Privacy Policy
This privacy policy sets out how West Coast Mountain Guides uses and protects any information that you give West Coast Mountain Guides when you use this website.
West Coast Mountain Guides is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified when using this website, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy statement.
West Coast Mountain Guides may change this policy from time to time by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes. This policy is effective from 1st October 2022.
By making a booking or contacting us via this website, you agree to the transfer, storing or processing of your personal data as set out below. As a guiding organisation, we require these details in order to fulfil our contract with you. Please do not use this website if you do not agree with any of the following.
What we collect
We may collect the following information:
If browsing this website, we collect the following generic information using cookies: Operating system, Browser, Device type, Demographics (eg Gender, Age band, Country of location), IP address, Site behaviour (e.g. Page views, Link clicks etc).
If signing up to our newsletter or completing a contact form, we ask for the following personal information: Name, Email address
If completing a booking form, we ask for the following personal information : Name, Email address, Address, Phone number, Date of Birth, Relevant experience and fitness, Medical conditions, Emergency contact details
What we do with the information we gather
We require this information to understand your needs and provide you with a better service, and in particular for the following reasons:
- Internal record keeping.
- So that your guide, instructor or leader can look after you safely in a mountainous or wilderness environment.
- We may use the information to improve our products and services.
- We may periodically send newsletters about new products, special offers or other information which we think you may find interesting using the email address which you have provided.
Only if you have given us your consent to receive our newsletter by email, will we send you occasional newsletters. In every newsletter message we send you, we will give you the opportunity to unsubscribe from our newsletter mailing list.
Disclosure of your information
The information we hold will only be passed to your guide, instructor or leader prior to a course your are booked on taking place. We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to any other outside parties your personally identifiable information. We may release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others rights, property or safety. We ask that all our freelance team comply with GDPR and GDPR readiness statements are available from them on request.
For financial reasons, we will keep your transaction data on our systems for 6 years after you have made a booking with us. For all biometric data associated with your transaction, we retain the right to hold this information for 3 years in accordance with health & safety guidelines.
Security
We will do our very best to protect your personal data. Transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure, we therefore cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to this website, therefore any transmission is at your own risk.
Once we have received your information, we will take all reasonable steps to keep your personal data secure and do our utmost to prevent unauthorised access to it. All information you provide to us is stored securely.
We do not hold any credit card details as all card payments completed through Barclaycard’s payment gateway. You can view Barclaycard’s privacy and data security policy here : https://www.barclaycard.co.uk/personal/privacy-policy. We also take payments by online bank transfer through Barclays- we do not record any of your sensitive banking information. Any payment transactions will be encrypted using SSL technology.
If at any point you suspect or become aware of a breach in security, or receive suspicious communications from someone claiming to be from us, please let us know immediately via info@westcoastmountainguides.co.uk.
To the best of our ability we will limit the amount of data that is stored on paper. Any paper documents that have information on that we need to keep (i.e. booking forms) will be converted to electronic format, and then the original paper document will be destroyed.
How we use cookies
A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer’s hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.
We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about webpage traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to customer needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system.
Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.
You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.
Links to other websites
Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.
Access to Information
In accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 you have the right to access any information that we hold relating to you.
If you believe that any information we are holding on you is incorrect or incomplete, please write to or email us as soon as possible at the above address. We will promptly correct any information found to be incorrect.
