Last updated 16th April, 2018
Thanks for visiting Earth Changers! This privacy policy describes what information we collect and how it's used and shared. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to contact us.
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Core Principles
As per our Manifesto and Values, Earth Changers is about adventure, connection and integrity. We focus on our mission to highlight and promote the best tourism for sustainable development worldwide, for you and our partners to connect and engage.
Our values are to be responsible and transparent, which counts for your data and privacy too. We're not in the business of selling personal information.
We don't ask for your personal information unless we need it to provide our services to you, or share it unless you've specifically allowed it, or as necessary to provide our services.
We appreciate that when you use our services, you trust us with your personal information: We take that responsibility seriously. This Privacy Policy holds us accountable for protecting your rights and your privacy.
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Usage Information
This includes information about your activity on and interaction with our services, such as your IP address, device and browser. This enables us to analyse how our services are accessed and used, to track our performance, and to improve and tailor our services.
Web Traffic Information
Because of the way Internet communication standards work, when you arrive at Earth Changers website, we automatically receive the web address of the site that you came from or are going to. We also collect information on which pages of our website IP addresses visit, the type of browser you use and the times you access our website.
Location
Your location information may also be transmitted, depending on the settings of your device.
Cookies
Cookies are small pieces of digital coding text sent to your browser when you visit a site, in order to remember certain information provided and improve the user experience.
We comply with the European Union (EU) Cookie Law privacy legislation that requires websites to get consent from visitors to store or retrieve information from their computer or mobile device. When you first come to our site, you will be asked whether you accept cookies or decline. You can set your browser to not accept cookies, but this may limit usability of the services.
Third Party Cookies
We use third party cookies to help us analyse, manage and improve our performance as above, such as Google Analytics for our website and MailChimp for our email newsletters.
We may also use third party cookies to help us provide an extended online user experience, such as where partners ask us to link to online booking engines for example Booking.com or Expedia, in which instance your visit to the external site will be tracked so that they may know Earth Changers is the referrer for an affiliate partnership.
Any third party cookie usage is also governed by the privacy policy of the third party cookie.
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Data collection
When you use our services, we collect the following information and use it as below:
Account information
We collect your first name, last name and email address in order to provide and keep you updated of our services:
Email updates
We follow a double opt-in system for integrity. When you subscribe, you will receive an email asking you to click a link to reconfirm your subscription. We email when we have updates. You can click unsubscribe from any update or email us at any time at info [at] earth-changers [dot] com to ask to be removed and we will confirm your request.
Enquiries
We will also collect information on your preferred travel options. This includes home city, state, country, telephone number and gender as well as preferred destination ('place'), check-in and check-out dates, the number of adults and children who make up your party, and the dates of birth of any children. This information is required to help us give you accurate availability and pricing information about your trip enquiry and contact you appropriately. Required information will only be passed on to our partners in order to provide our services or, with your consent, for you to make a direct booking.
Upon enquiry, you will also receive the double opt-in email updates option as described above, so you may opt to confirm.
Data Retention & Storage
We'll retain your personal information for as long as we need it to provide you with our services.
Information that you submit to us for us to provide services may be transferred to countries other than where you live, or where we or our partners are based (for example, to servers in the US).
We host our website on Squarespace, through which our submitted forms' data passes. Squarespace process data under the terms of their Privacy Policy's End User Information (Section 12 "End Users’ personal information" at time of publication).
We store our data in Google GSuite and Google Docs, behind a 2-step verification process. For Google's data protection policies, please refer to GSuite Security & Trust; How Google Protects Your Organisation's Security and Privacy; Google Businesses & Data Protection Laws and Google's Privacy and Terms Policies on what information is collected by Google and why, and how to review and update it.
We use MailChimp for sending our email newsletters. Please refer to MailChimp's Privacy Policy for how we use their service, and also how they process your personal information on our behalf ('Data Collected for and by our Users' - section 7 at time of publication).
Our web and mobile usage information is reported, stored and covered by Google Analytics' Data Privacy & Security.
You can send an email us at any time to info [at] earth-changers [dot] com to review the personal information you have provided us, or ask to make any desired changes to such information or to be removed and we will confirm your request in a timely manner. Please note there may be latency in deleting your personal information from our servers and storage and we may retain your information to comply with the law, protect our rights, resolve disputes or enforce our agreements.
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Communications With Us
When you send us enquiries, emails or other communications such as through our contact us form, we maintain those communications and their contents so that we may can resolve your requests or otherwise assist you.
We also maintain our communications with our partners in order to provide our services.
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Following The Law
We strongly believe in privacy and transparency.
We may disclose your information to third parties if we determine it is reasonably necessary to comply with law enforcement, protect our rights or prevent fraud or abuse of Earth Changers. We would scrutinize any such request for users information carefully and challenge any that may appear vague or unlawful.
When legally permitted, we would provide users with notice their information has been requested so that they may have an opportunity to challenge any such request.
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Modifications
We may modify this Privacy Policy from time to time and will post the most current version with the date noted.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
