This privacy policy sets out how North Scotland Hikes uses and protects any information that you give to North Scotland Hikes when you use this website.

North Scotland Hikes are committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified when using this website, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy statement.

North Scotland Hikes may change this policy from time to time by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes. This policy is effective from 8 June 2022.

By making a booking or contacting us via this website, you agree to the transfer, storing or processing of your personal data as set out below. As a guiding organisation, we require these details in order to fulfil our contract with you. Please do not use this website if you do not agree with any of the following.

What we collect:

We may collect the following information:

Cookies

If browsing this website, we collect the following generic information using cookies: Operating system, Browser, Device type, Demographics (eg Gender, Age band, Country of location), IP address, Site behaviour (e.g. Page views, Link clicks etc).

Participant Form

If completing a participant form, we ask for the following personal information: Name, Email address, Address, Phone number, Age, Relevant experience and fitness, Medical conditions, Emergency contact details

What we do with the information we gather

We require this information to understand your needs and provide you with a better service, and in particular for the following reasons:

Internal record keeping.

So that your guide, instructor or leader can look after you safely in a mountainous or wilderness environment.

We may use the information to improve our products and services.

Disclosure of your information

The information we hold will only be passed to your guide, instructor or leader prior to a course you are booked on. We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to any other outside parties your personally identifiable information. We may release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others rights, property or safety. We ask that any freelance staff that we may use comply with GDPR and with our Privacy Policy..

For financial reasons, we will keep your transaction data on our systems for 6 years after you have made a booking with us. For all biometric data associated with your transaction, we retain the right to hold this information for 3 years in accordance with health & safety guidelines.

Security

We will do our very best to protect your personal data. Transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure, we, therefore, cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to this website, therefore any transmission is at your own risk.

Once we have received your information, we will take all reasonable steps to keep your personal data secure and do our utmost to prevent unauthorized access to it. All information you provide to us is stored securely.

We do not hold any credit card details as most payments completed through Ecwid. You can view Ecwid’s privacy and data security policy here: https://www.ecwid.com/privacy-policy

We also take payments by online bank transfer through the Co-operative Bank, we do not record any of your sensitive banking information. Any payment transactions will be encrypted using SSL technology.

If at any point you suspect or become aware of a breach in security, or receive suspicious communications from someone claiming to be from us, please let us know immediately via alan@northscotlandhikes.com

To the best of our ability, we will limit the amount of data that is stored on paper. Any paper documents that have information on that we need to keep (i.e. booking forms) will be converted to electronic format, and then the original paper document will be destroyed.

How we use cookies

A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer’s hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.

We do not use Profiling cookies which require your consent, we only use Technical cookies which do not require your content.

Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.

You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.

Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.

Access to Information

In accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998, you have the right to access any information that we hold relating to you.

If you believe that any information we are holding on you is incorrect or incomplete, please email us as soon as possible at alan@northscotlandhikes.com. We will promptly correct any information found to be incorrect.