We are concerned to protect your privacy and confidentiality. We understand that all users of our website are concerned to know that their data will not be used for any purpose unintended by them and will not accidentally fall into the hands of a third party. Our policy is both specific and strict. It complies with Australian law.
If you live in the EU you may have a number of specific rights in addition to rights you may have under local laws. In certain circumstances, those rights may include (a) right to withdraw consent in circumstances where we rely on it to deal with your information (b) to delete your information, (c) to transfer it or (d) details of our overseas transfer protection policies.
Except as set out in this policy, we do not share, or sell, or disclose to a third party, any personally identifiable information collected at this site or generally by us.
Here is a list of the information we collect from you, either through our website or because you give it to us in some other way and why it is necessary to collect it:
1. Personal Information
This includes basic identification and contact information, such as your name and contact details and also includes all information given to us in the course of your interaction with us, such as information you give us in your capacity as our client purchasing travel products. We undertake to preserve the confidentiality of the information.
This information is used:
1.1. to provide you with the services which you request;
1.2. for verifying your identity for security purposes;
1.3. for marketing our services and products;
1.4. information which does not identify any individual may be used in a general way by us or third parties, to provide class information, for example relating to demographics or usage of a particular page or service.
We keep this information, which forms part of our business record for as long as we reasonably require for any valid and lawful purpose. These purposes include those referred to above, to allow us to exercise our rights and perform our obligations under a contract, investigate or defend actual or potential claims, comply with our legal obligations and other purposes permitted by law.
We will not use health or other sensitive information for marketing purposes.
2. Marketplace information
When we obtain information from you specifically to enable you to buy a service offered on our website or direct, which information will be provided to some other person or business, we assume that in giving us your information (which may include health and other sensitive information), you are also giving us permission to pass it to the relevant person or business even if overseas.
We do take steps to try and ensure that the recipients of your information (including those that are overseas) will keep it private using such methods as contractual clauses, however, we do not accept liability for any misuse by third parties properly involved in the fulfilment of our service to you.
3. Your domain name and e-mail address
This information is recognised by our servers and the pages that you visit are recorded. We shall not under any circumstances, divulge your e-mail address to any person who is not an employee or contractor of ours and who does not need to know, either generally or specifically. This information is used:
1.1. to correspond with you or deal with you as you expect;
1.2. in a collective way not referable to any particular individual, for the purpose of quality control and improvement of our site;
1.3. to send you news about the services to which you have signed up;
1.4. to tell you about other of our services or services of sister websites.
4. The information you post on our website
The information you send to us by posting to a forum or blog is stored on our servers. We do not specifically use that information except to allow it to be read, but we reserve a right to use it lawfully in any way we decide.
5. Website usage information
We may use software embedded in our website (such as JavaScript) to collect information about pages you view and how you have reached them, what you do when you visit a page, the length of time you remain on the page, and how we perform in providing content to you. We do not presently associate such information with an identifiable person.
6. Financial information relating to your credit cards
We may keep your financial information to provide you with a better shopping experience next time you visit us and to prevent fraud.
We use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates to verify our identity on your browser and to encrypt any data you give us when you buy. This includes financial information such as credit or debit card numbers. Our SSL certificate encryption level is 128-bit currently using the Currency Select Gateway payments portal. Whenever we ask for financial information, you can check that SSL is being used by looking for a closed padlock symbol or other trust mark in your browser URL bar or toolbar.
We take the following measures to protect your financial information:
4.1. We keep your financial information encrypted on our servers.
4.2. We do not keep all your data, to prevent the possibility of our duplicating a transaction without a new instruction from you.
4.3. Access to your information is restricted to authorised staff only.
4.4. We automatically delete your information when the card expires.
4.5. If we ask you questions about your financial information, we shall show partial detail [the first four OR the last four digits of the debit or credit card number], only enough to identify the card(s) to which we refer.
7. Credit reference
To assist in combating fraud, we share information with credit reference agencies, so far as it relates to clients or customers who instruct their credit card issuer to cancel payment to us without having first provided an acceptable reason to us and given us the opportunity to refund their money.
8. Third party advertising
Third parties may advertise on our website. In doing so, those parties, their agents or other companies working for them may use technology that automatically collects your IP address when they send an advertisement that appears on our site to your browser. They may also use other technology such as cookies or JavaScript to personalise the content of, and to measure the performance of their adverts. We do not have control over these technologies or the data that these parties obtain. Accordingly, this privacy notice does not cover the information practices of these third parties.
9. Third party content
Our website is also a publishing medium in that anyone may register and then publish information about himself or some other person. We do not always moderate or control what is posted. If you complain about any of the content on our website, we shall investigate your complaint. If we feel, it may be justified, we shall remove it while we investigate. Free speech is a fundamental right, so we have to make a judgment as to whose right will be obstructed: yours, or that of the person who posted the content which offends you. If we think, your complaint is vexatious or without any basis, we shall not correspond with you about it.
10. Information we obtain from third parties
Although we do not disclose your personal information to any third party (except as set out in this notice), we do receive data which is indirectly made up from your personal information, from software services such as Google Analytics and others. No such information is identifiable to you.
11. The content you provide to us with a view to being used by the third party
If you provide information to us with a view to it being read, copied, downloaded, or used by other people, we accept no responsibility for what that third party may do with it. It is up to you to satisfy yourself about the privacy level of every person who might see your information. If it is available to all the World, neither we nor you have no control whatever as to how it is used.
12. Cookies
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer's hard drive through your web browser when you visit any website. They are widely used to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site.
Like all other users of cookies, we may request the return of information from your computer when your browser requests a web page from our server. Cookies enable our web server to identify you to us, and to track your actions and the pages you visit while you use our website. The cookies we use may last for a single visit to our site (they are deleted from your computer when you close your browser), or may remain on your computer until you delete them or until a defined period of time has passed.
Although your browser software enables you to disable cookies, we recommend that you allow the use of cookies in order to take advantage of the features of our website that rely on their use. If you prevent their use, you will not be able to use all the functionality of our website. Here are the ways we use cookies:
2.1. to record whether you have accepted the use of cookies on our website. This is solely to comply with the law. If you have chosen not to accept cookies, we will not use cookies for your visit, but unfortunately, our site will not work well for you;
2.2. to allow essential parts of our website to operate for you;
2.3. to operate our content management system;
2.4. to operate the online notification form - the form that you use to contact us for any reason. This cookie is set on your arrival at our website and deleted when you close your browser;
2.5. to enhance security on our contact form. It is set for use only through the contact form. This cookie is deleted when you close your browser;
2.6. to collect information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to improve your experience of our site and enable us to increase sales. This cookie collects information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from, and the pages they visited;
2.7. to record that a user has viewed a webcast. It collects information in an anonymous form. This cookie expires when you close your browser;
2.8. to record your activity during a webcast. An example is as to whether you have asked a question or provided an opinion by ticking a box. This information is retained so that we can serve your information to you when you return to the site. This cookie will record an anonymous ID for each user, but it will not use the information for any other purpose. This cookie will last for three months when it will be deleted automatically;
2.9. to store your personal information so that you do not have to provide it afresh when you visit the site next time. This cookie will last for 90 days;
2.10. to enable you to watch videos we have placed on YouTube. YouTube will not store personally identifiable cookie information when you use YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode.
13. Calling our Customer Service Centre
When you call our Customer Service Centre, we collect Calling Line Identification (CLI) information. We use this information to help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our Customer Service Centre.
14. Sending a message to our support system
When you send us a message, we collect the data you have given to us in that message to obtain confirmation that you are entitled to receive the information and to provide to you the information you need. We record your request and our reply to increase the efficiency of our business/organisation. We do not keep any personally identifiable information associated with your messages, such as your name or email address unless it is necessary to properly deal with your message.
15. Complaining
When we receive a complaint, we record all the information you have given to us. We use that information to resolve your complaint. If your complaint reasonably requires us to contact some other person, we may decide to give to that other person some of the information contained in your complaint. We do this as infrequently as possible, but it is a matter for our sole discretion as to whether we do give information, and if we do, what that information is.
We may also compile statistics showing information obtained from this source to assess the level of service we provide, but not in a way that could identify you or any other person.
16. Job application and employment
If you send us information in connection with a job application, we may keep it for up to three years in case we decide to contact you at a later date.
If we employ you, we collect information about you and your work from time to time throughout the period of your employment. This information will be used only for purposes directly relevant to your employment. After your employment has ended, we will keep your file for six years before destroying or deleting it.
17. Marketing information
With your permission we pass your email address and name to selected associates whom we consider may provide services or products you would find useful. You may opt out of this service at any time by instructing us at: info@backpackersworld.com
18. Use of site by children
We do not market to children, nor do we sell products or services for purchase by children. We do sell products and services for end use by children, but for purchase by adults. If you are under 18, you may use our site only with consent from a parent or guardian.
19. Disclosure to Government and their agencies
We are subject to the law like everyone else. We may be required to give information to legal authorities if they so request or if they have the proper authorisation such as a search warrant or court order.
20. Review or update personally identifiable information
At any time you may review or update the personally identifiable information that we hold about you, by contacting us at the address below. To better safeguard your information, we will also take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting access or making corrections to your information.
21. Storage of your information
We hold your information electronically in our IT systems and databases. We take all reasonable steps to protect your information from misuse, interference and loss, and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.
22. Removal of your information
If you wish us to remove personally identifiable information from our website, you may contact us – see our contact details below. To better safeguard your information, we will also take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting access or making corrections to your information.
23. Complaints procedure
10.1. If you have a complaint about how we have collected or handled your personal information, please contact us. We will endeavour in the first instance to deal with your complaint and take action to resolve the matter.
10.2. If your complaint cannot be resolved at the first instance, we will ask you to lodge a formal complaint in writing, explaining the circumstances of the matter that you are complaining about, how you believe your privacy has been interfered with and how you believe your complaint should be resolved.
10.3. We will acknowledge receipt of your formal complaint and indicate the timeframe that you can expect a response. We will endeavour to resolve the complaint as quickly as possible, but if the matter is complex and our investigation may take longer, we will let you know when we expect to provide our response.
10.4. If you are unhappy with our response, you may refer your complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.
24. Change in Privacy Policy
As we plan to ensure our privacy policy remains current, this policy is subject to change. Please return periodically to review our privacy policy.
If you have any question regarding the privacy policy, please contact us through the contact page.