Introduction
Welcome to our Privacy Policy. Thank you for taking the time to read it. We appreciate that you trust us with your information and we intend to always keep that trust. This starts with making sure you understand the information we collect, why we collect it, how we collect it, how it is used and your choices regarding your information.
The website Holidaybuddie.com and Holidaybuddie App is owned and operated by the “Naturforsker”, registered in India (also referred to in this policy as “we” or “us”) which includes Holidaybuddie, and we the controllers of personal information collected and processed through Holidaybuddie.com. The website and app are global. Hence your information will be sent to and used in India regardless of the country you reside in. This Policy explains how we protect your personal data when we transfer it overseas. Hence carefully read it before giving your consent!
Operating a website without user data is akin to navigating a flight or a ship in a fog without any guidance and uncertain of the best route or final destination. It is like a blind man tyring to walk without any help. This lack of insight can significantly hinder the website's potential to give the users the best experience and without safety for website users.
Without user data, you are left with critical questions unanswered:
Which elements of your site capture users' attention?
How do visitors navigate through your pages?
Are users finding the information they seek efficiently?
How to increase the website’s efficiency?
How to respond to law enforcement when information is sought from us legally?
Understanding these aspects of user behaviour is not just beneficial—it's crucial for enhancing your website's user experience. User data provides the insights needed to make informed decisions about design, content, and functionality. It allows you to tailor your site to meet user needs more effectively, potentially increasing engagement, conversions, and overall satisfaction.
By leveraging user data responsibly, the website can be transformed from a static information repository into a dynamic, user-centric platform that evolves with the audience's needs and preferences.
Hence, while using our website www.Holidaybuddie.com (including the mobile & desktop version) and mobile application (“App”), we collect some information about you. In addition, you may choose to use the App or Sites to share information with other users, including your friends and contacts (“Users”) on the website. The best & easiest way to stay transparent and inform our users is through our Privacy Policy. This Policy describes our privacy practices in plain language, keeping legal and technical jargon to a minimum.
What if you do not let us collect certain information?
Some information is required for our products to work. Other information is optional, but without it, the quality of your experience might be affected.
Where do these policies apply?
This Privacy Policy applies when you use our website www.Holidaybuddie.com and Holidaybuddie APP.
We collect Account Data, Profile Data, Content, Purchase Data, Marketing, Survey and Research Data, Third Party Data, Customer Support Data, Social Media Data, Usage Data, Technical Data and Geolocation Data. When you enter our website and create a account or download the App and create an account (“Account”), We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data (“Registration Information”) about you which we have grouped together as follows:
1.1 Data That you give us
Identity Data: first name, last name, username or similar identifier, date of birth, gender, country, & ethnicity.
Contact Data: email address & mobile numbers
Technical Data: internet protocol (IP) address, login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform
Profile / Lifestyle Data: Your marital status, your interests, preferences, education, profession, photographs, feedback and survey responses
Physical Data - Your Gender, height, body type, hair, eyes
Usage Data: information about how you use our website, products and services
Location Data: Country that you live in and your current location (if you choose to share it)
Communication Data: includes the content of messages sent through our platform and as well as the content you publish, to secure the services and to keep our community safe.
ID Data – Government issued identity card to verify your age.
1.2 Data collected by us Automatically.
The time, frequency and duration of your activities on our products.
When you subscribe to a paid service or make a purchase directly from us (rather than through a platform such as iOS or Android), you provide us with information related to the purchases you make and our payment processors with information such as your debit or credit card number or other financial information. When you make a payment for our services, we keep the details of the transaction (e.g., what service you paid for, the date of the transaction and the price).
When you participate in surveys, focus groups or market studies, you give us your insights into our products and services, responses to our questions and testimonials.
When you choose to participate in our promotions, events or contests, we collect the information that you use to register or enter.
If you contact our customer care team, we collect the information you give us during the interaction.
If you share with us information about other people (for example, if you use contact details of a friend for a given feature), we process this information on your behalf in order to complete your request.
Of course, we also process your chats with other members when as well as the content you publish to operate and secure the services and to keep our community safe.
We collect your data legally. One we collect it the information you voluntary prove us while registering in our website and app. Secondly, we collect data automatically using first party and third-party cookies legally and with your consent.
We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:
To register you as a new member
To provide and manage your account
To enable you to participate in interactive features of our service
To provide personalized recommendations for travel companions and potential dates
To improve our website, products/services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences
Your safety and security are paramount to us. We utilize your data to maintain a secure environment for all members using our service. This commitment to protection is a core part of our mission, and we continuously enhance our systems to safeguard your information.
Additionally, we process your data to provide personalized content, including relevant advertisements. We understand the importance of user control, so we've implemented customizable settings that allow you to manage how your data is used for ad personalization.
4.1 Our data processing serves dual purposes:
4.2 Data Processing Purposes:
4.2a Core Service Functions:
Account creation and management
Feature operation and maintenance
Member matching and recommendations
Customer support and issue resolution
Service monitoring and troubleshooting
Premium service application processing
4.2bPurchase Facilitation:
Payment processing
Personalized pricing and promotions
4.2c Advertising and Marketing:
Campaign performance measurement
Cross-platform marketing
Personalized product recommendations
4.2d Service Improvement:
User research and analysis
Feature development and testing
Machine learning enhancements
Academic research contributions
4.2e Safety and Security:
Terms of Service enforcement
Fraud prevention and detection
Identity verification
Payment security
4.2f Legal Compliance and Protection:
Data retention for legal purposes
Cooperation with law enforcement
Handling of legal claims and disputes
Reporting illegal activities
4.2g Legal Bases for Data Processing:
Contract Performance:
We process data necessary to fulfil our contractual obligations to you as a user of our service.
Consent:
For sensitive data or where explicitly required by law
For personalized advertising (where mandated by applicable regulations)
4.2h Legitimate Interests:
We process data based on our legitimate interests, including:
Service improvement and innovation
Marketing our services
Protecting our users, our business, and the public
Ensuring legal compliance and defending against legal claims
4.2i Vital Interests:
We may process data to protect your vital interests or those of other users in emergency situations.
4.2f Legal Obligations:
We process data to comply with our legal duties, such as responding to lawful requests from authorities.
4.2g Fairness and Inclusivity:
Where required by law, we may process certain data (including potentially sensitive information) to ensure our service remains diverse, inclusive, and equitable for all communities.
We carefully assess each processing activity to ensure it aligns with these legal bases. Our approach prioritizes transparency and respects user privacy while enabling us to provide and improve our services.
We process your data to deliver a seamless, secure, and personalized experience. This includes essential operations, enhancing our services, ensuring user safety, and meeting legal obligations. Our approach balances service functionality with user privacy, always aiming to use data responsibly and transparently.
Rest assured, we handle your information with the utmost care and respect for your privacy. You're always in control, with the ability to adjust your preferences at any time through your account settings.
5) Data Sharing Practices:
5.1 User-to-User Sharing:
Information you voluntarily make public (e.g., profile details) is visible to other users.
5.2 Reporting and Resolution Transparency:
When a user files a report about another member's conduct, such as an alleged violation of our Terms of Use, we may inform the reporting party about the outcome of their complaint. This includes any actions taken in response to the report.
This transparency works both ways. If you submit a report about another user, you may receive information about how we addressed your concerns.
Our goal is to maintain a safe and respectful community while balancing privacy and accountability. We provide this feedback to encourage responsible reporting and to demonstrate that we take user concerns seriously. This helps to maintain community standards
5.3 Service Providers and Partners: ( We do not share your banking or personal ids with them.
We collaborate with trusted entities to enhance our service, including:
5.4 Data hosting and maintenance
Analytics and customer support
Marketing and advertising
Payment processing
Legal and security operations
5.5 Advertising Ecosystem:
We display third-party ads on our platform
We advertise our service on external platforms
To improve ad relevance, we may:
Share certain user data with advertising partners
Allow partners to collect data via technologies like cookies
Use anonymized identifiers for targeted marketing
5.6 Legal and Regulatory Compliance:
We may disclose data to authorities to:
Comply with legal processes (e.g., court orders, subpoenas)
Assist in crime prevention or detection
Protect individual safety
Address legal claims
Government bodies that require us to report processing activities
5.7 Business Takeovers & Transitions:
In cases of ownership changes (e.g., mergers, acquisitions, restructuring), your data may be transferred to new owners or affiliates.
We strive to share data responsibly, prioritizing user privacy and service functionality. Our practices aim to balance transparency, legal compliance, and business needs while respecting user trust.
We may share your personal data with:
Other users of the platform (limited to the information you choose to make public in your profile)
And to law enforcement agencies when requested legally.
Service providers acting as processors who provide IT and system administration services
Professional advisers including lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers
Government bodies that require us to report processing activities
Our website service operates worldwide, which means your information may be transferred to and stored in India or other countries located out of Europe and these countries might have data protection laws that differ from those in your home country. When we move personal data out of the European Economic Area (EEA), the UK, Switzerland, or other regions like US, UK or Australia, we generally use standard contractual clauses as prescribed in GDPR. These are agreements between companies that transfer data, designed to safeguard your privacy and data security.
7.1 Before any transfer, we conduct a Transfer Impact Assessment to:
7.2 Transparency
We inform data subjects about:
7.3 Data Minimization
We only transfer personal data that is adequate, relevant, and limited to what is necessary for the specified purposes.
7.4 Security Measures
We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to ensure the security of data during transfer and processing. We have contractual commitments from recipients to protect data adequately.
7.5 Third-Party Processors
We only use third-party processors that provide sufficient guarantees to implement appropriate technical and organizational measures in compliance with the GDPR.
7.6 Data Subject Rights
We ensure that data subjects can exercise their GDPR rights regardless of where their data is processed.
7.7 Breach Notification
We have procedures in place to detect, report, and investigate personal data breaches, including those occurring during or after cross-border transfers.
7.8 Review and Updates
This policy is reviewed annually and updated as necessary to reflect changes in regulations or our data processing activities.
7.9 Legal Basis for Transfers
We transfer personal data outside India only when:
7.9a Compliance with Indian & International Laws
We ensure compliance with evolving Indian data protection laws, including any future comprehensive data protection legislation.
7.9b International Data Transfer Agreements
We monitor and comply with international data transfer agreements and mechanisms that India may enter into with other countries or regions.
7.9c Documentation and Accountability
We maintain detailed records of all cross-border data transfers to demonstrate compliance with this policy and applicable laws.
7.9d Training
We provide regular training to our staff on this policy and data protection best practices.
7.9e Policy Review
This policy is reviewed and updated annually or more frequently if required by legal or operational changes.
8) Your Rights
It is important to us that you have control over your personal information. We would like to highlight the various rights, choices and tools at your disposal. Please note that these may vary or have different names depending on your location.
8.1 The right to be informed
Right to be informed of the personal data we process about you and/or ask for a copy of it. You can access and review some data directly by logging into your account and by visiting your profile on the top corner on the right side to retrieve a copy of your data provided by you.
If you've deleted your Holidaybuddie account, you will not be able to access your profile setting as you no longer have an account on Holidaybuddie. You can always submit a request by emailing u from the email you have used for registering. After you've deleted your account, your data is deleted of in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
8.2 The right of access
8.3 The right to rectification
Right to amend or update your personal data where it’s inaccurate or incomplete. You can update your data directly within the service by simply updating your profile. If you wish to rectify other data, please contact us at
8.4 The right to erasure or deletion
Right to delete personal data. You can delete some of the data you provided us directly within the service. You can also close your account and we’ll delete your data as laid out in this Privacy Policy. In any case you find any difficulty in deleting your account email is at
8.5 The right to data portability
How to download data ?
8.6 The right to restrict and object
Right to restrict or object to us processing personal data or to request that we temporarily or permanently stop processing personal data. You can directly opt-out from certain of your personal data processing in your account settings. Otherwise you can contact us here should you wish to object to or restrict a data processing we’ve listed throughout this Privacy Policy.
8.7 Consent Withdrawal
Right to withdraw a consent you’ve given us to process your personal data for a specific purpose. You can directly withdraw consent you’ve given us either by updating your account setting or removing Device Permissions you’ve agreed to in your device settings (e.g., access to specific types of device data such as phone contacts, pictures, advertising identifiers and location services or consent to receive push notifications). When you withdraw consent, certain services may lose functionality. You can always contact us here for more information.
8.8 Rights related to automated decision making and profiling
we use automated tool to ascertain and compare matches based on information given by you, to show you potential matches with similar interests in your location for you to connect with. You have the right to object to use automated decision making or profiling for purposes that have legal or similarly significant effects on you. This includes the right to request human intervention, express your point of view, and contest decisions made solely by automated systems. We will provide meaningful information about the logic involved and the potential consequences of this processing. You may request that we do not subject you to automated decision making, including profiling, except where necessary for entering into or performing a contract, authorized by law, or based on your explicit consent.
10) Data Retention Policy
We retain your data as long as necessary for legitimate business purposes and as permitted by law. We retain your personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.
11) Account Closure and Inactivity:
You can close your account at any time, making your profile invisible to other members.
We automatically close accounts after two years of inactivity.
The retention periods for different types of data are as follows:
Active accounts: We retain your profile information, preferences, and account settings for as long as your account remains active.
Inactive accounts: If your account becomes inactive, we will retain this information for 24 months before deletion, allowing you to easily reactivate your account during this period.
Messages: We store messages between users for 12 months from the date of the last message in a conversation.
Chat logs: Chat logs are retained for 6 months after the chat session ends.
Usage Data:
Login history and app usage statistics are kept for 12 months.
Anonymized analytics data may be retained indefinitely for trend analysis and service improvement.
We retain payment transaction records for 7 years to comply with tax regulations, accounting requirements and transaction disputes
Credit card information is not stored on our servers and is handled by our secure payment processor.
Profile photos and other media uploads are retained for as long as your account is active, plus an additional 30 days after account deletion.
Your matching preferences and history are kept for the duration of your active account plus 6 months after account inactivation.
Support ticket information and correspondence are retained for 2 years after the issue is resolved.
Information related to legal issues, disputes, or compliance matters may be retained for longer periods as required by law or to protect our legal interests and third party victims.
Upon account deletion, we will remove or anonymize your personal data within 30 days, except where we are required to retain it for legal or regulatory reasons.
This data retention policy is reviewed periodically and annually. We will update our privacy policy when there is a reflection in changes of our practices or legal requirements. We are constantly trying to be better and we welcome any new suggestions and advice for improving our privacy policy.
We suggest you read this in conjunction with our cookie policy and Terms and Conditions of Use.