EXPLORE PLUS TRAVEL & TOURS

PRIVACY POLICY

This Privacy Policy sets out how eXplore Plus Travel & Tours (“eXplore+”, “we”, “our”, or “us”) - company registration number: 2020 / 862757 / 07 - processes and protects the privacy of your personal information.

eXplore Plus Travel & Tours is a travel management company and our policy describes how we collect and uses the personal data you provide to us. This Privacy Policy describes what personal data we collect about you, how we collect it, how we use it, with whom we may share it, and what choices you have regarding our use of your personal data.

We are firmly committed to protecting the privacy and confidentiality of personal information and to maintaining various physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to protect personal information in our care.

This Privacy Policy applies to eXplore+ travel management and related services provided to you, including eXplore+ websites, portals and applications that display or link you to this Privacy Policy.

We encourage you to read this Privacy Policy carefully in its entirety, as it relates to your rights regarding the processing of your personal data. As a user of our services, you understand and agree that we collect, use, and disclose your personal data by this Privacy Policy.

1. PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT

Generally, the type of personal information we collect about you is the information that is needed to facilitate your travel arrangements and bookings and to arrange travel-related services and/or products on your behalf.

We therefore typically process the following types of personal information about you:

Contact information - such as:

Contact information including your name, home or work telephone numbers or e-mail address; • Date and place of birth;
Nationality, visa, passport or other related identification data;
Language preference;
Citizenship (if applicable to confirm your residency).

Other profile data that are relevant to your travel booking:

Gender;
Your weight (if applicable and if it is a requirement of airlines doing intercamp flights); • Traveller and emergency contact names and information (with their consent);
Information about your activities and interests;
Occupation;
Medical details such as medical aid information in the event of an emergency;
Health information such as your dietary requirements and health issues (if any);
Noteworthy dates such as birthdays, anniversaries and special occasions;
Payment data (credit/debit card details, including card type, card number, security number and expiry date) - if applicable;
Loyalty program / frequent flyer details;
And any other details relevant to your travel arrangements or required by the relevant travel service provider(s) (e.g. airlines and accommodation or tour providers).
Sensitive personal data such as data about, racial or ethnic origin and religious beliefs for visa applications (where required to be provided under law).

eXplore+ may collect personal information (including personally identifiable information or, where relevant, sensitive personal data) about you and/or the person on behalf of whom you are utilising our services in the following ways:

INFORMATION YOU GIVE US.

This is information that you give us by filling in forms on our websites, online booking tools, booking forms or other applications, or by corresponding with us by phone, email or otherwise. The information may include without limitation your and /or your travellers name/s, address, e-mail address, phone number or other contact details, marital status, age, occupation, role/title/area of responsibilities, financial and credit card information, personal description and photograph and other information (including as required by laws and regulations addressing insurance and related matters or as required to provide our services).

INFORMATION WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU.

We, our service providers and other business partners, collect certain information by using automated means, such as cookies, when you interact with our applications, or visit our websites. This information may include your IP address, browser type, operating system, the full URLs, referring URLs and information on actions taken or interaction with our digital assets. We may use third-party web analytics services on our websites and applications, to help us analyse how visitors use our websites and other digital platforms. We, our service providers and our business partners may also collect information about your activities on our websites and other digital platforms for use in providing you with content tailored to your individual interests. The information collected for these purposes may include details about things like the particular pages you view on our websites and the actions you take on our websites and or other digital assets.

INFORMATION WE MAY RECEIVE FROM OTHER SOURCES.

We work closely with third parties (including related travel suppliers for booking/ticketing purposes; industry reporting authorities, payment and delivery services, analytics providers, search information providers, credit reference agencies, financial institutions, financial advisers, disclosure and criminal check services, police forces and courts) and may receive information about you from them.

WHEN YOU CONTACT US FOR OTHER PURPOSES.

We may also collect personal information about you concerning those purposes. For example, we may collect your personal information so we can contact you about a competition you have entered (e.g. if you win) or to respond to an enquiry or feedback you have sent to us.

WHEN WE COLLECT SENSITIVE INFORMATION.

We will only collect sensitive information in compliance with POPIA, with your explicit consent and where it is reasonably necessary for, or directly related to, one or more of our functions or activities (e.g. to make travel arrangements), unless we are otherwise required or authorised to do so by law. To the extent permitted or required under POPIA, you consent to us using and disclosing your sensitive information for the purpose for which it was collected. For example, if you disclose your religious beliefs to us because you are interested in, for example, certain holiday packages, in which case you consent to us using and disclosing that information in connection with facilitating your request. We will not use or disclose sensitive information for purposes other than those for which it was collected unless we subsequently receive your consent to use it for another purpose.

Of course, you are not required to supply any of the information that we may request, notably sensitive data, although this might limit the services we can offer you.

2. CHILDREN UNDER 18

Parents/guardians have the right to consent to the collection and use of personal information from child/children under the age of 18, also consenting to the disclosure of such information to outside third parties, except to provide our services. We do not share personal information collected from Children with third parties for any purpose other than to provide our services.

3. HOW DO WE COLLECT PERSONAL INFORMATION?

We will only collect personal information in compliance with POPIA. We usually collect your personal information from the information you submit during your relationship with us. We will collect this information directly from you unless it is unreasonable or impracticable to do so.

Generally, this collection will occur:

When you deal with us either in person, by telephone, letter, email;
When you visit any of our websites; or
When you connect with us via social media.

We may collect personal information about you:

When you purchase or enquires about travel arrangements or other products and services;
When you enter competitions or register for promotions;
When you subscribe to receive marketing from us (e.g. E-newsletters);
When you request brochures or other information from us; or
When you provide information, or use our services, on social media.

You should let us know immediately if you become aware that your personal information has been provided to us by another person without your consent or if you did not obtain consent before providing another person's personal information to us.

We make every effort to maintain the accuracy and completeness of your personal information which we store and to ensure all of your personal information is up to date. We will not be responsible for any losses arising from any inaccurate, inauthentic, deficient or incomplete personal information that you, or a person acting on your behalf, provide to us.

4. HOW DO WE USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

Where you contact us about a travel booking or query, the purpose for which we collect your personal information is generally to provide you with travel advice and/or to assist you with booking travel and/or travel-related products and services. However, the purpose for collection may differ depending on the particular circumstances as disclosed in this policy (e.g. collection of your personal information for your participation in a competition, provision of feedback, etc.).

When you book or otherwise arrange travel-related products and services through us, we usually act as a wholesaler for the relevant travel service providers (e.g. for a hotel). In this case, we process your personal information as necessary to provide the services you requested from us. This usually includes collecting personal information about you both for our internal purposes as described in this policy and for the travel service provider for whom we act as a wholesaler (e.g. to provide you with the booked services). For example, if you book a flight through us, then we use your personal information to enable your flight to be booked and disclose it to the airline to enable the airline to provide the flight service to you.

We may therefore share your information with our travel service providers such as hotel, airline, car rental, or other providers, who fulfil your travel bookings. Please note that these travel service providers also may use your personal information to facilitate your travel reservation, or provide you with your requested services.

If you have any concerns regarding the transfer of your personal information to a travel service provider, or you wish to contact us.

The purposes for which we collect personal information further include:

Identification of fraud or error;
Regulatory reporting and compliance;
Developing and improving our products;
Servicing our relationship with you by, among other things, creating and maintaining a customer profile to enable our brands to service you better or presenting options on our website we think may interest you based on your browsing and preferences;
Involving you in market research, gauging customer satisfaction and seeking feedback regarding our relationship with you and/or the service we have provided;
For research and analysis about our business and services, including but not limited to trends and preferences in sales and travel destinations and use of our websites;
Internal accounting and administration;
To comply with our legal obligations and any applicable customs/immigration requirements relating to your travel; and
Other purposes as authorised or required by law (e.g. To prevent a threat to life, health or safety, or to enforce our legal rights).

Where permitted by POPIA, we may use your personal information to send you targeted marketing activities relating to our products and services that we think may interest you, unless you have requested not to receive such information. These may include but are not limited to, mailouts, electronic marketing and notifications as described below, and telephone calls).

We will only use your personal information to send electronic marketing materials to you (including e-newsletters, email, SMS, MMS, Telegram and WhatsApp) if you have opted-in to receive them. You can subscribe to receive e newsletters and other electronic promotional/marketing materials by following the relevant links on our website or requesting one of our consultants to do so for you.

Should you no longer wish to receive promotional/marketing material from us, participate in market research or receive other types of communication from us, you can unsubscribe from receiving electronic marketing materials by following the unsubscribe prompt in your email, or other forms of electronic marketing.

5. IS PERSONAL INFORMATION DISCLOSED TO THIRD PARTIES?

We do not and will not sell, rent out or trade your personal information. We will only disclose your personal information to third parties in the ways set out in this policy and, in particular, as set out below, and by POPIA. Note that, in this policy, where we say "disclose", this includes transfer, share (including verbally and in writing), send, or otherwise make available or accessible your personal information to another person or entity.

Your personal information may be disclosed to the following types of third parties:

• Our contractors, suppliers and service providers, including without limitation:
In each of the circumstances set out in section 4;
Suppliers of it based solutions that assist us in providing products and services to you (such as any external data hosting providers we may use);
Publishers, printers and distributors of marketing material;
Event and expo organisers;
Marketing, market research, research and analysis and communications agencies;
Mailing houses, freight services, courier services; and
External business advisers (such as lawyers, accountants, auditors and recruitment consultants);
Our related entities and brands;
Travel service providers such as travel wholesalers, tour operators, airlines, hotels, car rental companies, transfer handlers and other related service providers;
Any third party to whom we assign or novate any of our rights or obligations;
Financial institutions such as banks, when processing financial transactions;
A person making your travel booking on your behalf, where you are travelling on a booking made on your behalf by another person (for example, a family member, friend or work colleague);
A person who can verify to us that they have a relationship with you (e.g. family member) where you are not contactable, the person correctly answers our required security questions and the request is, in our opinion, in your interest (for example, where the person is concerned for your welfare or needs to undertake action on your behalf due to unforeseen circumstances);
As required or authorised by applicable law, and to comply with our legal obligations;
Customs and immigration to comply with our legal obligations and any applicable customs/immigration requirements relating to your travel;
Government agencies and public authorities to comply with a valid and authorised request, including a court order or other valid legal process;
Various regulatory bodies and law enforcement officials and agencies, including to protect against fraud and for related security purposes; and
Enforcement agencies where we suspect that unlawful activity has been or may be engaged in and the personal information is a necessary part of our investigation or reporting of the matter.
When you engage us to book flights on your behalf, we will provide your personal information (i.e. name, email address and/or mobile number) to the relevant airline. This enables airlines to advise passengers of irregular flight operations and disruptions (e.g. flight cancellations, schedule changes) directly.

Other than the above, we will not disclose your personal information without your consent unless we reasonably believe that disclosure is necessary to lessen or prevent a threat to life, health or safety of an individual or to public health or safety or for a certain action to be undertaken by an enforcement body (e.g. prevention, detection, investigation, prosecution or punishment of criminal offences), or where such disclosure is authorised or required by law (including applicable privacy/data protection laws).

On our websites, you may choose to use certain features that can be accessed through, or for which we partner with, other entities that are not otherwise affiliated with us. These features, which include social networking and geo-location tools, are operated by third parties, including social networks, and are clearly identified as such. These third parties may use or share personal information by their own privacy policies. We strongly suggest you review the third parties privacy policies if you use the relevant features.

6. DOES EXPLORE+ DISCLOSE PERSONAL DATA ACROSS THE BORDER?

When sharing with or disclosing personal data to other parties, including to eXplore+ related companies, affiliates, subsidiaries, partners, subcontractors, and local travel agents who provide the services and maintain facilities, your personal data may be transferred to countries with data protection laws providing a lower standard of protection for your personal data than your home country.

We will ensure that any such international transfers are either necessary for the performance of a contract between you and the overseas recipient or are made subject to appropriate or suitable safeguards as required by POPIA.

Information may be transferred of personal data to other parties to an overseas recipient (other than any of our overseas related entities) located in a jurisdiction where you will not be able to seek redress under POPIA and that does not have an equivalent level of data protection as in your jurisdiction. To the extent permitted by POPIA, we will not be liable for how these overseas recipients handle, store and process your personal information.

Travel service providers located across the border:

In providing our services to you, it may be necessary for us to disclose personal information to relevant cross border travel service providers. We deal with many different travel service providers all over the world, so the location of a travel service provider relevant to your personal information will depend on the travel services being provided. The relevant travel service providers will in most cases receive your personal information in the country in which they will provide the services to you or in which their business or management is based.

Our third-party service providers located across the border:

We may also disclose your personal information to third parties located across the border to perform services for us, including the storage and processing of such information. Generally, we will only disclose your personal information to these across border recipients in connection with the facilitation of your travel booking and/or to enable the performance of administrative and technical services by them on our behalf.

We use key service providers located mostly located in Africa but can extend to other parts of the world. If you have any specific questions about where or to whom your personal information will be sent, please contact us.

7. SECURITY OF INFORMATION

We are committed to safeguarding and protecting personal information and will implement and maintain appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure a level of security appropriate to protect any personal information provided to us from an accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure of, or access to personal information transmitted, stored or otherwise processed.

eXplore+ has several systems and procedures in place which assist us in ensuring all our client information is safely stored as well as multiple layers of security in place which help manage all access to customer and company data.

eXplore+ regularly reviews security technologies and will strive to protect your personal information as fully as we protect our own confidential information.

eXplore+ is not responsible for any third party's actions or their security controls concerning information that third parties may collect or process via their websites, services or otherwise.

8. HOW LONG DOES EXPLORE+ KEEP MY PERSONAL DATA?

eXplore+ retains your personal data for the period necessary to fulfil business purposes or for the period required or permitted by applicable laws.

When determining how long to retain your personal data, eXplore+ takes into account the necessity of the personal data for the provision of our services, applicable laws and regulations, including data protection laws, and our legal obligations. We may retain records to investigate or defend against potential legal claims. When retention of the personal data is no longer necessary, the data will be deleted, masked, de-identified or aggregated for analytic purposes.

9. YOUR RIGHTS

Under the POPI Act data protection law, you have certain rights regarding the personal information we maintain about you. We also offer you certain choices about what personal information we collect from you, how we use that information, and how we communicate with you.

You can choose not to provide your personal data to us. You also may refrain from submitting information directly to us. However, if you do not provide your personal data when requested, or if you exercise your rights you or your fellow traveller/s may not be able to benefit from the services (as applicable), and we may not be able to provide you with information about our products and services.

To the extent provided by the POPI Act data protection law, you may withdraw any consent you previously provided to us, or object at any time to the processing of your personal data. We will apply your preferences going forward. In some circumstances, withdrawing your consent to our use or disclosure of your personal data will mean that you cannot make use of certain services.

Requests and access to your personal data.

In addition, you may have the right to: obtain confirmation that we hold personal information about you, request access to and receive information about the personal information we maintain about you, receive copies of the personal information we maintain about you, update and correct inaccuracies in your personal information, object to the processing of your personal information, and have the information blocked, anonymized or deleted, as appropriate.

If you provide us with any information or material relating to another individual, you should make sure that the sharing with us and our further use as described to you from time to time is in line with applicable laws, so for example you should duly inform that individual on the processing of her/his personal data and obtain her/his consent, as may be necessary under applicable data protection law.

If you have subscribed to our newsletter, we will send you regular e-mails regarding current promotions and special offers on our products and/or services. You may unsubscribe from our newsletter by selecting the "unsubscribe" button at the bottom page of our newsletter or by emailing us your request to info@exploreplus.co.za.

In any of the situations listed above, we may request that you prove your identity by providing us with a copy of a valid means of identification for us to comply with our security obligations and to prevent unauthorised disclosure of personal information.

10. SOCIAL MEDIA INTEGRATIONS

Our websites and other applications may use social media features and widgets (such as “Like” and “Share” buttons/widgets) (called "SM Features"). These are provided and operated by third-party companies (e.g. Facebook) and either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our website or other application. SM Features may collect information such as the page you are visiting on our website, your IP address, and may set cookies to enable the SM Feature to function properly.

If you are logged into your account with a third-party company, then the third party may be able to link information about your visit to and use of our website or mobile application to your social media account with them. Similarly, your interactions with the SM Features may be recorded by a third party. In addition, the third-party company may send us information in line with their policies, such as your name, profile picture, gender, friend lists and any other information you have chosen to make available, and we may share information with the third party company to serve targeted marketing to you via the third party social media platform. You can manage the sharing of information and opt-out from targeted marketing via your privacy settings for the third party social media platform.

Your interactions with these SM Features are governed by the privacy policy of the third party company providing them. For more information about the data practices of these third-party companies, and to find out more about what personal information is collected about you and how the third party uses such personal information, please refer to their privacy policy directly.

11. TRACKING TECHNOLOGIES

We may use third-party web analytics services on our websites. The analytics providers that administer these services use technologies such as cookies and web beacons to help us analyse how visitors use our websites and apps.

12. LINKED SITES

Our websites and documents may contain links to third party websites over which we have no control. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such websites. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of any linked third-party websites you visit as their privacy policy and practices may differ from ours.

13. AMENDMETNS TO THIS POLICY

Please note that we may amend this Policy without prior notice to you. Please refer to this Policy regularly to acquaint yourself with any amendments to this Policy. Any Policy amendments become effective immediately on the date that they are published by us.

14. FEEDBACK / COMPLAINTS / CONTACT

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or wish to exercise any of your rights as described in this Privacy Policy, please contact us as follows:

TEL: 012 –345 1942

Email: info@exploreplus.co.za