Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 4, 2022

1. DEFINITIONS Undefined terms in this Privacy Policy have the same definition as in our Terms of Service (“Terms”).

2. PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT
2.1 Information needed to use the SwapDesk Platform.

We collect personal information about you when you use the SwapDesk Platform. Without it, we may not be able to provide all services requested. This information includes:

• Contact Information, Account, Profile Information. Such as your first name, last name, phone number, postal address, email address, date of birth, and profile photo, some of which will depend on the features you use.
  
• Identity Verification and Payment Information. Such as images of your government issued ID (as permitted by applicable laws), your ID number or other verification information, bank account or payment account information. If you are not a SwapDesk user, we may receive payment information relating to you, such as when a SwapDesk user provides your payment card to complete a booking (e.g. for the processing of a Security Deposit). If a copy of your ID is provided to us, we may scan, use, and store information contained in your ID to verify your identity.
  

2.2 Information you choose to give us.

You can choose to provide us with additional personal information. This information may include:

• Additional Profile Information. Such as gender, preferred language(s), city, and personal description. Some of this information as indicated in your account settings is part of your public profile page and will be publicly visible.
  
• Information About Others. Such as a payment instrument belonging to another person or information about a co-traveler. By providing us with personal information about others, you certify that you have permission to provide that information to SwapDesk for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, have shared the SwapDesk Privacy Policy with them, and they have read and understood that it applies to them.
  
• Address Book Contact Information. Address book contacts you import or enter manually.
  
• Other Information. Such as when you fill in a form, add information to your account, respond to surveys, post to community forums, participate in promotions, communicate with our customer care team and other Members, or share your experience with us. This may include health information if you choose to share it with us.
  

2.3 Information Automatically Collected by Using the SwapDesk Platform and our Payment Services.
When you use the SwapDesk Platform and Payment Services, we automatically collect personal information. This information may include:

• Geo-location Information. Such as precise or approximate location determined from your IP address or mobile device’s GPS depending on your device settings. We may also collect this information when you’re not using the app if you enable this through your settings or device permissions.
  
• Usage Information. Such as the pages or content you view, searches for Listings, bookings you have made, and other actions on the SwapDesk Platform.
  
• Log Data and Device Information. Such as details about how you’ve used the SwapDesk Platform (including if you clicked on links to third party applications), IP address, access dates and times, hardware and software information, device information, device event information, unique identifiers, crash data, cookie data, and the pages you’ve viewed or engaged with before or after using the SwapDesk Platform. We may collect this information even if you haven’t created a SwapDesk account or logged in.
  
• Cookies and Similar Technologies as described in our Cookie Policy.
  
• Payment Transaction Information. Such as payment instrument used, date and time, payment amount, payment instrument expiration date and billing postcode, PayPal email address, IBAN information, your address, and other related transaction details.
  

2.4 Personal Information We Collect from Third Parties.

We collect personal information from other sources, such as:

• Third-Party Services. If you link, connect, or login to the SwapDesk Platform with a third party service (e.g. Google, Facebook, WeChat), you direct the service to send us information such as your registration, friends list, and profile information as controlled by that service or as authorized by you via your privacy settings at that service.
  
• Background Information. For Members in the United States, to the extent permitted by applicable laws, we may obtain, for example, reports of criminal records, sex offender registrations, and other information about you and/or your background. For Members outside of the United States, to the extent permitted by applicable laws and with your consent where required, we may obtain the local version of police, background, or registered sex offender checks. We may use your information, including your full name and date of birth, to obtain such reports.
  
• Enterprise Product Invitations and Account Management. Organizations that use our Enterprise products may submit personal information to facilitate account management and invitations to use enterprise products.
  
• Referrals and co-travelers. If you are invited to the SwapDesk Platform, such as a co-traveler on a trip, the person who invited you can submit personal information about you such as your email address or other contact information.
  
• Other Sources. To the extent permitted by applicable law, we may receive additional information about you, such as references, demographic data, or information to help detect fraud and safety issues from third party service providers and/or partners, and combine it with information we have about you. For example, we may receive background check results or fraud warnings from identity verification service providers for use in our fraud prevention and risk assessment efforts. We may receive information about you and your activities on and off the SwapDesk Platform, or about your experiences and interactions from our partners. We may receive health information, including but not limited to, health information related to contagious diseases.
  

3. HOW WE USE INFORMATION WE COLLECT
3.1 Provide, Improve, and Develop the SwapDesk Platform. Such as to:

• enable you to access the SwapDesk Platform and make and receive payments,
  
• enable you to communicate with other Members,
  
• process your request,
  
• perform analytics, debug and conduct research,
  
• provide customer service, training,
  
• send you messages, updates, security alerts, and account notifications,
  
• if you provide us with your contacts’ information, such as your friends or co-travelers, we may process this information: (i) to facilitate your referral invitations, (ii) to share your trip details and facilitate trip planning, (iii) for fraud detection and prevention, and (iv) to facilitate your requests or for any other purpose you authorize,
  
• personalize and customize your experience based on your interactions with the SwapDesk Platform, your search and booking history, your profile information and preferences, and other content you submit, and
  
• enable your use of our enterprise products.
  

3.2 Create and Maintain a Trusted and Safer Environment. Including to:

• detect and prevent fraud, spam, abuse, security and safety incidents, and other harmful activity,
  
• conduct security investigations and risk assessments,
  
• verify or authenticate information provided by you,
  
• conduct checks against databases and other information sources, including background or police checks,
  
• comply with our legal obligations, protect the health and well-being of our Guests, Hosts, Hosts’ employees, and members of the public,
  
• resolve disputes with our Members, including sharing information with your co-Host or additional Guests about disputes related to your role as a co-Host or additional Guest,
  
• enforce our agreements with third parties,
  
• comply with law, respond to legal requests, prevent harm, and protect our rights (see section 4.5),
  
• in connection with the activities above, we may conduct profiling based on your interactions with the SwapDesk Platform, your profile information and other content you submit to SwapDesk, and information obtained from third parties. In limited cases, automated processes, which analyze your account and activities on the SwapDesk platform as well as information in relation to activities on and off the SwapDesk platform that can be associated with you, could restrict or suspend access to the SwapDesk Platform if such processes detect activity that may pose a safety or other risk to SwapDesk, our community, or third parties. If you would like to challenge decisions based on automated processes, please contact us via the Contact Information section below.
  

3.3 Provide, Personalize, Measure, and Improve our Advertising and Marketing. For example to:

• send you promotional messages, marketing, advertising, and other information based on your preferences and social media advertising through social media platforms,
  
• personalize, measure, and improve our advertising,
  
• administer referral programs, rewards, surveys, sweepstakes, contests, or other promotional activities or events sponsored or managed by SwapDesk or its third-party partners,
  
• analyze characteristics and preferences to send you promotional messages, marketing, advertising, and other information that we think might be of interest to you, and
  
• invite you to events and relevant opportunities.
  

3.4 Provide Payment services.

Personal information is used to enable, or authorize third parties to use, Payment Services such as to:

• detect and prevent money laundering, fraud, abuse, and security incidents,
  
• conduct security investigations and risk assessments,
  
• comply with legal obligations (such as anti-money laundering regulations),
  
• enforce the Payment Terms and other payment policies,
  
• with your consent, send you promotional messages, marketing, advertising, and other information that may be of interest to you based on your preferences, and
  
• provide and improve Payment Services.
  

4. SHARING & DISCLOSURE
4.1 Sharing With Your Consent or at Your Direction.

Where you provide consent, we share your information as described at the time of consent, such as when authorizing a third-party application or website to access your SwapDesk account or participating in promotional activities by SwapDesk partners or third parties.
Where permissible under applicable law, we may use certain information about you such as your email address, de-identify it, and share it with social media platforms to generate leads, drive traffic to SwapDesk, or otherwise promote our products and services.

4.2 Sharing Between Members.

To help facilitate bookings or other interactions between Members, we may need to share certain information such as:

• When a booking request is made, when there is a co-host, or a dispute is submitted, certain information may be shared between Guest(s) and Host(s), including profile, name, names of any additional Guests, cancellation history, review information, age of guest (unless prohibited by applicable law), dispute outcome (when applicable), and other information you choose to share and submit. When a booking is confirmed, additional information is shared to assist with coordinating the trip, like profile photo and phone number. When you as a Host have a confirmed booking, certain information is shared with the Guest (and any additional Guests they invite, if applicable) to coordinate the booking, such as your profile, full name, phone number, and Listing address.
  
• When you as a Host invite another Member to host with you, you authorize that person to access and update your information and Member Content, including, but not limited to, certain information like your full name, phone number, Accommodation address, calendar, Listing information, Listing photos, and email address.
  
• When you as a Guest invite additional Guests to a booking, your name, travel dates, Host name, Listing details, Accommodation address, and other related information will be shared with each additional Guest.
  

4.3 Information You Publish in Profiles, Listings, and other Public Information.

We may make certain information publicly visible to others, such as:

• Your public profile page, which includes your profile photo, first name (or initials where applicable), description, and city.
  
• Listing pages that include information such as the Accommodation approximate or precise location description, calendar availability, profile photo, aggregated demand information (like page views over a period of time), and additional information you choose to share.
  
• Reviews, ratings, and other public feedback.
  
• Content in a community or discussion forum, blog, or social media post.
  

We may display parts of your public profile and other Content you make available to the public like Listing details on third-party sites, platforms, and apps.
Information you share publicly on the SwapDesk Platform may be indexed through third-party search engines.

4.4 Host Service Providers.

Hosts may use third-party services to help manage or deliver their services, such as cleaning services or lock providers. Hosts may use features on the SwapDesk Platform to share information about the Guest (like check-in and check-out dates, Guest name, Guest phone number) with such third-party service providers.

4.5 Complying with Law, Responding to Legal Requests, Preventing Harm and Protecting our Rights.

We may disclose your information to courts, law enforcement, governmental or public authorities, tax authorities, or authorized third parties, if and to the extent we are required or permitted to do so by law or where disclosure is reasonably necessary to: (i) comply with our legal obligations, (ii) comply with a valid legal request (such as a subpoena or court order) or to respond to claims asserted against SwapDesk, (iii) respond to a valid legal request relating to a criminal investigation to address alleged or suspected illegal activity, or to respond to or address any other activity that may expose us, you, or any other of our users to legal or regulatory liability, (iv) enforce and administer our agreements with Members, including our Terms, Additional Legal Terms, and Policies, or (v) protect the rights, property or personal safety of SwapDesk, its employees, its Members, or members of the public. For example, if permitted due to the foregoing circumstances, Host tax information may be shared with tax authorities or other governmental agencies.
Where appropriate, we may notify Members about legal requests unless: (i) providing notice is prohibited by the legal process itself, by court order we receive, or by applicable law, or (ii) we believe that providing notice would be futile, ineffective, create a risk of injury or bodily harm to an individual or group, or create or increase a risk of fraud upon or harm to SwapDesk, our Members, or expose SwapDesk to a claim of obstruction of justice.
Where legally required or permissible according to applicable law, we may disclose Hosts’ and/or Guests’ information to tax authorities for the purpose of the tax authorities’ determination of proper compliance with relevant tax obligations. Relevant tax obligations include SwapDesk’s tax obligations on its service fees, its facilitation of taxes on accommodations and withholding taxes, and Hosts’ individual tax obligations. Information that may be disclosed includes, but is not limited to, Host and Guest names, listing addresses, Host addresses, tax/business identification number(s), date of birth, and/or contact information, property parcel identification numbers, payout information, transaction dates and amounts, number of nights and Guests booked, gross and net booking value and payout amounts, taxes collected by SwapDesk on behalf of Guests and Hosts, to the extent any of this information is known by SwapDesk.
In jurisdictions where SwapDesk facilitates or requires a registration, notification, permit, or license application or number of a Host with a governmental authority, we may share information of participating Hosts with the relevant authority, both during the application process, when the Listing is published, and periodically thereafter, such as the Host’s full name and contact details, Accommodation address, tax identification number, registration, permit, or license number, Listing details, reservation information, and number of nights booked subject to applicable laws.

4.6 Programs with Managers and Owners.

We may share personal information of Hosts and Guests with landlords, management companies, and/or property owners (“Building Management”), such as booking information and information related to compliance with applicable laws, in order to facilitate programs with Building Management. For example, guest booking and personal information, including guest contact information, may be shared with the Building Management of the building, complex, or community where a host lives and/or the listing is located to facilitate hosting services, compliance with applicable laws, security, billing, and other services.

4.7 Host Information Provided to SwapDesk for Work Customers.

If a booking (1) is made by a Guest affiliated with an Enterprise and (2) the Enterprise is enrolled in SwapDesk for Work, we may disclose information related to the booking to the Enterprise (e.g., name of the Host, Accommodation address, booking dates, Listing details, etc.) to the extent necessary for the adequate performance of SwapDesk’s contract with the Enterprise and to provide the services. At the request of the Enterprise or the Guest, we may also share this information with third parties engaged by the Enterprise to provide support services.

4.8 Service Providers.

We share personal information with affiliated and unaffiliated service providers to help us run our business and for their compliance purposes, including service providers that help us: (i) verify your identity or authenticate your identification documents, (ii) check information against public databases, (iii) conduct background or police checks, fraud prevention and risk assessment, (iv) perform product development, maintenance and debugging, (v) allow the provision of the SwapDesk Services through third-party platforms and software tools (e.g. through the integration with our APIs), (vi) provide customer service, advertising, or payments services, or (vii) process, handle or assess insurance claims or similar claims. These providers are contractually bound to protect your personal information and have access to your personal information to perform these tasks.

4.9 Business Transfers

If SwapDesk undertakes or is involved in any merger, acquisition, reorganization, sale of assets, bankruptcy, or insolvency event, then we may sell, transfer, or share some or all of our assets, including your information in connection with such transaction or in contemplation of such transaction (e.g., due diligence). In this event, we will notify you before your personal information is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

5. OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION
5.1 Analyzing your Communications.

We may review, scan, or analyze your communications on the SwapDesk Platform for reasons outlined in the “How We Use Information We Collect” section of this policy, including fraud prevention, risk assessment, regulatory compliance, investigation, product development, research, analytics, enforcing our Terms of Service, and customer support purposes. For example, as part of our fraud prevention efforts, we scan and analyze messages to mask contact information and references to other sites. In some cases, we may also scan, review, or analyze messages to debug, improve, and expand product offerings. We use automated methods where reasonably possible. Occasionally we may need to manually review communications, such as for fraud investigations and customer support, or to assess and improve the functionality of these automated tools. We will not review, scan, or analyze your messaging communications to send third-party marketing messages to you and we will not sell reviews or analyses of these communications.

5.2 Linking Third-Party Accounts.

You can link your SwapDesk account with certain third-party services like social networks. Your contacts on these third-party services are referred to as “Friends.” When you direct the data sharing by creating this link:

• some of the information provided to us from linking accounts may be published on your public profile,
  
• your activities on the SwapDesk Platform may be displayed to your Friends on the SwapDesk Platform and/or that third-party service,
  
• a link to your public profile on that third-party service may be included in your SwapDesk public profile,
  
• other SwapDesk users may be able to see any Friends that you may have in common with them, or that you are a Friend of their Friend if applicable,
  
• other SwapDesk users may be able to see any schools, hometowns, or other groups you have in common with them as listed on your linked social networking service,
  
• information you provide to us from the linking of your accounts may be stored, processed, and transmitted for fraud prevention and risk assessment purposes, and
  
• publication and display of information that you provide to the SwapDesk Platform through this linkage is subject to your settings and authorizations on the SwapDesk Platform and the third-party service.
  

5.3 Third-Party Partners & Integrations.

Parts of SwapDesk may link to third-party services, not owned or controlled by SwapDesk, such as Google Maps/Earth. Use of these services is subject to the privacy policies of those providers, such as Google Maps/Earth Additional Terms of Use, Google Privacy Policy (see here for more information on how Google uses information), SwapDesk does not own or control these third parties and when you interact with them you are providing your information to them.

6.0 Managing Your Information.

You can access and update some of your personal information through your Account settings. If you connected your SwapDesk Account to a third-party service, like Facebook or Google, you can change your settings and unlink from that service in your Account settings. You are responsible for keeping your personal information up to date.

6.1 Data Access and Portability.

In some jurisdictions, applicable law may entitle you to request certain copies of your personal information or information about how we handle your personal information, request copies of personal information that you have provided to us in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format, and/or request that we transmit this information to another service provider (where technically feasible).

6.2 Data Erasure.

In some jurisdictions, you can request that your personal information be deleted. Please note that if you request deletion of your personal information, or if your account is suspended, terminated, or voluntarily closed:

• We may retain your personal information as necessary for our legitimate business interests, such as prevention of money laundering, fraud detection and prevention, and enhancing safety. For example, if we suspend an SwapDesk Account for fraud or safety reasons, we may retain information from that SwapDesk Account to prevent that Member from opening a new SwapDesk Account in the future.
  
• We may retain and use your personal information to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations. For example, SwapDesk and SwapDesk Payments may keep information for tax, legal reporting, and auditing obligations.
  
• Information you have shared with others (e.g., Reviews, forum postings) will continue to be publicly visible on SwapDesk, even after your SwapDesk Account is canceled. However, attribution of such information to you will be removed. Some copies of your information (e.g., log records) will remain in our database, but are disassociated from personal identifiers.
  
• Because we take measures to protect data from accidental or malicious loss and destruction, residual copies of your personal information may not be removed from our backup systems for a limited period of time.
  

7. SECURITY

While no organization can guarantee perfect security, we are continuously implementing and updating administrative, technical, and physical security measures to help protect your information against unauthorized access, loss, destruction, or alteration.

8. CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time in accordance with applicable law. If we do so, we will post the revised Privacy Policy and update the “Last Updated” date at the top. In case of material changes, we will also provide you with notice of the modification by email at least thirty (30) days before the effective date. If you disagree with the revised Privacy Policy, you can cancel your Account. If you do not cancel your Account before the date the revised Privacy Policy becomes effective, your continued access to or use of the SwapDesk Platform will be subject to the revised Privacy Policy