Privacy Policy

Tripshepherd Privacy Policy

At Tripshepherd our mission is to inspire travelers to help one another plan and book their best trip. To do that, we need to collect, use, and share some of your personal information. This Privacy Policy is meant to help you understand how Tripshepherd does that and how to exercise the choices and rights you have in your information.

The Scope of This Policy

This policy applies to all Tripshepherd users, including Travelers and Guides (including Guide applicants), and all Tripshepherd platforms and services, including our applications, websites, technology, facilities, and other services (collectively, the “Tripshepherd Platform”). This policy applies only to personal information, not to aggregate information or information that does not identify you.

The Information We Collect

When you use the Tripshepherd Platform and services, we collect the information you provide, usage information, and information about your device. We also collect information about you from other sources like service providers, and optional programs in which you participate, which we may combine with other information we have about you. Here are the types of information we collect about you:

A. Information You Provide to Us

Account Registration: When you create an account with Tripshepherd, we collect the information you provide us, such as your name, email address, phone number, birth date, profile photo, and payment information. We may ask that you provide additional information related to the identity of your account, such as documents related to identification (e.g., driver’s license), a profile picture, or “selfie” imagery.

Guide Information: If you apply to be a Guide, we will collect the information you provide in your application, including your name, email address, phone number, birth date, profile photo, physical address, government identification number (such as social security number), Guide’s license information, vehicle information, and car insurance information. We collect the payment information you provide us, including your bank routing numbers and tax information. Depending on where you want to drive, we may also ask for additional business license or permit information or other information to manage driving and programs relevant to that location. We may need additional information from you at some point after you become a Guide, including information to confirm your identity (like “selfie” imagery).

Ratings and Feedback: When you rate and provide feedback about the Tripshepherd Platform and services (including about Travelers or Guides), we collect all of the information you provide in your feedback.

Communications: When you contact us or we contact you, including through surveys or research projects, we collect any information that you provide, including the contents of the messages or attachments you send us.

B. Information We Collect When You Use the Tripshepherd Platform

Location Information: Great tours start with an easy and accurate pickup. The Tripshepherd Platform collects location information (including GPS and WiFi data, IP address, and Bluetooth data) differently depending on your Tripshepherd app settings and device permissions as well as whether you are using the platform as a Tripshepherd guide partner or a Traveler:

Travelers: We collect your device’s precise location when you open and use the Tripshepherd app, including while the app is running in the background from the time you begin your tour until it ends. Tripshepherd also tracks the precise location of vehicles at all times.

Guides: We collect your device’s precise location when you open and use the app, including while the app is running in the background. We also collect precise locations for a limited time after you exit Guide mode to detect ride incidents and continue collecting them until a reported or detected incident is no longer active.

Usage Information: We collect information about your use of the Tripshepherd Platform, including ride information like the date, time, destination, distance, route, payment, and whether you used a promotional or referral code. Our application may collect mobile sensor data, such as speed, direction, height, acceleration, deceleration, and other technical data. We also collect information about your interactions with the Tripshepherd Platform like our apps and websites, including the pages and content you view and the dates and times of your use.

Device Information: We collect information about the devices you use to access the Tripshepherd Platform, including device model, IP address, type of browser, version of operating system, identity of carrier and manufacturer, radio type (such as 4G), preferences and settings (such as preferred language), application installations, device identifiers, advertising identifiers, and push notification tokens. If you are a Guide, we also collect mobile sensor data from your device (such as speed, direction, height, acceleration, deceleration, and other technical data). If you have installed a Tripshepherd Platform device in your vehicle (e.g., a Tripshepherd dashboard device or tablet), that device may similarly collect sensor data and other information like location, as described when you choose and set up such devices.

Communications Between Travelers and Guides: We work with a third party to facilitate phone calls and text messages between Travelers and Guides without sharing either party’s actual phone number with the other. But while we use a third party to provide the communication service, we collect information about these communications and Tripshepherd Platform chat communications, including the participants’ phone numbers, the date and time, and the contents of SMS and chat messages. For security purposes, we may also monitor or record the contents of phone calls made through the Tripshepherd Platform, but we will always let you know we are about to do so before the call begins.

Address Book Contacts: You may set your device permissions to grant Tripshepherd access to your contact lists and direct Tripshepherd to access your contact list, for example, to help you refer friends to Tripshepherd. If you choose to do this, we will access the names and contact information of the people in your address book.

Calendar Information: You may set your device permissions or otherwise grant Tripshepherd access to your chosen calendar and direct Tripshepherd to access calendar information, for example, to help you get alerts for your booked tour. If you choose to do this, we will access and store information available in your calendar to use in providing you with these optional features. Tripshepherd will adhere to the applicable calendar provider policies, including Google’s API Services User Data Policy, which impose certain limitations on the use of data collected from user’s calendar accounts. You may remove Tripshepherd’s access to your accounts at any time either in-app or through your account provider settings.

Cookies, Analytics, and Third-Party Technologies: We collect information through the use of “cookies”, tracking pixels, data analytics tools like Google Analytics, SDKs, and other third-party technologies to understand how you navigate through the Tripshepherd Platform and interact with advertisements, to make your Tripshepherd experience safer, to learn what content is popular, to improve your site experience, to serve you better ads on other sites, and to save your preferences. Cookies are small text files that web servers place on your device; they are designed to store basic information and to help websites and apps recognize your browser. We may use both session cookies and persistent cookies. A session cookie disappears after you close your browser. A persistent cookie remains after you close your browser and may be accessed every time you use the Tripshepherd Platform.

Inferences: We may infer certain information from your interactions with the Tripshepherd Platform and other personal information available to us. For example, if you frequently book tours, we may infer you are a frequent traveler. We may also draw inferences from the information you provide to us, such as inferring your gender based on your first name.

C. Information We Collect From Other Sources

Service Providers and Other Parties: Service providers and other parties provide us with information needed for core aspects of the Tripshepherd Platform, as well as for additional services, programs, loyalty benefits, and promotions that can enhance your Tripshepherd experience. These service providers and other parties include background check providers, insurance partners, financial service providers, marketing providers, and other businesses. We obtain the following information about you from these parties:

Service providers and other parties provide us with information needed for core aspects of the Tripshepherd Platform, as well as for additional services, programs, loyalty benefits, and promotions that can enhance your Tripshepherd experience. These service providers and other parties include background check providers, insurance partners, financial service providers, marketing providers, and other businesses. We obtain the following information about you from these parties:

Information about your participation in third-party programs that provide things like insurance coverage and financial instruments, such as insurance, payment, transaction, and fraud detection information;

Information to operationalize loyalty and promotional/marketing programs or applications, services, or features you choose to connect or link to your Tripshepherd account, such as information about your use of such programs, applications, services, or features; and

Information about you provided by specific services, such as vehicle, demographic, and other information that helps us provide services or to personalize our marketing.

Referral Programs: Friends help friends use the Tripshepherd Platform. If someone refers you to Tripshepherd, we will collect information about you from that referral including your name and contact information.

Other Users and Sources: Other users or public or third-party sources such as law enforcement, insurers, media, or pedestrians may provide us information about you, for example as part of an investigation into an incident or to provide you support.

How We Use Your Information

We use your personal information to:

Provide the Tripshepherd applications and services;

Maintain the security and safety of the Tripshepherd Platform and its users;

Build and maintain the Tripshepherd community;

Provide customer support;

Improve the Tripshepherd Platform; and

Providing the Tripshepherd Platform: We use your personal information to provide an intuitive, useful, efficient, and worthwhile experience on our platforms. To do this, we use your personal information to:

Verify your identity and maintain your account, settings, and preferences;

Connect you to your tours and track their progress;

Provide various Tripshepherd Platform offerings to you, such as vehicle services and third-party promotional advertisements that may be personalized to you;

Calculate prices and process payments;

Allow Travelers and Guides to connect regarding their ride and to choose to share their location with others;

Communicate with you about your use of the Tripshepherd Platform and experience;

Collect feedback regarding your experience;

Facilitate additional services and programs with third parties; and

Operate contests, sweepstakes, and other promotions.

Maintaining the Security and Safety of the Tripshepherd Platform and its Users: Providing you with a secure and safe experience drives our platform, both on the road and on our apps. To do this, we use your personal information to:

Authenticate and verify users;

Verify that Guides and their vehicles meet safety requirements;

Investigate and resolve incidents, accidents, and insurance claims;

Encourage safe driving behavior and avoid unsafe activities;

Find and prevent fraud; and

Block and remove unsafe or fraudulent users from the Tripshepherd Platform.

Building and Maintaining the Tripshepherd Community: Tripshepherd works to be a positive part of the community. We use your personal information to:

Communicate with you about events, promotions, elections, and campaigns;

Personalize and provide content, experiences, communications, and targeted advertising to promote and grow the Tripshepherd Platform; and

Help facilitate donations you choose to make through the Tripshepherd Platform.

Providing Customer Support: We work hard to provide the best experience possible, including supporting you when you need it. To do this, we use your personal information to:

Investigate and assist you in resolving questions or issues you have regarding Tripshepherd Platform; and

Provide you support or respond to you.

Improving the Tripshepherd Platform: We are always working to improve your experience and provide you with new and helpful features. To do this, we use your personal information to:

Perform research, testing, and analysis;

Develop new products, features, partnerships, and services;

Prevent, find, and resolve software or hardware bugs and issues; and

Monitor and improve our operations and processes, including security practices, algorithms, and other modeling.

Responding to Legal Proceedings and Requirements: Sometimes the law, government entities, or other regulatory bodies impose demands and obligations on us with respect to the services we seek to provide. In such a circumstance, we may use your personal information to respond to those demands or obligations.

How We Disclose Your Information

We do not sell your personal information to third parties for money—no one can buy the personal information we collect from and about you and we do not act as a data broker. However, we may need to share your personal information with third parties to deliver relevant personalized ads to you on and off the Tripshepherd Platform. Some of these disclosures may constitute “sharing” or the “sale” of personal information for “targeted advertising” purposes under certain local (e.g., U.S. state) privacy laws. This section otherwise explains when, why, and with whom we disclose your information.

A. Sharing Between Tripshepherd Users

Travelers and Guides

Traveler information shared with Guide: As part of facilitating the tour booking process and ensuring a seamless experience, we share with the Guide the Traveler's pickup and destination, location, name, profile photo, rating. Once the tour is finished, we also eventually share the Traveler's rating and feedback with the Guide. (We remove the Traveler's identity associated with ratings and feedback when we share it with Guides, but a Guide may be able to identify the Traveler that provided the rating or feedback.)

Guide information shared with Traveler: Once a Traveler books a tour, we may share with the Traveler the Guide’s name, profile photo, preferred pronouns, rating, real-time location, and the vehicle make, model, color, and license plate, as well as other information in the Guide’s Tripshepherd profile, such as information Guides choose to add (like background information and reasons for tour guiding) and Guide statistics (like approximate number of tours and years as a Guide).

Although we help Travelers and Guides communicate with one another to arrange a pickup, we do not share your actual phone number or other contact information with other users when enabling this. If you report a lost or found item to us, we will seek to connect you with the relevant Traveler or Guide, which may include sharing actual contact information with your consent.

Tours Paid For by Others:

If someone else pays for a tour on your behalf, we may share some or all of your tour details with that party. This may include your identity (such as name and contact information), the date, time, cost, rating given, region of the tour, and pick-up and drop-off locations.

B. Disclosures to Service Providers to Provide the Tripshepherd Mobile Application, and Other Parties

Depending on whether you’re a Traveler or a Guide, Tripshepherd may disclose the following categories of your personal information to provide you with a variety of the Tripshepherd Platform’s features and services:

Personal identifiers, such as your name, address, email address, phone number, date of birth, government identification number (such as social security number), and driver's license information, vehicle information, and car insurance information;

Financial information, such as bank routing numbers, tax information, and any other payment information you provide us;

Commercial information, such as tour information, Traveler/Guide statistics and feedback;

Internet or other electronic network activity information, such as your IP address, type of browser, version of operating system, carrier and/or manufacturer, device identifiers, and mobile and other forms of advertising identifiers;

Location data

We disclose those categories of personal information to these other parties and service providers to fulfill the following purposes:

Maintaining and servicing your Tripshepherd account;

Processing or fulfilling tours or other offerings of the Tripshepherd Platform;

Providing you with customer service;

Processing transactions and payments;

Processing Guide applications;

Verifying the identity of users;

Detecting and preventing fraud and unsafe activity;

Providing Guide loyalty and promotional programs;

Providing marketing and advertising services to Tripshepherd, including to provide targeted and cross-contextual behavioral advertising personalized to you;

Providing analytics services to and by Tripshepherd; and

Researching to develop and improve the Tripshepherd Platform.

C. For Legal Reasons and to Protect the Tripshepherd Platform

We may disclose your personal information in response to a legal obligation, or if we have determined that disclosing your personal information is reasonably necessary or appropriate to:

Comply with any applicable federal, state, or local law or regulation, civil, criminal, or regulatory inquiry, investigation or legal process, enforceable governmental request, or requirement as a condition to operate (e.g., operating permit, license or agreement);

Respond to legal process (such as a search warrant, subpoena, summons, or court order);

Cooperate with law enforcement agencies concerning conduct or activity that we reasonably and in good faith believe may violate federal, state, or local law; or

Exercise or defend legal claims, protect against harm to our rights, property, interests, or safety or the rights, property, interests, or safety of you, third parties, or the public as required or permitted by law.

D. In Connection with the Sale or Merger

We may disclose your personal information while negotiating or in relation to a change of corporate control such as a restructuring, merger, or sale of our as

E. Upon Your Further Direction

With your permission or upon your direction, we may disclose your personal information to interact with a third party or for other purposes.

How We Store and Protect Your Information

We retain your information for as long as necessary to provide you and our other users with the Tripshepherd Platform. This means we keep your profile information for as long as you maintain an account. We retain transactional information such as tours and payments for an indefinite period to ensure we can perform legitimate business functions, such as accounting for tax obligations. We also retain your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our terms and policies. If you request account deletion, we will delete your information as outlined in the “Deleting Your Account” section below.

We take reasonable and appropriate measures designed to protect your personal information. However no security measures can be 100% effective, and we cannot guarantee the security of your information, including against unauthorized intrusions or acts by third parties.

Your Rights And Choices Regarding Your Data

As explained more below, Tripshepherd provides ways for you to access and delete your personal information as well as exercise applicable data rights that give you certain control over your personal information.

A. All Users

Email Subscriptions: You can always unsubscribe from our commercial or promotional emails by clicking unsubscribe in those messages. We will still send you transactional and relational emails about your use of the Tripshepherd Platform.

Push Notifications: You can opt out of receiving push notifications through your device settings. Please note that opting out of receiving push notifications may impact your use of the Tripshepherd mobile applications (such as receiving a notification that your tour guide has arrived for your pick-up).

Profile Information: You can review and edit certain account information you have chosen to add to your profile by logging in to your account settings and profile.

Location Information:You can prevent your device from sharing location information through your device’s system settings. But if you do, this may impact Tripshepherd’s ability to provide you with our full range of features and services. You may also control some elements of sharing your location with Tripshepherd in your Tripshepherd account settings.

Cookie Tracking:You can modify your cookie settings on your browser.

Accessing Your Information: You can see the information we have about you by logging into your account and viewing things like your profile, settings, preferences (like preferred pronouns and address shortcuts such as home and work), ride history, or payment information. In addition, you may have some information included in things we have sent to you, such as tour receipts.

Deleting Your Account: If you would like to delete your Tripshepherd account, you have the option to delete your account at any time in the Tripshepherd Platforms. When we delete your account, we may retain certain information for legitimate business purposes or to comply with legal or regulatory obligations. For example, we may retain your information to resolve open insurance claims, or we may be obligated to retain your information as part of an open legal claim. When we retain such data, we do so in ways designed to prevent its use for other purposes.

B. Location-Specific Rights

Some states such as California, Colorado, Connecticut, Montana, Oregon, Texas, Utah, and Virginia provide specific rights to residents of the state regarding personal information. Similarly, specific rights may be provided in Canada.

Links to Third-Party Websites:

The Tripshepherd Platform may contain links or references to third-party websites, products, or services. Those third parties may have privacy policies that differ from ours. We are not responsible for those third parties and their websites, products, or services, and we recommend that you review their policies. Please contact those parties directly if you have any questions about their privacy policies.

Changes to This Privacy Policy:

We may update this policy from time to time as the Tripshepherd Platform changes and privacy law evolves. If we update it, we will do so online, and if we make material changes, we will let you know through the Tripshepherd Platform or by some other method of communication like email. When you use Tripshepherd, you are agreeing to the most recent terms of this policy.

Contact Us:

If you have any questions or concerns about your privacy or anything in this policy, including if you need to access this policy in an alternative format, we encourage you to contact us.