Privacy Policy

Tripadvisor.ie ("Tripadvisor", "we", "our", "us") is an online service that provides users ("you") with recommendations for travel and travel planning, including hotels, holiday rentals and other accommodations, travel guides, attractions and experiences, restaurants, flights, cruises and lots more. It also provides those businesses with a means of engaging with travellers. Our website, mobile properties and related applications (collectively, our "Website") are owned and operated by TripAdvisor LLC.

By accessing our Websites and utilising our services, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy and the information collection and handling practices outlined in it.

This Privacy Policy was last updated on May 25, 2018. We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time so please check back regularly to keep informed of any updates.

Overview

This Privacy Policy describes in detail our policy and practices regarding our collection, use and disclosure of your personal data.

We understand that providing information online involves a great deal of trust on your part. We take this trust very seriously, and make it a high priority to ensure the security and confidentiality of the personal data you provide us when you visit our Website or use our services.

Collection of your personal data
How we use your personal data
With whom we share your personal data
How long we keep your personal data
Cookies and other web technologies
Your rights
How we protect your personal data
Information concerning minors
External links
International transfers
Changes to this Privacy Policy
How you can contact us

1. Collection of your personal data

Personal data means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified, electronic addresses, date of birth, password and payment information. It does not include data where the identity has been removed or otherwise anonymized (anonymous data).

In the course of our business, we collect and process personal data in different ways. We may collect personal data you give us directly but we also collect data by logging how you interact with our services. For example by using cookies on our Websites. We may also receive information from third parties who partner with us, as more fully described below.

The personal data we collect about you may include, but is not limited to: your name, email address, postal address, phone number, billing information, survey responses, booking details and other information you may provide about yourself to our Websites, and your IP address and web browser software.

You can choose not to provide us with your personal data. However, in general you need to provide us with certain information about you in order to take advantage of many features of the Websites. For example, only registered members are able to post travel reviews, participate in discussion forums, email Tripadvisor content to themselves and others, access members-only newsletters and travel planning content, and enter surveys, contests, or sweepstakes. In addition, some information is also required in order for you to ask us a question or initiate other transactions on our Websites. We also collect personal data for security purposes.

Information that you provide us: as described below, we may receive and store any information you enter on our Website or give us in any other way.
Information About Others: You will have the opportunity to provide contact and travel-related information for other people through our Websites. If you book for someone else through Tripadvisor, you will need to submit that individual's personal data. You must obtain the consent of other individuals prior to providing us with their personal data. If another Tripadvisor member grants you access to their data through a shared booking, trip planning feature or other similar service, you should treat that information appropriately.
Information from Other Sources: We also may periodically obtain information about you from affiliated entities, business partners and other independent third-party sources and add it to other information about you. For example, if you visit Tripadvisor by "clicking through" from a site operated by one of our business partners, and you have registered with that partner, then information about you that you have provided to that partner may be shared with us, such as contact information and demographic information. As another example, if you access third party services, such as social media services, through our Websites or before coming to our Websites, we may collect information such as your username and other information made available to us through those services in accordance with the referring third party’s privacy policy. We will work with our existing partners and potential future partners to improve and personalise your use of our Websites in accordance with the practices outlined in this Privacy Policy.

We have partnered with Facebook to provide personalised content on Tripadvisor for members of Facebook. If you are logged into Facebook and Tripadvisor, parts of the Website may be personalised for you when you visit the Website, even if you are a first-time user of Tripadvisor's Website. For example, we may show you reviews that your Facebook friends have posted on Tripadvisor and places they have visited. In order to provide you with this personalised experience, Facebook provides us with information that you have chosen to make available pursuant to your Facebook privacy settings. That information may include your name, profile picture, gender, friend lists and any other information you have chosen to make available.

If you decide to turn off personalisation, you can do so by first logging into Facebook and (1) selecting "Edit your profile" from the "Your Tripadvisor" drop-down menu on the Member Profile page and clicking "Disconnect" in the Facebook Connect status box, or (2) selecting "Connected accounts" from the "Your Tripadvisor" drop-down menu on the Member Profile page and clicking "Disconnect" under "Facebook Settings." You can also turn off personalisation by editing your app settings on Facebook. Please note that if you have Facebook friends who are using Tripadvisor, they may also have shared information about you with us through Facebook. If you wish to prevent that sharing, you can do so by editing your Facebook privacy settings. Please check back with Facebook periodically, as they may have made changes to their settings and practices.

Automatic collection of information: We automatically collect some information from your computer or mobile device when you visit Tripadvisor. For example, we collect your session data, including your IP address, the navigation software used and the reference site. We may also collect information about your online activity, such as reviewed content, pages visited and searches. We automatically collect this type of information to try to better understand your interests and preferences and to better personalise your experience. We also collect personal data in order to help protect our site and other users from misuse.
Location information and other information from devices: When you use our Websites on a device, whether through mobile web or application, we will collect and use information about you in generally similar ways and for similar purposes as when you use the Tripadvisor Website. In addition, we may collect certain information about your location if you have instructed your device to send such information to the application via the privacy settings on that device, or if you have uploaded photos tagged with location information. For example, we may use your location to show you reviews of hotels, experiences or restaurants near you when you are travelling. You can change the privacy settings of your device at any time in order to turn off the functionality to share location information with the application and/or the functionality to tag your photos with location information. Please note that turning off location sharing may affect certain features of our application or mobile experience. If you have any queries about the privacy settings of your device, we suggest you contact the manufacturer of your device or your mobile service provider for help.

2. How we use your personal data

We use the personal data that we collect about you only for specific purposes. This includes, but is not limited to, offer our services to you, to manage your registration and account, including your access to and use of our Websites and to publish your reviews, ratings and photos, to manage and facilitate booking enquiries and bookings, communicate with you about your account or use of our Websites and services, to respond to, or follow up on, your comments and questions and otherwise provide customer service, notify you about changes to our terms or privacy policy, ask you to leave a review or take a survey, operate and improve our Websites and services, personalise your experience on our Websites, measure interest in and improve our Websites and services, notify you about promotions and special offers, to let you partake in a prize draw, competition or complete a survey, protect, investigate and deter against fraudulent or illicit activity, unauthorised or illegal activity, administer and protect our business and to resolve disputes or troubleshoot problems.

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.
With your consent.
Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.

Marketing

We want to make it easy for you to take advantage of travel-related opportunities on our Websites. One way we do this is by sending you email messages that contain information about your travel-related interest. For example, you search for a flight to New York on our Websites, we may send you an email about airfares and travel to New York or other destinations. We believe these emails will provide you with useful information about travel-related special offers available through our sites.

You will receive marketing messages from us if you have given your consent, if you have requested or if you purchased goods or services from us and if you have not opted out of receiving marketing messages.

Each time you receive an email of this type, you will be able to tell us if you no longer wish to receive them, or deny push notifications in the application, or change the settings of your mobile device to do so for that type of marketing message or notification. You will be able to unsubscribe from each of those marketing communications at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link that you will find at the bottom of each communication you receive from us or by visiting the email preference centre on the Website.

Please note that we may continue to send you service communications, such as service and administrative messages about your account or transactional messages related to one of your bookings. It is not possible to unsubscribe from these service communications.

3. With whom we share your personal data

Tripadvisor may share your information with other parties, including other group companies and the types of third parties listed below. For instance, if we sell or divest our business or any part of it, and your personal data relates to such sold or divested part of our business, or if we merge with another business, we will share your personal data with the new owner of the business or our merger partner, respectively.

Separately, if we are legally obliged to do so, we will share personal data to protect our customers, the site, as well as our company and our rights and property.

If you choose to create a profile on Tripadvisor, certain information in your profile will be publicly viewable and identifiable by clicking your screen name. You will have the ability to view your profile as members of the public will see it. Additionally, if you choose to participate in our member-to-member communications programs (e.g. traveler networks and private messaging), other Tripadvisor members may contact you by using Tripadvisor as an intermediary; however, Tripadvisor will not share your email address with any other members nor display it any public manner. All Tripadvisor members have the option to turn off the member-to-member communication features at any time.

Suppliers, including but not limited to hotel, airline, restaurants, cruise, car hire, activity providers or holiday rental managers or owners who fulfil your travel bookings. Throughout Tripadvisor and its affiliated sites, all products and services provided by third-party suppliers are described as such. Information that we share with suppliers to facilitate bookings will be treated according to applicable suppliers' privacy policies, except for payment information. We share payment information only when it is necessary for travel bookings facilitated through or made on Tripadvisor, and we restrict suppliers' use of payment information for these purposes. In some instances, we will either direct your enquiry to a third party site or securely transmit your information to the supplier of the travel booking to complete the transaction. Please note that the supplier processes your payment, not Tripadvisor, unless otherwise specified. You agree to review and be bound by the supplier's policies and procedures before booking through Tripadvisor. We encourage you to review the privacy policies, terms of use and other policies of any travel supplier whose products and services you may purchase through Tripadvisor. Please note that these suppliers also may contact you as necessary to obtain additional information about you or your travel plans, to facilitate your travel bookings or for other purposes consistent with the practices described in their privacy policies and terms of use.
Third-party service providers who provide services or functions on our behalf, including business analytics, payment processing, customer service, marketing, public relations, distribution of surveys or sweepstakes programs, and fraud prevention. We may also authorise third-party service providers to collect information on our behalf, including, for example, as necessary to operate features of our Website or to facilitate the delivery of online advertising tailored to your interests. Third-party service providers have access to and may collect information only as needed to perform their functions and are not permitted to share or use the information for any other purpose.
Business partners with whom we may offer products or services in conjunction. You can tell when a third party is involved in a product or service you have requested because their name will appear either with ours or separately. If you choose to access these optional services, we may share information about you, including your personal data, with those partners. Please note that we do not control the privacy practices of these third-party business partners.
Affiliated Websites. If you were referred to Tripadvisor from another website, we may share your registration information, such as your name, email address, mailing address, telephone number and travel preferences with that referring website. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any website that referred you to Tripadvisor.
Companies belonging to our group. We may share your personal data within the Tripadvisor group of companies, as well as with our parent companies and domestic and international corporate affiliate companies and websites. This sharing enables us to provide you with information about products and services, both travel-related and other, which might interest you in accordance with your marketing preferences. To the extent that our parent company and corporate affiliates have access to your information, they will follow practices that are at least as restrictive as the practices described in this Privacy Policy. They also will comply with applicable laws governing the transmission of marketing communications and, at a minimum, allow you to choose whether or not you want to continue receiving such communications in any commercial email they send. The Tripadvisor group of companies are listed in the “About Us” section of our Website.

We also may share your information if we believe, in our sole discretion, that such disclosure is necessary:

to comply with legitimate and enforceable subpoenas, court orders or other legal process; to establish or exercise our legal rights; to defend against legal claims or as otherwise required by law. In such cases we reserve the right to raise or waive any legal objection or right available to us;
to investigate, prevent or take action regarding illegal or suspected illegal activities; to protect and defend the rights, property or safety of Tripadvisor, our customers or others and in connection with our Terms of Use and other agreements or
in connection with a corporate transaction, such as a divestiture, merger, consolidation or asset sale or in the unlikely event of bankruptcy.

Other than as set out above, you will be notified when personal data about you will be shared with third parties, and you will have an opportunity to choose not to have us share such information.

We also may share aggregate or anonymous information with third parties, including advertisers and investors. For example, we may tell our advertisers the number of visitors our Website receives or the most popular hotels and holiday destinations. This information does not contain any personal data and is used to develop content and services we hope you will find of interest.

4. How long we keep your personal data

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting or statutory reporting requirements.

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 or 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 requirements.

We may retain certain information subsequent to the closing of your account, for example if it is necessary to fulfil our legal obligations or to exercise, to maintain security, to prevent fraud and abuse and to defend or enforce our rights. If you choose to close your account, your personal data will generally stop being visible to others on our Website within 30 days.

5. Cookies and other web technologies

We collect information via cookies and other similar technologies (such as web beacons). Cookies are small text files that are automatically placed on your computer or mobile device when you visit a website. They are stored by your internet browser. Cookies contain basic information about your use of the internet. Your browser sends these cookies back to our Website every time you visit it, so it can recognise your computer or mobile device and personalise and enhance your browsing experience.

You can find more details about what cookies and similar technologies (such as web beacons) we use in our Cookies Policy.

You can also find out more information about cookies in general, including how to see what cookies are installed on your (mobile) device and how to manage and delete them at websites such as www.allaboutcookies.org and www.youronlinechoices.com/ie.

6. Your rights

You can check, supplement and update the information you have provided by accessing your "Settings" section of your account. You may also close your Tripadvisor account by contacting us using the methods provided below.

If you decide to close your account, we will deactivate it, and remove your personal data. Remember that once your account is closed, you will no longer be able to login, access your personal information. You can however, open a new account at any time.

We may offer members the option to save information related to method and choice of payment on our Website. If you save such payment details in your account on Tripadvisor, you will be able to add, delete or modify that information at any time during which your account remains open in Account Settings.

You can change your marketing preferences at any time during which your account remains open through the Subscriptions page in your member account.

In accordance with applicable law, you may have the right of access, the right of rectification, the right to erasure, the right to restrict processing, the right to data portability and the right to object. Please find below more details and information on how and when you can exercise your rights. We will respond to your request within one month, but have the right to extend this period with two months.

In accordance with applicable law, you may have the following rights with regard to your personal data:

The right to request access to your personal data. This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
The right to request to correct your personal data if it is inaccurate. You may also supplement any incomplete personal data we have, taking into account the purposes of the processing.
The right to request deletion of your personal data if:
- your personal data is no longer necessary for the purposes for which we collected or processed them; or
- you withdraw your consent if the processing of your personal data is based on consent and no other legal ground exists; or
- you object to the processing of your personal data and we do not have an overriding legitimate ground for processing; or
- your personal data is unlawfully processed; or
- your personal data has to be deleted for compliance with a legal obligation.
The right to object to the processing of your personal data. We will comply with your request, unless we have a compelling overriding legitimate interest for processing or we need to continue processing your personal data to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim.
The right to restrict the processing of personal data, if:
- the accuracy of your personal data is contested by you, for the period in which we have to verify the accuracy of the personal data; or
- the processing is unlawful and you oppose the deletion of your personal data and request restriction; or
- we no longer need your personal data for the purposes of processing, but your personal data is required by you for legal claims; or
- you have objected to the processing, for the period in which we have to verify overriding legitimate grounds.
The right to data portability. You may request us to receive the personal data that concern you. You may also request us to send this personal data to a third party, where feasible. You only have this right if it regards personal data you have provided us, the processing is based on consent or necessary for the performance of a contract between you and us, and the processing is done by automated means.

You can exercise several of your rights through the personal information section of your account. To exercise your other rights you can file a request by clicking here.

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights described in this Privacy Policy). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive.

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. In an effort to speed up our response, we may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request.

7. How we protect your personal data

We want you to feel confident about using Tripadvisor, and we are committed to protecting the personal data we collect. While no website can guarantee perfect security, we have implemented and maintain appropriate physical, administrative, technical, and organisational measures to protect the personal data you provide us against unauthorised or unlawful access, use of disclosure and against accidental loss, damage, alteration or destruction.

For example, only authorised employees are permitted to access personal data, and they may do so for permitted business functions. In addition, we use encryption when transmitting your personal data between your system and ours, and between our system and those of the parties with whom we share sensitive information, and we employ firewalls and intrusion detection systems to help prevent unauthorised persons from gaining access to your personal data.

8. Information concerning minors

Tripadvisor is a general audience site and does not offer services directed to minors. We do not knowingly collect data relating to minors. If a person whom we know is under 13 years of age sends us personal data, we will delete or destroy this information as soon as reasonably possible.

9. External links

Our Website may include links to third party websites, plug-ins and applications. If you access other websites from the links provided on our Website, the operators of those websites may collect or share information about you. This information will be used by them in accordance with their privacy policy, which may differ from our Privacy Policy. We do not control these third-party websites and recommend that you examine the privacy statements posted on those other websites to understand their procedures for collecting, using and disclosing personal data.

10. International transfers

Your personal data may be stored or transferred to countries outside the European Economic Area for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy. When we store or transfer your personal data outside the European Economic Area, we take the following precautions to ensure that your personal data is properly protected.

Whenever we store or transfer your personal data outside the European Economic Area, we will do so in accordance with applicable law and we will ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by implementing appropriate safeguards. Transfers of personal data are made:

to a country recognised by the European Commission as providing an adequate level of protection; or
to a country which does not offer adequate protection but whose transfer has been governed by the standard contractual clauses of the European Commission or by implementing other appropriate cross-border transfer solutions to provide adequate protection.

By using our services, you understand that your personal data may be transferred to our facilities and those third parties with whom we share it as described in this Privacy Policy.

11. Changes to this Privacy Policy

Tripadvisor may change or modify this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will note the date that revisions were last made to this Privacy Policy at the first page of this Privacy Policy, and any revisions will take effect upon posting. We will notify our members of material changes to this Privacy Policy by either sending a notice to the email address you provided us or by placing a notice on our Website. We encourage you to check this Privacy Policy from time to time to review the most current version.

12. How you can contact us

To exercise your other rights you can file a request by clicking here. You may also have the right to lodge a complaint to the supervisory authority about the way we process your personal data. We would, however, appreciate the chance to address your concerns before you approach the supervisory authority, so please contact us in the first instance.

Our full details are:

TripAdvisor LLC
400 1st Avenue
Needham, MA 02494, USA

Attn: Privacy Officer/Legal Department
Email: privacy@Tripadvisor.com

In accordance with applicable data privacy law, we have appointed a representative within the European Union. The contact details of our representative are:

Tripadvisor Limited
7 Soho Square
London
W1D 3QB
United Kingdom
Attn: Privacy Officer
Email: privacy@Tripadvisor.com

Tripadvisor Limited’s role in this respect is limited solely to being a contact person for questions on data protection from EU citizens and data protection supervisory authorities. For the avoidance of doubt, Tripadvisor Limited cannot field other communications or legal process on behalf of TripAdvisor LLC.

Call Recording and Monitoring

Please be aware that calls to and from Tripadvisor may be recorded. We may use the call recordings to monitor our customer service for quality or compliance purposes, to check the accuracy of the information you provide us, for fraud prevention purposes or to provide training to our staff. We will retain the call recordings for as long as reasonably necessary to perform such activities and then delete them. Any personal data obtained from you during the call will be treated in accordance with the provisions of this Privacy Policy.