Sign In

Our Privacy Policy

This policy (together with our Website Terms of Use and any other documents referred to) sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you or that you provide will be processed by us. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it. 

 

The policy document explains.

  • What data My Favourite Holiday Cottages Ltd (MHFC) collects and holds on your account
  • How we use your data
  • The choices you have about the data we collect
  • How you can access, update or control your data.

What data does MFHC collect about me?

When you register on our website for the purposes of: 

  • Registering and listing a holiday property
  • Subscribing to one of our newsletters
  • Setting up a Cottage shortlist or submitting an enquiry to MFHC or to a property owner or manager
  • Submitting a comment to a news/blog article
  • Holding images you have uploaded or given to us.

We will collect basic information from you when you create an account, such as: 

  • Your name,
  • Gender / Status (Mr, Ms, Mrs etc.)
  • Postal address
  • Email address
  • Phone number(s)
  • Website address
  • Account numbers
  • Username
  • Social media account contact details
  • Other data that could be used to directly or indirectly identify you, such as images of holiday properties and locations.
  • Reviews of your property(s) submitted by you and/or your guests
  • Feedback submitted by you about the performance of the site and suggestions for improvements
  • General correspondence concerning your account and/or our services and content published on the MFHC website.

If required to do so for compliance purposes under the United Kingdom and European Law, we may collect additional information like government identification. We also record information when you contact us, including: 

  • Stats relating to activity on your listing(s) and customer service requests, such as enquiries for your property if you are a cottage owner
  • Notes or details explaining what you asked and how we responded
  • Payment details, including dates, amounts and payment sources, but NOT credit/debit card details
  • Responses to surveys solicited and/or unsolicited feedback
  • We also use cookies and similar technologies on our websites and mobile applications to help us collect this information about interactions and usage.

How Does MFHC use your information?

We use information about you to deliver, improve, update and enhance the services we provide to you. For example, we use information about you to create your account, deliver our services (including listing management, provide you with automatic access to your account, send you Newsletters and emails and help us detect and prevent fraud and abuse). The information we collect will enable us to:

  • Provide you with the tools to control your account information, services on the MFHC website that you may be using or subscribing to and guidance on how it is used.
  • View and update your account information, such as name, email address, phone number and billing address.
  • View and update your contact preferences for receiving accounts, product-related messages, and marketing communications.
  • Access, amend, download and delete the personal data we have stored in your account.
  • Improve and optimise the operation and performance of our Services (again, including our websites and mobile applications)
  • Diagnose problems with and identify any security risks, errors, or needed enhancements to the Services.
  • Detect and prevent fraud and abuse of our Services and systems
  • Collecting aggregate statistics about the use of the Services
  • Understand and analyse how you use our Services and what products and services are most relevant to you

Often, much of the data collected is aggregated or statistical data about how individuals use our Services and are not linked to any personal data, but to the extent it is itself personal data or is linked or linkable to personal data, we treat it accordingly. 

Supplemented Data

This may be received about you from other sources, including publicly available databases or third parties from whom we have purchased data, in which case we may combine this data with information we already have about you so that we can update, expand and analyse the accuracy of our records, identify new customers, and provide products and services that may be of interest to you. If you provide us with personal information about others, or if others give us your information, we will only use that information for the specific reason for which it was provided to us.

How Does MFHC share your data with third parties?

Generally, we will not share, sell or give access to your information with third parties unless required to do so by law or to enable us to securely deliver the services to which you have subscribed as set out below. There are occasions when for the purpose of providing our services, your data may be used via a third-party device, including:

*Processing credit/debit card payments and bank transfers. We do not, however, store card numbers and bank details on our server once transactions are complete.

* Communicating with you by email when using reputable and secure third-party software to facilitate the dispatch of emails relating to your services and your account, such as renewal notices. 

Where such use occurs, third parties are prohibited from:

  • Utilising, sharing or retaining your personal data for any purpose other than as they have been specifically contracted for (or without your consent).
  • I am contacting you directly or through a third-party service provider regarding products or services you have signed up for or purchased from us, such as necessary to deliver transactional or service-related communications.
  • Contacting you with offers for additional services we think you’ll find valuable if you give us consent, or where allowed based upon legitimate interests. You don’t need to provide consent as a condition to purchase our goods or services. These contacts may include Email, Text (SMS) messages, Telephone calls, Automated phone calls or text messages.
  • We may also disclose your personal information to third parties if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use and/or any other agreements; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and detection.

You may also update your subscription preferences concerning communications from us and/or our partners by accessing your “Account” page. 

If we collect information from you in connection with a co-branded offer. In that case, it will be clear at the point of collection who is collecting the information and whose privacy policy applies. In addition, it will describe any choice options you have in regard to the use and/or sharing of your personal data with a co-branded partner, as well as how to exercise those options. 

Make use of a service that allows you to import contacts (e.g. using email marketing services to send emails on your behalf). We will only use the contacts and any other personal information for the requested service. 

If you believe that anyone has provided us with your personal information without your consent and you would like to request that it be removed from our database, please get in touch with us at info@mfhc.co.uk or write to us at Barnfield Cottage, Bratton Fleming, Barnstaple, Devon, EX31 4RT. 

Compliance with legal, regulatory and law enforcement requests. We cooperate with government, law enforcement officials, and private parties to enforce and comply with the law. We will disclose any information about you to government or law enforcement officials or private parties as we, in our sole discretion, believe necessary or appropriate to respond to claims and legal processes (such as subpoena requests) to protect our property and rights or the property and rights of a third party, to protect the safety of the public or any person, or to prevent or stop activity we consider to be illegal or unethical. 

To the extent we are legally permitted to do so, we will take reasonable steps to notify you if we are required to provide your personal information to third parties as part of the legal process. 

Website analytics

We use multiple web analytics tools provided by service partners such as (but not limited to Google Analytics, Moz and AHRefs to collect information about how you interact with our website or mobile applications, including what pages you visit, what site you visited prior to visiting our website, how much time you spend on each page, what operating system and web browser you use and network and IP information. We use the information provided by these tools to improve our Services. These tools place persistent cookies in your browser to identify you as a unique user the next time you visit our website. Each cookie cannot be used by anyone other than the service provider (e.g. Google for Google Analytics and FaceBook). The information collected from the cookie may be transmitted to and stored by these service partners on servers in a country other than the country in which you reside. Though the information collected does not include personal data such as name, address, billing information, etc., the information collected is used and shared by these service providers in accordance with their individual privacy policies.

 

Targeted advertisements. 

The purpose of the site is to allow people to:

  • Advertise self-catering accommodation
  • Accept bookings for self-catering accommodations
  • Promote news articles, newsletters, reviews and other services beneficial to accommodation owners and those looking for a property to book.
  • Properties and interest-based offers may be presented to you based on your activities on our web pages and other websites and based on the products you currently own. Property listings and other information will be presented to you in relation to the criteria you select when using the site.

 

Third-party websites. 

We partner with third parties to manage our advertising on our web pages and other websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google and Microsoft, where these feature property details, such as website information and links to email addresses (while not disclosing the email address itself), will be included.

Our website and our mobile applications contain links to third-party websites, including but not limited to the websites belonging to the owner of properties listed on MFHC. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of third-party sites. Please read the privacy policy of any website you visit.

Caring for your digital identity

Secure communication channels: We encrypt personal data provided to us via web forms using up-to-date standards to prevent others from intercepting the information in transit. 

Account authentication: We require a unique username and password to log into your accounts. 

Security training: Our staff receive annual training and periodic bulletins regarding good security practices. 

Contact Us

If you have any questions, concerns, or complaints about our Privacy Policy or the practices of our Services, you may contact our office or our Data Protection Officer by email to info@mfhc.co.uk.

As an alternative, you may contact us by either of the following means:

  • By Mail: FAO: Data Protection Officer, My Favourite Holiday Cottages, Barnfield Cottage, Bratton Fleming, Barnstaple, Devon, EX31 4RT
  • By telephone: 01598 710631

We will respond to all requests, inquiries or concerns within thirty (30) days.