With this privacy policy, we wish to inform you about the data we collect from you and the purposes for which we do so. This privacy policy applies to all our products and services, the sending of emails and newsletters, as well as the use of our website.
ThaiTravelExpert (“we”, “our”, “us”) provides products and/or services to customers/website visitors (“you”) and is responsible for the processing of personal data as set out in this privacy statement.
Agreement
By using our website or purchasing products or services from us, you consent to the collection and use of information as described in this privacy policy.
GDPR and AVG
Our privacy statement and cookie policy comply with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The GDPR, or Algemene Verordening Gegevensbescherming (AVG) in Dutch, is the EU’s data protection legislation designed to protect the personal data of European citizens.
Your personal data is secure
Our Privacy Policy is very simple: we will NEVER sell, rent out or give away your personal data. You can rest assured that all your personal information is secure and kept strictly confidential. We use strict security measures to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your personal information.
We also have an anti-spam policy. This means that we will never send spam via email or in any other form! We can only send free tips, information or newsletters via email once a subscriber has confirmed their subscription via a double opt-in (confirmation of email address following registration via the website).
We use a Content Management System (CMS) with the necessary security measures to keep your data confidential. Our website is a secure website (https) (with an SSL certificate) to ensure your data is safe. We also take other measures to keep the website secure.
Our website is hosted on a server in a certified data centre within the European Union. The data centre implements all necessary security measures to protect your data, in full compliance with the GDPR. You can rest assured that your data is safe.
What personal data do we collect and process?
When you use our website and our services, we may collect and process the following data:
- Personal identification details: first name, surname
- Contact details: address, email address, telephone number
- Payment details; VAT number, bank account number
- Images that could be used to identify you
- Other information that you choose to share with us voluntarily: such as social media accounts, login ID, IP address, comments, replies and opinions, date of birth, age
Personal data will only be used for the purposes described in this privacy statement, unless you have given us your prior consent to use the personal data for other purposes.
For users who register on our site (where applicable), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can view, edit or delete their personal information at any time (except that they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also view and edit this information.
If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.
Why do we process personal data?
Your personal data may be used:
- For user registration and verification/authentication on the website or for the services
- For communication between us and customers/website visitors
- For our customer records
- For the sale and promotion of our services and products
- To prevent spam
- To prevent and detect abuse or fraud
- For sending emails and newsletters
- For the management of our website
- For the analysis of statistics and the optimisation of the website and services
- For marketing purposes
- To comply with laws and regulations
We collect your personal data on the basis of our legitimate interests or your consent, which you may withdraw at any time.
Special categories of personal data and/or sensitive personal data that we process
Our website and/or service does not intend to collect data about website visitors under the age of 16, unless they have parental or guardian consent. However, we cannot verify whether a visitor is over 16. We therefore advise parents to be involved in their children’s online activities to prevent data about children from being collected without parental consent. If you believe that we have collected personal data about a minor without such consent, please contact us and we will delete this information.
Do we use automated decision-making with legal consequences?
We do not use automated decision-making that has legal implications. In practical terms, this means that we never use your data to make decisions without human intervention that could have legal implications or significant consequences for you.
How long we retain personal data
We retain your personal data for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes set out in this privacy statement. Generally, we retain personal data relating to our website visitors for 12 months.
Data that we are legally required to retain will be kept for as long as the law requires.
When you leave a comment, that comment and its metadata are stored permanently. This allows us to automatically recognise and approve follow-up comments, rather than having to moderate them.
Sharing personal data with third parties
We share your personal data with third parties where this is necessary for the performance of the contract and to comply with any legal obligations. We enter into a data processing agreement with companies that process your data on our behalf to ensure the same level of security and confidentiality for your data. In addition, we may disclose your personal data to other third parties. We will only do so with your explicit consent.
We may share your data with the following third parties where necessary:
- MailerLite: for sending emails and newsletters
- Mollie: for the processing of online payments
- Bpost/PostNL/DHL: for the delivery of orders
Email service providers
We use MailerLite to send emails and newsletters. Your personal data is stored on the servers of the mailing service provider MailerLite in a certified data centre (ISO 27001) within the European Union. MailerLite ensures that all necessary security measures are in place for data protection and processing.
Analyctics
To understand and improve the use of our website, we collect statistical data. To do this, we use the privacy-friendly analytics tool Umami Cloud. This service is configured to process data in a fully anonymised manner. No personal data or tracking cookies that could identify individual visitors are stored, and your data is not shared with third parties for commercial purposes.
Form security
To protect our forms against spam, misuse and automated attacks, we use Cloudflare Turnstile. This service analyses browser and device characteristics to verify whether an entry is made by a human visitor or an automated bot. In doing so, technical data (such as IP address and browser configuration) is processed by Cloudflare. This is done on the basis of our legitimate interest in keeping the website secure and functional.
Cookies or similar technologies
We may use functional, analytical, social media or marketing cookies. We may also use similar technologies. For more information, please see our Cookie Policy.
Social Media
Our website may feature social media buttons that allow you to share its content via social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc. Please check their privacy policies to find out how they handle privacy.
We use Sassy Social Share’s share buttons, which do not set cookies when the page loads. Data is only sent to the social networks when the visitor deliberately clicks on them.
View, edit or delete data
You have the right to access, correct or delete your personal data. In addition, you have the right to withdraw any consent you may have given for data processing or to object to the processing of your personal data by us, and you have the right to data portability. This means that you can submit a request to us to send the personal data we hold about you in a computer file to you or to another organisation specified by you. You can send us a request to access, correct, delete or transfer your personal data, or a request to withdraw your consent or object to the processing of your personal data. To ensure that the request for access has been made by you, we ask you to include a copy of your ID with the request. In this copy, please black out your passport photo, MRZ (machine-readable zone, the strip of numbers at the bottom of the passport), passport number and Citizen Service Number (BSN). This is to protect your privacy. We will respond to your request as soon as possible.
If you have an account on this website or have left comments, you can request an export file containing the personal data we hold about you, including all the data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase all the personal data we hold about you. This excludes any data that we are required to retain for administrative, legal or security purposes.
How we protect personal data
We take the protection of your data very seriously and implement appropriate technical measures to prevent misuse, loss, unauthorised access, unauthorised disclosure and unauthorised alteration. If you feel that your data is not properly secured or there are indications of misuse, please contact us.
We take the following technical and organisational measures:
- access control, use of passwords and possibly two-factor authentication
- data encryption
- anonymisation of data
- the server can only be accessed via SSH
- Internet connection via SSL only
Links
Our website may contain links to other websites. We are not responsible for the privacy policies and/or the content of these websites.
Embedded content from other websites
Posts on our website may contain embedded content (such as videos, images, maps, posts, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves exactly as if the visitor had visited that other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with this embedded content, including recording your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
YouTube videos
Our website embeds videos from YouTube. These videos are loaded using YouTube’s Privacy Enhanced Mode (YouTube Privacy Enhanced Mode). This means that a connection to YouTube’s servers is only established when you choose to play a video.
When you play a video, YouTube (Google) may process personal data, such as your IP address, and may place cookies or similar technologies on your device. In such cases, YouTube’s privacy and cookie policy applies.
By clicking on ‘Load video’ or the play button, you consent to the video being loaded, the associated processing of personal data and the setting of cookies by YouTube.
When you play a YouTube video, Google’s privacy policy applies. For more information, please see the Google Privacy Policy (https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en) and the YouTube Privacy and User Settings page (https://www.youtube.com/howyoutubeworks/user-settings/privacy/).
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the website, we collect the data shown in the comment form, the visitor’s IP address and the browser user agent to help detect spam.
An anonymised string generated from your email address (also known as a hash) may be sent to the Gravatar service if you use it. The Gravatar service’s privacy policy can be found here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. Once your comment has been approved, your profile picture will be publicly visible alongside your comment.
Visitors’ comments may be checked using an automated spam detection service.
Comment guidelines
Comment on an article (if comments are allowed)
Have you been to Thailand yourself, or do you have a question? Please get in touch with us or let us know in the comments. Updates on prices, opening hours or recent experiences are particularly valuable to other travellers.
What we’re pleased about:
- Personal experiences and recent updates
- Questions for us or for other travellers
- Honest, well-founded criticism, even if it is not positive
What we do not publish:
- Advertising, spam or random links to other sites
- Serious allegations without any evidence to back them up
- Offensive or abusive language
Comments are moderated before publication, so it may take a little while for your comment to appear.
Protection of comment forms
We use a local spam filter (Antispam Bee) to protect comment forms against misuse on the grounds of legitimate interest. No personal data is shared with third parties in this process.
Affiliate Links
Our website contains affiliate links from Stay22 and Travelpayouts.
When you click on an affiliate link, you will be redirected to the relevant partner’s website. In order to correctly record any commission, the affiliate partner may process certain technical data during or after this redirection and, where applicable, use cookies or similar technologies.
For further information, please refer to the privacy and cookie policies of Stay22 and Travelpayouts.
Images
If you are a registered user and upload images to the website, you must ensure that your images do not contain EXIF GPS location data. Visitors to the website can download images from the site and view the location data.
Changes to this privacy policy
Depending on changes to the law, we may need to update our privacy policy. Any updates will be published on this page. We therefore recommend that you check our privacy policy regularly so that you are aware of these updates.
Contact details
If you have questions about our privacy statement, contact us for more information.
Website: https://thaitravelexpert.com/en/contact/