Privacy Policy

PRIVACY POLICY

This is the privacy policy of BlackBook Travels Ltd. and its subsidiaries and associate entities (collectively referred to as the “BlackBook Companies”).

The BlackBook Companies value your trust, and make it a high priority to ensure the security and confidentiality of the personal information you provide to us. Please read this policy to learn about our privacy practices. 

This Privacy Policy describes the privacy practices of the BlackBook Companies for data that we collect:

• through websites operated by us from which you are accessing this Privacy Policy, including Blackbooktravels.com and other websites owned or controlled by the BlackBook Companies (collectively, the “Websites” and each a “Website”)
• through the software applications made available by us for use on or through computers and mobile devices (each an “App”)
• through our social media pages that we control from which you are accessing this Privacy Statement (collectively, our “Social Media Pages”)
• through HTML-formatted email messages that we send you that link to this Privacy Policy and through your communications with us
• through other offline interactions

Collectively, we refer to the Websites, the Apps and our Social Media Pages, as the “Online Services” and, together with offline channels, the “Service.” By using the Service, you consent to our collection, use and disclosure of personal data in accordance with this Privacy Policy

INFORMATION WE COLLECT FROM YOU

General Information. We receive and store any information you enter on the Service, other services or give us in any other way. This includes personal information, including your first and last name, telephone number, date of birth, nationality, postal and email addresses, and billing information (such as credit card number, cardholder name, and expiration date). We may also request information about your hotel room preferences and other travel information. You can choose not to provide the information to us, but in general some information about you is required in order for you to use the Service (including register as a member, book travel services, complete a BlackBook customer profile, accrue coins, participate in surveys, submit reviews, and participate in contests or sweepstakes) or for us to provide you with services, respond when you ask us a question, or otherwise enter into any business transactions with you.

Travel Companion Information. When you make a reservation for someone else through our Services, we will request personal information and travel preferences about that individual. You should obtain the consent of other individuals prior to providing us with their personal information and travel preferences. Please note that any access to view or change their information will be available only through your account.

Information from Other Sources. We also may periodically obtain both personal and non-personal information about you from affiliated entities, business partners and other independent third-party sources and add it to our account information. Examples of information we may receive include: updated address information, booking history, and demographic information. In addition, if you sign up for a BlackBook account using your social media account, link your BlackBook account to your social media account, or use certain other BlackBook Companies' features, we may access information about you via that social media provider in accordance with the provider's policies. The information may include your name, email address, profile picture, gender, list of friends, and other information that you authorize us to receive. Depending on the privacy settings of you and your friends, we may access information that you provide to a social media provider regarding your respective locations ("Location Data") to provide you with relevant content and offers. Please note that your Location Data may also be shared with your friends on a social media provider in accordance with your privacy settings for that social media provider.

Automatic Information. We automatically collect some information about your computer or mobile device when you visit this website or use our mobile apps. For example, we will collect your IP address, Web browser software (such as Firefox, Safari, or Internet Explorer etc.), and referring website. We also may collect information about your online activity while using our Online Services, such as trips viewed and bookings made. Our goals in collecting this automatic information include helping customize your user experience, improving our service and inhibiting fraud. 

For more information, please see Cookies and Technologies .



COLLECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

“Personal Data” is data that identifies you as an individual or relate to an identifiable individual. We collect Personal Data during your use of the Service and/or interaction with us through other means. We collect Personal Data in accordance with law, such as:

• Contact Email Address
• Name (First Name, Last Name)
• Gender
• Birth Date
• Nationality
• Contact Number
• Country of Residence
• Residential Address
• City of Residence
• State of Residence
• Postal Code of Residence
• Social media account ID, profile photo and other data publicly available, or data made available by linking your social media accounts

In limited situations, we may also collect:

• Data about family/ fellow travellers, such as names and ages of children
• Passport Number or other government-issued identification data (only when required for reservation purposes)
• Guest preferences and personalized data (“Personal Preferences”), such as your interests, activities, hobbies, food and beverage choices, services and amenities of which you advise us or which we learn about during your interaction with the BlackBook Companies and/or its partners. 

HOW WE USE YOUR INFORMATION

We use information about you for the following general purposes:

• to provide you with the products and services you request;
  • to provide you with travel reservations and updates;
  • to manage your account,
  • including processing payments and providing travel notifications;
  • to communicate with you;
  • to respond to your questions and comments;
  • to measure interest in and improve our products, services, and Website;
  • to notify you about special offers and products or services that may be of interest to you;
  • to otherwise customize and enhance your experience with this Website, mobile apps and services;
  • to reward you as part of any reward and recognition program you choose to join;
  • to solicit information from you, including through surveys;
  • to resolve disputes, collect fees, or troubleshoot problems;
  • to prevent potentially prohibited or illegal activities; to enforce our Terms of Use ; and as otherwise described to you at the point of collection.

We use sensitive billing information (such as cardholder name, credit card number and expiration date) for the purpose of completing the travel bookings you make on our site.

Email Communications. We want to make it easy for you to take advantage of travel-related opportunities on our Website. One of the ways we do this is by sending you email messages, or newsletters that contain information about your apparent travel-related interests. We believe these email messages will provide you with useful information about travel-related special offers available through our site, for your benefit. You have the option to receive these email messages or newsletters. You may also choose not to receive them at any time.



WITH WHOM WE SHARE YOUR INFORMATION

The BlackBook Companies may share your information with the following entities:

Inventory Suppliers, such as hotel, airline, car rental, and activity providers, whom we work with, who fulfil your travel reservations. By making a reservation through this site, you are authorizing us to disclose to suppliers the necessary information required to complete the booking and deliver the related travel reservation. These inventory suppliers are not controlled by the BlackBook companies and personal information disclosed to them is subject to the applicable supplier's privacy policy and security practices. Therefore, we encourage you to review the privacy policies of any travel supplier whose products you purchase through this Service.
 
Third-party Vendors who provide services or functions on our behalf, including but not limited to credit card / payment processing, business analytics, customer service, marketing, distribution of surveys or sweepstakes programs, and fraud prevention. We may also authorize Third-party Vendors to collect information on our behalf, including as necessary to operate features of our Website or to facilitate the delivery of online advertising tailored to your interests. Third-party Vendors have access to and may collect information only as needed to perform their functions and are not permitted to share or use the information for any other
 
Business Partners with whom we may jointly offer products or services, or whose products or services may be offered on our Service. You can tell when a third-party is involved in a product or service you have requested because their name will appear, either alone or with ours. If you choose to access these optional services, we may share information about you, including your personal information, with those partners. Please note that we do not control the privacy practices of these third-party business partners.

Analytics and Machine Learning. We use the data of your interaction with us through our Services for business analytics and service improvements. In such a case, we aggregate your data in such a way that we retain certain demographic information and usage information without linking it to personal information which identifies you as an individual.

Referring websites. If you were referred to this Website from another site (for example, through a link you clicked on another site that directed you to this one), we may share some information about you with that referring website. We do not have control or limitations on the referring websites’ use of your personal information and we encourage you to review the privacy policies of any website that referred you here.

The BlackBook Companies within our corporate family. We may share your personal information with our parent company and corporate affiliates. This sharing enables us to provide you with information about products and services, both travel-related and other, which might interest you. To the extent that our parent company and corporate affiliates have access to your information, they will follow practices that are at least as restrictive as the practices described in this Privacy Policy. They also will comply with applicable laws governing the transmission of promotional communications and, at a minimum, give you an opportunity in any commercial email they send to choose not to receive such email messages in the future.

We also may share your information:

• In response to subpoenas, court orders, or other legal process; to establish or exercise our legal rights; to defend against legal claims; or as otherwise required by law. In such cases we reserve the right to raise or waive any legal objection or right available to us.

• When we believe it is appropriate to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal or suspected illegal activities; to protect and defend the rights, property, or safety of our company or this Website, our customers, or others; and in connection with our Terms of Service and other agreements.

• In connection with a corporate transaction, such as a divestiture, merger, consolidation, or asset sale, or in the unlikely event of bankruptcy.

Other than the terms listed above, you will be notified when personal information about you will be shared with third parties, and you will have an opportunity to choose not to have us share such information.

We also may share aggregated or anonymous information with third parties, including advertisers and investors (e.g. we may tell our advertisers the number of visitors our Website receives or the most popular hotels and vacation destinations.) This information does not contain any personal information and is used to develop content and services we hope you will find to be useful or to improve our existing services.



HOW YOU CAN ACCESS YOUR INFORMATION

You can access and update your contact information by visiting your Profile page on our Website and mobile app. You can update your data preferences through a link in your Profile page. You can choose to close your account by using the Close Account Form. Please note that after you close an account, you will not be able to sign in or access any of your personal information. However, you can open a new account at any time. Please also note that we may retain certain information associated with your account, including for analytical purposes as well as for record keeping integrity.

Your choices with respect to the collection and use of your information

• As discussed above, you can choose not to provide us with any information. However, this may prevent you from using the Service to book travel or from taking advantage of certain features offered on the Service .
• You also can add or update information and close your account as described above.
• You will be given the opportunity to unsubscribe from commercial emails in any such message that we send you. If you are a registered member, you can also modify your choice at any time on your Profile page. Please note that we reserve the right to send you other communications regarding our business relationship with you, including service announcements, administrative messages, and surveys relating either to your account or to your transactions on this site, to the extent permitted by law.
• You have the right to request for us to close your account.

RETENTION

Please note that we need to retain certain data for record keeping purposes and/or to complete any transactions that you began prior to requesting a change or account termination. (e.g. you have made a purchase/reservation, or entered a promotion). In such cases, we may retain the provided Personal Data until after the completion of your purchase, reservation or promotion. There may be residual data that will remain within our databases and other records, which will not be removed. In addition, there may be certain data that we may need to retain for legal, security or business reasons.

We will retain your Personal Data for the period necessary to fulfil the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy unless a longer period is required or permitted by law.

The criteria used to determine our retention period include:

• The length of time we have an ongoing relationship with you and provide the Services to your (i.e. for as long as you have an active account or use our Services)
• Whether there is a legal obligation to which we are subject (e.g. certain laws require use to keep your transactions for a certain period of time before we can delete them.)
• Whether retention is advisable considering our legal position (such as, for statutes of limitations, litigation or regulatory investigations.)
  
  

COOKIES AND TECHNOLOGIES

Your browser usually will allow you to deny the acceptance of cookies when visiting websites, you may choose to not accept cookies when visiting our Website.  Please note that if you refuse to accept cookies from this site, you will not be able to access portions of our site.

Cookies are small data text files and can be stored on your computer's hard drive (if your Web browser permits). Our Website uses cookies for the following general purposes:

• To help us recognize your browser as a previous visitor and save and remember any preferences that may have been set while your browser was visiting our site. For example, if you register on our site, we may use cookies to remember your registration information, so you do not need to log into our site each time you visit. Please note that member IDs, passwords, and any other account-related data included in such cookies are encrypted for security purposes. Unless you register with us, these cookies will not contain any personal information.
• To help us customize the content and advertisements provided to you on this Website and on other sites across the Internet. For example, when you access a page on our Website, a cookie is automatically set by us, our service providers, or our partners to recognize your browser as you navigate on the Internet and to present you with information and advertising based on your interests. See Managing the display of Tailored Advertisements for more information about our online advertising practices and your choices. 
• To help measure and research the effectiveness of website features and offerings, advertisements, and email communications (by determining which emails you open and act upon).

In addition to the above cookies, we use Local Shared Objects, also referred to as "flash cookies," on our web site. These are used to enhance your user experience, for example, by storing your user preferences and settings, such as your volume/mute settings, and in connection with animated content on our Website. Local Shared Objects are similar to browser cookies, but can store data more complex than simple text. By themselves, they cannot do anything to or with the data on your computer. Like other cookies, they can only access personally identifiable information that you have provided on this site, and cannot be accessed by other websites. To find out more about flash cookies or how to disable them, please visit: Flash Player Help site.

This site may also use Web beacons (also known as clear gifs, pixel tags or Web bugs), which are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies, that are placed in the code of a Web page. We use Web beacons to monitor the traffic patterns of users from one page within our sites to another, to deliver or communicate with cookies, to understand whether you have come to our site from an online advertisement displayed on a third-party website, and to improve site performance. We also may allow our service providers to use Web beacons to help us understand which emails have been opened by recipients and to track the visitor traffic and actions on our site. This helps us measure the effectiveness of our content and other offerings.

This site uses invisible reCAPTCHA technology to detect bots. reCAPTCHA works by collecting hardware and software information, such as device and application data, and the results of integrity checks, and sends that data to a reCAPTCHA service provider for analysis.  

If you have any questions about our use of cookies or other technologies, please contact our team for assistance.

MANAGING THE DISPLAY OF TAILORED ADVERTISEMENTS

Data collected by our Service to serve you with relevant advertising. The Blackbook Companies are committed to providing you with relevant content and information. To do this, we may, through cookies and other technologies, collect information about your travel-related searches, such as whether you are looking for hotels or other travel services. We use this information, together with other information we have collected about you, to serve you with ads and recommendations, on our Website or elsewhere online, that match your interests.

Please note that we do not combine the information we collect about your travel-related searches on our service with personal information (such as email address) to serve you with ads across other websites. We also do not share your personal information with third-parties for them to serve you with advertisements.

Data collected by business partners and ad networks to serve you with relevant advertising. The advertisements you see on our Service are served by us or by our service providers. But we may also allow third-parties to collect information about your online activities through cookies and other technologies. These third parties include (1) business partners, who collect information when you view or interact with one of their advertisements on our sites; and (2) advertising networks, which collect information about your interests when you view or interact with one of the advertisements they place on many different websites on the Internet. The information gathered by these third parties is used to make predictions about your characteristics, interests or preferences and to display advertisements on our sites and across the Internet tailored to your apparent interests. We do not permit these third parties to collect personal information about you (such as email address) on our site, nor do we consciously share with them any personal information about you.

Please note that we do not have access to or control over cookies or other technologies these third parties may use to collect information about your interests, and the information practices of these third parties are not covered by this Privacy Policy. Some of these companies are members of the Network Advertising Initiative, which offers a single location to opt out of ad targeting from member companies.

Data collected by companies that operate cookie-based exchanges to serve you with relevant advertising. Like other companies operating online, The BlackBook Companies  participate in cookie-based exchanges where anonymous information is collected about your browsing behaviour through cookies and other technologies and segmented into different topics of interest (such as travel). These topics of interest are then shared with third parties, including advertisers and ad networks, so they can tailor advertisements to your apparent interests. We do not share personal information (such as your email address) with these companies and we do not permit these companies to collect any such information about you on our site.

Do-Not-Track Signals and Similar Mechanisms. Some web browsers may transmit "do-not-track" signals to websites with which the browser communicates. Because of differences in how web browsers incorporate and activate this feature, it is not always clear whether users intend for these signals to be transmitted, or whether they even are aware of them. Participants in the leading Internet standards-setting organization that is addressing this issue are in the process of determining what, if anything, websites should do when they receive such signals. BlackBook currently does not take action in response to these signals. If and when a final standard is established and accepted, we will reassess how to respond to these signals.  

USING THE BLACKBOOK MOBILE APPS

When you use an App, we collect and use information about you in the same way and for the same purposes as we do when you use our Website.

In addition to this, we also use some other information that we collect automatically when you use our Apps. Specifically:

• We collect information about the App and its functions that you access and use. This allows us to identify those areas of the App that are of interest to our customers so that we can refine and continuously improve the App. The information we collect for this purpose does not enable us to directly identify you.
  
  
• Each App also sends us the device's unique device identifier (or "UID"), a sequence of numbers or characters that are unique to your mobile device. We use this only on the first opening of the App so that we can confirm to our advertising networks the number of downloads resulting from clicks on their respective ad banners and other marketing tools.
  
  
• When you use an App, you can choose to allow access to your current location – provided by your mobile device using GPS or similar technologies – in order to identify nearby hotels or airports. If you choose to allow access, this location data may be collected anonymously as part of search requests logged by our servers. You can switch off the App’s access to your location at any time through your phone settings menu.
  
  
• Each App will also send us error-reporting information in the event that it crashes or hangs. This enables us to investigate the error and to improve the stability of the App for future releases. As part of these error reports, the App sends us information about the mobile device type and version, the UID, the time the error occurred, the feature being used and the state of the application when the error occurred. We do not use this information for any purpose other than investigating and remedying the error.

 

HOW WE PROTECT YOUR INFORMATION

We want you to feel confident about using this Website to make travel arrangements, and we are committed to protecting the information we collect. While no website can guarantee security, we have implemented administrative, technical, and physical security procedures to help protect the personal information you provide to us. Only authorized persons may access personal information, and they may only do so for permitted business functions. In addition, we use encryption when transmitting your sensitive personal information between your system and ours, and we employ firewalls and intrusion detection systems to help prevent unauthorized persons from gaining access to your information. 



CHILDREN'S PRIVACY

This is a general audience website and does not offer services directed to user below 18 years of age. Should a child whom we know to be under 18 send personal information to us, we will use that information only to respond directly to that child to inform him or her that we must have parental consent before receiving his or her personal information.



EXTERNAL LINKS

If any part of this Website links you to other sites, those sites do not operate under this Privacy Policy. We recommend you examine the privacy statements posted on those other websites to understand their procedures for collecting, using, and disclosing personal information.



VISITING OUR WEBSITE FROM OUTSIDE OF SINGAPORE

If you are visiting our Website from outside of Singapore, please be aware that your information may be transferred to, stored, and processed in Singapore, where our team is located. By using our services, you understand that your information may be transferred to our facilities and those third parties with whom we share it as described in this Policy.



CROSS-BORDER TRANSFER

The BlackBook Companies provides a global service using services hosted securely by cloud hosting partners. Sharing data cross-border is essential to the Services so that you receive the same high-quality service wherever you access our services in the world. As a result, we will, subject to law, transfer Personal Data and other data collection in connection to the Services, to entities in countries where data protection standards may differ from those in the country where you reside. By using our Services or through interaction with the BlackBook Companies and its employees, you understand that we transfer your Personal Data globally.

In certain but limited circumstances, courts, law enforcement agencies, regulatory agencies or security authorities in those other countries will be entitled to access your Personal Data. 


CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The updated Privacy Policy will supersede earlier versions and will apply to personal information provided to us previously. You are encouraged to review our Privacy Policy from time to time to keep yourself updated on these changes. We may notify you about material changes to this Privacy Policy by sending a notice to the email address you provided to us or by placing a prominent notice on our Website.

The ‘LAST UPDATED” legend at the bottom of this page indicates when this Privacy Policy was last revised.


HOW YOU CAN CONTACT US

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or our handling of your Personal Data, please email our Data Protection Officer at dataprivacy@blackbooktravels.com or by contacting our team.

Last Update: Sep 2020