PRIVACY POLICY

Here’s everything you need to know about our privacy and cookie policies. If you’re looking for a summary of our rental policies, including our cancellation policy, please go to our rental policies link on our website.

1. INTRODUCTION

We ‘Whistler Breaks Vacation Rentals Ltd’ take the privacy of your information seriously. With more and more online based interactions we understand people have concerns about how their personal data will be used or shared.

Although you do not need to register or provide any personal information when visiting our website, we do need you to provide certain information to make an inquiry or book one of our vacation rentals.  Our Privacy Policy explains how we use the personal information collected.

If you have any queries about the policy, please get in touch via our contact details on the Whistler Breaks site and we will do our best to answer your questions.

This notice applies to personal data provided by our users (our users include; Guests who have booked to stay at one of our rental properties, Prospective Guests searching our website looking for properties to rent, Homeowners and others such as those seeking work etc. In this notice “you” refers to any individual whose personal data we hold or process (other than our staff and contractors).

2. INFORMATION WE COLLECT

We collect information you share with us when you use the Whistler Breaks site. The provision of this information is necessary to use the Whistler Breaks Site and, without it, we will not be able to provide you with services that you request.  There are 2 parts to this:-

INFORMATION YOU PROVIDE US WITH

  1. Inquiry and Booking Request & Property Management Request – when you submit an inquiry or booking request, we require certain information such as your name, email address and phone number. If you are a Homeowner inquiring about our Property Management services, we will also require details relating to the specific property.
  2. Payment Information – When you book accommodation or a travel-related experience through us, we require certain billing information such as your credit card number and expiry date to process payments and comply with applicable law. Credit Card payments will be collected by our payment processor.
  3. Communications with Whistler Breaks. When you communicate with Whistler Breaks, we collect information about your communication and any information you choose to provide.
  1. Other Information. You may otherwise choose to provide us with information, (such as, emergency contact information, travel preferences, and information about other guests accompanying you on your stay or your itinerary) when you fill in a form, speak to, or otherwise communicate with a Whistler Breaks representative, conduct a search, respond to guest reviews, participate in promotions, or use other features of the Whistler Breaks Site.

INFORMATION WE COLLECT 

  1. When you visit the Whistler Breaks site, we automatically collect certain information about your device, including information about your web browser, IP address, time zone, and some of the cookies that are installed on your device. Additionally, as you browse the Whistler Breaks site, we collect information about the individual web pages or products that you view, what websites or search terms referred you to the Site, and information about how you interact with the Site. We refer to this automatically-collected information as “Device Information”.

  2. We collect Device Information using the following technologies: 
    “Cookies” are data files that are placed on your device or computer and often include an anonymous unique identifier. For more information about cookies, and how to disable cookies, visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org. 

  3. “Log files” track actions occurring on the Site, and collect data including your IP address, browser type, Internet service provider, referring/exit pages, and date/time stamps.  “Web beacons”, “tags”, and “pixels” are electronic files used to record information about how you browse the Site.

  4. HOW WE USE YOUR INFORMATION

We use your information in different ways, depending on which services you use and how you use those services.

We use information about you to provide services that you request or to fulfill the terms of a contract between you and us. We use information about you to respond to your inquiries or requests; to communicate with you about reservations and stays; to fulfill contractual or legal requirements relating to your request or the Services you are using (for example, to permit you to stay in a property you have reserved); to provide customer service; to provide rental management or similar services; to detect and prevent fraud or illegal activity; and to make or receive payments to or from you.

To use data analytics to improve the Whistler Breaks Site, services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences

This is necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of customers for our products and services, to keep Whistler Breaks Site updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy).

  • SHARING THIS INFORMATION

  • a. We may share your information at your direction or as described by us to you at the time of sharing, such as if you, as a guest, have requested us to connect you with a third party vendor or to purchase services from a third party vendor on your behalf, in connection with your booking (e.g., an activities provider or grocery delivery service). In these situations, you are authorising Whistler Breaks to disclose to these third party vendors information required to book them and to receive the relevant services from them. These third-party vendors are not controlled by Whistler Breaks and personal information shared with them is subject to their privacy policies and practices.

  • b. Credit or debit card payments will be collected by our payment processor.

  • c. We may share customer information with third parties to perform services on our behalf in order to improve our services and you hereby consent to us sharing such customer information.

  • d. The Whistler Breaks Site publishes information that is visible to the general public. For example: After completing a booking, guests may write reviews which may appear publicly on Listing pages (and other pages on which we may market accommodations) under their name and general location. If you submit content on our blog, or in a social media post, or use a similar feature on the Whistler Breaks Site, that content is publicly visible. Information you share publicly on the Whistler Breaks Site may be indexed through third-party search engines. If you change your settings or your public-facing content, these search engines may not update their databases. We do not control the practices of third-party search engines, and they may use caches containing your outdated information.

  • e. To the extent we collect and remit accommodation taxes and sales taxes, third-party vendors, homeowners, and guests expressly grant us permission, without further notice, to disclose vendors’ and guests’ data and other information relating to them or to their transactions, bookings, accommodations and occupancy taxes to the relevant tax authority, including, but not limited to, the vendor’s or guest’s name, listing addresses, transaction dates and amounts, tax identification number(s), the amount of taxes received (or due) by vendors from guests, and contact information.

  • f. Other than as set out above, we will not disclose any of your personal information without your permission unless we are required by law to do so (for example, if required to do so by a court order or for the purposes of prevention of fraud or other crime).

  • g. All sharing mentioned in this policy excludes mobile opt-in and consent; opt-in information is never shared with anyone for any purpose.

5. CONSENT

Knowledge and consent are required for the collection, use or disclosure of Personal Information except where required or permitted by law. Providing us with your Personal Information is always your choice. However, your decision not to provide certain information may limit our ability to provide you with our products or services. We will not require you to consent to the collection, use, or disclosure of information as a condition to the supply of a product or service, except as required to be able to supply the product or service.

You have the following choices and rights regarding the data we hold about you.

To make any changes to the data we hold about you or to Opt-Out, please email inquiry@whistlerbreaks.com. You can also text the word ‘STOP’ on your mobile device to be removed from future text communications.

  1. When making a booking, we will send you a reminder about your stay via text message.  We will also email details such as your Check in Details via email.  If you do not wish to receive emails or text messages, please email inquiry@whistlerbreaks.com, or if you no longer wish to continue receiving text messages, reply with the word ‘STOP’ on your device.
  2. Request access to your personal information (commonly known as a “data subject access request”).
  3. Ask us to correct any information that we hold about you which is incorrect, incomplete or inaccurate.
  4. Ask us to erase your personal information from our files and systems where there is no good reason for us continuing to hold it.
  5. Object to us using your personal information to further our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) or where we are using your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
  6. Ask us to restrict or suspend the use of your personal information, for example, if you want us to establish its accuracy or our reasons for using it.

6. SAFEGUARDING INFORMATION

We will take reasonable steps to ensure that appropriate technical and organisational measures are carried out in order to safeguard the information we collect from you and protect against unlawful access and accidental loss or damage. These measures may include (as necessary):

  • protecting our servers with software firewalls;
  • encrypting all data stored on our server with an industry standard encryption method that encrypts the data between your computer and our server so that in the event of your network being insecure no data is passed in a format that could easily be deciphered;
  • when necessary, disposing of or deleting your data so it is done so securely;
  • regularly backing up and encrypting all data we hold.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet and email is not completely secure. Although we do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to the Whistler Breaks Site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features referred to in this clause with the aim of preventing unauthorised access.

7. OTHER WEBSTIES

Our website may contain links to other third-party sites that are not governed by this privacy policy. Although we endeavour to only link to sites with high privacy standards, our privacy policy will no longer apply once you leave our website. Additionally, we are not responsible for the privacy practices employed by third party websites. Therefore, we suggest that you examine the privacy statements of those sites to learn how your information may be collected, used, shared and disclosed.