The updated Privacy and Cookie Policies shall automatically come into effect on February 21, 2022 for all users of the Aviasales mobile app who have agreed with the previous version of the Aviasales Privacy Policy. Once in effect, your continued use of our mobile app will be subject to these new Privacy and Cookie Policies.
Privacy Policy
Aviasales is primarily a metasearch engine for flight tickets, hotels, and other services for travelers that is available through our websites and mobile apps. For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, Aviasales shall be considered as the metasearch engine provided to the users via the Aviasales mobile app in the Apple, Google, and other app stores from time to time (hereinafter “Aviasales”).
User privacy is important to us and we are doing whatever is required to protect it. In terms of Data Processing, we ensure your rights as Data Subjects and observe the regulations of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), as well as other applicable laws and rules. In this Policy, we aim to openly explain how we will possess your data and what processing standards we follow.
The present Policy includes our policy on processing cookies or similar technologies that are more suitable for use in online mobile apps. This Policy is also closely related to the License Agreement, where you can find information about Aviasales mobile app functionality as well as your rights and liabilities when using the app.
Pay close attention to this Policy. If you have any questions after reading this Policy or if you find any errors or inaccuracies, please contact us. Please describe your problem or question in detail so that we can quickly respond to it, help you, or correct the error and improve our services in the process.
We reserve the right to change this Policy if we make changes to our processing procedure or need to take newly-enacted Personal Data protection legislation into account. We’ll notify you in case of significant changes that may affect your interests, rights, and status. In spite of everything, we guarantee that the protection of your Personal Data is always legitimate and fair, and that your data is secure.
For starters, let’s clarify some key terms that we will use in this Policy to eliminate the possibility of misinterpretation.
Personal Data or Personal Information refers to any information relating to an identifiable person who can be directly or indirectly identified by reference to an identifier. This definition provides for a wide range of personal identifiers to constitute Personal Data, including an email address, identification number, device information, location data, or online identifiers, such as cookie files or similar technologies.
Data Processing refers to any operation or set of operations performed on Personal Data or on sets of Personal Data, whether by automated or non-automated means, such as collection, recording, organization, structuring, storage, adaptation, alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination (or otherwise making available), alignment, combination, restriction, erasure, or destruction.
“You”, “your”, or “Data Subject” refers to a user of the Aviasales mobile app, a subscriber to any service we offer through the app, or prospective/existing clients communicating with us via email or other means.
Data Controller refers to a person who (either alone or jointly with other persons) determines the purposes for which, and the manner in which, any Personal Data is, or is to be, processed. For the purposes of this Policy, the Data Controller is Go Travel Un Limited, a Hong Kong corporation registered under the number 1658681 with a legal address at Suite 1504, 15/F, Chinachem Tower, 34-37 Connaught Rd Central, Hong Kong, doing business as Aviasales.
Data Processor, in relation to Personal Data, refers to any person (other than an employee of the Data Controller) who processes data on behalf of the Data Controller. We describe how we engage with third parties that may process Personal Data on our behalf in Section 3 of this Policy.
Profiling refers to any form of automated processing of Personal Data consisting of the use of Personal Data to evaluate certain personal aspects relating to Data Subjects. Profiling is done to analyze or predict aspects concerning that specific Data Subject’s preferences and interests while using a particular one of our services (within this Policy – users of the Aviasales mobile app).
Account refers to a section of the Aviasales mobile app (visually represented as the “Profile” section in the app) that is available to you after authorization (signing up) and gives you access to certain services and features, which improve your user experience, that may not be accessed without authorization.
Assisted Booking refers to the feature of Aviasales that allows you to start purchasing flight tickets through a special interface by concluding an agreement with the travel service provider without leaving our mobile app. The interface simplifies the process of filling in necessary data for the booking (surname, name, passport data, contact data, payment details), which you uploaded to your Account earlier or when you used this feature for the first time.
We can use other terms and definitions as well, even if they are not explicitly specified in this section, as long as they are set out in the applicable legislation or in our License Agreement.
When you use our mobile app and its features or when you contact us, we may process any data and information that you provide to us voluntarily, that is collected automatically, or that we receive from other sources.
Voluntarily Provided Data
This includes any information you provide to us yourself, such as information provided when you fill out a search form, subscribe to our marketing communications, enter your account information, enter into contractual relationships with us related to the usage of some of our products (e.g., “More” subscription product), send us a query or feedback, participate in discussion boards or other social media functions via the Aviasales app and marketing special project subdomains, complete promotions or surveys, or report a problem with our mobile app. We may also process data you provide to our partners, including airlines and OTAs, while using Assisted Booking or making a booking after redirection.
Voluntarily provided data may include the following Personal Information:
- Search data of available products on Aviasales, including travel dates and destinations;
- Respective authentication data, including, for example, social network parameters and email addresses;
- Your personal details and respective data of people who will accompany you on a trip if you proceed to make a purchase using Assisted Booking;
- Contact data entered by you in the input fields on the airline, hotel, or OTA web-resource after redirection;
- Particulars of your payment method needed for conducting payments upon a direct agreement concluded between you and the Data Controller (e.g., “More” subscription agreement);
- Other Personal Information contained in your queries and communications with us.
Automatically Processed Information (incl. data received from third parties)
This information mostly consists of online identifiers or technical facts about your connection point or in-app events processed or created, for example, via libraries and software development kits incorporated in the mobile app for maintaining certain features or functionality. This information includes device and connectivity information, such as IP address (Internet Protocol), unique device identifiers (such as the IMEI for phones, MAC address of the device's wireless network interface), mobile network information, mobile operating system, time zone and language settings, local storage, or cookie-like files and parameters.
This data is automatically collected when you use our mobile app. In some cases, this data can be created by our software or third-party programs (mentioned in libraries and SDKs), integrated into the Aviasales app.
The list of data categories that may be automatically collected by us includes the following information:
- IP-address and log information (such as error reports);
- Geolocation (meaning country or region in terms of redirection to the appropriate market interface);
- Mobile device information, including device type/model, locale, and OS information;
- Impersonalized booking data after redirection or use of Assisted Booking (meaning destination, dates, and prices);
- Cookies and similar tracking technologies, including local storage data, statistics, and analytics on the use of the service and its different functions, as well as interaction information and in-app events (scrolling, clicks, timings, etc.)
The category of data received from third parties includes different types of data, mostly online identifiers, which we obtain from airlines, OTAs, GDS, as well as our technical, analytical, marketing, and other partners or integrated software.
For example, we might insert advertising on our partners’ web-resources, social networks, or advertising networks that may categorize Aviasales mobile app users with similar characteristics or interests into non-personally-identifiable data segments, which may then be offered to their own clients, visitors, and subscribers.
We might obtain and record information that an ad was requested or shown, how many times said ad was shown, the target geo of said ad (which will not include an IP address or specific personally-identifiable location information), and any user interactions with said ad or information about the page on which it appears. This information is used for statistical purposes, analysis, reporting, and troubleshooting. In most Data Processing situations, such information does not allow us to identify you as a Data Subject and will be processed with an appropriate level of protection and limitations, which the data source establishes.
Types of Data That We Do Not Process
We do not process data on children, as Aviasales is intended only for use by users over the age of 16 (or another age of maturity determined by applicable local laws allowing for the independent use of Internet services like Aviasales). If you are under the specified age, you may only use Aviasales with the involvement of your guardian or holder of parental responsibility. We do not knowingly collect or process Personal Information from children below the specified age without the consent of the child's holder of parental responsibility. In case of doubt, we will cease the processing of questionable data and delete it.
We do not collect and process special categories of Personal Data and genetic data without your direct consent, such as your name, age, email, passport, and payment method details (unless you subscribed to our marketing mailing or to Aviasales “More” product, entered an Account, and use Assisted Booking), phone number, home address, etc.
We do not process data that you have directly asked us to stop processing or opted out in any other way.
We also do not process any data acquired by third parties on other platforms that you click out to from our mobile app. For instance, by clicking on the ad banner, except for cases and particular data types directly mentioned in this Policy. Your Data Processing on third-party platforms is carried out according to the rules and processes set out by owners of those platforms.
Additional Information on Data Processing
Please note that, when you proceed with purchasing flight tickets or other travel services after redirection from our mobile app to the provider carrying out the particular service, we do not acquire, store, transmit, or process any additional information except depersonalized information, such as prices, dates, destinations, and a transaction identifier. Whereas, in situations in which you make a payment on the OTA’s or airline’s web-resource using Assisted Booking, we may process all the information you fill in, including your name, passport data, how many people will accompany you, and their respective details, in order to perform our obligations and meet the stated purposes.
In providing Personal Data about other individuals (such as someone whose name you are using to enter an Account or subscribe to our marketing promotions), you represent that you have notified them of: (1) the grounds and purposes for which said information will be used (see below), (2) the recipients of their Personal Data, (3) and how they can access and correct this information. The consent that you give for a third person is considered by us to be the consent of said third person.
Email marketing and communications. We believe that Aviasales’ users would like to get more information concerning travel that is useful to improving their possible travel experience as well as information about the best deals on flight tickets, other travel products, and more. In addition, users would like this information to meet their own needs and interests. Upon authorization in the Account or when using particular feature of the service, we offer you the chance to subscribe to our marketing newsletter to receive such news and third-party ads. You can unsubscribe from direct marketing communications by email at any time by using the opt-out form in one of the received emails or by contacting our support team.
Profiling. It’s important for us to understand the Aviasales audience, including their needs and preferences, in order to make the service better and more convenient both generally and for each particular user. To achieve these goals, we can create profiles of our users based on the data collected in their interactions with Aviasales in order to provide our service in the best possible way or provide personalized ads and marketing communications if we’ve received your consent. In any case, we never use collected data to make automated decisions that significantly affect your interests or rights as a Data Subject.
Just to make sure, we never show our users different prices on the analogous services they may find using our metasearch engine and we never prohibit or block the use of a particular feature of Aviasales solely based on your online profile.
Grounds for Data Processing
In this section of the Policy, we describe the legal grounds and purposes for processing Personal Data during your interactions with Aviasales, related domains accessed via the mobile app, or individual features of our product.
We process your data only if there are legal grounds to do so. When applicable, we receive your consent for Data Processing, which you provide through an explicit action, such as clicking a suitable consent-giving button or ticking a relevant box.
In other cases, data is processed (1) in your interest or to provide you with the relevant service or functionality of the service according to the License Agreement, for instance, to provide search results or fix your problem; (2) to email marketing information about Aviasales or our advertisers; or (3) to fulfill other contractual obligations.
For example: By transferring the relevant information about your chosen flight tickets to our partners, available in the search results, we fulfill our obligations to these partners to properly record bookings and statistics on our side. In addition, user data is processed in our legitimate interests, for example, to improve the performance of Aviasales or a particular feature of the metasearch service, prevent fraud, data parsing, etc.
Purposes of Data Processing
Data Processing purposes are largely determined by Aviasales’ functionality and derived from valid grounds for Data Processing. Primarily, we strive towards improving our service and making your experience with Aviasales as efficient, secure, convenient, and personalized as possible. We also want you to remain updated about thrilling articles and sources with potentially useful information for travelers, new features, new products, promo campaigns, special Aviasales projects, other interesting and beneficial deals in the travel market, and more. In addition, we generate income by displaying third-party ads and process data to track ad performance or select ads that may suit you better.
To present our Data Processing purposes in a more readable way, we have gathered all the grounds, potentially applicable purposes, and the data being processed on these grounds and for these purposes in the table below:
Data Category |
Grounds |
Purposes |
Contact information (most often, an email address, but sometimes name and social network data) |
Consent, fulfillment of obligations, legitimate interest |
(1) Provision and personalization of features and services as well as entering additional agreements, (2) necessary internal analytics and research of the service, (3) providing advertising information, (4) monitoring, accessing, and using user-generated content |
Data on searches
|
Fulfillment of obligations, legitimate interest |
(1) Provision and personalization of features and services, (2) necessary internal analytics and research of the service |
Data on the Account |
Consent, fulfillment of obligations, legitimate interest |
(1) Provision and personalization of features and services as well as entering additional agreements, (2) providing advertising information, (3) monitoring, accessing, and using user-generated content |
Data on your payment method details |
Consent, performance of a contract to which you are party |
(1) Conducting payments upon the direct agreement between you and the Data Controller, (2) provision of the Assisted Booking feature (not stored by the Data Controller) |
Data on the device |
Fulfillment of obligations, legitimate interest |
(1) Provision and personalization of features and services, (2) necessary internal analytics and research of the service |
Similar to cookie files and other online identifiers, including local storage data and in-app events |
Consent, fulfillment of obligations, legitimate interest |
(1) Provision and personalization of features and services, provision of advertising information, (2) necessary internal analytics and research of the service |
Data on the use of Aviasales features |
Fulfillment of obligations, legitimate interest |
(1) Provision and personalization of features and services, provision of advertising information, (2) necessary internal analytics and research of the service |
Passport and other Personal Data needed to use the Assisted Booking feature |
Consent, fulfillment of obligations, legitimate interest |
(1) Provision and personalization of features and services, (2) necessary internal analytics and research of the service, (3) provision of advertising information |
Confidentiality and Security
We believe that the confidentiality and security of our users’ data is key to maintaining trusting long-term relationships with them. We are committed to protecting the Personal Data you share with us. We use a combination of industry-standard security technologies, procedures, and organizational measures to help protect your Personal Data from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure.
Data Processing performed in hosting provider services (storage and maintenance of databases containing your Personal Data, which are protected by password) is performed on our behalf under confidentiality agreements by our Data Processor, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (“AWS”), which is part of a global organization of locally operating companies in a number of countries worldwide. All information is stored on AWS data centers in the United Kingdom. AWS participates in the EU-US Privacy Shield framework. Please find more information here.
We can recourse to the services of other data centers to store and support databases, depending on the region and DNS zone. In the EU zone, for instance, we use servers in the Netherlands. In any case, our Data Processors will only act on behalf of our documented instructions and have direct responsibilities under the GDPR and our Data Processing agreements.
At Aviasales, we use the services of Data Processors, whose products and solutions are required for implementing features of our mobile app, analyzing and testing the app, Profiling, email marketing, and supporting interactions with you. Providers of such services are carefully selected based on Aviasales’ specifics and ensure the safety of data at the appropriate level, according to the present Policy. In most cases, such providers help us collect online identifiers, analytical files and similar technologies.
You can always set up your preferences for collection of cookie files and other online identifiers, including local storage data and in-app events using special settings for the operation system of your device as well as settings for managing your privacy menu in the Account or by our support team.
Data Retention
We retain your Personal Information for as long as needed on the grounds of processing purposes. Terms may also differ for particular categories of Personal Information.
We also reserve the right to store various types of information (without any time limit) to use for analyzing our service performance, improving its features, providing services to you, and protecting the interests of Aviasales.
Meanwhile, we give you the opportunity to control and influence the time we store and process your data, as specified in the “Your Rights” section of the Policy.
Transferring Personal Data to Third Parties
We do not rent, sell, or share Personal Information about you with third parties or non-affiliated companies without your consent, except to provide services you've requested, when we have your permission, or under the following circumstances:
- We may disclose your information to third parties when we reasonably believe we are obligated to do so by law and/or in order to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding suspected or actual prohibited activities, including, but not limited to, fraud and situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person.
- In the event we are acquired by or merge with a third party or undergo another change of control, we reserve the right to transfer information, including any personally identifiable information, to a successor entity.
We may disclose or otherwise allow others to access your Personal Information pursuant to a legal request, such as a subpoena, legal proceedings, search warrant, or court order, or in compliance with applicable laws, if we have a good faith belief that the law requires us to do so, with or without notice to you. Your details may also be disclosed to the police and law enforcement agencies for the purpose of fraud detection, crime prevention, and national security.
GDPR Application
If you are located within an EU territory, are an EU citizen, or GDPR applies to you on other applicable grounds, you have the following rights:
The right to be informed. In this Policy, we provide you with detailed information related to the processing of your Personal Data.
The right to access information held about you. You may always request to receive information about your data that we process.
The right to rectify your Personal Data if it is inaccurate, incomplete, or outdated.
The right to erasure (deletion or removal) of your Personal Data. The right to restrict (block) processing. When processing is restricted, we will continue to store your Personal Data, but not process it any further.
The right to data portability, which allows individuals to obtain and reuse their Personal Data for their own purposes across different services. This right allows users to easily move, copy, or transfer Personal Data from one IT environment to another in a safe and secure way, without hindrance to usability.
Rights related to automated decision-making, including Profiling, as stated in Article 22 of GDPR. We do not make any decisions that might produce a legal effect on you based on automated processing without legal grounds.
The right to withdraw your consent (object) to direct marketing.
The right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. You have the right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority if you have a concern about our processing practices.
СPPA Application
In addition, users subject to CCPA have the following rights in relation to the Personal Information that we hold about you:
Request to access information about the collection of your Personal Information by us, as well as request the deletion of your Personal Information.
You can exercise all of your above rights (if implied) by contacting us or using the available opt-out or «manage your privacy» functionality within the service.