Privacy Policy

Who are we

Virtualtrips Limited is a virtual travel platform that offers a range of online travel experiences. To provide you with the full range of Virtualtrips products and services, we need to collect and process information about you.

This policy (the Privacy Policy) is incorporated by reference into our Terms of Service. Any terms defined in the Terms of Service shall have the same meaning in this Privacy Policy unless specified otherwise.

The Privacy Policy and our Cookies Policy apply to all users of our Website and the Services. This includes where you visit or use our online services and we collect your personal information. These include:

• the Virtualtrips website at www.virtualtrips.io and any webpage, subdomain, subpart and variant of that website; and
• social media or official Virtualtrips content on other third party websites.

It also relates to our use of any personal information you provide to us in person, by phone, in letters, email and other correspondence.

For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, the data controller is Virtualtrips Limited, registered in England and Wales under company registration number 12623120, with its registered office at 27 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AX, United Kingdom.

We value your privacy

Virtualtrips Limited (Virtualtrips, we, us, our) is committed to protecting your personal information and being as open with you as possible about the data and information we hold and how we use it.

It is important that you read this Privacy Policy to understand the information we may hold about you, how we use it and how you can access or update your information, modify your preferences or request the deletion of your personal data.

For information regarding the use of cookies on the Virtualtrips Website please read our Cookie Policy.

We may make amendments and updates to this Privacy Policy from time to time. Any updated versions will be made available on this page so you will be able to access the latest version. We ask that you review this page regularly to be kept up to date with any changes.

We use your information in line with all applicable laws and regulations regarding the protection of personal information, including the Data Protection Act 2018, the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 and 2011 and the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), and including any amendments or updates to these and any equivalent or successor applicable laws and regulations.

Information we collect

When you register for an account with us, you may provide us with your personal details, including your email address, name and your chosen password. Once you have registered you can edit your personal details in your account. If you log in with Google, Facebook or another social media account, those sites may give us access to your limited personal details (including your email address and account ID) in order to verify if you are logged in with their site. Once you are logged in to our Website, your use of the Website and your data will be handled in accordance with this Privacy Policy and the Cookie Policy. We are not responsible for any use of your personal data by Google, Facebook or any other social media site.

The information we collect may include:

• your behavior on our Website, including but not limited to the terms you search for, videos you watch and the messages you send on the Website’s chat function;
• views and interactions with content and ads, including those shown on third party websites;
• voice and audio information when you use audio features;
• purchase activity;
• the way you access our digital services, including operating system, IP address (which is helpful to save your timezone preferences), online identifier details;
• social preferences, interests and activities;
• people with whom you communicate or share content with; and
• activity on third-party sites and apps that use our services.

If you book, or request to book, a pre-paid tour through the Website, you may provide us with additional personal information, such as your name, email address, gender, city, country, preferred language(s), group size, interests, ages and further details about you or your group members. With your consent, these will be shared with the Host you are requesting to book with.

If you express an interest in partnering with us as a Host, then we may collect additional personal information, such as your city, country, phone number, information about you or your guiding experience and companies worked for, and personal photos you choose to display.

When you make a purchase or tip you will be required to supply payment card details. We use Stripe as a third party payment provider to manage online card payment transactions. Payment card information is collected over a secure online payment gateway provided by Stripe and processed in accordance with their privacy policy, which can be found here.

All payment transactions processed are encrypted. Your payment card information is used solely to process payments for any bookings or tips made. We retain no record of your payment card details.

When you communicate with Virtualtrips we collect information about your communication and any additional information you choose to provide. You may also send us information when you fill in a form, update or add information to your Virtualtrips account, respond to surveys, participate in promotions, communicate with our team, share your experiences with us or use other features of the Website.

How we use the information we collect

We use the information we collect to:

• provide and administer the Website and related services and manage internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, research, testing, statistical and survey purposes, and to develop the Website and our products and services;
• develop new services based on the information we collect in existing services;
• customise our services to you, including providing recommendations, personalised content, ads and search results;
• provide customers who have agreed to receive marketing communications, with relevant and timely offers by email;
• provide a user with a friendly online search experience. This includes the use of website analytics tools as described further in our Cookie Policy;
• identify the location of visitors, to block disruptive or fraudulent use, and to establish the number of visits from different countries; and
• communicate with you directly. For example, we may send you notifications when you have upcoming tours or new tours are being released.

Basis we use to process your information

We process your data based on the lawful bases set out below. We may process information you provide based on more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using it:

• to enter into a contract with you and fulfil our contractual obligations to you. This processing is necessary for us to provide the service you have requested including registering and managing your account and providing service updates and our support services;
• to provide information and take actions in relation to services which you have consented to receive. This includes where you request for your details to be passed onto a third party (for example, where you are making an enquiry for a small group or private tour) or where you agree to receive relevant marketing communications from us;
• where processing is necessary to comply with our legal or statutory requirements; and/or
• to improve our Website, products and/or services, understand how visitors and customers use our Website, the Services, undertake market research and inform our general marketing, to run our business and maintain the security of our Website and the Services for you, us and other Website visitors and customers.

Where you have given consent for Virtualtrips to process your personal data you may withdraw your consent at any time by emailing info@virtualtrips.io. We will stop processing your data based on that consent but this does not affect any processing done at any time before withdrawal.

If you have consented for your details to be passed to a Host or other third party your data may already have been used by them to respond to your request before we can action your consent withdrawal. In this event, you will need to contact them to withdraw your consent to their use of your personal data.

Disclosure of your information

Virtualtrips will not pass on your personal data to third parties except as set out in this Privacy Policy or with your consent. We may disclose your personal information to third parties for the following purpose(s) and in the following circumstances:

• we will send your personal information to Hosts, tour companies and relevant third parties to enable them to provide you with the Tour Services and related services and experiences that you have requested or consented to receive details of through the Website. In certain circumstances, they may subsequently transfer, process and store your personal information outside of the European Economic Area (EEA) for their business and administration purposes, in accordance with their own privacy policies. If you have queries or require more information on how these third parties use information, please read their privacy policies or contact them;
• we may use service providers to help us run the Website or Services, some of whom may be based outside the EEA. Some of our webpages use embedded videos and plugins from third party platforms (such as from Youtube). If you browse these pages while also logged in to your account on the third party platform, information collected by the third party may be connected to your account on the third party platform. If you have queries or require more information on how these third parties use information, including transfers outside of the EEA, please read their privacy policies or contact them. You can access the Google privacy policy here which is relevant for Youtube’s services;
• where we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal information to comply with any legal obligation, or to enforce our terms and conditions and any other agreements;
• if we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case Virtualtrips may disclose your personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets;
• if we, or substantially all of our assets, are acquired by a third party, personal data held by us about our users may be disclosed to the prospective buyer;
• we may share your personal information with our group companies;
• we may share non-personally identifiable information publicly and with our partners, like publishers, developers, advertisers or rights holders. For example, we may share information publicly to show trends about the general use of our services. We may also allow specific partners to collect information from your browser or device for advertising and measurement purposes using their own cookies or similar technologies;
• we may share any information that we collect with third parties, including but not limited to our legal and professional advisors, the police, other public or private sector agencies, governmental or representative bodies in accordance with the relevant legislation for the purposes of the prevention or detection of offences, and/or the apprehension or prosecution of offenders.

We are not responsible for any use of your personal data by the above parties except where they act as our processor.

Protecting your personal data

Virtualtrips will take all reasonable steps to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

All information you provide to us is stored securely within the EU, and not transferred outside the EEA unless specifically detailed.

Payment card information and details you provide when requesting to book a tour is handled in accordance with the relevant service providers’ privacy policies and may be transferred and stored or processed by them outside of the EEA in accordance with their privacy policies. Where we transfer your data outside of the EEA, we will ensure that safeguards are in place to provide a similar degree of protection. This may include having contractual protections in place with our service providers or transferring your data to countries or parties which are recognised as providing suitable protection by the European Commission.

Certain parties to whom we disclose your personal data may transfer your data outside of the EEA after we disclose it to them as part of their business and administration activities. We are not responsible for any use of your personal data by these parties except where they act as our processor. If you have queries or require more information on how these third parties use your information, including such transfers outside of the EEA, please read their privacy policies or contact them.

Virtualtrips uses procedures and security features designed to prevent any unauthorised access to your data that we hold.

Retention period

Virtualtrips will process personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purpose we collected it for, including the purpose of legal, reporting and accounting requirements, and for as long as necessary for the prevention and detection of criminal activity. The period for which we process and store the personal data for varies depending on the use you make of the Website and the products and/or services we offer. When you register an account we will retain your data for as long as your account is active and for a period after your account is closed to enable us to satisfy our legal, reporting and accounting requirements.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see “Right to be forgotten” 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.

Your rights as a data subject

At any point while we are in possession of or processing your personal data, you, have several rights:

• you have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you. In the event that we refuse your request under rights of access, we will provide you with a reason as to why;
• you have a right to correct data that we hold about you that is inaccurate or incomplete;
• in some cases you can ask for the data we hold about you to be erased from our records;
• where certain conditions apply you have a right to restrict the processing;
• in some cases you have the right to have the data we hold about you transferred to another organisation;
• you have the right to object to certain types of processing such as direct marketing or profiling; and
• you have the right to complain as outlined in “Complaints and contact” below.

Complaints and contact

Please email info@virtualtrips.io if you have any queries regarding your rights. You can exercise your rights as set out above or by emailing info@virtualtrips.io. All of the above requests will be forwarded on should there be a third party involved (as set out in this Privacy Policy) in the processing of your personal data. You also have the right to complain directly with the UK supervisory authority which is the Information Commissioner’s Office.

If you have any questions regarding the use of your personal data please contact us at info@virtualtrips.io.