL DATA

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including:

• Directly. You may give us your Identity, Contact and Financial by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes the personal data you provide when you:
  • Apply for our products or services
  • Purchase one of our products or services
  • Request marketing to be sent to you
• Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website, we may automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies and other similar technologies. Please see our cookie policy below for further details.
• Third parties or publicly available sources. We may receive personal data about you from various third parties as set out below:
  • Analytics providers [such as Google based outside the EU];
  • Contact, Financial and Transaction Data from providers of technical, payment and delivery services [such as travel agents based inside or outside the EU];

4. HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

• Performance of a Contract – this means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party, or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.
• Legitimate Interest – this means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service/product and the most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law).
• Consent – this means we will ask your permission to send you marketing publications, including e-newsletters on an occasional basis. We will ensure that any consent requests will be prominent, unbundled from other terms and conditions, concise and easy to understand. It will require a specific and positive action to opt-in by the individual. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting us at info@absoluteescapes.com.
• Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation – this means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject to.

Purposes for which we will use your personal data

We have set out below a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data, with the legal bases we rely on to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been described below.

Marketing

We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal data uses, particularly around marketing and advertising. We have established the following personal data control mechanisms:

Promotional offers from us

We may use your Identity, Contact, Technical, Usage and Profile Data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which products, services and offers may be relevant for you.

You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us or purchased goods or services from us and, in each case, you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.

Third-party marketing

We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any company outside the Absolute Escapes Limited for marketing purposes.

Opting out

You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time. This can be done either by following the unsubscribe link on any marketing message sent to you, or by emailing info@absoluteescapes.com at any time.

Where you opt-out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of a product/service purchase, experience or other transactions.

Cookies

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly. For more information about the cookies we use, please see our Cookie Policy below.

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please email info@absoluteescapes.com.

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

5. WHO WE SHARE YOUR PERSONAL DATA WITH

We may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table in paragraph 4 above.

• External Third Parties which includes:
  • Providers based in the UK and Ireland who provide services for the holiday that is being undertaken (eg: accommodation, car hire, ferries bag transfers, taxis etc).
  • Professional advisers including accountants, lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers based in the UK.
  • HM Revenue & Customs, regulators and other authorities based in the UK who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.
• Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy notice.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

6. DATA SECURITY

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

7. DATA RETENTION

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

By law we have to keep basic information about our customers, including contact, identity, financial and transaction data for 6 years after they cease being customers for tax purposes. In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see Your legal rights below for further information.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

8. YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS

Unless subject to an exemption under the data protection laws, you have the following rights with respect to your personal data:

• The right to request a copy of the personal data which we hold about you;
• The right to request that we correct any personal data if it is found to be inaccurate or out of date;
• The right to request your personal data is erased where it is no longer necessary to retain such data;
• The right to withdraw your consent to the processing at any time, where consent was the lawful basis for processing your data;
• The right to request that we provide you with your personal data and where possible, to transmit that data directly to another data controller, (known as the right to data portability), where applicable (i.e. where our processing is based on consent or is necessary for the performance of our contract with you or where we process your data by automated means);
• The right, where there is a dispute in relation to the accuracy or processing of your personal data, to request a restriction is placed on further processing;
• The right to object to our processing of personal data, where applicable i.e. where processing is based on our legitimate interests (or in performance of a task in the public interest/exercise of official authority); direct marketing or processing for the purposes of scientific/historical research and statistics).

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please email info@absoluteescapes.com.

No fee required – with some exceptions

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable admin fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

9. CHANGES TO THIS NOTICE AND YOUR DUTY TO INFORM US OF CHANGES

This version of our Privacy Notice was last updated on the 2nd May 2018. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us. It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current.

10. QUERIES, REQUESTS OR CONCERNS

To exercise all relevant rights, queries or complaints in relation to this policy or any other data protection matter between you and us, please in the first instance contact us at info@absoluteescapes.com.

If this does not resolve your complaint to your satisfaction, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners Office on 0303 1231113 or via email or at the Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, England, UK.

11. COOKIE POLICY

A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer’s hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.

We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about web page traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to customer needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system.

Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.

You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.