PRIVACY POLICY

 

Last Updated: November 12, 2024

 

This Privacy (“Policy”) governs the access to and use of all parts of the website and services branded as MetaHomes (“MetaHomes”, “we”, “our”, “us”) and referring to the domain https://www.metahomes.net/ (hereinafter referred as the “Platform”) and all documents, data, materials or other information made available on the Platform.

 

This Policy applies to all visitors and/or users (“User”, “you”, “your”) who act in their own personal capacity. Please read this Policy along with our Terms of Services carefully, and note that by using MetaHomes, you are consenting to the collection, storage, processing and transfer of your personal information as described in this Policy.

 

1. PERSONAL DATA COLLECTION AND STORAGE

 

As part of our business, we collect personal data from customers and potential customers that include, but are not limited to, the following:

 

As part of our business operations, we collect and store personal data from customers, potential customers, service providers, and other users of the MetaHomes Platform. The personal data we collect may include, but is not limited to, the following:

 

• Contact Information: Name, surname, email address, telephone number.

 

• Payment Information: Payment and receipt details, including payment card numbers, expiration dates, billing addresses, and financial account information.

 

• Membership Information: Information related to your membership status, account type, or subscription details.

 

• Demographic Information: Birth date and gender (if applicable).

 

• Geolocation Data: Location information derived from your use of the Platform, such as IP address or GPS data, where applicable.

 

• Social media and Public Information: Social media account IDs and other publicly available personal information linked to your interactions with MetaHomes.

 

• Communications with Us: Communications between you and MetaHomes, including recorded phone calls, emails, chat logs, and other correspondence (for purposes of quality assurance, training, and customer support).

 

• Platform Usage Data: Searches you conduct, transactions you make, and other interactions with the MetaHomes Platform (e.g., property searches, bookings, or inquiries).

 

• User-to-User Communications: Communications that occur through the Platform among users, including messages and shared information within the Platform.

 

• Transaction and Search History: The searches, transactions, and activities you conduct through the MetaHomes Platform, including your interaction history with listings, agents, and service providers.

 

• Data About Other People: Information you provide to us about other individuals, such as travel companions or people for whom you are making a booking or reservation.

 

• Guest Preferences: If you are a guest (customer), we may collect property-related preferences, including locations, property types, special requirements, and accessibility needs.

 

• Host or Agent Information: If you are a host, agent, or service provider, we will collect information about you and your properties, including property details, listings, and service availability.

 

• Third-Party Data: Information we receive about you from other Metaworld companies or third-party partners, affiliates, and authorized service providers, which may include updated contact details, demographic information, interests, purchase history, and other data. This data may be added to your profile or account and used for market research, analytics, and personalized services.

 

• Cookies and Tracking Technologies:  We use cookies and other tracking technologies to collect information about your use of our Platform. Cookies are small text files stored by your browser on your device, which send information back to our web server when you access our Platform. Cookies help us personalize your experience by saving your settings and preferences. You can find more information about how we use cookies in our "Cookies Policy" available on the Platform.

 

2. MOBILE APPS

 

When you download and use any of our mobile apps, we collect certain technical information from your device to enable the app to work properly and as otherwise described in this Privacy Statement. That technical information the following:

• IP Address,
• Device Type,
• Unique device identification numbers,
• Internet browser-type (such as Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, and Internet Explorer),
• Internet Service Provider,
• Operating system,
• Mobile Carrier,
• How your device has interacted with our online services, including the pages accessed, links clicked, trips viewed, and features used, along with associated dates and times,
• Details of any referring website or exit pages, as well as general geographic locations (such as country).

 

3. LEGAL BASIS FOR DATA PROCESSING

 

We will collect personal information from you only in the following situations:

• Where the personal information is necessary to perform a contract with you (e.g., manage your booking/reservation/property, process payments, or create an account at your request),
• Where the processing is in our legitimate interests and not overridden by your rights,
• Where we have your consent to do so (e.g., sending your communications where consent is required).

 

In some cases, we will have a legal obligation to collect personal information from you such as where it is necessary to use your transaction history to complete our financial and tax obligations under the law. If we ask you to provide personal information to comply with a legal requirement or to perform a contract with you, we will make it clear at the relevant time and advise you whether the provision of your personal information is mandatory or not, along with any potential consequences that may arise, if you do not provide your personal information.

 

Certain countries and regions allow us to process personal information on the basis of legitimate interests. If we do collect and use your personal information in reliance on our legitimate interests, this interest will typically be to operate or improve our Platform and communicate with you as necessary to provide our services to you, for security verification purposes when you contact us, to respond to your queries, undertaking marketing, or for the purposes of potentially detecting or preventing illegal and/or fraudulent activities.

 

In certain instances, we may utilize automated decision-making, for example, in relation to assessing fraudulent transactions or suspicious activities on our Platform. In the situation that the relevant automated process detects that you pose a fraud risk, this may affect your ability to book/reserve on our Platform. You may have rights in relation to automated decision making, including the ability to request a manual decision-making process instead or contest a decision based solely on automated processing. Kindly learn more about your data protection in our ‘Your Rights and Choices’ section below.

 

4. DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

As part of our use of your personal information, we may disclose your information to the following parties:

• Third-Party Service Providers: We share personal information with our third-party service providers in connection with the delivery of services to you and the operation of our business (for example, to provide credit card processing, security services, customer service, business analytics, tailored advertising and fraud protection and compliance services). These third-party service providers are required to protect personal information we share with them and may not use any direct identifying personal information other than to provide the services we contacted them for. At the same time, they are not allowed to use the personal information we share for purposes of their own direct marketing.

 

• Travel Suppliers: We share personal information with our travel-related suppliers such as hotels, vacation-rental property owners, and where applicable activity providers. Please note that the travel suppliers may contact you to obtain additional information if and when required to facilitate your booking or to otherwise provide the travel or associated services.

 

• Business Partners:If we promote a program or offer a service in conjunction with a third-party business partner, we will share your information with that partner to assist in marketing or to provide the associated product or service.

 

• Other Third Parties:When you access certain features like a single sign-on that allows you to login with your social media credentials to our online services, you will share information with the third-party, such as the fact that you have visited or interacted with us. We will not load social media sharing or sign-on buttons on our Platform unless and until you accept our use of cookies and similar technologies. For more information, see our Cookie Policy. The third-party provider may combine this information with other information they have about you. The personal information shared will be governed by the third-party provider’s privacy policy. The third-party provider should inform you about how you can modify your privacy settings on their Platform.

 

• Corporate Transactions: We may share your personal information in connection with a corporate transaction, such as divestiture, merger, consolidation, assignments or asset sale, or in the unlikely event of bankruptcy. In the case of any acquisition, we will inform the buyer it must use your personal information only for the purposes disclosed in this Privacy Policy.

 

• Affiliated Companies: Other companies within the Metaworld Technology FZ LLC group that provide financial and related services.

 

• Payment Processors: Banks and payment service providers involved in processing your transactions.
• Advisors and Auditors: Contractors and auditors assisting us in our business activities.

 

• Legal Authorities: Courts, tribunals, and regulatory authorities as required by law or our agreements with you.

 

• Government Agencies: Agencies where disclosure is mandated by law or in response to legal requests.

 

• Authorized Parties: Anyone authorized in writing by you to receive your information

 

 

5. DATA USAGE BY OUR PARTNERS

 

In order to ensure the stable operation and function realization of our Platform, and in order to provide you with more services and functions, Software Development Kits (SDKS) from our authorized partners or other similar applications will be embedded in our applications. We will carry out strict security tests on the Application Program Interface (API) and SDK used by our authorized partners to obtain relevant information and agree with them on strict data protection measures, and make sure that they handle your personal information in accordance with this Policy and any other relevant confidentiality and security measures. The provisions mentioned in this section apply unless these authorized partners individually obtain your consent.

 

You can view the third-party SDK we link to here.

 

6. INTERNATIONAL DATA TRANSFERS.

 

All information processed by us may be transferred, processed, and stored anywhere in the world, which may have data protection laws that are different from the laws where you live. MetaHomes and our third-party service providers process it when collecting your personal information, process it in accordance with the laws of the jurisdiction they operate in.

 

Regardless, we have taken the appropriate steps and put safeguards in place to ensure that your personal information remains protected in accordance with this Privacy policy. For example, we require that third-party service providers to whom a data transfer is made have appropriate safeguards in place to protect your personal information, in compliance with applicable data protection laws. The particular measure varies depending upon the type of service provider.

 

7. CONSENT

 

We may process your personal data for one or more lawful bases of processing depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data.

 

The Lawful basis is the following:

 

• to perform our contractual obligations towards you
• to be compliant with the legal and regulatory requirements
• to pursue our legitimate interests

 

Where our use of your personal information does not fall under one of these three lawful bases, we require your consent. Such consent shall be freely given by you, and you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us using the contact details set out in this privacy notice or by unsubscribing from email lists.

 

We may use personal data provided by you through our website or otherwise and personal data provided during our business relationship to communicate with you for marketing promotional purposes as well as to provide you with market news and analytical reports. The channels used for such communications may include calling you, sending emails, notifications through your online account portal and SMS notifications including push notifications.

 

8. PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION MEASURES

 

We are committed to safeguarding and protecting personal data and will implement and maintain appropriate technical and organizational measures to ensure a level of security appropriate to protect any personal data provided to us from accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorized disclosure of, or access to personal data transmitted, stored or otherwise processed.

 

We require organizations outside the MetaHomes who handle or obtain personal information acknowledge the confidentiality of this information, undertake to respect any individual’s right to privacy and comply with all relevant data protection laws and this privacy notice.

 

Some data protection measures we have in place include the following:

 

• we train our employees who handle personal information to respect the confidentiality of customer information and the privacy of individuals requiring our employees to use passwords and two-factor authentication when accessing our systems;
• employees only have access to the personal data required for the purposes of the tasks they handle.
• We apply data encryption technologies during data transmission during internet transactions and client access codes transmitted across networks employing firewalls, intrusion detection systems and virus scanning tools to protect against unauthorized persons and viruses entering our systems;
• using dedicated secure networks or encryption when we transmit electronic data for purposes of outsourcing;
• providing secure storage for physical records within the company premises; and
• employing physical and electronic means such as access cards, cameras and guards to protect against unauthorized access.

 

9. RETENTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

 

We store the personal information we collect as described in this Privacy Policy for as long as you use our Services or as necessary to fulfill the purpose(s) for which it was collected, provide our Services, resolve disputes, establish legal defenses, conduct audits, pursue legitimate business purposes, enforce our agreements, and comply with applicable laws.

 

We will deidentify or otherwise anonymize your personal information if we intend to use it for analytical purposes or trend analysis over longer periods of time. The criteria we use to determine our retention periods include:

• The duration of our relationship with you, including any open accounts you may have with MetaHomes, or bookings or other transactions you have made on our Platform.
• Our legal obligations such as the applicable laws require us to keep records of your transactions with us.
• Whether there are any current and relevant legal obligations, including contractual obligations, litigation holds, statutes of limitations, and regulatory investigations.

 

10. USER RIGHTS

If you are a resident of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) or the European Economic Area (EEA), your personal data will be processed in accordance with the applicable data protection laws, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for EEA residents and the UAE’s Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL) for UAE residents. For residents of other jurisdictions, your personal data will be processed in compliance with the relevant privacy laws applicable to you.

 

You are entitled to the following rights regarding your personal data:

 

• request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”);

 

• request correction of the personal data that we hold about you;

 

• request erasure of your personal data. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request;

 

• object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object to where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms;

 

• request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios:
• if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy;
• where our use of the data is unlawful, but you do not want us to erase it;
• where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or
• you have objected to our use of your data, but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
• request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide you, or a third party you have chosen, with your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information (i.e. not to hard copies) which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you; and withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data.

 

Please note that these rights do not apply in all circumstances.

 

In relation to your choices, you are free to do the following:

 

• If you have an account with us, you may change your communication preferences by either
• logging in and updating the information on your account, or
• Contact us via the options provided in the Contact Us section at the bottom of this Policy.

 

• You can control our use of certain cookies by following the guidance in our Cookie Policy.

 

• If you no longer wish to receive marketing and promotional emails, you may log into your account and change the requisite settings or contact us to do so. Please note that if you choose to unsubscribe from or opt out of marketing emails, we may still send you important transactional and account-related emails from which you will not be able to unsubscribe.

 

• You can view and manage notifications in the settings menu of the app or your operating system.

 

11. MODIFICATIONS

 

We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to modify, amend, supplement or replace this Policy at any time and such update details shall be indicated at the top of this page. We will review and revise this Policy when there are any material circumstances that arise that may affect our ability to apply this Policy pursuant to the provisions of statutory and law requirements. What constitutes a material change will be determined at our sole discretion.

 

We will inform our Users on all material amendments to this Policy by publishing the updated version of this Policy on our Platform. When an updated version of this Policy is released, your continued access to the Platform means that you agree to the updated content, and you abide by the updated Policy.

 

 

12. COMPLAINTS AND CONTACT INFORMATION

 

MetaHomes is committed to addressing any complaints or inquiries in a fair and timely manner. If you have any complaints or concerns, the first step is to contact us via email at support@metahomes.net.  For questions regarding our privacy practices or to exercise your rights under our Privacy Policy, please also reach out to us at this email address. We will ensure that your concerns are handled promptly and in accordance with our complaint procedure.