1. Introduction
Welcome to Blueground’s Privacy Policy!
At Blueground, we believe in being transparent about how we conduct our business. In fact, it is one of our core values. Therefore, we would like to be very transparent about the way we collect and use your personal data. This privacy policy ("Policy") was developed by Blueground Holdings Limited UK ("us" or "we" or "Blueground") in order for you to understand how we, our subsidiaries and affiliates collect, use, communicate, protect, disclose, and make use of personal information in connection with our website ("Site"), our blogs ("Blogs"), our mobile application ("App") or other services (collectively "Services" and each individually as "Service"). This Policy also tells you about your rights and choices with respect to your Personal Information, defined as information relating to an identified or identifiable individual, and how you can contact us if you have any questions or concerns.
We encourage you to read the Policy carefully before you use any of our Services. This Policy applies to all of our Services that link to it, including when you interact with us in other contexts. Your continued use of our Services constitutes your acceptance of the Policy. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this policy, please contact us at privacy@theblueground.com.
2. What information we collect
2.1. Information required for your use of the Services
To provide you with our Services, we need to collect specific personal information. This includes:
- Identity and Profile Information: Full Name, postal address, date of birth. Where the verification of your identity is required for the use of the Services, we shall also process your Social Security number, driver’s license number, passport number, or other similar identifiers that may be included in your official identification document.
- Contact Details: Email address, telephone number, mailing address.
- Payment Information: Billing address, bank account information and payment method details, which are processed directly by our authorized third-party payment partners.
- Transaction Information: Reservation details (property details, pricing information, date and time of the reservation), invoices, payment details (such as date and payment amount), lease agreements and the information provided therein.
2.2. Information collected automatically through your use of the Services
When you visit or use our Services, including when you browse the Site, register a User Account, make an inquiry or a booking of a property, or when you download our App, we are aware of it and will usually gather, collect and record such uses and related information, either independently or with the help of third-party services, including through the use of "cookies" and other tracking technologies. This may include information such as your IP address, your device’s details, your activity on our Site and your approximate location. You may find further details on the particular technologies we engage to collect said information on our Cookie Policy.
2.3. Information you voluntarily provide to us
You may choose to provide us with additional information that is not required for the provision of the Services. This includes personal information such as your gender and your emergency contact; when you make inquiries or bookings for certain apartments; when you submit or upload such Personal Information as you use any of our Services; when you contact us directly by any communication channel (e.g., telephone, email); or when you choose to participate in our surveys and promotions.
2.4. Information collected from third-party sources
We may collect information from third parties, such as information provided to us when you sign in to our Services via third party services such as Facebook or Google; information shared by other Blueground or affiliated companies, travel and accommodation providers and other service providers, such as our marketing partners. Furthermore, where applicable, we may receive information from our partners that perform identity verification and background checks. The information we obtain from these sources may be combined with the information you provide to us directly through our platform in order to deliver our Services to you.
3. How we use this information
We use the collected information to:
- Provide you with our Services as a user of the Site, verify your identification, process transactions, and send related information such as confirmations and invoices;
- Send you technical notices, updates, security alerts, and support and administrative messages;
- Respond to your comments, questions and requests, and provide customer service;
- Manage and improve the performance of our Services;
- Communicate with you about services, offers, promotions, rewards and events offered by Blueground and others, and provide news and information we think will interest you;
- For audits and reporting purposes;
- Detect, investigate and prevent fraudulent transactions and other illegal activities, and protect the rights and property of Blueground, as well as that of our employees, our agents or others, and to comply with applicable law and government requests;
- Provide and deliver the Services, process transactions, and send related information such as confirmations and invoices;
- Monitor and analyze trends, usage and activities in connection with our Services;
- Revise, modify, and update existing Services, and develop new Services;
- Carry out any other purpose described to you at the time the information was collected.
4. When we use this information
We use this personal information solely when the appropriate legal basis is applicable. In particular:
4.1. Contractual necessity
We process your personal data when it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract. Without said data, we are not able to provide certain services or fulfill our obligations under the contract.
4.2. Consent
For certain optional features, such as marketing communications, non‐essential cookies, or personalized promotions, we only process your data if you have given explicit consent. You can withdraw your consent at any time. The withdrawal of your consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing that occurred prior to its withdrawal.
4.3 Legal obligation
We process any information necessary to comply with laws or regulations, such as tax, accounting, or consumer‐protection requirements. If a law compels us to retain or share your data, we will do so to meet that obligation.
4.4 Legitimate interests
In certain cases, we may process your personal data where it is necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests, and those interests are not overridden by your fundamental rights and freedoms (for example, preventing fraud and defending a legal claim). Whenever we rely on this basis, we carefully assess the potential impact on your rights and take steps to minimize any risks. If you believe our legitimate‐interest processing is unfair or unnecessary in your situation, you may object at any time by explaining your specific reasons. Once we receive a valid objection, we will stop processing your personal information under that legal basis, unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds.
5. How we disclose this information
We may disclose personal information in the following circumstances and to the following parties:
5.1. Service providers
We engage trusted third-party service providers to perform a number of services on our behalf, such as web hosting, email service providers, payment processing, and analytics. To do so, we sometimes need to share your personal information with them for the purposes described above. These providers are contractually obligated to process personal data only in accordance with our instructions and in compliance with data protection laws.
Some information you provide through the Services may also be directly collected and processed by third parties on our behalf. For example, when you make an online booking through the Services, our dedicated third-party payment service providers need to collect and process your credit or debit card information. In the event that a credit report is required to use a Service, you may be asked to provide your Social Security number ("SSN"). When SSNs are required, we use technology to pass that information directly to the third-party providers who need the information to process the credit or background check report.
5.2. Legal and regulatory authorities
We may disclose your data to public authorities, law enforcement, or regulators when legally required, such as to comply with a legal obligation (e.g., court orders, tax compliance) and respond to lawful requests from government or law enforcement bodies.
5.3. Marketing and advertising partners
We may request your consent to share certain personal data with third parties so that they may provide you with special offers, promotional materials, or other content that may be of interest to you.
5.4. Other companies belonging to or directly affiliated with Blueground
We may share data with our corporate affiliates, subsidiaries, or parent company as needed for internal business operations, support services, or consolidated reporting.
5.5. Third parties involved in a corporate transaction involving all or part of Blueground assets
If we are involved in a merger, acquisition, restructuring, or sale of assets, your personal data may be transferred as part of that transaction. In any case, the treatment of your personal information shall remain consistent with the provisions of the applicable legislation and this Privacy Policy.
6. Data retention
We retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, or as otherwise permitted under applicable law. When the applicable retention period ends, we take the appropriate steps to securely delete or anonymize the data. The duration of retention depends on the purpose of the processing and is determined by the following criteria:
Ongoing relationship: We retain your data while your account is active or you continue to use our Services (whether as a guest, property owner, or a simple user of our Site). After the termination of the relationship, we may retain certain data for a limited period where we have a legitimate business interest, such as responding to inquiries, maintaining records for internal administration, or addressing potential legal claims.
Legal and regulatory obligations: Where we are subject to legal, tax, accounting, or regulatory obligations (e.g., Know Your Client and Anti-Money Laundering laws), we retain specific data, such as booking and transaction records, for the period required by the applicable law.
Litigation, security, and compliance: We may retain data necessary to protect our rights, to establish, exercise or defend legal claims, or to cooperate with law enforcement or regulatory authorities. This includes data retention required or advisable in view of statutes of limitations or regulatory investigations.
Consent: Where we process personal data on the basis of your consent (e.g., for receiving marketing communications or enabling non-essential cookies), we retain that data until you withdraw your consent or the data is no longer necessary for the stated purpose. After withdrawal, we may retain a minimal record of your consent and its withdrawal in order to demonstrate compliance with the applicable legal obligations. More information on the retention period of each cookie placed on our Site may be accessed on our Cookie Policy.
7. What are your rights in relation to your Personal Information
It is important that you have control over your Personal Information. That’s why we are taking steps to enable you to access, receive a copy of, update, amend, delete, or limit the use of your Personal Information in accordance with the provisions stipulated in the applicable legislation.
Specifically, you have the following rights:
- Right of access: you have the right to obtain confirmation that your personal data is processed, and, in the case of processing, information regarding the purposes of your data processing, the retention period (and the criteria used to determine this period) of the data, the recipients to whom your personal data has been or will be disclosed, and a copy of your personal data that we maintain.
- Right to data portability: you have the right to receive the personal data that you have provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format.
- Right to rectification or correction: you have the right to obtain rectification of any inaccurate or incomplete personal data that we maintain about you.
- Right to erasure (right to be forgotten): you have the right, in some circumstances, to obtain the erasure of the personal data that we maintain about you. The right to be forgotten is not unreservedly guaranteed. It is limited especially when colliding with the right of freedom of expression and information. Other exceptions are if the processing of data that is subject to an erasure request is necessary to comply with legal obligations, for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes, or for the defence of legal claims.
- Right to restriction of processing: you have the right, in some circumstances, to obtain restriction of processing to the personal data that we maintain about you.
- Right to object: you have the right to object to any processing of your personal data that we maintain, but there may be compelling reasons for continuing this processing from our side. In any case, we will assess your request and respond to you accordingly.
Before satisfying any of your rights, we may ask you for additional information in order to confirm your identity and for security purposes. We reserve the right to charge a fee where permitted by law (e.g., if your request is unfounded or excessive).
Blueground does not sell personal information to third parties for monetary or other valuable consideration (i.e., for money or anything else of value we might receive in return). We may share your personal information with third parties strictly for legitimate business purposes as described in this Policy.
If you believe that Blueground has failed to take appropriate action in response to your privacy rights request, you have the right to appeal and can do so by contacting us as described below. You also have the right to file a complaint with your local supervisory authority for data protection (but we still recommend that you contact us first).
In case you wish to exercise one of these rights, please contact us at privacy@theblueground.com. We will make all reasonable efforts to honor your request promptly (unless we require further information from you in order to fulfill your request), subject to legal and other permissible considerations.
We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your rights described here.
8. Information security and privacy incident reporting
We implement appropriate organizational and technical measures to ensure that all personal data is kept secure, including security measures to prevent their accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, change or damage. We limit access to your personal data to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorized manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality. We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.
9. Interest-based advertising
We participate in interest-based advertising. This means that when you use the Services, we or third-party service providers or advertisers may use cookies or other similar technologies to collect information about your use of the Services or your online activities over time and across different websites and devices. Collected information may include the content you view, the date and time that you view this content, and the website that referred you to the Services; and this information may be associated with your unique browser, device identifier, or Internet Protocol (IP) address. These practices help tailor advertisements that are relevant and useful to you. These tailored advertisements may appear on the Services or on other websites, applications or properties. For more information and to opt out of most third-party cookie collection, you can visit https://optout.aboutads.info/?c=2&lang=EN or https://optout.networkadvertising.org/?c=1. For detailed information on the cookies placed on our Site, you may also access our Cookie Policy. Cookies that are not strictly necessary for the functioning of the website will only be placed on your device after we have obtained your explicit consent. You may withdraw your consent at any time by adjusting your cookie preferences through our cookie management platform or by modifying your browser settings.
In addition, if you have provided your email address to us, we may use a scrambled, unreadable form (a hash) of your email address to deliver tailored advertisements to you on the Services or on other websites. We do not access or collect any of the contents of your email messages in providing interest-based advertising. Our use of information received from Gmail APIs will adhere to Google’s Limited Use Requirements.
10. Communication from Blueground
At Blueground, we are committed to transparent communication practices that respect your privacy and preferences. By using our platform, you acknowledge that you may receive transactional communications from Blueground. These are essential messages sent via email, SMS, and WhatsApp that are related to your account or your use of our Services, such as booking confirmations; billing information; reminders or warnings regarding upcoming or late payments; replies to your support tickets or emails; and reminders for incomplete bookings. These communications are not promotional and will be sent to you as necessary for the performance of our contractual relationship. You cannot opt out of transactional messages, as they contain critical information about your relationship with us and are a prerequisite for the provision of our Services.
With your explicit consent, we may send you marketing communications via email, SMS, or WhatsApp regarding promotions, discounts, company updates, and apartment recommendations based on your search activity. You can manage your preferences or withdraw your consent at any time through your Account settings, by following the opt-out instructions included in each message, or by contacting privacy@theblueground.com. Where applicable, we may also send you marketing communications about services similar to those you have previously purchased. You will always have the opportunity to opt out of these communications via the unsubscribe mechanism provided in each message or by contacting privacy@theblueground.com. We will not send you such messages if you have previously opted out of receiving marketing communications.
11. Blueground job applications
Blueground welcomes all qualified applicants to apply to any of the open positions published on https://blueground.workable.com by sending us their contact details and CV ("Applicants’ Information") via the Workable platform, email, or through any other means. We understand that privacy and discretion are crucial to our Applicants, and we are committed to keep their information private and use it solely for Blueground’s internal recruitment purposes (including for identifying applicants, evaluating their applications, making hiring and employment decisions, and contacting applicants by phone or in writing). You may find more information regarding our recruitment practices on our Recruitment Privacy Notice. If you previously submitted your Applicants’ Information to Blueground, and now wish to access it, update it or have it deleted from Blueground’s systems, please contact us at privacy@theblueground.com.
12. Opting out of collection of information by third parties
Blueground's third-party ad servers, ad network providers, and third-party advertisers may provide you with advertisements that you may see on the Services or on other affiliated websites. To improve the relevancy and help measure the effectiveness of such advertisements, the Blueground Ad Providers may use cookies, web beacons, clear gifs or similar technologies. These are used to record users' activity, such as the pages visited, and to learn what types of information are of most interest to the users. As noted above, you can learn more and opt out, by visiting https://optout.aboutads.info/?c=2&lang=EN or https://optout.networkadvertising.org/?c=1.
13. Third-party links and websites
Throughout the Services, we may link to the websites of other companies and/or individuals. These third-party websites may collect information about users on those websites, and Blueground's privacy policy does not extend to these external websites and third parties. Please refer directly to these third parties and websites regarding their privacy policies.
14. Children’s privacy
Our Services are addressed to individuals who are at least 18 years old, unless we specify otherwise. For individuals under 18, we do not knowingly collect personal data without prior parental consent. If you find out that your child has provided us with any personal data without your prior consent, please inform us in order to have us delete this information and terminate any account that your child may have created with us.
15. Cross-border data transfers
We may transfer your personal data to countries outside of the United Kingdom ("UK") and the European Economic Area ("EEA"), including to jurisdictions that may not have been determined by the UK Government or the European Commission to provide an adequate level of data protection. Where personal data is transferred to a country that has not been recognized as providing an adequate level of protection, we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are implemented to protect your personal data. Such safeguards may include the use of standard contractual clauses ("SCCs") approved by the European Commission or the UK Information Commissioner's Office, or other lawful mechanisms permitted under applicable data protection laws.
16. Updates to this policy
This Privacy Policy may be changed or updated occasionally to meet legal, technological, or operational requirements and standards. You are encouraged to frequently visit this policy to stay updated about changes. In case of critical changes, these will be circulated to you prior to their implementation. Modifications will be effective on the day they are published.
17. How to contact us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or wish to exercise any of your rights, you may contact us at privacy@theblueground.com. We will attempt to resolve any complaints regarding the use of your Personal Information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
You may reach our UK offices via mail at 15 Adeline Pl #G, London, WC1B 3AJ.
If you are based in the USA, you may also contact us by mail at our USA head office: 101 5th Ave, New York, NY 10003 - 7th floor.
You may contact our EU head office by mail at 27 Agiou Thoma, 15124, Marousi, Greece.