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Privacy Policy

Who is collecting the data?

Greatbase Apartments Ltd is an apartment rental agency based at 24 St Stephen Street, Edinburgh, EH3 5AL. This privacy policy explains how employees and management of the company use any personal information we collect about you when you use this website.

What information do we collect about you?

We do not capture, control or process special category (sensitive) data.

We collect information about you using a third-party booking system, Supercontrol, when you enquire or place an order for our services. We also collect information when you voluntarily sign up for our newsletter or participate in our competitions. The information we collect is only what is pertinent to providing these services; we use MailChimp to send our newsletter, and Wishpond to manage our competitions. You can view the privacy policies of Supercontrol and MailChimp online. If you decide to take out a property protection policy at checkout rather than pay a larger refundable security deposit, your booking details will be shared with the providers, Rental Guardian, who are based in the United States.

Besides the data you manually submit, our website collects information about you using cookies, which differs depending on the type of cookie. Cookies are small text files placed on your browser to record your activity on websites. The cookies we use include first- and third-party cookies: first-party cookies are set by our domain (greatbase.websitestage.co.uk), while third-party cookies are set by other domains. Our website uses the first-party Google Analytics and the third-party DoubleClick cookies.

The Google Analytics cookie allows us to capture and aggregate anonymized statistical data about website usage, which we can consult to make better business decisions and improve the experience of our website visitors. DoubleClick is automatically added alongside any Google tracking, and can enable certain advertising features, such as remarketing (see the next section below); you can find the Google Analytics privacy policy here, while DoubleClick is covered by Google’s advertising policy terms.

The following data is collected by Google Analytics:

  • The total time a user spends on your site.
  • The time a user spends on each page and in what order those pages were visited.
  • What internal links were clicked (based on the URL of the next pageview).

In addition, the IP address, user agent string, and initial page inspection analytics.js does when creating a new tracker is used to determine things like the following:

  • The geographic location of the user.
  • What browser and operating system are being used.
  • Screen size and whether Flash or Java is installed.
  • The referring site.

The Twitter and Pinterest buttons are other elements of our website which use cookies to power their respective icons under the ‘Follow Us’ pane of our webpages; you can view Twitter’s privacy guidance on this feature here and Pinterest’s here.

You can configure your browser to reject cookies and remove them from your browser (this can however impair the functionality of some websites as shopping carts, for example, rely on cookies to remember what you have placed in them). As browsers vary in how to do this, we recommend you simply search for ‘How to remove cookies on [browser and version]’ through your preferred search engine, or visit http://www.aboutcookies.org/. Google also allow you to opt out of their cookies (including their DoubleClick advertising cookies) by configuring your Ads Settings, both when signed in to your Google account and when signed out.

Alternatively you can install a browser add-on to disable Google Analytics, while a plugin is available to permanently opt out of DoubleClick cookies. You can also opt out of interest-based (i.e. inferred from cookies and other technologies) advertising more broadly here (this includes DoubleClick/remarketing cookies), but be aware that as a result you will be shown advertising which is less relevant to you.

To learn more about cookies and their variants, visit the following links:

Other similar tracking technologies deployed by our website include the Google AdWords Conversion Tracking Tag, the Facebook Pixel and the Twitter Universal Website Tag. These technologies allow us to monitor the return on our investment in advertising on their respective platforms by tracking particular actions of visitors who move across to our website (such as booking or enquiring). Conversion and transaction quantities, and transaction values, can be passed back to these platforms so we can compare them against our ad spending. The Facebook Pixel and Twitter Universal Website Tag also allow us to serve ads to converting users again by using their Custom Audience and Tailored Audience features respectively, while all three technologies allow us to track conversions across devices (e.g. from users who are served the ad on their mobile and later convert on their home computer). These technologies are also enabled for cross-domain tracking so that we can see when you transact on our booking system, Supercontrol (which is a different domain from our website). Facebook’s Data Policy and Twitter’s Privacy Policy provide further information on how these platforms use your data.

Facebook users can deny their exposure to ads served by the platform here, by signing in and setting “Ads on apps and websites off of the Facebook Companies” to “no”.

Twitter users can log in to the system and visit the “Personalization and data” settings to change the selection for “Personalize ads”.

There are several more holistic options available to web users. One is the Digital Advertising Alliance’s WebChoices tool which configures your browser to opt out of interest-based advertising. A further option is to install an ad blocker on your devices.

In the case of our apartments’ owners, we maintain a record of our communication and maintenance documentation on our CRM, Insightly. Insightly’s role in this respect is strictly as data processor and they operate solely on our instructions with regard to the storage and use of your data.

How will we use your personal information?

We collect information about you to process your rental, and, if you have agreed, to email you our newsletter or notify you about the results of a competition you’ve participated in. You may unsubscribe from our newsletter at any time using the link within or by emailing us on info[at]greatbase.websitestage.co.uk.

In addition, our website is configured to use Google’s data collection for advertising features, specifically advertising based on interests and location, and re-marketing for AdWords. This means that when browsing the web at large, we may serve you ads tailored to your interests, demographics, and location, and in the case of re-marketing, after performing certain actions on our website and moving to others. The information collected for this purpose is never personally identifiable.

We may combine the information we hold about you across Supercontrol, MailChimp, Wishpond and Insightly to create a complete customer record for our ease of reference and to improve the service we offer you.

We may also re-market to you via Facebook Ads and Twitter Ads if you view or click on our adverts on these platforms and have not opted out of these services using the guidance above.

Owners’ information we upload to Insightly is used to ensure regulatory requirements for short lets in Scotland are adhered to.

With whom do we share this information?

The information you submit via our booking form is shared with our third-party booking system, Supercontrol. Supercontrol acts as our appointed “data processor” when our customers place a booking and may process this personal information accordingly. When you place an order for our services, your email address is also shared with UpFront Reviews, a subsidiary of Supercontrol, in order that you can be issued a review request for your stay. Where you have consented to receive our newsletter during the booking process, your information will also be shared with MailChimp, the software provider we use to disseminate the newsletter.

The information you provide via our newsletter signup form is shared with MailChimp for the sole purpose of disseminating the newsletter.

The anonymized information obtained via the Google Analytics cookie, the Google AdWords Conversion Tracking Tag, the Facebook Pixel and the Twitter Universal Website Tag are all shared with their respective platforms.

If you decide to take out a property protection policy, your booking information will be shared with Rental Guardian in the United States for the sole purpose of providing you with insurance for your stay. Rental Guardian will subsequently send you an email with details of your coverage.

Our legal bases for holding the data are legitimate interests in the case of processing your booking with Supercontrol and for storing owners’ information on Insightly. We obtain your consent to issue you our newsletter via MailChimp or gathering information about your activity through our website and on social media.

How long do we retain your information?

Supercontrol maintains all records of prior guests.

Google Analytics user and event data is retained for 26 months and is reset as a result of any new activity from the user.

The Google AdWords Conversion Tracking Tag records conversions for 30 days after a user views or clicks on an ad.

The Facebook Pixel records conversions for 28 days after a user views or clicks on an ad.

The Twitter Universal Website Tag records conversions for 30 days after a user views or clicks on an ad.

Communication saved within Insightly will be retained for the lifetime of our professional relationships with our apartments’ owners.

What rights do I have as a data subject?

The General European Data Protection Regulation provides the following rights for individuals:

  • The right to be informed
  • The right of access
  • The right to rectification
  • The right to erasure
  • The right to restrict processing
  • The right to data portability
  • The right to object
  • Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling

For more information on these rights, you can consult the Information Commissioner’s Office website.

Of particular note is your right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you. If you wish to avail of this right, please email us on info@greatbase.websitestage.co.uk.

Other websites

This privacy policy only applies to www.greatbase.websitestage.co.uk. Our website features hyperlinks to other websites which have their own privacy policies, and if you decide to visit these other websites and are concerned about their use of your information, you should familiarize yourself with their own privacy policies before further engaging with them.

How can the data subject raise a complaint?

If you have any complaints about our handling of your personal data, we invite you to contact us in the first instance in order that we can determine any shortfall in our process and correct this going forward. Alternatively, you can raise a complaint officially with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Changes to our privacy policy

We endeavour to review this privacy policy when warranted. This privacy policy was last updated 28th November 2019.

How to contact us

If you have any queries about our privacy policy or the information we hold about you, you can contact us on info@greatbase.websitestage.co.uk at any time. Our office is staffed from 9.30am to 5pm Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays.

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