Data protection and privacy
Overview
1. We offer a reservation service to make bookings in hostels worldwide. This includes online processing of payments, back-end office administration of customer details, and processing of confirmed transactions to hostel properties.
2. We operate a free monthly newsletter for our customers to advise of interesting articles and facts from our industry.
3. We arrange free e-mailings from time to time, advising of cost savings in the hostel industry.
4. We hold a regular competition open to all users, offering complimentary stays in hostels.
5. We offer our customers the opportunity to add a rating to the hotels, ensuring the quality of our content, whilst giving you the user an opportunity of feedback.
Personal Information
In each of these circumstances above you will be required to enter personal information of some kind (later described), to process these transactions, to assist the personalisation of our service to you and enhance the experience that is Hostelbookers.com.
We are required to collect personal information. We value your trust in this matter and wish that you understand how we treat this personal information. We reassure you that we take such matters seriously and hope that within this statement it is clear exactly what happens to this information you provide
Common questions and shortcuts
You are in control
It is important to note that we only collect your personal information when it has been volunteered by yourselves. We provide you with a clear process so that it is easily understood as to why you are entering personal information. At all times you are aware when submitting such information and at no times do you provide information that may be later reused for any other purpose.
So.. How do we, when, and what do we do with your data
There are two main areas in which we collect your data. We will separate these circumstances now.
1. Booking process
Personal information
It is necessary to collect your personal information here, simply to process the transaction you require. We may collect your name, email address, telephone number etc.
From here we are then able to confirm your reservation with the relevant hostel. The data is then stored in our back office administration and may be recalled for internal administration matters, such as reporting or responding to enquiries.
Credit card
We will also collect your credit card number, expiry date and other relevant details such as security number, your name etc.
A deposit is taken to confirm your reservation and it is necessary then that we collect your credit card details to process this. Please see our credit card statement later in this report for more information on our high level of security here.
In both cases, information is provided to the hostel property to complete the transaction.
By volunteering your information here we will not contact you for any matter other than the reservation itself. We do not use details here to send you our subscribed services.
2. Subscribed service’s, feedback
We offer you a free service to receive updates and cost saving opportunities in the hostel or travel industry, as well as our free newsletter that can be mailed to you. You are also given the opportunity of entering in our draw for free hostel bookings, or for giving feedback on your stay.
In each option we are required to collect your personal details such as name and email address. This helps us to personalise our communication with you and to send only relevant information. This information is then simply collected and stored in our back office administration.
This information is recalled for administration purposes, for each mailing, i.e the monthly newsletter, or for the drawing of our competition winner. You can of course unsubscribe at any time if you wish to discontinue receiving offers.
Unsubscribe
You have the option to unsubscribe to our services at any time. We will also promote this option available to you whenever we communicate our mailing services, i..e newsletter, e-mailing. You can also unsubscribe at any time by using our contact page.
Other collected information
Technical information may also be collected i.e. IP address, operating system, browser software etc. whilst you are on the site. This is quite usual and this information is used only for our internal statistical purposes, like recording where our customers are coming from. This does not include personal information and we do not collect personal information in this way.
We use cookies for each visit to our site. A cookie is a type if id tag that is placed in your computer’s hard drive each time you visit a website. This does not take up heavy space on your pc, but what this does do is enable websites to recognise you when you when you are on a site. For example, once you are logged in under a password and login and then click to go to a new page, the website will not ask you for your password again because from the cookie it can recognise that it is still you on the site, until of course you log out. HostelBookers use cookies to remember you if you ever come back again.
It is possible for you to disable the acceptance of such cookies from all websites. You need to configure your browser capabilities and to do so will depend on which browser you use. We do not recommend this however, as cookies are helpful to enhancing your experience on the internet.
Note, Cookies do not contain personal information.
Consent
By subscribing you consent to receive from us email offers, news or relevant information. You of course have the option to unsubscribe at any time. By volunteering the entry of your personal information you consent for us to hold and store this data and to administer where necessary, as laid out in this privacy statement.
Third parties
We are required to pass hostel properties your information on your behalf, in order to finalise the booking process.
HostelBookers may contract a reliable third party to facilitate the distribution of promotions, feedback, competitions details etc.
We will not disclose your personal information to any other third parties unless we have your prior consent. On all pages where information is collected we specifically describe what information is required in order to provide you with the service you have requested.
Storage
Personal data will be securely contained by us and may be used only for those services listed above and for other matters such as internal administration.
Credit card guarantee
We collect, administer and store credit card numbers in order to process each transaction. We are required also to collect other such personal information as the organisation, name, your name etc. This information is held in our back end server, protected by powerful Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption technology.
Secure details
Transactions are secure on the HostelBookers.com website. Each transaction is protected, encrypted by SSL technology, meaning that every message is ‘scambled’ once a request is submit and travels over the internet. We then collect this information using secure password protected areas. We do not operate bookings over the phone, and so need this high level security.
Your personal information is safe with Hostelbookers.com.
Contact
At any time we will be glad to offer our assistance to answer any questions or doubts that you may need clearing. Please feel free to contact at any time. Go here to jump to our contact area and post your question online.
