Welcome to Clarity’s Privacy Notice.
This Notice will inform you as to how we look after your personal data when you visit our website (regardless of where you visit it from) or when you otherwise provide personal data to us via other means (such as over the telephone or via our booking systems) and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.
We are committed to respecting and protecting your privacy whilst remaining compliant with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA). In line with this objective we operate an Information Security Management System which is certified against ISO 27001:2013 and a Personal Information Management System aligned with the BS 10012:2017 standard.
This Privacy Notice is provided in a layered format so that you can easily click through to the specific areas set out below. Alternatively, you can download a pdf version of the Notice here.
If there is any terminology used in the Notice that you are unfamiliar with or that you don’t fully understand, please refer to the Glossary set out at the end.
Purpose of this Privacy Notice
This Privacy Notice aims to give you information on how Clarity collects and processes your personal data, including any data you may provide through this website or via any other means (such as over the telephone or via our booking channels) when you make bookings of travel services, when you take part in a competition, complete a survey, or if you report a problem with our website, etc.
This website is not intended for children.
It is important that you read this Notice together with any other privacy notice or fair processing notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This Notice supplements the other notices and is not intended to override them.
Controller
Clarity, is the Controller and responsible for your personal data (collectively referred to as “Clarity”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this Privacy Notice).
We have appointed a data protection officer (DPO) who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this Privacy Notice. If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact the DPO using the details set out below.
Contact details
Our full details are:
Full name of legal entity: Clarity
Name or title of DPO: Lois Haynes
Email address: DPO@claritybt.com
Postal address: Clarity, c/o IT Compliance, 4th Floor, Broadhurst, 56 Oxford Street, Manchester M1 6EU
You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.
Changes to the Privacy Notice and your duty to inform us of changes
We keep our Privacy Notice under regular review. This version was last updated on October 14th 2020 and historic versions can be obtained by contacting us.
It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if any of the details you provide to us should change, during the course of your relationship with us.
Third-party links
This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.
Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).
We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:
(A) Identity Data
This includes data relating specifically to your identity, such as your first name, maiden name, last name, username or similar identifier, marital status, title, date of birth, gender, passport details, next of kin information*, employer details, dietary requirements*, loyalty card information* etc. (*this information will never be mandatory).
(B) Contact Data
This includes data relating to how you may be contacted, such as your billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers.
(C) Financial Data
This includes data relating to your means and methods of payment, such as your bank account and payment card details.
(D) Transaction Data
This includes data relating to the transactions you have carried out with us, such as details about payments to and from you and other details of products and services you have purchased from or via us.
(E) Technical Data
This includes more technical data that we may obtain when you make use of our website, such as your internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access this website; information about your computer or mobile device including, where available: your IP address; your operating system; your device location; your browser type; cookie identification numbers.
(F) Traveller Profile Data
This includes the data that we receive when you create a profile on our website and make use of that profile, such as your username and password, purchases or orders made by you, your interests, preferences, feedback and survey responses.
(G) Usage Data
This includes information about how you use our website, products and services.
(H) Marketing and Communications Data
This includes your preferences in relation to whether or not you want to receive marketing from us and our third parties and also your communication preferences.
We also collect, use and share aggregated data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated data may be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect aggregated data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we will treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this Privacy Notice.
Special Categories of Personal Data
We may collect the following special categories of personal data about you, if volunteered in order to refine your travel requirements.
Details about your:
• dietary requirements (which may disclose your religious or philosophical beliefs)
• health.
We collect and process the above data only where it is strictly necessary to do so in order to deliver the travel service that you have booked via ourselves. Furthermore, we will only collect and process the above special categories of personal data where you have provided us with your explicit consent to do so.
You are not under any obligation to consent to us processing your sensitive personal data. However, without your consent, we won’t be able to make the necessary arrangements to provide the travel services that you have booked or are attempting to book via Clarity. As a result, if you do not provide your consent, we will be unable to proceed with your booking.
We rely on your organisation to ensure that you have provided consent, before providing us with any such information as part of your booking. However, it is nevertheless the case that you are able to withdraw your consent at any time – please contact us or the individual responsible for booking travel, within your organisation if you wish to do so. If you withdraw your consent, this may prevent us from being able to continue to source or arrange the travel service you have booked, therefore any withdrawal of consent may necessitate the cancellation of your booking and cancellation charges may be payable as a result.
If you fail to provide personal data
Where we need to collect personal data by law or under the terms of a contract we have with you and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you.
Where we require details from you in order to provide our travel management services and/or arrange travel services on your behalf, if you do not provide us with the necessary details then we will not be able to provide our services or arrange the services you are attempting to book.
In this case we may not be able to process your booking. We will notify you if we are unable to process a booking or are required to cancel a booking for this reason.
We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:
(A) Direct interactions
You may give us your identity, contact and financial data and special categories of personal data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:
• make a booking of travel services;
• query an existing travel booking;
• create an account on our website;
• subscribe to our newsletter, other publications or travel alerts;
• request marketing to be sent to you;
• enter a competition, promotion or survey;
• give us some feedback;
• offer your services to us as a supplier.
(B) Automated technologies or interactions
As you interact with our website, we may automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns.
We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. We may also receive Technical Data about you if you visit other websites employing our cookies. Please see our cookie policy for further details.
(C) Third parties
We may receive personal data about you from various third parties as set out below:
• Technical Data from the following parties:
(i) analytics providers such as Google based outside the EU
We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:
• Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you;
• To make bookings of travel services on your behalf and at your request;
• Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests;
• Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.
Generally, we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data other than in relation to processing Special Categories of Personal Data and sending direct marketing communications to you via email or text message. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting us.
Purposes for which we will use your personal data
We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.
Note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.
Marketing
We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal data uses, particularly around marketing and advertising. The following sections provide further explanation as to how we seek to do this.
Promotional offers from us
We may use your identity, contact, technical, usage and traveller profile data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which products, services and offers may be relevant for you (we call this marketing).
You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us or purchased services from us and, in each case, you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.
Third-party marketing
We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any third-party company for the purposes of that company sending you marketing material.
Opting out
You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you or by contacting us at any time.
Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to personal data that you have provided to us as a result of a purchase of travel services or other such transactions.
Monitoring communications
We may monitor, record, store and use any telephone, email or other communication with you in order to check any instructions given to us, for training purposes, for crime prevention and to improve the quality of our customer service.
Cookies
You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly. For more information about the cookies we use, please see our cookie policy.
Change of purpose
We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us.
If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.
Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.
We may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table in paragraph 4 above.
(A) Internal Third Parties as set out in the Glossary.
(B) External Third Parties as set out in the Glossary.
(C) Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this Privacy Notice.
We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.
Where you have requested a booking for travel arrangements which are located or otherwise due to be fulfilled outside the EEA, we will have to transfer your personal data to our partners who provide us with the technology we require to process such bookings and also the third party suppliers fulfilling or providing those travel arrangements outside the EEA in order to make your booking and for those suppliers to be able to provide you with the travel arrangements you have booked. Where we are unable to rely on one of the safeguards outlined below when transferring data to those suppliers outside the EEA, we will rely on the derogation under Article 49 of the GDPR in order to transfer your personal data to countries outside the EEA (as the transfer relates to the performance of a contract for your benefit), and you hereby permit us to do so. You also acknowledge that where your personal data is transferred outside the EEA, controls on data protection may not be as wide as the legal requirements within the EEA.
For all other transfers of data, whenever your personal data is transferred outside the EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:
• We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the European Commission. For further details, see European Commission: Adequacy of the protection of personal data in non-EU countries.
• Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contractual clauses approved by the European Commission which give personal data the same protection it has in Europe. For further details, see European Commission: Model contracts for the transfer of personal data to third countries.
Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data out of the EEA.
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.
How long will you use my personal data for?
We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting, or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.
To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.
Details of retention periods for different aspects of your personal data are available in our retention policy. For further detail please contact us.
By law we have to keep basic information about our customers (including Contact, Identity, Financial and Transaction Data) for seven years after they cease being customers for tax purposes.
In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see Request erasure below for further information.
In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.
Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. Please click on the links below to find out more about these rights:
(A) Request access to your personal data.
(B) Request correction of your personal data.
(C) Request erasure of your personal data.
(D) Object to processing of your personal data.
(E) Request restriction of processing your personal data.
(F) Request transfer of your personal data.
(G) Right to withdraw consent.
If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us.
No fee usually required
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.
What we may need from you
We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.
Time limit to respond
We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.
LAWFUL BASIS
• Legitimate Interest
means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service and the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us.
• Performance of Contract
means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.
• Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation
means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject to.
THIRD PARTIES
• Internal Third Parties
Other companies in the Clarity Group acting as joint controllers or processors and who are based in the United Kingdom and provide IT and system administration services and undertake leadership reporting.
• External Third Parties
i. Suppliers of travel services acting as processors based in the country to which you are travelling and who provide the travel services that make up any booking of travel services that you make with us.
ii. Service providers acting as processors based in the European Union who provide IT and system administration services.
iii. Professional advisers acting as processors or joint controllers including lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers based in the European Union who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services.
iv. HM Revenue & Customs, regulators and other authorities acting as processors or joint controllers based in the United Kingdom who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.
Clarity maintains an online register of technology and service providers whom we define as Other or ‘sub-’ processors of personal information according to data protection legislation. This can be found here.
YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS
You have the right to:
• Request access
to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
• Request correction
of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
• Request erasure
of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
• Object to processing
of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
• Request restriction of processing
of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios:
(a) if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy;
(b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it;
(c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or
(d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
• Request the transfer
of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
• Withdraw consent at any time
where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.