PRIVACY NOTICE

Our commitment to keeping your data safe

Last updated: August 2025

1. Introduction

At Bolder, we believe brilliant adventures begin with trust. When you're planning transformative experiences for young people or considering joining one of our adventures yourself, you deserve complete transparency about how we handle your personal information.

This Privacy Policy explains our approach to collecting, using, and protecting your personal data. Whether you're a student excited about diving in Borneo, a parent considering our conservation adventures in Malaysia, a teacher exploring options for your school, or simply visiting our website to learn more about what we do, this policy applies to you.

We're Bolder, and you can reach us at hello@wearebolder.co.uk or at our listed company address Bolder Travel Ltd, Irish Square, St Asaph, LL17 0RN. If you have any questions about this policy or how we handle your personal information, please don't hesitate to get in touch. We're here to help, and we genuinely want you to feel confident about sharing your information with us.

2. Information We Collect

The Information You Share With Us

When you get in touch about our adventures or make a booking, we collect the information you provide to ensure we can deliver exceptional experiences whilst keeping everyone safe. This includes your basic contact details like name, email, phone number, and address, along with school or organisation information if you're booking on behalf of students.

For adventure participants, we need additional details to ensure their safety and enjoyment. This includes age and date of birth, any dietary requirements, medical conditions we should know about, accessibility needs, emergency contact information, and passport details for international travel. We also securely process payment information through trusted third-party payment processors who specialise in handling financial data safely.

If you choose to receive our newsletter or marketing updates, we'll collect your name and email address, along with your preferences for the types of communications you'd like to receive. We want to share news about new adventures and inspiring stories from previous trips, but only if you want to hear from them.

Information We Gather Automatically

When you visit our website, we automatically collect some technical information to help us understand how people use our site and how we can make it better. This includes your IP address and general location, browser type and version, device information, which pages you visit and how long you spend on our website, and where you came from before reaching our site.

We also use cookies and similar tracking technologies to enhance your browsing experience. You can find detailed information about this in our Cookie Policy, and you can control these settings through your browser preferences.

Information From Others

Sometimes we receive information about you from third parties, particularly when schools book adventures for their students. We may also receive information from our payment processors when handling bookings, third-party booking platforms if you use them to contact us, and social media platforms when you interact with our content or share our posts.

3. How We Use Your Information

Delivering Brilliant Adventures

The primary reason we collect your information is to provide our adventure experiences and ensure they're safe, enjoyable, and transformative. We use your details to process bookings, communicate with you about your adventure, arrange appropriate accommodations and activities, and ensure we can support any specific needs you may have.

Communication is essential to what we do. We use your contact information to respond to enquiries, provide customer support, send booking confirmations, and keep you updated about your adventure. Safety is our absolute priority, so we use participant information to ensure proper duty of care and fulfil our legal obligations to keep everyone protected during their adventures.

Sharing Our Stories (With Your Permission)

Adventure creates amazing moments and transformative experiences that we love to share with others considering similar journeys. However, we only use photos, videos, or testimonials from adventures with your explicit consent. We believe these authentic stories are powerful, but your privacy and comfort are more important than our marketing.

If you subscribe to our newsletter or marketing communications, we'll use your email address to send updates about new adventures, inspiring stories from recent trips, and relevant information about our services. You can unsubscribe at any time, and we'll respect that decision immediately.

Improving Our Service

We analyse website usage data to understand how visitors navigate our site and where we can improve the user experience. This helps us create better content, make booking processes smoother, and ensure our website serves everyone effectively. We also use feedback and data to develop new adventures and refine existing ones.

We may use your information to protect against fraudulent activities and ensure the security of our booking systems, though this is typically automated and doesn't involve manual review of individual accounts.

4. Legal Basis for Processing

Under UK data protection law, we need a legal reason to process your personal information. Most of the time, we process your data because it's necessary to provide our services to you or because we have legitimate business interests that don't override your privacy rights.

When you book an adventure or enquire about our services, we process your information because it's necessary to perform our contract with you or to take steps before entering into a contract. For safety-critical information and financial records, we process data to comply with legal obligations around health and safety, safeguarding, and financial record-keeping.

For marketing communications and photo usage, we rely on your explicit consent, which you can withdraw at any time. In emergency situations, we may process information to protect vital interests, particularly regarding health and safety during adventures.

Some processing is based on our legitimate interests in running our business effectively, understanding our audience, and preventing fraud, but we always balance these interests against your privacy rights and won't proceed if we believe your interests outweigh ours.

5. Sharing Your Information

Our Trusted Partners

To deliver authentic adventures in incredible destinations, we work with carefully selected partners who share our commitment to safety and quality. This means we sometimes need to share participant information with accommodation providers, transport companies, activity operators, and local guides who contribute to your adventure experience.

We use trusted payment processors to handle all financial transactions securely, and we work with technology providers for website hosting, email services, and booking systems. Professional services including legal, accounting, and insurance providers may also access your information when necessary for business operations.

Legal and Safety Requirements

We may share your information when required by law or regulation, particularly with regulatory authorities overseeing adventure travel and education. In health and safety emergencies, we may need to share information with emergency services or medical professionals to ensure proper care.

If we're involved in legal proceedings or required to comply with court orders, we may need to disclose relevant information, though we'll always aim to limit this to what's legally necessary.

Business Continuity

In the unlikely event that Bolder is acquired by or merges with another company, your personal information may be transferred to the new entity. We would ensure any such transfer maintains the same privacy protections outlined in this policy.

We want to be absolutely clear: we never sell your personal data to third parties for marketing purposes. Your information is valuable to us because it helps us serve you better, not because it represents a revenue opportunity.

6. International Transfers

Some of our adventures take place in countries outside the UK, and some of our technology providers may be located internationally. When we transfer your data outside the UK, we ensure it receives appropriate protection.

We prioritise transfers to countries that have been recognised as providing adequate data protection standards. Where this isn't possible, we use standard contractual clauses approved by data protection authorities, or we work with providers certified under recognised data protection frameworks.

For adventure bookings, we may need to share participant information with local providers in destination countries to ensure proper arrangements for accommodation, activities, and emergency procedures. We carefully vet these partners and ensure they understand their responsibilities for protecting your data.

7. Data Retention

We keep your personal information for as long as necessary to provide our services and meet our legal obligations, but we don't hold onto it indefinitely.

Booking and travel records are retained for seven years to comply with financial and legal requirements. Marketing consent remains valid until you withdraw it or we determine it's no longer appropriate (for example, if you haven't engaged with our communications for several years).

Website analytics data is typically kept for up to 26 months, whilst enquiry records are retained for three years from our last contact with you. Medical and emergency information is kept for the duration of your adventure plus seven years to ensure we can respond to any subsequent queries or requirements.

We regularly review our data retention practices and securely delete information when it's no longer needed. This isn't just good practice – it's part of our commitment to handling your information responsibly.

8. Your Rights

UK data protection law gives you significant control over your personal information, and we're committed to helping you exercise these rights effectively.

Accessing and Moving Your Data

You have the right to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you, and we'll provide this in a clear, understandable format. If you want to transfer your information to another service provider, you can request your data in a portable format that makes this easier.

Correcting and Deleting Your Information

If any of the information we hold about you is inaccurate or incomplete, you can ask us to correct it. You also have the right to request that we delete your personal data, though this may be limited by legal requirements (for example, we may need to retain booking records for tax purposes even if you'd prefer us to delete them).

Controlling How We Use Your Data

You can ask us to restrict how we process your information if you're concerned about its accuracy or our reasons for processing it. You have the right to object to processing based on our legitimate interests, and you can always opt out of direct marketing communications.

If you've given us consent for specific processing activities (like marketing emails or photo usage), you can withdraw that consent at any time. This won't affect any processing we've already done with your permission, but it will stop future processing for those purposes.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at hello@wearebolder.co.uk. We'll respond within one month and may need to verify your identity to protect your information from unauthorised access.

9. Cookies and Tracking

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies to enhance your browsing experience and help us understand how people use our site. These small files enable essential website functionality, remember your preferences between visits, help us analyse website performance, and allow us to provide more relevant content.

You can control cookie settings through your browser preferences, though disabling certain cookies may affect how our website works for you. For detailed information about the specific cookies we use and how to manage them, please see our Cookie Policy.

We believe in being transparent about how these technologies work and giving you control over your online experience.

10. Children's Privacy

Adventure travel for schools means we regularly handle information about young people under 18, and we take special care with children's data. We only collect information that's necessary for adventure participation, safety, and communication with parents and schools.

We require appropriate parental or school consent for participation and any marketing communications directed at minors. Our staff receive specific training on child protection requirements, and we implement additional safeguards around children's personal information.

Parents and guardians have full rights to access, correct, or delete their child's information, and we're always happy to discuss any concerns about how we handle data relating to young participants.

11. Data Security

Protecting your personal information is fundamental to everything we do. We implement comprehensive technical and organisational measures including encryption of sensitive data both when it's transmitted and when it's stored, strict access controls and regular staff training, ongoing security assessments and updates, secure data storage with reliable backup procedures, and clear incident response procedures if something goes wrong.

While we're committed to security and invest significantly in protecting your data, no system is completely immune to all risks. We ask that you contact us immediately if you suspect any unauthorised access to your account or information, and we'll investigate promptly.

12. Third-Party Links

Our website may include links to other websites, social media platforms, or external services that aren't controlled by Bolder. This Privacy Policy doesn't cover those external sites, and we encourage you to review their privacy policies before sharing any personal information with them.

We choose our partners and recommended services carefully, but we can't be responsible for how third parties handle your data once you leave our website.

13. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy periodically to reflect changes in our practices, new technology, or evolving legal requirements. We'll always give you appropriate notice of significant changes by posting the updated policy on our website, sending email notifications for material changes that affect how we use your data, and highlighting important updates in our regular communications.

The "Last updated" date at the top of this policy shows when we last revised it, so you can easily see if anything has changed since you last reviewed it.

14. Complaints

If you have concerns about how we handle your personal data, please contact us first. We genuinely want to resolve any issues and improve our practices based on your feedback.

If you're not satisfied with our response, you have the right to complain to the UK's data protection authority:

Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)

Website: ico.org.uk

Phone: 0303 123 1113

Address: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF

The ICO provides independent oversight of data protection compliance and can investigate complaints about how organisations handle personal information.

15. Contact Us

We believe the best privacy policies are backed by genuine commitment to helping people understand and control their personal information. If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, concerns about how we handle your data, or suggestions for how we could do better, please reach out:

Email: hello@wearebolder.co.uk

Address: Bolder Travel Ltd, Irish Square, St Asaph, LL17 0RN

We're committed to addressing your privacy questions and concerns promptly and transparently, because trust is essential to creating the brilliant adventures that transform naturally.

This Privacy Policy reflects Bolder's commitment to protecting your privacy whilst delivering authentic adventures that build genuine confidence, lasting friendships, and broader perspectives through meaningful challenge.