HOETUS has been formed to be the bridge of foundation for an everlasting bond between the numerous home-stay / eco-stay owners located at various villages and towns of the country, and the travellers from all across the world who care to travel to eco-friendly destinations. A fundamental part of earning that trust means being clear about how we use your information and protecting the human right to privacy.
This Privacy Policy describes how HOETUS LLP and its affiliates (“we,” “us,” or “HOETUS”), process personal information in relation to your use of the HOETUS Platform. Depending on where you live and what you are doing on the HOETUS Platform, the supplemental privacy points listed below may apply to you. Please review the supplemental information describing how we process personal information.
We collect personal information about you when you use the HOETUS 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 an HOETUS user, we may receive payment information relating to you, such as when an HOETUS user provides your payment card to complete a booking. 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.
You can choose to provide us with additional personal information. This information may include:
• Additional Profile Information. Such as gender, preferred language(s), food preferences, 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-traveller. By providing us with personal information about others, you certify that you have permission to provide that information to HOETUS for the purposes of making a booking through us and that you have shared the HOETUS Privacy Policy with them, and that they have read and understood that it applies to them as well.
When you use the HOETUS App and Payment Services, we automatically collect personal information. This information may include:
• Geo-location Information Such as precise or approximate location determined from mobile device’s GPS depending on your device settings.
• Usage Information Such as the pages or content you view, searches for Listings, bookings you have made, and other actions on the HOETUS app
• Payment Transaction Information.Such as payment instrument used, date and time, payment amount, payment instrument expiration date and billing postcode, UPI ID, your address, and other related transaction details.
1.4 Personal Information We Collect from Third Parties.
We collect personal information from other sources, such as:
• Referrals and co-travelers.If you are invited to the HOETUS App, 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 your health information related to contagious diseases
2.1 Provide, Improve, and Develop the HOETUS App. Such as to:
• enable you to access the HOETUS App 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 HOETUS App, your search and booking history, your profile information and preferences, and other content you submit.
• detect and prevent fraud, spam, abuse, security and safety incidents, and other harmful activity.
• study and combat discrimination.
• 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, Host Members, Hosts’ employees, and members of the public.
• comply with law, respond to legal requests, prevent harm, and protect our rights.
For example to:
• send you promotional messages, marketing, advertising, and other information based on your preferences and consent.
• personalize, measure, and improve our advertising.
• administer referral programs, rewards, surveys, contests, or other promotional activities or events sponsored or managed by HOETUS or its third-party partners.
• invite you to events and relevant opportunities.
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 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.
3. SHARING & DISCLOSURE
3.1 Sharing With Your Consent or at Your Direction
Where permissible under applicable law, and your consent, 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 HOETUS, or otherwise promote our products and services.
3.2 Sharing Between Members.
To help facilitate bookings or other interactions between Members, we may need to share certain information such as:
• 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.
3.3 Information You Publish in Profiles, Listings, and other Public Information.
You can make certain information publicly visible to others, such as:
• Your public profile page, which includes your profile photo, name, description, and partial address.
• Reviews, ratings, and other public feedback.
• Content in a community or discussion forum, blog, or social media post.
Host Members may use third-party services to help manage or deliver their services, such as cleaning services or lock providers. Hosts may use basic date on the HOETUS App to share information about the Guest (like check-in and check-out dates, Guest name, Guest phone number) with such third-party service providers.
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 court order) or to respond to claims asserted against HOETUS, (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 and policies with Members or (v) protect the rights, property or personal safety of HOETUS, 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 HOETUS, our Members, or expose HOETUS to a claim of obstruction of justice.
In jurisdictions where HOETUS facilitates or requires a registration, notification, permit, or license application or number of a Host member, with a governmental authority, we may share information of participating Host Member 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.
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 HOETUS 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.
If HOETUS 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 may notify you before your personal information is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.
You can exercise any of the rights described in this section consistent with applicable law. We may ask you to verify your identity and request before taking further action on your request.
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 HOETUS Account for fraud or safety reasons, we may retain information from that HOETUS Account to prevent that Member from opening a new HOETUS Account in the future.
• We may retain and use your personal information to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations. For example, HOETUS and HOETUS Payments affiliates 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 HOETUS, even after your HOETUS Account is cancelled. 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.
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.
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. If you disagree with the revised Privacy Policy, you may 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 HOETUS Platform will be subject to the revised Privacy Policy.