Backroads Privacy Policy

Effective date: May 21, 2024

1. How we collect or obtain information about you
2. How we use your data
3. How we share your data
4. Choices and Preferences
5. Retention of Personal Data
6. Security of Personal Data
7. Children’s Privacy
8. Forums and Other Interactive Services
9. International Privacy Laws
10. Rights for Residents of Certain States / Countries
11. Changes in Our Privacy Policy

Our relationship with you is very important to us. We are sensitive to protecting the private information that you provide to us. We also want you to have the opportunity to receive interesting and useful information about Backroads and about related products and services.

This Privacy Policy sets out how we obtain, store and use your personal information when you use or interact with www.backroads.com (our “website”), or where we otherwise obtain or collect your personal information through other channels, such as email, phone, in writing, or via social media. By using our website or other channels or sharing your personal information with us, you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this Privacy Policy.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. We recommend that you print a copy of this Privacy Policy and any future versions in force from time to time for your records.
The data controller in respect of our website is Backroads of 801 Cedar Street, Berkeley, CA, 94710, USA. You can contact the data controller by sending an email to privacy@backroads.com.

1. How we collect or obtain information about you

Cookies
This site uses cookies to collect information. A cookie is a small data file that websites write to your browser when you visit them. Cookies allow us to measure various activities on our website. Each time a user visits our website, we collect certain use and navigation information using cookies. Monitoring cookies gives us information such as the number, frequency and duration of visits to each web page which we use to improve the content and navigation features of our website. A third-party cookie may also be placed on your browser which will collect information about your visit to our and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you.

If you would like to opt out of accepting cookies altogether, you can set your browser to not accept cookies or to notify you when you are sent a cookie, giving you the chance to decide whether or not to accept it. However, certain features of our web sites or other services may not work optimally if you delete or disable cookies.

You can view Google’s uses of information here: https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites

Personal Information You Disclose to Us

We collect personal information about you when you provide it to us, such as through your use of our website and its features, when you contact us directly by email, phone, in writing, or via social media, when you create a Backroads account, when you order goods and services, when you use any of our applications or any other means by which you provide personal information to us. The type of information we collect about you may include information such as:
Your name
Your email address
Your address
Your phone number
Demographics (e.g. gender, birth date)
Credentials (e.g. passwords, password hints)
Passport data (e.g. passport number, country of issuance, date of issuance and expiration date)
Medical/Dietary data (e.g. information regarding your medical and physical conditions, dietary restrictions and requirements, and food allergies that may be relevant to your participation on our trips)
Payment data (i.e. data necessary to process the payment you make in connection with your trip, such as your credit card number and the security code associated with your credit card.)
Vacation interests and travel patterns
Past purchases and information you provided to us.

All personal information that you provide to us must be true, complete and accurate and you must notify us of any changes to such personal information.

Information Automatically Collected
We automatically collect certain information when you visit, use or navigate our website. This information does not reveal your specific identity (like your name or contact information) but may include device and usage language, such as your IP address, browser and device characteristics, operating system, language preferences, referring URLs, device name, country, geographical location, information about how and when your use our website (e.g. which pages you have viewed, the time you viewed them and what you clicked on), and other technical information. This information is primarily needed to maintain the security and operation of our website, and for our internal analytics and reporting purposes.

Information Collected from Other Sources
We may also obtain personal information about you from certain publicly accessible sources, including (but not limited to) the electoral register, online customer databases, business directories, media publications, social media, websites and other publicly accessible sources.
Information we obtain from third parties will generally be your name and contact details, but may include any additional information they provide to us, including (but not limited to) any of the types of information set out in the list above.
Please note that there are circumstances in which we may not be required to provide you with the information contained in this Privacy Policy, for example if you already have the information.
In addition, where we obtain personal information about you from a source other than yourself, we are not required to provide you with certain information contained in this Privacy Policy if:

You already have the information
Providing you with the information would prove impossible or would involve a disproportionate effort
We are under an EU or EU member state law obligation to obtain or disclose the information which provides appropriate measures to protect your legitimate interests
We are obliged to keep the information confidential as a result of an obligation of professional secrecy regulated by EU or EU member state law

2. How we use your data

We may use information collected from or about you, including your personal information and usage information, to:

Register you for an account, keep in contact with you, and provide you with information, including the availability of goods, services and opportunities that are of interest to travelers;
Process transactions and facilitate your participation on our trips;
To enforce the Backroads Account Terms of Acceptance, the Backroads Liability Release, or to otherwise protect our rights
Send you information, including confirmations and receipts, technical notices, updates, security alerts, surveys and support and administrative messages;
Respond to your inquiries and provide customer service related to your use of our products and services;
Help us serve you better, including personalizing your online experience and tailoring content, recommendations, and offers we display to you;
Verify your identity or eligibility, and allow you to participate in activities or events we offer including sweepstakes, rewards, contests or other promotions;
Perform research and analysis aimed at improving our products, services and technologies;
Operate and improve our website and business, including our internal operations and security systems;
Protect each party from errors, fraud, or any criminal activity, and serve legal, regulatory and internal business purposes;
Detect and troubleshoot problems, resolve disputes, and enforce applicable agreements and policies; and
Fulfill any other purpose consistent with this Privacy Policy or for purposes disclosed to you at the time we collect your information.

We honor all requests not to receive mail, telephone or other solicitations from Backroads.

We may share non-personal information, such as usage information or otherwise de-identified data and aggregated user statistics, with third parties in our discretion. We may process or share data collected about you, including personal information, in the circumstances described below or elsewhere in this Privacy Policy.

When you access or use our website, we collect, use, share, disclose and otherwise process your personal information for the purposes described in this policy. We rely on a number of legal bases to use your information in these ways. These legal bases include:

Consent. We may share your data if you have given us specific consent to use your personal information in a specific way or for a specific purpose.
Performance of a Contract. Where we have entered into a contract with you, we may share your personal information to fulfill the terms of our contract.
Legitimate Interests. We may share your data when it is reasonably necessary to achieve our legitimate business interests.
Legal Obligations. We may disclose your information where we are legally required to do so in order to comply with applicable law, governmental requests, a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process, such as in response to a court order or a subpoena (including in response to public authorities to meet national security or law enforcement requirements).
Public Information. We may share your information when you have made the information public.
Vital Interests. We may disclose your information where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding potential violation of our policies, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person and illegal activities, or as evidence in litigation in which we are involved.

More specifically, we may need to process your data or share your personal information in the following situations:

Vendors, Consultants and Other Third-Party Service Providers. We may share your data with third-party vendors, service providers, contractors or agents who perform services for us or on our behalf and require access to such information to do that work. Examples include: airlines, hotels, tour guides, pre/post and on-trip service providers, payment processors, information processors, data analysts, email delivery providers, hosting service providers, and third parties which assist us with our customer service and marketing efforts. Those companies will be permitted to obtain only the personal data they need to provide the service. We may allow selected third parties to use tracking technology on the website, which will enable them to collect data about how you interact with the website over time. This information may be used to, among other things, analyze and track data, determine the popularity of certain content and better understand online activity.
Business Partners. We may share your information with our business partners to offer you certain products, services or promotions.
Business Transfers. We may share or transfer your information in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our organization by another company, as well as in the unlikely event of insolvency, bankruptcy or receivership, in which case personal data would be transferred as one of the business assets of the company.
Contests & Promotions. We may offer sweepstakes, contests, and other promotions (“Promotion”) that may require registration. By participating in a Promotion, you are agreeing to the provisions, conditions, or official rules that govern that Promotion, which may contain specific requirements of you (including, except where prohibited by law, allowing the sponsor(s) of the Promotion to use your name, voice, likeness or other indicia of persona in advertising or marketing materials). If you choose to enter a Promotion, personal information may be disclosed to third parties (including, without limitation, a co-sponsor) or the public in connection with the administration of such Promotion, including, without limitation, in connection with winner selection, prize fulfillment, and as required by law or permitted by the Promotion’s terms or official rules (such as on a winners’ list)

Unless described in this Privacy Policy, Backroads does not share, sell, rent or trade any of your information with third parties for their promotional purposes.

4. Choices and Preferences

If at any time you decide you want to change your choices about how we use and disclose your personal data, you can take the following actions

Backroads Account registration. If you create a Backroads account, you may change any of the information provided when you register, except your Login ID and screen name, by logging into your account and editing your profile and options. You may request that your Login ID be changed by contacting us. You may not terminate your own membership, but it will be terminated upon your request. Upon your request to terminate your membership, we will deactivate or delete your account and information from our active databases. However, some information may be retained in our files to prevent fraud, troubleshoot problems, assist with any investigations and/or comply with legal requirements. Click on the Contact link at the bottom of any Backroads web page for information on how to contact us.
Backroads Account Email. You may not opt out of receiving service announcements and administrative messages related to purchases. If you do not wish to receive Backroads marketing and/or e-newsletters you may opt out by following the instructions in the Backroads e-newsletter.
Opting Out of Marketing. The personally identifiable information that you provide to us and information about your purchase may be combined with other personally identifiable information from our records and other sources. This information will be used to make our future marketing efforts more efficient. We want to communicate with you only if you want to hear from us. If you prefer not to receive direct marketing from us, please let us know. Click on the Contact link at the bottom of any Backroads web page for information on how to contact us.
Voluntary Surveys. We periodically survey our guests and catalog requesters for their vacation interests and related travel patterns. We encourage you to complete these surveys because: a) they provide us with information that helps us improve the types of trips we offer; and b) they help us direct specific Backroads messages to you that you may find most interesting. Your participation in these surveys is always voluntary.

5. Retention of Personal Data

We retain your personal information for as long as it is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy, or for a longer retention period if required or permitted by law (such as tax, accounting or other legal requirements).

When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal information, or if you ask that your personal information be deleted, we will either delete or anonymize it, or, if this is not possible (for example, because your personal information has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your personal information and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.

6. Security of Personal Data

Backroads takes precautions to ensure that member account information is kept private. We use reasonable measures to protect member information that is stored within our database, and we restrict access to member information to those employees who need access to perform their job functions, such as our customer service personnel and technical staff. Please note that we cannot guarantee the security of member account information. Unauthorized entry or use, hardware or software failure, and other factors may compromise the security of member information at any time.

Backroads member accounts are secured by member-created passwords. It is important that you protect against unauthorized access to your account and information by choosing your password carefully and by keeping your password and computer secure, such as by signing out after using our website. Although we do our best to protect your personal information, transmission of personal information to and from our website or over the telephone is at your own risk. You should only access or services within secure environment, including a secure network environment.

7. Children’s Privacy

We collect information about minors, including name and contact data, demographic data, passport data, and medical/dietary data, from the minor’s parent or legal guardian. We may also, on occasion, collect information about a minor from an adult who has booked a trip on which the minor is traveling. We use such information to facilitate the minor’s trip with us.

We do not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from minors under 13 years of age without verified parental consent. In the event we learn we have collected personal information from a minor under 13 years of age without verified parental consent, we will delete that information as soon as possible. If you believe we may have any such information from a minor, please contact us using the contact information below.

8. Forums and Other Interactive Services

Our website and the other channels we use may include discussion forums or other interactive areas or services, including blogs, chat rooms, bulletin boards, message boards, reviews, social media postings, uploaded photographs or video, or other areas or services in which you or third parties create, post or store content, messages, comments, materials or other items (“Interactive Areas”). If you use an Interactive Area, you should be aware that these areas, including any personal data you post or provide, may be viewable by others and may be publicly distributed outside the channels in perpetuity.

We are not responsible for public disclosure of personal data you submit in connection with the Interactive Areas, nor are we responsible for how others might use that information, including to send you unsolicited messages. Interactive Area postings may be retained indefinitely. If at any time you would like to request that we remove a posting, click on the “Contact Us” link at the bottom of any channel webpage for information on how to contact us. When submitting a request, please be sure to include your full name, email address, and information sufficient to permit us to locate the submission(s) that you are requesting be removed. In some cases, we may remove only your personal information, but maintain the rest of your submission. Removal of a posting from an Interactive Area is at our discretion. Removal of a posting from an Interactive Area does not necessarily mean that the posting will be deleted from our backend systems, nor does it ensure complete or comprehensive removal of postings which may have been copied by third parties while publicly accessible.

9. International Privacy Laws

If you are visiting our website from outside the United States, please be aware that you are sending information (including personal data) to the United States where our servers are located. That information may then be transferred within the United States or back out of the United States to other countries outside of your country of residence, depending on the type of information and how it is stored by us. These countries (including the United States) may not necessarily have data protection laws as comprehensive or protective as those in your country of residence; however, our collection, storage and use of your personal data will at all times be governed by this Privacy Policy.

10. Rights for Residents of Certain States / Countries

California’s Shine the Light Law (STL)

California law entitles residents to ask for a notice describing what categories of personal information we share with third parties for their own direct marketing purposes. Unless you request us to or consent to it, Backroads does not share any personal information with third parties for their own direct marketing purposes.

California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)

If you are a California resident and the processing of personal information about you is subject to the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have certain rights with respect to that information. In particular, you have a right to request that a company provide you with the following information:

The categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you.
The categories of sources from which we collect personal information.
The business or commercial purpose for collecting, using, or selling personal information.
The categories of third parties with which we share personal information.
The categories of personal information that we have disclosed.
For companies that sell personal information, the categories of personal information sold about you and the categories of third parties to which the personal information was sold, by category or categories of personal information for each third party to which the personal information was sold.

Note that we have provided the information described in the first five bullet points in this Privacy Policy. With respect to the last bullet point, note that we do not sell personal information as defined by the CCPA.

You also have a right to request that we delete personal information under certain circumstances, subject to a number of exceptions. Finally, you have a right to not be discriminated against for exercising rights set out in the CCPA.

To make a request under the CCPA, please contact us by email at privacy@backroads.com or by telephone at 800-462-2848. In order to verify you are the person about whom we have collected information, you will need to provide certain information when you submit your request which we will then attempt to match with information we already maintain.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

If the processing of personal data about you is subject to European Union data protection law, you have certain rights with respect to that data. For the purposes of the General Data Protection Regulation, Backroads is the data controller.

Legal Bases. We describe in the section above titled “How We Use Your Data”, the purposes for which we use the data we collect and share. Where we are using the data in order to provide services or products to you, our legal basis for such use is on the basis of our contract with you. For all other purposes our legal basis is our legitimate interest in running our business, except where we obtain your consent for a particular processing, in which event the legal basis will be your consent.
Your rights. To exercise any of your rights identified below, please contact us at privacy@backroads.com. Please note that these rights are limited, for example, where fulfilling your request would adversely affect other individuals or where we are required by law to retain your personal data.
Access and portability. You are entitled to request access to your personal data we hold and be provided with certain information about how we use your personal data and who we share it with. Where you have provided your personal data to us with your consent, you have the right to ask us for a copy of this data in a structured, machine readable format and to ask us to share (port) this data to another data controller.
Correction. You have the right to ask us to correct your personal data where it is inaccurate or incomplete.
Right to deletion. In certain circumstances, you have the right to ask us to delete the personal data we hold about you.
Restriction. In certain circumstances, you have the right to ask us to restrict (stop any active) processing of your personal data.
Objection. You can object to our processing of your personal data based on our legitimate interests and we will no longer process your personal data unless we can demonstrate an overriding legitimate ground.
Withdrawal of consent. In the event we have relied upon your consent to process your personal data, you may withdraw consent at any time by contacting us privacy@backroads.com.
Complaints. In the event that you wish to make a complaint about how we process your personal data, please contact us in the first instance at privacy@backroads.com and we will endeavor to deal with your request as soon as possible. This is without prejudice to your right to raise a complaint with a relevant supervisory authority.

11. Changes in Our Privacy Policy

We may revise this Privacy Policy from time to time. The most current version of the policy will govern our use of your information and will be available at www.backroads.com/privacy. If we make a change to this policy, by continuing to access or use this website after those changes become effective, you agree to be bound by the revised Privacy Policy. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy frequently to be informed of how we are protecting your information.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns about our Privacy Policy, please contact us.

Backroads Privacy Policy

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