Scope
This policy sets out the approach Vanguard Travel will take in relation to the collection, storage and use of personal information of its customers and subscribers. This policy has been developed in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles.
Vanguard Travel recognises that your privacy is important to you. All of our employees and data processors, who have access to, and are associated with the processing of personal data, are obliged to respect the confidentiality of your personal data.
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help with spam detection.
An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Collection
We only collect personal information where such information is reasonably necessary for us to undertake our functions and activities.
Generally, we may collect and hold personal information when you subscribe to one or more of our newsletters or make an application to become a Vanguard Travel customer. We may also collect personal information when you email us, respond on social media, write to us, call us or register for other services provided by Vanguard Travel or its parent.
This personal information may include your:
- full name,
- e-mail address,
- phone and fax numbers,
- street and postal address, or other electronic mailbox locations,
- nationality,
- credit cards,
- billing or business address,
- travel details,
- any previous names,
- biometric information including photographs,
- visa applications, visa details, and other statutory declarations,
- passport number, issuing location and expiry date,
- dietary requirements,
- other information such as preferences relevant to travel arrangements,
- IP address of visitors to our website,
- cookies held on their computer for future visits to reference to data held about the user’s name and password,
Similar details my be collected when authorised to do so for family members and other participants in a travel journey.
We may also collect or hold sensitive information about you, such as your racial or ethnic origin, political position, religious or philosophical beliefs, sexual preferences or membership to trade unions where this information may be relevant to travel plans, to fulfill functions associated with your purchase including bookings with travel service providers, such as airlines, hotels, tours on your behalf; for use as automated preferences, or to correspond with you in relation to the travel services you have requested; to provide promotional and marketing materials that may be of interest to you; or to help diagnose problems with our servers, to administer our website and for statistical purposes.
Articles or material we provide may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.) Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, include tracking your interactions with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Use of personal Information
We collect and use your personal information for the primary purpose of providing travel related services, including:
- to make bookings with travel service providers, such as airlines, hotels and tours, on your behalf, or arrange additional services related to your journey,
- to fulfil administrative functions associated with your purchase order, such as billing,
- to correspond with you in relation to the travel services you have requested,
- to provide you with promotional and marketing materials that may be of interest to you,
- using the IP address of visitors to our website to help diagnose problems with our server, to administer our website and for statistical purposes.
Disclosure of personal information
Your personal information may be disclosed to third parties in the following circumstances:
- to our parent company located in Australia;
- as required or authorised by law or court/tribunal order, such as where unlawful activity has been engaged in, or is suspected of being engaged in, as required by law enforcement officials or agencies; and
- to travel service providers, such as travel wholesalers, tour operators, airlines, hotels and other service providers for the purpose of providing you with the travel services that you have requested,
- where you have consented to a secondary use or disclosure
When we book travel arrangements for you and collect your personal information we act as agent on behalf of travel service providers, such as airlines, tour companies, travel insurance providers and hotels who are responsible for providing your services.
The personal information that we need to disclose to third party travel suppliers to provide you with the travel services you request may include sensitive information.
Some of the travel service providers that we disclose your personal information to may be located outside Australia. The overseas travel service providers may not have privacy standards equivalent to the standards imposed in Australia. We do not exercise any control over the privacy practices of overseas recipients. If you do not consent to this, you should not disclose your personal information to us.
If you leave a comment on our site, you may opt-in to save your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email sent to you.
Visitor comments, image and file uploads may be passed through to third-party spam detection services.
Security of your personal information
Our parent company is located in Australia. The personal information that we collect from overseas customers will be stored on our parent’s servers in Australia and may be accessed by our employees and those of our parent company.
We take reasonable steps to:
- ensure that personal information that we collect, use and disclose is accurate, complete, up-to-date and relevant, having regard to the purpose of the use or disclosure and is stored in a secure environment,
- implement physical, electronic and organisation steps to protect your personal information that we hold from misuse, interference and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure, including encryption in transit and encryption at rest,
- regularly review and update our security measures to assess any changes in threats and impact in order to maintain the security, integrity and privacy of personal information that we collect,
- destroy or de-identify personal information when it is no longer required.
Security measures that we have in place to protect your personal information include the following:
- employing industry standard techniques such as firewalls, virus scanning tools and encryption,
- requiring employees and personal travel advisors to use logins, passwords other measures for access to all systems,
- requiring customers to use logins, passwords and other measures on controlled systems to gain access to their own information,
- requiring all staff and contractors to maintain the confidentiality of customer information; and
- using secure networks when transmitting electronic data.
To the extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any unauthorised access to your personal information or for any other security breach.
Unsubscribing
You can unsubscribe from receiving communications from us at any time. If you do not wish to receive any further marketing material from us, click on the unsubscribe link on our website or email.
Your rights to your personal information
You are able to access and correct your personal information held by any of our personal travel advisors by contacting that personal travel advisor directly. Additionally, you may use the applications and websites we operate to alter some of the information directly.
You may request access to, or correction of, any of your personal information that we hold by contacting us directly using the details set out below. We will respond to your request within a reasonable period after it is made and may recover from you our reasonable cost of providing you with access.
Third party websites
Our website contains links to other websites that are not controlled, operated or maintained by us. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those websites. Before providing your personal information to such websites, you should read, and ensure that you understand, their privacy policies.
Articles on this site may also include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
How long we retain your data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
Cookies
We use cookies on our website to improve your experience of using the website and to deliver content that is specific to your interests. A cookie is a small file which is placed on your hard disk and is used by our website to identify you when you visit the website and to store details about your use of the website. If you do not wish to receive cookies, or prefer to use the website anonymously, you should adjust your internet browser settings accordingly
Updates to our privacy policy
This privacy policy is subject to change without prior or separate notification. Any changes will be posted to our website.
Complaints
If you have a complaint about the way we have dealt with your personal information, or if there has been a breach of the Australian Privacy Principles, please contact us directly using the details set out below or follow the link for Complaints on our website. We will respond to your complaint within a reasonable time.
VCS Travel contact details
VCS Travel
2 Peverill Street
Mannering Park NSW 2259
Phone +61 423 118 742
Mail: info@vcs.travel
Attention: Privacy Officer