Swapoffi takes the protection of your data seriously. We want you to feel confident that we are keeping your data secure, and that we handle and process it in accordance with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In our data protection policy, we explain what personal data we collect, how we collect it, what we use your data for and how we safeguard it.

Data Protection Policy – Summary

This policy explains what information Swapoffi collects when you join our community.

1. Swapoffi will collect personal information to verify an applicant member’s personal profile and contact details; to verify their home address for proof of existence and for proof of ownership or rental for swapping; and to verify their wi-fi strength for robustness and reliability.
2. Some of this information will be shared only with other verified members, who have agreed a swap with another verified member. This facilitates the delivery of the home swap service between agreed and verified members.
3. Outside of confirmed swap arrangements, other verified members can only view public profile information for members and their homes, not the full information they have disclosed to Swapoffi for validation.
4. At any time, a member may edit or cancel their membership. The calendar advertising swap dates for your home will automatically be cancelled at the same time, therefore preventing future bookings. You will still have access to your profile and all your information will be saved unless you state it when cancelling your membership
5. Swapoffi will store personal information taken at the time of membership, accessible only by approved members of staff. The information must be stored for six years by law for Irish Revenue (Tax) purposes.
6. As a home exchange community, we encourage all members to communicate only on the Swapoffi website. This protects members more than communicating directly with others, using private contact details.
7. Swapoffi will never pass members’ information on to any third-party business, other than those businesses who provide Swapoffi with I.T. or marketing facilities and who have established approved privacy policies.

Data Protection Policy

1. Company Information

This website is owned and operated by Tarotto Ltd., Office 2, 12A Lower Main Street, Lucan, DUBLIN, K78X5P8, Ireland. E-mail: [email protected]

1.2 Statement Review

This Statement will be regularly reviewed to ensure we continue to meet our obligations in processing your personal data and protecting your privacy. In order to do so we reserve the right to update, modify and amend this statement at any time as required. We would recommend that you check back regularly to keep informed of any updates. We will not make any significant changes to the statement without informing you.

1.3 Protecting your Information

We are committed to protecting your personal data and to implementing appropriate technical and organisational security measures to protect it against any unauthorised or unlawful processing and against any accidental loss, destruction, or damage.

2. Types of Information Collected

We collect two types of information from our website:

• “Personal Data” This is data that identifies you or can be used to identify or contact you and may include your name, address, email address and telephone number. As a home exchange site, we also need to confirm your home address and proof of residence. We will ask you to upload images and a description of your home to be displayed on our website. Members and non-members may browse this website. Full information is only displayed to verified members. As a home office exchange site, we also need to confirm that your home offers a robust Wi-Fi service.
• “Non-Personal Data” Like most websites, we gather statistical and other analytical information collected on an aggregate basis of all visitors to our website. This ‘Non-Personal Data’ comprises information that cannot be used to identify or contact you, such as demographic information regarding, for example, browser types and other anonymous statistical data involving the use of our website.

3. Messages between Members

The purpose of private messaging on the Swapoffi platform is to research and advance potential swaps between verified members who can enquire about a home and / or a destination before reaching a decision whether to swap or not.
Just like moderators on any online forum, we have a duty to protect members and to avoid spam, advertising, abuse or worse. Therefore, we monitor and collect private messages between members for security reasons and quality control only. Swapoffi will never share this information with any third parties.

4. Purposes for which we hold your information

• Personal Data
We will process any Personal Data you provide to us for the following purposes: (a) to enable us to verify you, your home, your home office and your Wi-Fi (b) to facilitate members’ communications with each other; (c) to facilitate a home swap and (d) if a member has ‘opted in’ to receive marketing material, to keep them up to date with company updates, news and offers.
• Non-Personal Data
We use the Non-Personal Data gathered from visitors to our website in an aggregate form to get a better understanding of where our visitors come from and to help us better design and organise our website.
• Marketing Emails (opt in members only)
We use a specialised I.T. service provider to help us run our email marketing services (Mailchimp). Mailchimp only has access to your name and email address in the course of providing services on our behalf and is subject to strict contractual restrictions to ensure that your data is protected, in compliance with data protection legislation. You can find out more about Mailchimp’s commitment to privacy here:- Mailchimp Privacy Statement. Members receiving marketing emails will always be given the option to ‘unsubscribe’ from mailing lists easily by using a link contained within all email messages.

5. What Personal Information Do We Collect and Retain?

If you purchase a product from our website, Swapoffi collects the following personal information about you for member service. To comply with Irish record keeping laws for tax purposes, we must store this information securely for six years after each annual tax return.

1. Forename and surname
2. Membership fee paid
3. E-mail
4. Telephone number
5. Home address

Our Data Protection Officer is Denise Doran who can be contacted via email [email protected].

6. Disclosure of Information to Third Parties

We will not disclose your Personal Data to third parties unless the third party is required to fulfill our home exchange service. We will disclose your Personal Data if we believe in good faith that we are required to disclose it in order to comply with any applicable law, a summons, a search warrant, a court or regulatory order, or other statutory requirement.

6.1 Disclosure of Information to Third Party Service Providers

Like most business operators, Swapoffi use several third-party service providers to supply various I.T. resources. These resources include databases used to store member information. These third-party service providers would have access to your personal information if needed to perform their functions, but they will never use your personal information for other purposes. Swapoffi uses only large, well established service providers and ensure that these third-party service providers will only process your personal data in accordance with this policy and applicable Data Protection legislation.

7. Sale of Business

We reserve the right to transfer information (including your Personal Data) to a third party in the event of a sale, merger, liquidation, receivership, or transfer of all or substantially all of the assets of our company provided that the third party agrees to adhere to the terms of this Privacy Policy and provided that the third party only uses your Personal Data for the purposes that you provided it to us. You will be notified in the event of any such transfer, and you will be afforded an opportunity to opt-out.

8. Security

Your Personal Data is stored within a controlled area on a password protected secure database and is accessible only by members of our staff and authorised third party service providers. Passwords and personal data (e.g. your passport or photographic ID, any documentation you have provided Swapoffi to demonstrate proof of ownership of your name, any documentation you have provided Swapoffi with your name and home address to prove internet access and speed) are stored in a database after being encrypted by an irreversible algorithm.

9. Your Rights

You have the following rights in connection with your personal information processed by Swapoffi:

1. ACCESS – you can request access to your personal information and further details about how your personal information is handled by Swapoffi. We may charge a small fee for this.
2. OBJECT – you have the right to object to our processing of your personal information for direct marketing purposes or where the processing isn’t necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by Swapoffi or by a third party.
3. RECTIFICATION – you can request rectification of any incorrect personal data held about you.
4. ERASURE – you can request erasure of any personal data where the processing isn’t necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by Swapoffi or by a third party.

You have the right at any time to withdraw consent to receiving marketing from Swapoffi and/or to amend the delivery method we use. To manage your rights and delivery preferences please follow the instructions in our marketing communications, enquiry forms or write to us at: Post: Tarotto, Office 2, 12A Lower Main Street, Lucan, DUBLIN, K78X5P8, Ireland. Email: [email protected]. You can also exercise any of these rights at any time by contacting us using the contact details provided below. If you are concerned or have questions about how Swapoffi handles your personal data please contact us and we will do our best to assist you. Please note that you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (or any other appropriate supervisory authority), which may be accessed through the following link.

10. Changes to our Privacy Policy

Any changes to our Privacy Policy will be posted on this website so you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. If at any time we decide to use Personal Data in a manner significantly different from that stated in this Privacy Policy, or otherwise disclosed to you at the time it was collected, we will notify you by email, and you will have a choice as to whether or not we use your information in the new manner.

11. Cookie Policy

What are cookies?

A cookie is a piece of data stored by a website within a browser, and then subsequently sent back to the same website by the browser. Cookies were designed to be a reliable mechanism for websites to remember things that a browser had done there in the past, which can include having clicked particular buttons, logging in, or having visited certain pages. Cookies cannot carry viruses. They are used to perform essential functions on our website. Removing them could impact your experience when using websites.

How do we use cookies?

The cookies used on our website can be broken down into four categories:

• Functional
• Tracking
• Personalisation
• Remarketing*

*Remarketing is a type of targeted advertising that displays our adverts on 3rd Party websites across the internet to users who have previously visited this website. Remarketing involves collecting cookies to inform, optimise and serve adverts based on someone’s past visits to this website. To opt out of this type of advertising you can use this free Google tool.

What can you do?

You can delete cookies stored on your computer or change your privacy settings at any time via your browser settings.

• Internet Explorer
• Chrome
• Firefox
• Safari
• Opera

Changes to our Privacy Policy

Swapoffi keeps its privacy policy under regular review and places any updates on this webpage. This Privacy Policy was last updated on February 20th, 2024.