Draft Legal · Local Friend Tour
Privacy, in plain words
We collect what we need to plan and run your trip, and nothing more. We don’t sell your information, we don’t show ads and we don’t track you around the web. Your “My trip” list and language choice stay in your own browser. You can ask to see, correct or delete your information at any time.
A draft to be reviewed by a lawyer in Ecuador before it is final.
01Who is responsible for your information
The person responsible for your information (the “data controller”, in the words of the law) is Local Friend Tour:
- Trade name
- Local Friend Tour
- Run by
- Allyson Alemán, founder and licensed national tour guide
- Legal name
- Allyson Aleman (as shown on GetYourGuide) [Allyson to confirm: the exact legal name registered with the SRI for this RUC]
- RUC
- 0993375394001
- Registered in
- Villamil Playas, Guayas, Ecuador
- Legal address
- [Allyson to confirm: full street address of the registered domicile]
- hello@localfriendtour.com
- WhatsApp and phone
- +593 96 316 7240
- Tourism registration
- [Allyson to confirm: Ministry of Tourism registration number, if the business holds one]
Data protection officer: we have not appointed one. [Lawyer to confirm: confirm that one is not required under Art. 48 of the data protection law]
This notice follows Ecuador’s Ley Orgánica de Protección de Datos Personales (Registro Oficial, 26 May 2021), which we call “the data protection law” below.
02At a glance
- YesWe use what you tell us to answer you and to plan and run your trip.
- NoWe never sell, rent or trade your information.
- NoNo advertising trackers, no profiling, no cookies of our own on this site.
- YesYour “My trip” list and language choice are kept only in your browser.
- YesInterview videos load from YouTube only when you press play.
- YesYou can see, correct or delete your information whenever you like.
03What we collect, and why
| What | Why | Legal basis | How long |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your messages | What you write in the contact form, email, WhatsApp, Instagram or TikTok: your name, how to reach you, dates, group size, interests and anything else you choose to tell us. We use it to answer you and design your proposal. | Steps you ask us to take before a contract (Art. 7.5) | [Allyson to confirm: how long you keep conversations that don’t become a trip] |
| Booking details | Full names as in passports, passport or ID number, nationality, date of birth, flight times and an emergency contact. Hotels, transport, boats, domestic flights, the Galápagos entry process and insurers need them. | Carrying out your trip (Art. 7.5) and legal requirements (Art. 7.2) | [Lawyer to confirm: how long tourism and tax rules require booking records to be kept] |
| Health, diet and mobility | Allergies, dietary needs, medical conditions, pregnancy or mobility needs, only if you choose to tell us, so we can keep you safe and comfortable. | Your explicit consent, because this is sensitive data (Arts. 25 and 26) | [Allyson to confirm: delete after the trip, or another period] |
| Invoice details | Name, ID, RUC or passport number, address and email, for the electronic invoice (factura) that Ecuadorian tax law requires. | Legal obligation (Art. 7.2) | As long as tax law requires [Lawyer to confirm: period] |
| Payments | The details needed to receive your payment. This website doesn’t take payments or store card numbers. [Allyson to confirm: how payments are taken: bank transfer, card payment link, platform, and which provider] | Carrying out your trip (Art. 7.5) and legal obligation (Art. 7.2) | As long as tax law requires [Lawyer to confirm: period] |
| Trip photos | If a guide takes photos of you during the trip, we send them to you. We only publish photos where you can be recognised with your permission. | Your consent (Art. 7.1) | [Allyson to confirm: how long you keep trip photos] |
| Public reviews | Reviews you wrote on ToursByLocals, GetYourGuide, Tripadvisor, Viator or Google: the name or initial as the platform shows it, the text, date and rating, with a link to the original, so visitors can read real feedback. | Information made public on those platforms (Art. 7.7) and our legitimate interest (Art. 7.8) | While shown on the site; we remove yours if you ask |
We keep this information in our email, our WhatsApp business account and our booking records. [Allyson to confirm: where booking records are kept, for example a spreadsheet or booking software, and who on the team can see them]
04What stays in your browser
Two small things are saved in your own browser (in its “local storage”), not on our servers:
- lft-trip: the experiences you add to “My trip” while browsing.
- lft-lang: whether you chose English or Spanish.
We can’t see them. They stay until you clear your browser’s site data. When you press “Send to Allyson”, your list opens as a WhatsApp message or an email that you can read and edit before sending. Once you send it, it’s a message like any other (see the table above).
This site doesn’t set cookies of its own.
05Things on this site that come from other companies
- Fonts. Our typefaces are served from our own website, so loading them sends nothing to a third party.
- cdnjs (Cloudflare). Some pages load an animation library from cdnjs, which also receives your IP address.
- YouTube. On the Meet Allyson page, nothing loads from YouTube until you press play. The video then loads from youtube-nocookie.com, YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode, and Google’s privacy policy applies to what happens in the player.
- Hosting. [Allyson to confirm: the hosting provider; like most hosts it keeps short server logs (IP address, page, time) for security]
- Contact form. [Allyson to confirm: which service delivers contact-form messages to you, and where it stores them]
- Analytics. None today. If we add visitor statistics, they will be privacy-friendly and cookie-less, without personal profiles, and we’ll update this page first.
- Links. Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp and the booking and review platforms have their own privacy policies, which apply once you’re there.
07Information that travels outside Ecuador
WhatsApp (Meta), our email provider [Allyson to confirm: which email provider], the booking platforms and our hosting may store information on servers outside Ecuador, for example in the United States or Europe. We use well-known services with security safeguards. [Lawyer to confirm: confirm the safeguards required for international transfers under Art. 55 and following of the data protection law]
08How long we keep it, and how we protect it
We keep each kind of information for the time shown in the table above, then delete it or make it anonymous.
We protect it with practical measures: [Allyson to confirm: for example two-step login on email and WhatsApp, a password manager, and who on the team can see bookings]. Guides and partners receive only what they need for your trip.
If a security problem ever puts your rights at risk, we’ll tell you without delay, as the law requires (Art. 46).
09Your rights, and how to use them
Under the data protection law you can ask us to:
- show you the information we hold about you (access, Art. 13);
- correct or update it (Art. 14);
- delete it (Art. 15);
- stop using it for a purpose (objection, Art. 16), or pause its use while something is checked (Art. 19);
- give it to you in a common format, or send it to someone else (portability, Art. 17);
- withdraw your consent at any time, for example for health details or photos.
How: write to hello@localfriendtour.com or WhatsApp us with the words “Privacy request”. We may ask you to confirm it’s really you. It costs nothing. The law gives us 15 days to answer requests to see, correct, delete or object (Arts. 13 to 16).
Sometimes we must keep something, for example an invoice that tax law requires us to keep. If so, we tell you what and why (Art. 18).
10If you’d rather not tell us something
You can start planning with just a first name and a way to reach you. To book, some details are required by hotels, boats, airlines or the Galápagos authorities; without them we can’t make those bookings. Health details are optional, but they help us keep you safe.
For example
A wrong digit in a passport number can mean being refused at the Galápagos airport or at boarding. Please double-check the details you send.
11Children
We collect children’s details only from their parents or legal guardians, and only what the trip needs. Teenagers from 15 can give their own consent for their information (Arts. 21 and 24).
12No automated decisions, no profiling, no surprise marketing
We don’t use software to make decisions about you, and we don’t build profiles of you. We only send you news or offers if you ask for them, and you can stop them at any time.
13Questions and complaints
Write to hello@localfriendtour.com with any question or complaint about your information. If you’re not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to the Superintendencia de Protección de Datos Personales, Ecuador’s data protection authority: spdp.gob.ec.
14Changes to this notice
When we change this notice, we update the “Last updated” date and add a line to the change log on the Legal page. If a change affects information you have already given us for a trip, we’ll tell you directly.
Questions about this page?
Write to us. A real person answers, usually Allyson herself.
Also read: Terms · Bookings & cancellations