Privacy Policy
M Adventures Privacy Notice
M Adventures Privacy Notice Last Updated: September, 2023.
This privacy notice (the “Privacy Notice” or the “Notice”) explains how M Adventures Inc., its affiliates, and subsidiaries (“M Adventures”, “we”, “us”, “our”) process and handle personal information when you book a Tour with us, inquire about booking a Tour with us, visit our website, use our mobile app, or otherwise receive any related products or services from us.
Your privacy matters to us and we take our data protection and privacy responsibilities seriously. We follow the practices described in this Notice and treat your personal information in accordance with applicable law in the places where we operate. In some cases, we may provide additional data privacy notices specific to certain products, practices, or regions. Any such additional notices are to be read in conjunction with this Notice
We may change this Privacy Notice from time to time. If we make changes, we will revise the date at the end of this policy and, in some cases, we may provide you with additional notice (such as adding a statement to our website or sending you a notification). We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy regularly to stay informed about our information practices and the choices available to you.
Outline
- What personal information we collect from you
- How we use your personal information
- How we share your personal information
- How to contact us
- Security
- Retention
- Changes to this privacy notice
What personal information we collect from you When you book a tour or inquire about booking a tour with us…
We collect various pieces of personal information about you when you inquire about booking one of our Tours. This information may be collected via our website, our app, in speaking with a third-party travel agent or in working with one of our sales agents. Depending on which of our services you’re inquiring about, we will typically collect the following:
Your first and last name, phone number, address, email address, & date of birth;
Once you have booked a Tour, we need more personal information to get you ready for your adventure as a part of a process we call “Good-to-Go”. This is needed in part, to be able to verify your identity, assess suitability of the selected Tour, provide notices and updates to you about your Tour, and to process your payment. The information we require for the ‘Good-to-Go’ process includes:
gender, next of kin, travel insurance details, residency, emergency contact information, ISIC information (where applicable), payment information, nutrition preferences, passport details including (where applicable) a scanned copy of your passport, information required for a visa application; and
Health and medical information such as pre-existing medical conditions, vaccination status, and special requirements concerning medication that may impact your ability to safely participate in the Tour.
We may also collect the personal information of co-travellers whose information you provide us on their behalf as a part of the booking process. By providing us with personal information about others, you certify that you have permission to provide that information to M Adventures for the purposes described in this Notice, and that they have read and understood how it applies to them.
When you place a call to us to inquire about purchasing a Tour, to ask questions or to resolve an issue, that call may be recorded and/or monitored for quality control, training, and customer service purposes. In so doing, we may collect information such as the identity of the caller, the date and time of the call, and the subject matter of the call.
Photos and videos taken while travelling on a Tour…
While on a Tour, photos or videos may be taken by other travellers or by one of our CEOs that may contain you or your likeness and which may constitute personal information. Any photos or videos taken by a CEO or one of our representatives will not be used for marketing purposes without your prior knowledge and permission. We take care in handling and collecting your personal information, but we are not responsible for other travellers on your Tour who may take your photo without your permission.
Occasionally, a professional photographer may be scheduled on your Tour for the purposes of taking pictures and videos to be used for promotional purposes. In such instances, we will present you with consent and waiver form that you will have the option to accept or decline prior to your Tour departure.
When you apply for a job with us
If you apply for a job with us, we will collect personal information such as your name and contact information, your employment history, and other personal information that may reasonably be required to verify your identity and evaluate your suitability for the job to which you have applied.
How do we use your personal information?
We collect, hold and use your personal information (subject to the selections you make and applicable laws) for a variety of business purposes but in general to provide, improve, customize, support and market Tours and any connected or related services we may provide to you. These purposes include:
To comply with our legal obligations and to carry out the administration of our business…
In certain limited instances, M Adventures may be required to use your personal information to comply with our legal obligations, for example, to comply with local laws in the countries you visit on Tour. We may also use your personal information to conduct the internal administration of our business such as to carry out internal accounting.
How do we share your personal information?
There are a few different circumstances where we may share your personal information with a third party. No matter what, we take great care in ensuring that our business partners & third parties with whom your information may be shared, will treat it with the same degree of a care and attention that we do. We will not sell, distribute, or otherwise share your personal information unless we (i) have your permission and consent, or (ii) are required or permitted by law to do so. We may share your personal information or other information we have collected about you in connection with the following purposes:
Sharing with your consent or at your direction. Where you provide consent, we share your information as described at the time of consent, such as when authorizing a third-party application to access your account, when using a third-party payment processor to process a payment or when participating in M Adventures’ promotional activities.
On Tour Service providers. We share personal information with affiliated and unaffiliated service providers to help us run our business and to provide you with the services you direct us to provide. This includes service providers that help us: (i) provide accommodations, (ii) provide transportation, (iii) provide activities on Tour, (iv) sell Tours and confirm which services you have requested (e.g. travel agencies and our branded partners). We share your information internally with employees who have a need to know, and with our internal contractors which include our Chief Experience Officers (or CEOs). These providers are contractually bound to keep personal information confidential, secure, and to use it only for the purposes for which we disclose it to them. In some cases, we may share your personal information with government authorities (e.g. for border crossings and visa requirements).
IT and Support Services. We also use a range of third parties to help us operate, provide, improve, customize and market our Tours and services. These include IT service providers who provide things such as website and application development, technology hosting (for example, to enable functionality of the ‘Trees-for-days’ elements of the website), maintenance, backup and storage, along with payment processing and other related services. Additionally, we work with a network of partners (both affiliated and unaffiliated) who help us market and promote our Tours, who send marketing materials on our behalf, who generate leads and resell our services.
Business transfer or corporate reorganization. If M Adventures undertakes or is involved in any merger, acquisition, reorganization, sale of assets, bankruptcy, or insolvency event, then we may sell, transfer, or share some or all of our assets, including your information in connection with such transaction or in contemplation of such transaction (e.g. for due diligence purposes).
National Geographic Journeys with M Adventures. If you are travelling on a “National Geographic Journeys with M Adventures” or a “National Geographic Family Journeys” Tour, then we may share your personal information with National Geographic Partners, LLC in compliance with our contractual obligations and in support of providing you a Tour or an associated service.
Service providers & business partners that process personal information on our behalf do so for our purposes only, and must agree to certain privacy obligations in their contracts with us. These include complying with privacy laws, safeguarding the personal information, and only processing that information under our direction for permitted purposes.
EU Representative
M Adventures has appointed its German-based affiliate M Adventures GmbH to act as its representative under Article 27 of the General Data Protection Regulation (2016/679/EU) ("GDPR") in respect of our processing of Personal Data relating to Data Subjects who are in the EU under Article 3(2) of the GDPR.
Security
M Adventures is committed to keeping your personal information secure. We implement and maintain various security measures designed to protect your personal information that we have in our custody and control. We maintain reasonable administrative, technical and physical safeguards to protect against unauthorized access, use, modification and disclosure of personal information. We have put in place adequate procedures to deal with any actual or suspected personal information breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of any data breach where we are legally required to do so. Unfortunately, no collection or transmission of information over the internet or other publicly accessible communications networks can be guaranteed to be 100% secure, and therefore, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any such information.
Retention
We keep your personal information for so long a is reasonably necessary for the purposes for which we use it, and if longer, for any duration required by law, and for statutory claims limitation periods where your personal information may be relevant to any possible liability, we may have to you. If you would like to know more about our data retention practices, please contact our Privacy Officer via the method described above.