Milford SoundYour privacy is important to us at Southern Discoveries and we want to be sure that you understand the terms and conditions relating to the way in which we collect information and the use of that information.
This Privacy Policy tells you what information we collect, what we do with it and your rights to view, correct or change it. Southern Discoveries is required to comply with New Zealand Privacy Laws and GDPR requirements in respect to personal data.
Southern Discoveries operates the following websites:
www.media.southerndiscoveries.co.nz
The internet offers the chance to collect information about website users. This information can be personally identifiable information or non-personally identifiable information. As part of our operations, we may gather certain types of information about the users of our websites. We require some personal information from you in order to enable you to book and purchase our experiences.
When you book one of the experiences online, by phone call or in-store we collect:
- your name
- your email
- your phone number
- your country of origin
We also ask ‘how did you hear about us?’ when you book a product or service with us. The personal information collected is provided by you when you fill in your personal details on the online booking form or give the information to our staff.
What is the information used for
We have collected this information in order to provide the best possible service to you. We require your personal information for the following reasons:
- to process and complete any transactions that you make on our website
- to provide you with your booking confirmation details and sales receipt
- we operate in various geographical locations that involve coach and cruise travel, therefore we need to ensure we have your contact details in the unlikely case of emergencies
Opt-in consent
During your purchase experience with us, you may have an option to tick a box to opt-in to receive future communications from Southern Discoveries. This communication could be in the form of:
- marketing promotions
- publicity
- direct marketing
- market research
What do we do with Personally Identifiable Information
Southern Discoveries will not use your personal information for any other purpose than those that are outlined in this document.
Southern Discoveries is obligated to provide your personal information (provided by you when you booked and paid for your experience) to our partners who provide services or extensions to our experiences and products. This is for the purpose of:
- ensuring you have confirmed bookings
- ensuring partner product operators are aware of all customers travelling with them
- for safety purposes – we operate in various geographical locations that can involve coach, cruise, flight or jet boat travel; therefore, there is a need to ensure we have your contact details for potential cancellations, weather disruptions and in the unlikely event of an emergency
This applies to any experience you book with us, including fixed-wing or helicopter flights, boat cruises and jet boat experiences operated by Southern Discoveries partners.
Our partners include but are not limited to Air Milford, Glenorchy Air, Glacier Southern Lakes Helicopters, Heli Glenorchy, KJet and Real Journeys.
If you have agreed to our terms and conditions during the booking process, this will be deemed as your explicit consent to us providing your details to our relevant partners for the purpose of undertaking your experience with Southern Discoveries only.
If you have checked a tick box to opt-in to our email newsletters, we may provide you with regular newsletter updates. We will not use your email address for any other purpose than outlined in this document.
Security of information
When we collect personal information reasonable steps are taken to keep that information secure and to protect that information from misuse or loss and from unauthorized access, modification or disclosure.
All of your personal information is stored on our password-protected reservations software system provided by IBIS technology.
Please note, however, that using the internet comes with risk, so we cannot guarantee and we do not warrant the security of information transmitted to us over the internet.
Your right to access your information
The New Zealand Privacy Act of 1993 and the GDPR provide you the right to access, correct and remove your personal information at any time.
How do I get access to my personal information?
Please email us to request access to all of the personal information we have stored on our booking system. We endeavour to provide this to you within two working days by email. Email your request to: customerservice@southerndiscoveries.co.nz
How do I get my personal information deleted or removed from your systems?
Please email us to request to delete personal information we have stored on our booking system.
We store your personal data on the IBIS reservation software, provided by IBIS Technology https://ibis.co.nz/, where it will be stored until requested to be deleted or archived according to IBIS Technology’s archival process. We will endeavour to action your request within two working days from receiving your request by email.
Email your request to: customerservice@southerndiscoveries.co.nz
Live Chat
Southern Discoveries Ltd only collects a guest’s name for the explicit purpose of providing live chat services to assist guests with their queries on the Southern Discoveries website. We do not store this data and do not collect any personally identifiable information from guests using this service. For further details on Live Chat’s services and personal data processing, please view their privacy policy here.
Online payments
Southern Discoveries websites use two online booking systems in agreement with contracts arranged with the providers of the booking system software.
IBIS Technology
IBIS Technology manages the majority of Southern Discoveries online payments and uses the third-party payment solution, Payment Express. Southern Discoveries do not have access to any credit card details under any circumstances.
In the case of refunds, Payment Express uses a token for each transaction, which enables Southern Discoveries to find and refund your transaction, but we do not and cannot view credit card details
If you would like to view the Payment Express Privacy Policy please read here: https://www.paymentexpress.co.nz/privacy-policy
Bookit
Bookit is another third party payment solution provider. Bookit manage ‘booking requests’ for many of our experiences sold on our website. Southern Discoveries do not have access to any credit card details under any circumstances. You can view the Bookit payment terms and conditions when you are making a booking request on their eCommerce website
Cookies
All Southern Discoveries websites (and associated sub-domains) use cookies. You consent to our cookies if you continue to use our website. A cookie is a simple text file that is stored on your computer, mobile or tablet device via your browser, primarily to enhance your experience on the website and to enable certain functions like purchasing our experiences online.
Third parties can also place cookies to monitor your browsing behaviour, analyse traffic to our websites and measure how website visitors engage with our website pages and content. The information in the cookies relates to your IP address, the computer platform that you use (e.g. Mac or Windows), and the browser that you use (e.g. Chrome) and what domain you are accessing our sites from.
A cookie contains anonymous information and allows the website to remember certain information. A cookie does not provide us with any personally identifiable information. Any personal identifiable information is subject to our data protection requirements outlined above.
The cookies used on the website are either persistent (they remain stored until they expire on the hard disk of the personal computer of the website visitor) or session-only cookies (that are not permanently stored on the website visitors computer and disappear when the browser is closed).
Session cookies are one of the most common. They exist in temporary memory until the web browser is closed. They are not harmful because all their information is deleted when your browsing session is over.
Persistent cookies are also called tracking cookies. They last on the user’s device until they are deleted or reach their expiry date. They are used to gather information about the user, recording his or her behaviour on a specific website over a period of time.
Secure cookies are an encrypted cookie that works only when using a secure HTTPS connection. These cookies are used to ensure that website visitor information cannot be stolen by potential hackers connected to the same network as the user. They keep essential information about the website visitor and are used mostly on websites where users perform financial transactions. Because they are encrypted, they are a lot more secure than other types of cookies.
Why do we use cookies?
Southern Discoveries uses cookies to enable its systems to recognise your device and to offer some features, including easier navigation within the website and to facilitate access to purchase our experiences.
For example, if we didn’t use cookies, we wouldn’t be able to provide you with the shopping cart option, know which areas of the website have been visited, be able to diagnose technical issues, provide some social media features or analyse our website traffic and trends.
With this information we can do the following:
- provide you with easy website navigation
- provide you with the ability to purchase our products
- track traffic patterns to our site
- ensure that the most relevant content is being shown
- keep track of items that are stored in your cart
- Default/functional and performance cookies: These cookies are essential in order to enable you to move around the website and use its features, such as accessing secure areas of the website. Without these cookies services like buying our experience cannot be provided.
Our website uses Google Analytics and Optimisely (provided by Google Inc.) services for providing details on how visitors use the website. They also provide us with information on how you use the website and allow us to test various parts of the website. These cookies collect information about how visitors use our websites, for instance, which pages visitors go to most often, and if they get error messages from web pages.
Advertising or targeting cookies: These cookies are used to deliver adverts more relevant to you and your interests. They are also used to limit the number of times you see an advertisement as well as help measure the effectiveness of the advertising campaign. They are usually placed by advertising networks with the website operator’s permission, e.g. Google Display Network. Quite often targeting or advertising cookies will be linked to site functionality provided by the other organisation including social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content.
Analytics and customisation cookies: These cookies collect information that is used either in identifiable or aggregate form to help us understand how our websites are being used, the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns, or to help us customise our websites for you.
Most of the cookies we use will be deleted when you end the browser session (so-called session cookies). Other cookies will remain stored in your device longer with the exception of the web analytics cookies which can be stored in your device for an unlimited time.
Do you have to accept cookies in order to visit? No, not necessarily. You can prevent your browser from storing cookies and/or delete the cookies from your device at any time via the browser settings. Please consult the ‘Help’ section on your internet browser for instructions on this. You can disable cookies, including those used by our website, simply by turning off the cookie function in your browser.
However, some parts of the website, as well as other websites, may not operate properly when turned off this feature. For example, in the case of access to the checkout process, the website will not proceed in the absence of authentication provided by cookies.