Photo by Towfiqu Barbhuiya on Unsplash
BenefacTours Privacy Policy
Effective: May 5, 2022
We want you to understand our Privacy Policy and what it means to you. BenefacTours Inc is committed to protecting your personal information. If you have any questions about our Privacy Policy, you can contact us at Travel@benefactours.com or through the contact information posted below.
How do we use or disclose your personal information?
Personal information is information about an identifiable individual, and includes your name, contact information, travel itinerary and other information described below.
Booking Travel
BenefacTours may collect, use or disclose your personal information, either directly or through our agency and booking partners, for the purposes of offering or booking travel services on your behalf. This could include your name, age, gender, address, phone number, e-mail address, emergency contact information, passport information, nationality, travel medical information (where required), vaccination status, insurance details, nutrition preferences, travel and accommodation preferences, comments you provide us, trip destination information, and payment-related information. This personal information enables us provide you with travel services.
If you book a BenefacTours trip, we may rely on local service providers. Please be aware that BenefacTours may be required to provide certain personal information to our service providers for the purposes of delivering your travel services. When you book travel services with us, you consent to collection, use and disclosure of your personal information by BenefacTours, and the corresponding collection and use by the relevant travel partners or supplier, for the purposes of administering and delivering the travel services you requested.
Your personal information may also be used for the purposes of enabling us to better understand your needs as a customer and determine eligibility for our products and services; Informing you about our products and services, or those of our partners that we believe may be of interest to you (provided that we have received valid consent from you, if such consent is required); providing ongoing service and support, including resolution of any issues with the services or products you request from BenefacTours; ensuring the safety and security of our passengers and products; carrying out internal accounting and administration of our business; complying with laws, regulations, and immigration requirements.
Contests and Newsletters
We may also collect personal information, including contact information such as name, address, and phone number or email address if you elect to enter a contest with us, subscribe to our newsletter, or request information. We use this personal information for the purposes of administering the contests or delivering the information you request.
Employment
BenefacTours collects personal information from those individuals applying for employment or similar positions at BenefacTours to the extent necessary to identify the individual and evaluate their suitability for the applied-for position. This information may include name, contact information, educational and employment background, residency and/or citizenship information, and other information necessary for us to screen potential employees and staff.
Service Provider Arrangements
In addition to the third-party travel suppliers outlined above, BenefacTours may transfer your personal information to third parties who provide services on our behalf. For example, we may use service providers to authorize and process payments, host our customer service operations, serve advertisements on our website, send email or other communications, or run our contests and promotions. Your personal information may be maintained and processed by our service providers in other countries. For information about the polices or practices of our service providers, please contact us at the email address above. Our service providers are given the information they need to perform their designated functions, and we do not authorize them to use or disclose your personal information for their own purposes.
European Residents: Transfers of Data Outside Europe
Please note that if you are resident in the UK, European Union or European Economic Area (“EEA”) we may hold your personal information outside of the EEA. For instance, your personal information may be held by us in Canada (which has been recognized by the European Commission as having an adequate level of privacy protection).
We may also need to transfer your personal information to travel suppliers and other third parties outside of the EEA, for instance where a supplier is based outside of the EEA. Countries outside of the EEA may not have the same level of privacy laws as exist in the UK, Canada and the EEA. We will take reasonable steps to ensure that your privacy rights are protected.
Legal and Compliance
BenefacTours and our service providers may provide your personal information in response to a search warrant or other legally valid inquiry or order, to an investigative body in the case of a breach of an agreement or contravention of law, or as otherwise required or permitted by applicable law. We may also disclose personal information where necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims and to investigate or prevent actual or suspect loss or harm to persons or property.
How is your personal information protected?
We have implemented measures designed to help protect personal information in our custody and control. We maintain reasonable administrative, technical and physical safeguards in an effort to protect against unauthorized access, use, modification and disclosure of personal information in our custody and control. Unfortunately, no collection or transmission of information over the internet or other publicly accessible communications networks can be guaranteed to be 100% secure, and therefore, we cannot ensure the security of any such information. We have personal information retention processes designed to retain personal information of our customers for no longer than necessary for the purposes stated above or to otherwise meet legal requirements. Credit Card information is deleted after final processing is complete.
How can you access your information?
You have the right to access, update, and correct inaccuracies in your personal information in our custody and control, subject to certain exceptions prescribed by law. You may request access, updates and corrections of inaccuracies in personal information we have in our custody or control by emailing or writing to us at the contact information set out below. We may request certain personal information for the purposes of verifying the identity of the individual seeking access to their personal information records.
As well as a right to access, update and correct information we hold about you, if you are resident in the UK, European Union or European Economic Area then you have the following additional rights:
- To require that your personal information is deleted by us, subject to any necessary legal requirements we may have to retain the information;
- To be told how long your personal information will be retained by us or the basis on which we make decisions about how long we retain your personal information;
- To object to our processing of your personal information or to restrict processing of your personal information (but we may be unable to provide certain services to you without processing this information);
- To receive a copy of any personal information we hold about you.
- To lodge a complaint with a relevant supervising authority (for example the Information Commissioner’s Office in the UK).
Financial Information
We also integrate with third party service providers (such as Secutrans Inc. to facilitate payments between you and us and our partners, and tour operators and agents, as applicable. These service providers share payment information so we can administer and handle your travel services reservation or tour. We and our third-party payment providers are required to be PCI compliant and process all payments on our/your behalf.
In the majority of cases, you may provide us with your credit card details over the phone. We ask that you do not email or send in writing your payment card details to us or any of our partners at any time. As part of our PCI compliance, we are bound to destroy any financial information about you once your tour payment is processed.
We are not responsible for the privacy practices of third-party vendors and providers, including payment providers, so you should review any privacy policy of third-party vendor or providers to satisfy yourself as to how they protect and handle your personal information.
Photo and Video
When you are travelling with us on a tour or branded trip, as part of your experience, a photo or video may be taken either by the guide, tour leader, an employee of BenefacTours or one of our partners, or another passenger. We care about your privacy so if you do not wish for your photograph to be taken at any time, or to be included in any video, please let your tour group leader or the photographer know. Any photos taken by BenefacTours staff (including employees and group leaders) will not be used for marketing purposes without your prior knowledge. While we take every precaution to protect your privacy, please be aware that we cannot be responsible for passengers who may take your photograph or video without your or our knowledge.
Website Policies and Cookies
Our website may use a technology called a “cookie,” which is a small element of data that our website can send to your browser to be stored on your computer so that we can recognize your computer when you return to our site. Cookies may provide us and our service providers with information that we will use to personalize our website in accordance with your preferences. Most web browsers allow you to modify your settings to notify you when you receive a cookie or to reject cookies entirely. If you decide not to accept cookies from our website, you may not be able to take advantage of all of its features.
Third Party Cookies
We may receive information about your web activity from third-party sources, ie Google. Anything we receive from these sources may be combined with information provided by you. Third party vendors show BenefacTours’ ads across the internet. These third-party vendors use cookies to serve ads based on a user’s prior visits to our website. You can opt out of third-party usage of cookies for advertising purposes by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page available at: http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/.
We may also use a third-party to help us gather and analyze information about the areas that you visit on the website to evaluate and improve the customer experience and the convenience of the website, and to help us evaluate some of the specific information related to your website visits.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
From time to time it may be necessary for BenefacTours to amend or make revisions to this Privacy Policy. If we make a change to the Privacy Policy, the revised version will be posted on our website. Please refer to this Privacy Policy for the latest information about our personal information practices.