Privacy Policy

Unique Home Stays Ltd Privacy Policy

This policy (together with any other documents we refer to in it) sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. It also explains the rights available to you under data protection law, and how to exercise those rights.

Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.

1. Who we are

1.1 We (or "us") means Unique Homestays Limited, a registered limited company (number 04502158) whose registered address is Stanley Lain House, Trebudannon, Newquay, Cornwall, TR8 4LP.

1.2 We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office as a data controller under number Z1716805.

1.3 By contacting us, using our services (whether as a property owner or as a guest) or visiting our website, which is owned and controlled by us ("our site"), you accept the practices described in this policy unless you inform us otherwise.

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2. Information we collect from you

We may collect and process the following data about you:

2.1 Information you give us.

You may give us information about you by filling in forms on our site or by corresponding with us by phone, e-mail or otherwise. This includes information you provide if you register to use our site, market your property through us, book accommodation with or via us, participate in discussion boards or other social media functions on our site, enter a competition, promotion or survey, and when you report a problem with our site. The information you give us may include your name, address, e-mail address and phone number and payment information. When booking, you may choose to provide us with optional information such as your vehicle details, specific requirements or requests (for example, accessibility requirements), the occasion of your stay and your occupation.

As part of the online booking process, or during your stay (on the iPad provided in your property and/or in the physical guestbook) you may be asked to provide feedback. We use this feedback to understand what you did or didn't like about your stay, so that we can work with our owners to make improvements. We may also tell you that your feedback will be used to create a customer testimonial on our website or other marketing materials, and by providing your feedback you give us permission to use it in this way. This testimonial will not directly identify you, but may include a reference to your first name.

You may also provide us with information if you submit an enquiry or complaint to our team. Please note that calls with our team are automatically recorded and retained for complaint resolution and staff training purposes.

2.2 Information we automatically collect or generate about you.

When you visit our site we may automatically collect the following information:

a) technical information, including the Internet Protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet, your login information, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform;

b) information about your visit, including the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL) clickstream to, through and from our site (including date and time); products you viewed or searched for; page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), and methods used to browse away from the page and any phone number used to call our customer service number.

Some of the above information (page views; visit duration; timestamps) is automatically collected by Google Analytics when you visit the web pages available on the iPads supplied with our properties.

When you make a booking, we automatically generate points for the Unique Folk Rewards Programme. These points are assigned to your account and can be redeemed against the cost of future stays.

2.3 Information we receive from other sources.

If you are an owner, we may request information about you from credit reference agencies as part of assessing your application. The UK's credit reference agencies publish the Credit Reference Agency Information Notice (CRAIN) which can be found online and which explains how those agencies process your personal data and share it with customers like us.

For guests, when you make a payment, we receive a score from our payment provider Opayo (Elavon) that indicates whether there is a risk of fraud associated with the payment.

We also work with third parties (including, for example, business partners, sub-contractors, advertising networks, analytics providers, search information providers) and may receive information about you from them.

When third parties collect your data, you should be informed by those third parties at that stage that it may be shared with us and combined with data collected from other sources.

2.4 Information you give us about third parties

When you make a booking you will also need to provide the names, age ranges and nationality of the other guests in your party. For non-UK citizens, we need to be provided with passport details. We will also ask you to provide the occupations of your guests, although this is voluntary. If those guests have questions about how their personal data is used, you should direct them to this privacy policy.

If you were referred to us by a friend, we will use the referral code you provide to identify the person who gave you that code.

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3. Uses made of the information

We use information held about you in the ways listed below. For each activity listed, we have also explained the "legal basis" we rely on under data protection law - this is our justification for using your personal data for that activity. Where our legal basis is "performance of a contract", then unless otherwise stated we are referring to our Unique Home Stays Ltd Booking Terms and Conditions. The legal basis we rely upon affects the rights available to you (see section 7 for more details):

3.1 Information you give us.

We will use this information to:

How we use your personal data Our legal basis
Book your accommodation, including taking payment for the booking Performance of a contract
Establish your identity, in accordance with our legal obligation as the provider of a holiday let Legal obligation
Notify you about your booking or about changes to our services or our terms and conditions Performance of a contract
Send you our newsletter Consent
Send you other Unique Homestay marketing or promotional materials Our legitimate interest in promoting similar products and services to existing customers, subject to your right to opt-out at any time (if you are an existing customer, we will only contact you by electronic means (e-mail or SMS) with information about goods and services similar to those which were the subject of a previous sale or negotiations of a sale to you)
OR
Consent
Share your data with selected third parties, so that they can provide you with information about their goods or services which we feel may interest you Consent
Run competitions and prize draws Performance of a contract (please refer to the competition page and to our booking terms)
Understanding more about you and the nature of your stay Our legitimate interest in understanding our customer base so that we can tailor and improve our service offering
Make reasonable adjustments for guests with disabilities Legal obligation
Review your application to market your property through Unique Homestays Our legitimate interest in assessing owners and their properties to ensure suitability for Unique Homestays
Act as the letting agent for your property Performance of a contract
Notify you about changes to our services or our terms and conditions Performance of a contract
Respond to enquiries and complaints Our legitimate interest in providing customer service and resolving complaints for the benefit of us, our owners and our guests
Create customer testimonials Our legitimate interest in marketing Unique Homestays by using genuine customer reviews

3.2 Information we automatically collect or generate about you.

We use this information to:

How we use your personal data Our legal basis
Enable our website to function as intended (for example, retaining data entered into a webform during a browsing session) Our legitimate interest in providing web-based services to guests
Understand how you use the website and your preferences Consent
Serve advertising on the website and show our adverts to you when you visit other websites Consent
Assign loyalty points to you when you make a booking and communicate with you about your points status Our legitimate interest in rewarding customers for booking

3.3 Information we receive from other sources.

We use this information to:

How we use your personal data Our legal basis
Checking your credit history with a credit reference agency Our legitimate interest in assessing the financial probity of owners and verifying their identity
Assess the risk that payment transactions may be fraudulent Our legitimate interest in protecting our business from fraud

3.4 Information you give us about third parties

We use this information to:

How we use your personal data Our legal basis
Understand who in your party will be staying at the property Legal obligation to collect the names and nationality of all guests over the age of 16, and to collect passport details for non-UK citizens.
Our legitimate interest in ensuring the safety of our guests and the security of our properties Our legitimate interest in ensuring the safety of our guests and the security of our properties
Track the use of referral codes Our legitimate interest in ensuring the fair and proper use of referral codes

4. Cookies

4.1 Our site uses cookies and similar technologies to distinguish you from other users of our website and to capture information about your activity on our website (such as dates and locations searched and favourite properties). This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site and to serve advertising. When you first visit the site, you are asked to consent to the use of non-essential cookies.

4.2 More information about our use of cookies and similar technologies can be found in our Cookie Policy.

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5. Disclosure of your information

5.1 You agree that we can share your personal information with:

a) our suppliers and sub-contractors for the performance of any contract we enter into with them to allow us to provide services to you, and only where they are under a duty to deal with your personal data in accordance with current data protection law; and

b) analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of our site.

5.2 We will disclose your personal data to third parties:

a) When we use suppliers and sub-contractors to help us provide our services to you. For example, we use a third party provider to help distribute our newsletter and marketing emails, and we store communications on Microsoft 365. These suppliers act under our instructions and only process your data to help us provide our services to you.

b) When you make a payment to us, in which case your data will be processed by Elavon (Opayo), our third party payment gateway, and by our bank.

c) If you are a guest, we will share your name and contact information with the property owner, as well as the age range and occupation of all guests on the booking. We will also let the property owner know how many times you've booked with us in the past, as well as any dietary or disability requirements relevant to your stay and any feedback shared with us that is applicable to the owner.

d) In the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we may disclose your personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets and their advisors.

e) If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation (including a court order), or if we consider it appropriate to respond to a legitimate request for the disclosure of information by law enforcement, a regulator or another public body.

f) In order to enforce or apply our terms of use or terms and conditions of supply of services and other agreements; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Unique Homestays Limited, our customers, or others. For example, we might proactively share information with local authorities, law enforcement and/or legal advisors if we are concerned that a guest has created legal risk for our business, our owners' properties or other persons.

g) With other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction. For example, if we have a reason to suspect fraud we may share information about a transaction with a credit reference agency or a fraud prevention body.

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6. Where we store your personal data

6.1 The data that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at a destination outside the United Kingdom, where our business is based.

6.2 For example, some of our service providers (such as our marketing automation provider) use servers in third countries, such as the United States of America and Australia, which are not considered to provide an equivalent level of data protection to the UK. In these cases, we will take reasonable steps as necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy, such as putting in place data transfer agreements based on the ICO's international data transfer agreement or addendum. On request, you have the right to see evidence of these data transfer agreements.

6.3 Our own servers and backup servers are located in the UK and Ireland, and other service providers we use (such as Microsoft) store data within the European Union (EU). The EU is considered to provide an equivalent level of data protection to the UK, and so no specific data transfer agreements are required in those cases.

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7. Your rights

7.1 Direct marketing. You have the right, at any time, to ask us not to process your personal data for marketing purposes. We will either ask for your permission before collecting your data if we intend to use your data for marketing purposes or, where permitted by law, we will instead give you an opportunity to opt out of such use. We will always obtain your express consent before disclosing your information to any third party for direct marketing purposes. You can exercise your right to prevent such processing by checking certain boxes on the forms we use to collect your data. If you have given us permission to disclose information about you to a third party, you may revoke that permission at any time by contacting us at privacy@uniquehomestays.com and on +44 (0) 1637 881183.

7.2 Other rights. You have certain rights in relation to your personal data. These are:

  • To access your personal data
  • To rectify / erase your personal data, if it is inaccurate or we don't have a basis to continue processing it
  • To restrict the processing of your personal data
  • To transfer your personal data to another controller ("data portability"), where our processing is based on "consent" or "performance of a contract"
  • To object to the processing of personal data, where our processing is based on our "legitimate interests"
  • To obtain a copy of personal data safeguards used for transfers outside the UK
  • To lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority, which in the UK is the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)

We may ask you for additional information to confirm your identity before dealing with your request. We reserve the right to charge a fee where permitted by law, for instance if your request is manifestly unfounded or excessive.

Your rights are subject to certain limitations and exemptions under data protection law - if relevant, we will explain these to you when you make your request.

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8. Data retention

Our general policy is to only store your data for as long as is necessary. For example, in practice this means that:

  • We retain data relating to bookings and payment transactions for at least 7 years, for financial audit purposes and to provide evidence in the event of a legal challenge.
  • We delete inactive contacts from our marketing lists approximately once every 2 years.
  • Loyalty points expire two years after being assigned.

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9. Security

9.1 When processing payments we use security certificates to enable an encrypted connection between our servers and your browser. This secures the transaction from being intercepted. This secure connection is enabled automatically when you access our site. Your browser will indicate when a secure connection is activated, please refer to your individual browser documentation for how to determine this.

9.2 Sensitive card payment details which you submit are handled and stored securely by Elavon (Opayo), our third party payment processor. We follow PCI DSS guidelines, and our servers are regularly scanned in accordance with their requirements to ensure compliance.

9.3 Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our site, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.

9.4 Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

9.5 Our site may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of our partner networks, advertisers and affiliates. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.

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10. Changes to our privacy policy

Any changes we may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy.

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11. Contact

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcomed and should be addressed to privacy@uniquehomestays.com.

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