This Privacy Notice explains how Bressenden B&B uses any personal information that is collected about you during the booking process. It also gives information about the domestic video cameras installed at the property (scroll down to the bottom of the page).
What information is collected?
When you make an online booking for you and/or others to stay at Bressenden you provide basic details of your name and email address to enable me to communicate with you. This information is not stored by me on any digital device, but is held by our two third-party bookings service providers, Freetobook and Booking.com.
I am required by law to keep a record of the name and nationality of all the paying guests who stay at Bressenden. In the case of non-UK citizens, I must also keep a record of their passport number and their next destination. These records are kept on paper only and are destroyed after 12 months. I do not use digital registration systems.
How is the information used?
- Third-party booking service providers such as Booking.com use your name, home address and credit card numbers to validate your credentials when you book online through them without my intervention. Phone or online enquiries direct to me require only a name and an email address. Payment card details taken at the time of automated online bookings via third parties are used purely as a means of ensuring that you are a real person with genuine intentions of booking. These details are not seen by me and are not used to take payment. I do not take advance payments or deposits. I take payment from you in person during your stay by whatever means you choose (cash, debit card or credit card). If you pay by card, my card reader and its associated software does not reveal or store any of your personal data or your card details; it simply records the fact that a transaction was made, the date and amount of the transaction and the type of payment (card or cash).
- My booking service providers use your email address to send you confirmation of the booking and a further email with more details on how to find Bressenden and other information that you may find useful for your stay. After your stay you will receive an automatic email from one or both of my booking service providers asking you to fill in an optional feedback form. These emails are out of my control and not sent by me personally.
- This website has a contact form on which you are required to fill your name, email address and, optionally, your telephone number, to enable me to respond to your enquiry. Your message is emailed to me but is not stored on my website’s server. It is automatically deleted from my email account once it has served its original purpose, which is to enable me to respond to your enquiry and/or process a booking for accommodation as part of Bressenden’s core business activity.
- If you proceed with a booking, I may use the telephone number that you have provided to contact you before or during your stay in an emergency. I may telephone or text you if it is necessary to cancel or amend your booking due to unforeseen circumstances, or if, for example, you do not arrive at your intended check-in time. I may also text you immediately after your stay to contact you if you have inadvertently left behind some of your belongings. Your phone number is not programmed into my phone but is retrieved as needed from my third-party booking service, whether this be Freetobook or Booking.com. Both of these organisations delete your phone number after a set period of time. I delete your phone number from my phone at the end of our communication.
How is your data stored?
All of the personal and debit/credit card information you supply as part of the booking process is stored securely on the UK-based hospitality bookings service provider, Freetobook. Neither I nor Freetobook will share your information with any third party unless there is a legal obligation for doing so (for example, if the police asked me for it). If you booked via Booking.com, you did so at your own risk and agreed to the terms and conditions which pertain to Booking.com’s own privacy policy. I do not personally store in digital form any of the information that you have provided to Freetobook or Booking.com, other than your phone number as per the circumstances outlined in the section above. If I need to consult your data as it relates to a booking, I do so by logging in to the websites of those respective platforms.
Marketing
I do not do any marketing. After you have received Freetobook’s automated request for feedback following your stay, you will not hear from Bressenden or Freetobook again. If you booked via Booking.com, you may receive marketing messages from Booking.com, which are of course outside my control.
Access to your information
You have the right to request a copy of the information that is held by me, Freetobook or Booking.com about you. It should, of course, only consist of information that you have given to me or them.
Cookies
The only cookies on my website are essential cookies to enable the website, the contact form thereon and the Freetobook booking software elements within to function. My UK-based Internet service provider (34SP.com) carries out regular checks and updates to ensure that my website is protected from viruses and safeguarded against malicious intent and spam attacks.
Cameras
There are five external cameras mounted on the outside of the property, which is also my private home. One camera faces east and looks over the turning circle and car parking area at the main entrance to the property. It is active at all times of day and night and alerts me when someone has entered the grounds from the roadside gate. A similar camera, facing north, covers the gardens, garages and outbuildings at the rear of the property. Another camera looks out over the garden on the west side of the house and monitors a side door into the house. It is only activated at night and when the house is unattended. The other two are doorbell cameras next to the south-facing front door and north-facing back door of the main house. The doorbell cameras are activated at night. During the day, they are activated only when the doorbells are rung or when the house is unattended. None of the external cameras are pointed at windows. The purpose of these cameras is solely to notify me of the arrival of visitors, guests, trades persons and delivery personnel and to warn me when someone has entered the property. It is emphatically not to monitor or record the behaviour of residents, guests or contracted employees who are working in my grounds.
Indoor cameras cover certain private rooms on the ground floor to which guests do not have access. The two cameras in the entrance hall and breakfast room are activated at night to alert me in the event that someone has entered those areas at unexpected times and to notify me when guests have arrived for breakfast, at which point they are switched off.
The video footage is password-protected and is kept securely online for 30 days, after which it is automatically deleted by the service provider (Ring.com) and cannot be retrieved. The footage is not downloaded onto any local computer, phone or other device.