Privacy Policy
 

Our commitment to you and your privacy
Here at Embark Walking Holidays we are committed to protecting the personal data we hold about you. This Privacy Policy is set out to explain when and why we collect your personal information and how it will be used, namely for the purpose of purchasing a holiday.  How it is occasionally disclosed to other trusted parties and how we keep your information secure. Providing you with certain information that we must provide under applicable data protection law. We are fully compliant with GDPR regulations, as detailed in this statement.
In this policy Embark Walking Holidays are referred to as, “we”, “us” and “our”.

How We Collect Information
On visiting our website, non personal information will be collected by cookies, and google analytics, as explained below below.  You will also be asked to provide some personal data when making an enquiry, this is so that we can respond to your request.  
When you book a holiday we require additional information regarding your holiday plans and payment information. This allows us to process your booking, send you your details for your Walking holiday and provide a means of contacting you,  should we or any of our representatives need to contact you during your holiday.  In providing any personal information about yourself, you agree to the storing and processing of your data to the extent of what is deemed necessary for us to deliver our service to you.
We will also ask you if you wish to receive marketing information and promotional materials from us.
.We may collect and process the following data about you:

• Information that you provide by contacting us at www.embarkwalkingholidays.com.  This includes all personal information provided through our website or via telephone conversation.
• Information that you provide at the time of booking or enquiry, that may include some or all of the following information relating to you or your group: names, addresses, contact details including emails, credit/debit card details, payment details, information relating to medical conditions and dietary requirements, emergency contact details. Clothing size. 
• If you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence but always in compliance with the Data Protection law.
• Details of your transactions which you carry out through our site and for the fulfilment of your orders.
• You may be asked if you would like to take part in surveys or feedback questionnaires, which we will use for research purposes.
• Details collected through your visits to our website including, but not limited to, traffic data, location data, and other communication data and the resources which you access.  

Using Your information

• To Process your booking and to carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us including communicating with you before, during and after your holiday or purchase.
• Providing you with information, products or services that you request from us or which we feel may interest you, including where you have consented to be contacted via a form on our website or direct correspondence by telephone.
• seeking your views or comments on the services we provide or to respond to any queries.
• To ensure that content from our site is presented in the most effective manner for you,  making the interaction between you and our Services quicker and easier. 
• Helping to improve the experience of all visitors to our website.
• Notifying you about changes to our service.

How We Retain Information
Your information will be retained in the event that you may wish to use our service again and the purposes of ease of communication between yourself and Embark Walking Holidays.  We review our retention periods for personal information on a regular basis. Your information will be held for as long as is necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. It will not be held indefinitely and you may request to have your personal data removed from our system.  Retention periods will be determined taking into account the type of information that is collected and the purpose for which it is held.
If you have informed us that you would like to be unsubscribed from an email or postal mailing list, your details will be held on a ‘opt-out’ list. Using this list we can check against other e-mail and postal mailing lists, ensuring that you won’t receive further communication from us.
If we archive any information in an offline format, your request to access personal data is still applicable.

How we Secure Your Information
We take great care with the details we collect and retain and ensure that your information is treated securely . Credit or debit card details are encrypted and protected through our Secure Online Payment provider.  All other details are kept on a secure network where we employ industry standard procedures and policies to ensure the safety of your information.

Please note that some data recipients may be located outside the EEA and the United Kingdom. In such cases we will transfer your data only to such countries as approved by the United Kingdom and European Commission as providing adequate level of data protection, or enter into legal agreements ensuring an adequate level of data protection.

Please note that the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once it is received,  we will take reasonable steps to safeguard your information, we cannot be responsible for the acts of those who gain unauthorised access or abuse our Site but we will adopt appropriate procedures and security features to prevent unauthorised access.

Who We Share Your Information With
We may need to pass your information onto our third party service providers, Information technology providers, agents, subcontractors and other associated organisations to deliver our contracted service to you. However, when we use third party service providers, we will only disclose the information that is necessary to deliver that particular service.

The servers powering and facilitating our information technology or administrative services, providing cloud- based software as part of our infrastructure are located in secure data centres around the world, and personal data may be stored in any one of them.
We will not release your information to any other parties beyond the aforementioned, unless we are required to do so by law.

We may disclose your personal information to third parties if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, to establish or exercise our rights to defend against legal claims or to protect the rights, property or safety of us, our users, yourself or any third party. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection, illegal activities, security issues, potential violations and credit risk reduction.

We may disclose our customer list and personal information in the event of a corporate transaction to a third party who acquires or attempts to acquire all or a substantial part of our company or website (e.g. sale of a substantial part of our business, merger, consolidation or asset sale).  The transferee or acquiring company will assume the rights and obligations as described in this Privacy Policy.

When we share data with others, we will take appropriate measures to protect the data and to comply with our obligations under the data protection act. 

Types of Data We Collect

Cookies

We and our trusted partners use Cookies and other technologies in our related services, including when you visit our Site or access our services. Cookies are small text files that are placed on your machine to help the site provide a better user experience. 

These purposes include allowing you to navigate between pages efficiently, enable automatic activation of certain features, remembering your preferences and making the interaction between you and our Services quicker and easier and to estimate our audience size and usage pattern.  Cookies are also used to help ensure that the advertisements you see are relevant to you and your interests and to compile statistical data on your use of our Services. 

This Site uses the following types of cookies: 'Session Cookies' which are stored only temporarily during a browsing session in order to allow normal use of the system and are deleted from your device when the browser is closed; 'Persistent Cookies ' which are read only by the Site, saved on your computer for a fixed period and are not deleted when the browser is closed. Such cookies are used where we need to know who you are for repeat visits, for example to allow us to store your preferences for the next sign-in; 'Third Party Cookies' which are set by other online services who run content on the page you are viewing, for example by third party analytics companies who monitor and analyse our web access.

Cookies do not contain any information that personally identifies you, but Personal Information that we store about you may be linked, by us, to the information stored in and obtained from Cookies.

You may refuse to accept cookies by activating the setting on your browser which allows you to refuse the setting of cookies. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of our site. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you log on to our site.

Google Analytics
We use the third party service of Google Analytics to collect information about your use of the Site. Google Analytics collects information such as how often users access the Site, what pages they visit when they do so, etc. We use the information we get from Google Analytics only to improve our Site and services. Google Analytics collects the IP address assigned to you on the date you visit sites, rather than your name or other identifying information. We do not combine the information collected through the use of Google Analytics with personally identifiable information. Google’s ability to use and share information collected by Google Analytics about your visits to this Site is restricted by the Google Analytics terms of use and the Google privacy Policy.

This Privacy Policy does not apply to the practices of companies that we do not own or control, or to individuals whom we do not employ or manage, including any of the third parties which we may disclose information as set forth in this Privacy Policy. 

What are your Rights 

You have certain rights over your personal data. You may request to:

• Receive confirmation as to whether or not personal information concerning you is being processed, and access your stored personal information, together with supplementary information. 
   
• Receive a copy of personal information you directly volunteer to us in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format. 
   
• Request rectification or amendments to your personal information that is in our control.
   
• Request erasure of your personal information. We will delete your data, unless we have a requirement to keep it under legitimate business or legal obligations. 
   
• Object to or request to restrict processing of your personal information by us.
   

We have summarized the rights that you have under data protection law. Some of the rights are complex, and not all of the details have been included in our summaries. For more information, please read the relevant laws and guidance from the regulatory authorities for a full explanation of these rights.

Our marketing communications
We would like to send you marketing information from ourselves regarding new offers, competitions, new routes and walking related articles from time to time.  You have a choice about whether or not you wish to receive this information from us.  You will be asked if you would like to receive this information from us. We will not contact you for marketing purposes by post, email, phone or text message unless you have given your prior consent. You can change your preferences at any time by contacting us. 

Please note that even if you have unsubscribed from receiving marketing emails from us, we may send you other types of important e-mail communications without offering you the opportunity to opt out of receiving them. These may include customer service announcements or administrative notices.

Links to Other Web Sites
Our web-site contains links to information on other web-sites. On web-sites we do not control, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information that you provide while visiting those sites. Those sites are not governed by this Privacy Policy, and if you have questions about how a site uses your information, you’ll need to check that site’s privacy statement.

Review of this Policy
This policy will be kept under regular review and therefore may change from time to time in order to ensure our continued compliance with data protection legislation.  Material changes will be effective immediately upon the display of the revised Privacy policy. The last revision will be reflected in the "Last modified" section. Your continued use of the Platform, following the notification of such amendments on our website, constitutes your acknowledgment and consent of such amendments to the Privacy Policy and your agreement to be bound by the terms of such amendments.

This Policy was last updated in Sep 2023.  

If you have any further queries about how we protect or process your data please contact us at Embark Walking Holidays, Blaengavenny Farm, Llanvihangel Crucorney, Abergavenny, NP7 7LB. Tel +44 (0)7399 330178