Privacy Policy

Welcome to Byway’s Privacy Policy.

This Privacy Policy describes the information that we gather on or through our flight-free holiday planning services (the “Services”), which includes any data you may provide through the byway.travel and/or trip.byway.travel websites, when you sign up to our newsletter, purchase a service or take part in a competition. This Privacy Policy also explains how we use and process such information, as well as your privacy rights and how the law protects you. For each processing purpose we will articulate the reason for requiring the data, what data we will process, the legal basis for processing the data and how long we will keep the data. Where the legal basis of consent is to be used, this will be gathered freely, and we will use clear, plain language that is easy to understand, and you will be able to remove your consent at any point.

It is important that you read this Privacy Policy together with any other privacy policy or fair processing policy we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This Privacy Policy supplements other notices and privacy policies and is not intended to override them.

Controller

Byway Travel Limited is the controller and responsible for your personal data (collectively referred to as "Byway", “Company”, "we", "us" or "our" in this Privacy Policy).

We have appointed a data protection officer (DPO) who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this Privacy Policy. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights as a data subject, please contact the DPO using the details set out below. 

Contact details

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, please contact our DPO in the following ways:

Full name of legal entity: Byway Travel Limited

Email address: privacy@byway.travel

Postal address: International House, 45-55 Commercial Street, London, England, E1 6BD, United Kingdom

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK regulator for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk) or any other competent data protection authority in the relevant jurisdiction. We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO or the other relevant authority so please contact us in the first instance. 

Changes to the Privacy Policy and your duty to inform us of changes

We keep our Privacy Policy under regular review. Please see the bottom of the page for the date it was last updated.

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.

Third-party links

This website or our Services may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.

Which information do we collect about you?

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

  • Identity Data includes first name, maiden name, last name, username or similar identifier, marital status, title, date of birth and gender.

  • Contact Data includes billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers.

  • Financial Data includes bank account and payment card details.

  • Transaction Data includes details about payments to and from you and other details of products and services you have purchased from us.

  • Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, and other technology on the devices you use to access this website. 

  • Profile Data includes your username and password, purchases or orders made by you, your interests, preferences, feedback and survey responses.  

  • Usage Data includes information about how you use our website, products and services. 

  • Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.

We may also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data could be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law to the extent this data will not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we do combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this Privacy Policy. You may withdraw consent to such processing of your data at any time.

We do not intentionally collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, genetic or biometric data, nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences. We may collect information about your health, nationality and geographic locations where necessary to provide services that are tailored to your specific needs or as requested by partners and suppliers. Where you choose to voluntarily provide us with any of the Special Categories of Personal Data we do not intentionally collect, those will be treated in accordance with this Privacy Policy and any other applicable legal safeguards.

Our Services and how we use your personal data

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

  • Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.

  • Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.

  • Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.

  • Where you have given us consent to process your data, for example before sending third party direct marketing communications to you via email or text message. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting us.

Purposes for which we will use your personal data

We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.

Note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out below. 

To register you as a new customer/user:

  • We use (a) Identity, (b) Contact, (d) Profile and (e) Marketing and Communications data

  • The lawful basis for processing, including basis of legitimate interest, is:

    • Performance of a contract with you

To process and deliver your trip order including: (a) Manage payments, fees and charges; (b) Collect and recover money owed to us:

  • We use (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Financial (d) Transaction (e) Marketing and Communications and (f) Profile data

  • The lawful basis for processing, including basis of legitimate interest, is:

    • Performance of a contract with you

    • Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recover debts due to us)

To manage our relationship with you which will include: (a) Notifying you about changes to our terms, booking conditions or privacy policy, (b) Asking you to leave a review or take a survey:

  • We use (a) Identity (b) Contact (e) Marketing and Communications and (f) Profile data

  • The lawful basis for processing, including basis of legitimate interest, is:

    • Performance of a contract with you 

    • Necessary to comply with a legal obligation

    • Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and to study how customers use our Services)

To enable you to partake in a prize draw, competition or complete a survey (as applicable)

  • We use (a) Identity (b) Contact (d) Usage (e) Marketing and Communications and (f) Profile data

  • The lawful basis for processing, including basis of legitimate interest, is:

    • Performance of a contract with you 

    • Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our products/services, to develop them and grow our business)

To administer and protect our business, Services and this website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data)  

  • We use (a) Identity (b) Contact and (c) Technical data

  • The lawful basis for processing, including basis of legitimate interest, is:

    • Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise)

    • Necessary to comply with a legal obligation

To deliver relevant content and advertisements to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you

  • We use (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Profile (d) Usage and (e) Marketing and Communications data

  • The lawful basis for processing, including basis of legitimate interest, is:

    • Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our products/services, to develop them, to grow our business and to inform our marketing strategy)

To use data analytics to improve our website, products/services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences

  • We use (a) Technical and (b) Usage data

  • The lawful basis for processing, including basis of legitimate interest, is:

    • Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our products/services, to develop them, to grow our business and to inform our marketing strategy)

To make suggestions and recommendations to you about goods or services that may be of interest to you

  • We use (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Technical (d) Usage (e) Profile and (f) Marketing and Communications data

  • The lawful basis for processing, including basis of legitimate interest, is:

    • Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our products/services and grow our business)

To process your job application

  • We use (a) Identity and (b) Contact data

  • The lawful basis for processing, including basis of legitimate interest, is:

    • Necessary for our legitimate interests (to review, select, interview and potentially employ candidates)

Marketing

We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal data uses, particularly around marketing and advertising. We would like to send you information about products and services of ours which may be of interest to you. You have a right at any time to stop us from contacting you for marketing purposes. 

We may use your Identity, Contact, Technical, Usage and Profile Data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which products, services and offers may be relevant for you. 

You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us or purchased services from us and you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.

We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any third party for marketing purposes. 

You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you, accessing our website settings or by contacting us at any time. 

Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of a purchase, warranty registration, product/service experience or other transactions.

Advanced Passenger Information (API)

Rail and boat operators in the EU are required to provide Advanced Passenger Information in order to manage borders. In order to book international travel, we may require:

  • Your full name(s) as printed on your passport or ID card;

  • Your residential address;

  • Your Passport Number;

  • Your Passport Expiration Date;

  • Your Date of Birth; 

  • Your Place of Birth;

  • Country of Residence; and

  • Citizenship.

We may share this information with rail and boat operators, their agents or our agents, only where they need to use it to process your booking in order to book your travel (including accommodation). We do not share this information with anybody else outside of this specific use case as it is a requirement by law.

Change of Purpose

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us. 

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

To Whom We Disclose Information

Except as described in this Privacy Policy, we will not intentionally disclose your personal data to third parties without your consent or any other appropriate lawful basis. We may disclose information to third parties if you consent to us doing so, as well as in the following circumstances:

Suppliers and Booking Agents. We work with third party service providers who provide travel services including travel, accommodation and experiences and we may need to provide your personal (including sensitive) information in order to fulfil the bookings you request.

Unrestricted Information. Any information that you voluntarily choose to include in a public area of the Services, such as a public profile page, will be available to any visitor or user who has access to that content.

Service Providers. We work with third party service providers who provide email hosting, core corporate applications, web hosting, maintenance, and other services for us. These third parties may have access to, or process personal data as part of providing those services for us. We limit the information provided to these service providers to that which is reasonably necessary for them to perform their functions, and our contracts with them require them to maintain the confidentiality and provide equivalent protections to such information. Service providers include:

  • Amazon Web Services Inc (AWS), 440 Terry Ave N, Seattle, WA 98109; for the purpose of Hosting Intercom, 55 2nd Street, 4th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105; for the purpose of communicating with our users through email and in the application.

  • Autopilot, 140 2nd Street 5th Floor San Francisco, CA 94105 United States; for the purpose of Marketing and Email Campaigns.

  • TypeForm, 163 Carrer de Bac de Roda 08018, Barcelona, Spain; for the purposes of Customer Surveys.

  • Jotform, 111 Pine St. Suite 1815, San Francisco, CA 94111, United States; for the purposes of Customer Surveys and collection of Passenger information for booked trips.

  • Zapier, Inc. 548 Market St. #62411. San Francisco, CA 94104-5401.5; for the purpose of data aggregation across a number of sources and controls pushing data to various other providers listed here.

  • Google Analytics, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043 United States; for the purpose of data and analytics, including site usage, page visited and origin of users.

  • Stripe, 510 Townsend Street, San Francisco, CA 94103, United States; for the purpose of payment. Please note we do not store your financial information on our servers instead your billing information is stored on Stripe's secure servers which we are then able to manage using a token (something unique to us which allows us to bill your account when you make certain actions).

  • Slack, 4th Floor, One Park Place, Hatch Street Upper, Dublin 2, Ireland; for the purpose of internal communication. Occasionally we use Slack to notify us when users complete certain actions, for example if they send us a message or subscribe to our service.‍

  • Auth0, 3rd Floor Union House 182-194 Union Street, London, UK, for the purposes of login authentication. Please note that we do not hold your login credentials, Auth0 provide us with a token to verify that you have logged into our service

  • Meta, 4 Grand Canal Square, Grand Canal Harbour, Dublin 2, Ireland, for the purposes of engaging with the general public on social media and enabling website users to share pages and trips via social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram & WhatsApp

  • WhatsApp, 4 Grand Canal Square, Grand Canal Harbour, Dublin 2, Ireland, for the purposes of communicating with our users while travelling on a Byway holiday

  • Squarespace, Le Pole House, Ship Street, Dublin 8, Ireland, for the purposes of data, analytics and contact information, including site usage, pages visited, sending emails on behalf of the user 

  • Helpscout, 100 City Hall Square 5th Floor, Boston, USA, for the purposes of communication with our sales team prior to booking a holiday with us

  • Airtable, 799 Market St, San Francisco, USA, for the purposes of managing the booking of a holiday and all of the subcomponents (such as individual train legs or hotel stays)

  • Hotjar Ltd, Dragonara Business Centre, 5th Floor, Dragonara Road, Paceville St Julian's STJ 3141, Malta for the purposes of data and analytics, including site usage, pages visited, origin of user

Transfers outside the UK and/or EEA

The information you provide may be transferred to countries outside the United Kingdom (“UK”) or European Economic Area (“EEA”) that do not have similar protections in place regarding your data and restrictions on its use as set out in this policy. However, we will take steps to ensure adequate protections are in place to ensure the security of your information. By submitting your information, you consent to these transfers for the purposes specified above. 

Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the UK or EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented: 

  • We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office or the European Commission. 

  • Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved for use in the UK or EEA (including the EU Standard Contractual Clauses (“SCCs”), the UK International Data Transfer Agreement (“IDTA”) and/or the UK Addendum to the SCCs as amended from time to time) which give personal data the same protection it has in the UK or EEA. 

  • Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data out of the UK or EEA. 

Law Enforcement, Legal Process and Compliance

We may disclose Personal Data or other information if required to do so by law or in the good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with applicable laws, in response to a facially valid court order, judicial or other government subpoena or warrant, or to otherwise cooperate with law enforcement or other governmental agencies.

Change of Ownership

Information about data subject, may be disclosed and otherwise transferred to an acquirer, successor or assignee as part of any merger, acquisition, debt financing, sale of assets, or similar transaction, as well as in the event of an insolvency, bankruptcy, or receivership in which information is transferred to one or more third parties as one of our business assets and only if the recipient of the personal data commits to a privacy policy that has terms substantially consistent with this Privacy Policy.‍

Data Retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

Details of retention periods for different aspects of your personal data are available in our retention policy which you can request from us by contacting us.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see your rights below for further information.

In some circumstances we will anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you. 

Our Data Security

We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way.

The following security procedures, and technical and organisational measures to safeguard your personal information have been put in place:

  • In cases where personal data is being processed in third countries or third parties, a rigorous data protection impact assessment is being performed to ensure that your data is always secured.

  • Our application platform is hosted in ISO 27001 certified secure data centres in the EU. Firewalls, backup and disaster recovery are in place to prevent data loss or deletion.

  • Our applications are engineered by following industry standards to minimise security vulnerabilities and updates on a regular basis.

  • We use AWS managed services to ensure all our applications are always up to date and secure. This includes, but is not limited to, regularly applying critical and security patches to all services, firmware updates and securing physical hardware to minimise any risk.

  • We will use all reasonable efforts to safeguard your personal information. However, you should be aware that the use of the Internet is not entirely secure and for this reason we cannot guarantee the security or integrity of any personal information which is transferred from you or to you via the Internet.

  • We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

  • We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.‍

Your Rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us on privacy@byway.travel.

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated. 

You have the right to:

Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.

Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.

Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request. 

Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.

Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: 

  • If you want us to establish the data's accuracy.

  • Where our use of the data is unlawful, but you do not want us to erase it.

  • Where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims. 

  • You have objected to our use of your data, but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it. 

Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you. 

Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

This privacy policy was last updated on 30th May 2024.