This Privacy Policy explains how Ascendant (“we,” “us,” or “Ascendant”), handle personal information that we collect through the Ascendant Service. Ascendant Service includes our website, along with all related features, tools, and services.
DEFINITIONS Terms that are not defined in this Privacy Policy have the same meaning as in our Terms of Service (“Terms”).
2.1 Information that is collected automatically. We also automatically collect some personal information. This may include:
Geo-location Information. When your device or browser is set to share location information, we may collect information about your exact or approximate location determined from your IP address or the GPS of your device. We may collect this information when you are not using the Service if this is enabled through your device or browser settings. You can usually control or disable the use of location services for applications using a settings menu on your device or browser. Usage Information. Information about how you interact with the Service, such as the pages or content you view, searches for rooms, bookings you make, and other actions. Log Data and Device Information. We may log and store details about how you access and use the Service, such as the link you follow to reach the Service, your IP address, access dates and times, hardware and software information, operating system version, mobile network information, device information, device event information, unique identifiers, crash data, cookie data, and the pages you view or engage with before or after using the Service. We may collect this information even if you haven’t created a Ascendant account or logged in. HT Perks Program. Information related to your participation in our perks program, like the total amount of the bookings you have made using the Service. Cookies and Similar Technologies. We explain our collection and use of this information in our Cookie Policy.
2.2 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 Service with a third-party service (e.g. Apple, Google or Facebook) and you instruct or allow that service to send us information such as your registration and profile information. Other Guests. If someone adds you as a guest on a booking they make, that person can submit personal information about you such as your first and last name and your email address. If the person provides your email address for a booking then you will receive a copy of the receipt. Other Sources. To the extent permitted by applicable law, we may obtain additional information about you, such as information to help detect fraud and safety issues from third-party service providers, affiliates, and/or partners, and combine it with information we have about you. For example, we may receive fraud alerts 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 Ascendant Service, or about your experiences and interactions with affiliates or our partners.
3. HOW WE USE INFORMATION WE COLLECT
3.1 Provide, Improve, and Develop the Service. We may use personal information to:
enable us to offer our Service (e.g. to provide you with relevant hotel options based on your location, to process your booking, or to send you booking confirmations via email or text message), perform analytics, debug, and conduct research, provide customer service and technical support, send you messages, updates, security alerts, and account notifications, and personalize and customize your experience based on your interactions with the Service, your search and booking history, your account information and preferences, and other content you submit.
3.2 Create and Maintain a Safer Environment. We may use personal information to:
detect and prevent fraud, spam, abuse, security and safety incidents, and other harmful activity, verify or authenticate information provided by you, conduct security investigations and risk assessments, conduct checks against databases and other information sources, study and combat discrimination, protect the health and well-being of our guests, Suppliers, Suppliers’ personnel, and members of the public, resolve disputes with our Suppliers, enforce our agreements with third parties, comply with law, respond to legal requests, prevent harm, and protect our right enforce our Terms and other contracts and policies, and profile based on your interactions with the Service, other content you provide, and information obtained from third parties. In limited cases, automated processes could restrict or suspend your access to the Service if we detect activity that poses a safety or other risk to Ascendant, our community, or third parties. If you would like to challenge the decisioning based on the automated process, please contact us via the Contact Information section below.
3.3 Provide, Personalize, Measure, and Improve our Advertising and Marketing. We may use personal information to:
send you promotional messages, news, marketing, advertising, and other information, including through social media platforms, personalize, measure, and improve our advertising, manage or administer referral programs, rewards, surveys, sweepstakes, contests, or other promotional activities or events sponsored or managed by Ascendant or its third-party partners, and analyze characteristics and preferences to send you promotional messages, marketing, advertising, and other information that we think might be relevant to you.
4. SHARING & DISCLOSURE We do not sell your personal information to third parties. We share your personal information in the following limited circumstances:
4.1 Sharing With Your Consent or at Your Direction. Where you give consent, we share your information as described at the time of consent, such as when allowing a third-party application or website to access your Ascendant account or joining in promotional activities.
Where allowed 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, to drive traffic to the Service, or to otherwise promote our products and services.
4.2 Sharing with Suppliers or Other Travelers. When you make a reservation, certain information may be shared with the Supplier to help with coordinating your stay, like your name, your email address, and your phone number. If you add another guest to a reservation, your full name, travel dates, Supplier information, and other reservation details will be shared with that guest.
4.3 Complying with Law, Responding to Legal Requests, Preventing Harm, and Protecting our Rights. We may disclose your personal information to courts, law enforcement, governmental or public authorities, tax authorities, or authorized third parties, if and to the extent we are required or allowed to do so by law, or where disclosure is reasonably necessary:
(i) to comply with our legal obligations,
(ii) to comply
4.4 Complying with Law, Responding to Legal Requests, Preventing Harm, and Protecting our Rights. We may disclose your personal information to courts, law enforcement, governmental or public authorities, tax authorities, or authorized third parties, if and to the extent we are required or allowed to do so by law, or where disclosure is reasonably necessary:
(i) to comply with our legal obligations,
(ii) to comply with a valid legal request or to respond to claims made against Ascendant,
(iii) to respond to a valid legal request related 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) to enforce and administer our agreements with Suppliers, or
(v) to protect the rights, property or personal safety of Ascendant, its employees, its users, or members of the public. Where legally required or permissible under applicable law, we may disclose information to tax authorities for the purpose of the tax authorities’ verification of proper compliance with relevant tax obligations.
Where appropriate, we may notify users 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 safety risk to an individual or group, or create or increase a risk of fraud upon or harm to Ascendant, our users, or expose Ascendant to a claim of obstruction of justice.
4.5 Service Providers. We share personal information with affiliated and unaffiliated service providers to help us run our business, including service providers that help us:
(i) verify your identity,
(ii) perform risk and fraud assessment,
(iii) perform product development,
maintenance and debugging,
(iv) enable the provision of the Service through third-party platforms and software tools (e.g. through the integration with our APIs),
(v) provide customer service or advertising, and
(vi) process payments. These providers are contractually obligated to protect your personal information and have access to your personal information to perform these tasks.
4.6 Corporate Affiliates. To support us in providing, integrating, protecting, promoting and improving the Service, we may share personal information with members of our group of companies for business, operational or safety and security reasons, including Airbnb, Inc., as well as any parent, subsidiary or affiliate of Ascendant.
5. THIRD-PARTY PARTNERS AND INTEGRATIONS Parts of the Service may link to third-party services not owned or operated by Ascendant, such as Google Maps/Earth. Use of these services is subject to the terms and 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), and Apple’s Licensed Application End User Agreement. Ascendant does not own or operate these third parties and when you interact with them providing your information to them.
6. YOUR RIGHTS You can exercise any of the rights described in this section consistent with applicable law by contacting us using the information provided in the section below titled “Contact Information.” Please note that we may ask you to verify your identity and other information before taking further action on your request. Learn more about rights under the GDPR here.
6.1 Managing Your Information. You can access and update some of your personal information through your Account settings. If you connect or login to the Ascendant Service using a third-party service like Facebook, Google or Apple, you can unlink from that service using that third party’s settings. You are responsible for keeping your personal information up to date.
6.2 Data Access and Portability. In some jurisdictions, applicable law may entitle you to request certain information about how we handle your personal information, including the categories of personal information we collect, use, or share, and the purposes for which we collect them. You may also be entitled to 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 this is technically possible.
6.3 Data Erasure. In certain jurisdictions, you can request that your personal information be deleted. Please note that if you request the erasure of your personal information:
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 a Ascendant Account for fraud or safety reasons, we may retain information from that Ascendant Account to prevent that user from opening a new Ascendant Account in the future. We may retain and use your personal information to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations. For example, we may keep information for tax, legal reporting, and auditing obligations. Information you have shared with others (e.g., Reviews) will continue to be publicly visible on Ascendant, even after your Ascendant Account is deleted. 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.
SECURITY While no organization can guarantee perfect security, we are regularly implementing and updating administrative, technical, and physical security measures to help protect your information against unauthorized access, loss, destruction, or alteration.
CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY We reserve the right to change 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. 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 Ascendant Service will be subject to the revised Privacy Policy.
CONTACT INFORMATION For questions or complaints about this Privacy Policy or Ascendant's handling of personal information, contact Ascendant, Murree Hills, Islamabad, Pakistan, or by email at customer.service@ascendant.travel or Whatsapp: +92 301 1001984