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This privacy policy applies only to the website controlled by Connecting Cultures. This privacy policy does not pertain to information that is collected offline. BY USING THE SITES, YOU CONSENT TO THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY AND TO OUR PROCESSING OF PERSONAL INFORMATION FOR THE PURPOSES STATED BELOW. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY, PLEASE DO NOT USE THE SITES.
A. Information Collected
This privacy policy applies only to information collected on the Site and does not apply to information collected by Connecting Cultures through any other means. We collect two types of information from visitors to the Sites: (1) Personally Identifiable Information; and (2) Non-Personally Identifiable Information, such as your IP address or cookies.
(1) Personally Identifiable Information
"Personally Identifiable Information" (PII) is information that identifies you personally, such as your name, address, telephone number, email address, or company name. Connecting Cultures collects and stores the PII that you have provided to us. Here are some examples of manners in which we may collect your PII on the Site:
• We may collect your email address, first and last name and zip code if you sign up for an online newsletter;
• We may collect your email address if you contact us with a question;
• We may collect your first and last name, date of birth and email address if you choose to participate in a promotional offer or contest;
• We may collect your first and last name, your address, and your credit card and billing information if you make a purchase of a service or product.
(2) Non-Personally Identifiable Information
"Non-Personally Identifiable Information" (NPII) can be technical information or it can be demographic information, such as your age, gender or interests. NPII does NOT identify you personally. Here are some examples of the NPII that is collected via the Site and a description of how this information is used:
• Internet Protocol (IP) address -- Your IP address is a number that lets computers attached to the Internet know where to send you data -- such as the webpages you view. We use this information to deliver our webpages to you upon request, to tailor our Site to the interests of our users and to measure traffic within our Site.
• Cookie -- A "cookie" is a small text file that may be used to collect information about your activity on the Site. For example, when someone visits a page within the Site, a cookie is placed on the user's machine (if the user accepts cookies) or is read if the user has visited the Site previously. You may set most browsers to notify you if you receive a cookie, or you may choose to block cookies with your browser, but if you do, you may not be able to take advantage of the personalized features enjoyed by other users to our Site.
• Web Beacons (also known as "clear gifs," "web bugs" or "pixel tags") -- "Web Beacons" are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies, and are used to allow us to count users who have visited certain pages of the Site and to help determine the effectiveness of promotional or advertising campaigns. When used in HTML-formatted email messages, web beacons can tell the sender whether and when the email has been opened. In contrast to cookies, which are stored on a user's computer hard drive, web beacons are embedded invisibly on web pages.
• Demographic Information -- "Demographic Information" may be your gender, age, zip code and interests, which you voluntarily provide to us on the Sites. We use this information to provide you with personalized services and to analyze trends to ensure the information provided by the Site meets your needs.
B. Use of Information Collected Via the Site
(1) Personally Identifiable Information
We use your personally identifiable information that is collected on these Site primarily for the following purposes:
• To deliver services, such as Tours, events, workshops, information and newsletters;
• To alert you to special offers, updated information and other new services from Connecting Cultures, or other third parties, or to forward promotional materials;
• To complete a transaction or service requested by you;
• To fulfill the terms of a promotion;
• To ensure the Site are relevant to your needs;
• To help us create and publish content most relevant to you;
• To notify you about a material change to this privacy policy or the Visitor Agreement, if necessary;
• To allow you access to limited-entry areas of the Site; and
• To contact you in response to the sign up form such as Contact Us.
(2) Non-Personally Identifiable Information
Non-personally identifiable information is used as described above and in other ways as permitted by applicable laws, including combining non-personally identifiable information with personally identifiable information (except with respect to non-personally identifiable information collected from children under the age of 13).
C. Sharing and Disclosure of Information
(1) Personally Identifiable Information
We may share or disclose your personally identifiable information in the following instances:
(i) To fulfill a service to you. For example, if you choose to participate in a Connecting Cultures, Journeys of Discovery workshop or event, we may share your personally identifiable information in order to provide the workshop or event to you. In addition, if you email us a question, we may use your email address to process your request and respond to your question. Also, if you are entering a Special Offer or contest, we may use your personally identifiable information in order to fulfill the terms of that promotion. This means that we may share the information for prize fulfillment purposes or mail carriers. We also may share your information with the co-sponsor of that promotion.
(ii) To affiliates, strategic partners, agents, third party marketers or other unaffiliated parties who are offering products or services that we believe may be of interest to you or who require your personally identifiable information for research, administrative and/or internal business purposes. These parties may use your personally identifiable information to contact you with an offer or advertisement related to a product or service, or they may use such information for their own research, administration or business purposes. If you do not want us to share your personally identifiable information in this manner, please do not provide us with this information.
(iii) To unaffiliated third-party service providers, agents or independent contractors who help us maintain our Site and provide other administrative services to us (including, but not limited to, order processing and fulfillment, providing customer service, maintaining and analyzing data, sending customer communications on Connecting Cultures behalf, and entry collection, winner selection and prize fulfillment for contests, and other promotions). We seek to ensure that these unaffiliated third parties will not use the personally identifiable information for any other purpose than to provide the administrative services for which they are responsible. Because such unaffiliated third-party service providers that help us administer our Sites will have access to users' personally identifiable information, if you do not wish for our unaffiliated third-party service providers to have access to your information, please do not register or submit any personally identifiable information to us.
(iv) To complete your purchase. If you choose to make a purchase on the Site, we may collect from you your credit card number, billing address and other information related to such purchase, and we may use such collected information in order to fulfill your purchase. We may also provide such information, or other personally identifiable information provided by you, to unaffiliated third parties as necessary to complete your purchase (for example, to process your credit card).
(v) To comply with the law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary in order to conform to the requirements of law or comply with legal process served on us, protect and defend our rights or property, including the rights and property of Connecting Cultures or act in urgent circumstances to protect the personal safety of our end users.
(vi) To third parties as part of any corporate reorganization process including, but not limited to, mergers, acquisitions, and sales of all or substantially all of our assets.
(vii) To track and analyze non-identifying and aggregate usage and volume statistical information from our visitors and customers and provide such information to third parties.
(viii) To protect against potential fraud, we may verify with third parties the information collected from this Site. In the course of such verification, we may receive personally identifiable information about you from such services. In particular, if you use a credit card or debit card to purchase services with us, we may use card authorization and fraud screening services to verify that your card information and address matches the information that you supplied to us, and that the card has not been reported as lost or stolen.
Except as described in this Privacy Policy or at the time we request the information, we do not otherwise use, share or otherwise disclose your personally identifiable information to any third parties.
(2) Non-Personally Identifiable Information
We use non-personally identifiable information collected on the Site in the manner disclosed above, in the Section A (2). We may share this non-personal information with third parties.
D. Collection and Use of Information from Children Under the Age of 13
We do not collect, store or share children under the age of 13 PII and abide by the laws that govern the use of children’s information. If we become aware of a child providing any PII about the we will request the child to provide his or her parent or legal guardian ("parent"). Connecting Cultures will use that email address to send the parent an email letting him or her know about the child's contact. The email will include details on how the parent may (i) provide Connecting Cultures with consent; (ii) prohibit Connecting Cultures from any further contact with the child; or (iii) delete the child's personally identifiable information. Connecting Cultures will not collect more information than is reasonably necessary for the child to participate in the activity at issue.
(3) Sharing of Personally Identifiable Information Collected from Kids
Except as provided in this Section, we do not share personally identifiable information collected from kids with any unaffiliated third parties. We may, however, share a child's personally identifiable information that we have collected with parental consent in the following limited instances:
• We may share such information with third-party service providers who help Connecting Cultures maintain the Site and provide other administrative services to us. We seek to ensure that these unaffiliated third parties may not use the personally identifiable information for any other purpose, and these unaffiliated third parties have agreed to maintain the confidentiality, security and integrity of the personally identifiable information.
• If your child is accompanying their parents or legal guardians on one of our tours or events that are suitable and recommended for children.
• Finally, we may disclose kids' personally identifiable information to third parties if we believe we are required to do so in order to comply with law (including court orders and subpoenas); to comply with requests from law enforcement agencies or the government; to enforce our Visitor Agreement; to protect our rights, privacy, safety or property and the rights, privacy, safety or property of our employees or other users of our Site; to protect our operations; and to permit us to pursue available remedies or limit the damages that we may sustain.
(4) Non Personally Identifiable Information
We collect and store the non-personally identifiable information that is described in Section A2 of this privacy policy. We do not, however, link this information to personally identifiable information when it is collected from kids.
(5) Note to Parents and Legal Guardians
Please contact Connecting Cultures at any time regarding privacy questions or concerns, or to request to review what personally identifiable information we have collected from a child. Parents may also contact us at any time to request that we delete the personally identifiable information of a child or a parent and/or refuse to permit further collection or use of a child's information. We will take steps to ensure that any person contacting us for a child's information is that child's parent or guardian.
E. International Transfer of Information
• If you choose to provide us with personally identifiable information, Connecting Cultures may transfer that information to its affiliates and subsidiaries or to other third parties, across borders, and from your country or jurisdiction to other countries or jurisdictions around the world. If you are visiting from the European Union or other regions with laws governing data collection and use that may differ from Australia or the U.S. law.
F. Opt-Out
We communicate with users who subscribe to our services on a regular basis via email. For example, we may use your email address to confirm your request, to send you notice of payments, to send you information about changes to our products and services, and to send notices and other disclosures as required by law. Generally, users cannot opt-out of these communications, but they will be primarily informational in nature rather than promotional.
However, we provide you the opportunity to exercise an opt-out choice if you do not want to receive other types of communication from us, such as emails or updates from us regarding new services and products offered on this Site or if you do not want us to share your personally identifiable information with third parties.
G. Forums, Chat Rooms and Other Public Posting Areas
Please note that any information you include in a message you post to any chat room, forum or other public posting area is available to anyone with Internet access. If you don't want people to know your e-mail address, for example, don't include it in any message you post publicly.
PLEASE BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL WHEN DISCLOSING ANY INFORMATION IN CHAT ROOMS, FORUMS AND OTHER PUBLIC POSTING AREAS. WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE USE BY OTHERS OF THE INFORMATION THAT YOU DISCLOSE IN CHAT ROOMS, FORUMS AND OTHER PUBLIC POSTING AREAS.
H. Third Party Web Sites
This statement applies solely to information collected on the Site. The Site may contain links to other web sites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of these other web sites.
I. Accessing Your Personally Identifiable Information and Privacy Preferences
We provide you with an opportunity to access your personally identifiable information to ensure it is correct, accurate and current. To edit your personally identifiable information, please contact us.
K. Changes to this Privacy Policy
We reserve the right to change this privacy policy from time to time. When we do, we will also revise the "last update" date at the bottom of this privacy policy. For changes to this privacy policy that may be materially less restrictive on our use or disclosure of personal information you have provided to us, we will attempt to obtain your consent before implementing the change by sending a notice to the primary email address specified in your account or by placing a prominent notice on the Site.
We will also notify parents if we change the kinds of information that we collect from kids and materially alter our practices of sharing and using this information. We will not collect, use or share the information without parental consent.
L. Security
No data transmissions over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. Consequently, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us and you understand that any information that you transfer to Connecting Cultures is done at your own risk.
Once we receive your transmission, we make reasonable efforts to ensure security on our systems. We use firewalls to protect your information from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. However, please note that this is not a guarantee that such information may not be accessed, disclosed, altered or destroyed by breach of such firewalls and secure server software.
If we learn of a security systems breach we may attempt to notify you electronically so that you can take appropriate protective steps. By using this Site or providing personally identifiable information to us you agree that we can communicate with you electronically regarding security, privacy and administrative issues relating to your use of this site. We may post a notice on our Site if a security breach occurs. We may also send an email to you at the email address you have provided to us in these circumstances. Depending on where you live, you may have a legal right to receive notice of a security breach in writing.
M. Age Screening
In the Booking Form section we have an age-screening mechanism to prevent kids from registering. We won't knowingly allow anyone under the age of thirteen to register with us, or to access those features that require registration, except as explicitly disclosed herein.
If we become aware that we have inadvertently received personally identifiable information from a user under the age of thirteen other than in a legally permissible situation, we will delete the information from our records as soon as we discover it.
N. Contacting Connecting Cultures
If you have any questions about this privacy policy or our privacy practices, please contact us at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
. All information you provide in any written communication will also be covered by this policy.
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