Privacy Policy

This policy was last updated on 4 April 2020.

VisaMate offers an online place to get to know people from all over the world and a chance to meet them in person.

VisaMate respects the privacy of the users of its website, www.visamate.org. This Privacy Policy provides information about VisaMate’s policies and practices regarding the collection, use and disclosure of any personal information you submit to us through our website.

VisaMate is an hospitality and cultural exchange network. The activities of VisaMate are jointly governed by U.S. and Kenyan Law. Data privacy and the use of personal data are governed by the European General Data Protection Regulation (2016) – GDPR – and any relevant legislation.

The purpose of VisaMate is to support hospitality and cultural exchange, and, to do this, we need some personal information. However, VisaMate has no interest in collecting or using this information for marketing or any purposes other than the furtherance of hospitality exchange. It is your choice what personal data you provide and – with very few exceptions – it remains within your control and you can edit or delete it at any time. When you set up an account on VisaMate, we will ask you to provide some personal information, including:

  1. your email address, so that we can contact you (e.g. if you need to recover your login credentials) and so that you can receive notifications of messages from other members;
  2. your age, so that we can ensure that you are over 18 (a condition of the site’s Terms of Use); and
  3. your location, so that other members can find your profile in searches.

Your registered location will be displayed on your profile, but your email address will be kept private by VisaMate, and you can hide your age. (Note that, if you hide your age, members will then not be able to find your profile in searches for hosts within certain age ranges.)

Several other information you provide is completely optional and is made available to other VisaMate members solely for the purposes of hospitality and cultural exchange. You should bear in mind, however, that arranging hospitality is easier when the people involved know a little bit about each other beforehand. So, providing some information about yourself in the profile makes hosting and being hosted more likely.

By creating an account and a profile on VisaMate, you consent to VisaMate members using the personal data that you provide for the purposes of hospitality and cultural exchange.

Cookies

VisaMate does not set any cookies to obtain or transmit marketing or other information. The only cookies set are for the essential purpose of user authentication and to display preference settings. Use of the site will be deemed consent to these essential cookies.

Use of information

Any member of the VisaMate community logging in to the VisaMate website can view the profile information and photos that you have uploaded.

To provide you with some of the features that the VisaMate community offers to its members, we use the personal information that is stored in your profile. How this information is used will depend upon how you set up your profile preferences.

If you decide to use certain features of the site, such as classified ads, some of the personal information you entered into your VisaMate profile, like your location, may be displayed.

VisaMate members can use the search feature to look for other members using various criteria, like location or interests. The personal information that members enter into their profile will be used for these searches. Please be aware that any information that is publicly posted anywhere on the VisaMate site can be accessed by every user of the website.

VisaMate may also collect data about navigation on the site, for diagnostic purposes. Even though this data, such as IP addresses, may not be directly persons, it could be linked with external information to identify a specific person or small group. We collect such data because it is intrinsic to communication protocols. It will be kept for a period of about 6 months and is accessible only by technical staff for diagnostic purposes. This data, once anonymized, could be used for statistical or research purposes, even beyond that period.

Safety

As VisaMate members, we open our homes to people we have never met, or stay in their homes while we are traveling ourselves. This requires a lot of trust which is often well deserved and the basis for many wonderful hospitality experiences. However, hospitality networks also sometimes attract people who want to take advantage of the trust and hospitality of others.

We maintain a Safety Team of experienced IT professionals, who investigate complaints about VisaMate users. As part of these investigations, the Safety Team may access personal data, including account and navigation data, and to messages which are reported as abuse. All such investigations are kept confidential (unless they result in legal action) but VisaMate may retain some details, including personal data, where these are relevant to an investigation about an abuse.

Information Sharing and Disclosure

VisaMate does not rent, sell, or share personal information about you with other people or companies except to provide the services you have requested, when we have your permission, or as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy.

We will disclose information in response to court orders, or to establish or exercise our legal rights, or to defend against legal claims. We may disclose information if we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding suspected illegal activities; in situations involving the safety of any person; in situations involving violations of VisaMate’s Terms of Service; or as otherwise required by applicable law.

We reserve the right to send you certain communications relating to the VisaMate service, such as service announcements, administrative messages and the VisaMate Newsletter, that are considered part of your VisaMate account. You can opt out at any time. Note that you cannot opt out of certain kinds of messages, such Terms of Use changes and messages sent to comply with legislation such as GDPR.

Suspending or Deleting Your Account

Should you wish to suspend your account, to make your profile inaccessible for a time, but wish to retain your account on VisaMate for use in the future, please use the “set to Private” button on ‘Edit my profile’.

While your account is set to inactive, your profile and personal data will continue to be stored, but will not be displayed and will be unavailable to member searches. Your account can only be set to inactive for a maximum of 2 Months. After that, your account may be deleted without further notice.

During the suspension period, you can re-activate your account at any time by using the profile settings. If you would like to delete your account, log in to VisaMate, and from your username, on the right of the top bar, go to ‘Edit my profile’. There is a ‘delete my profile’ link, click this, and follow the steps shown.

To avoid accidental irreversible deletion, you may receive an email asking to reply to confirm.

If you are unable to log in to your profile you can contact us using the link at the bottom of the website, by email, or by other means to request the deletion of your account. In this case, you will be asked to provide some account information to confirm your identity as the user of the account.

Deleting your account will not immediately erase all data related to you. For instance, any posts you have made in groups or in the public forum will remain, and any personal messages you have sent become a joint property with the recipients and cannot generally be erased, unless both parties agree. Please note that, once your account is deleted, such posts and personal messages may be associated with a generic user name rather than the specific user name previously used to identify your profile.

If you want to keep your username, as the author of forum posts, for example, you should request this before the account is deleted. Normally, when an account is terminated, the username associated with that account is cancelled and may therefore become available for future use by a different person. In exceptional circumstances – usually where a username has a very personal resonance – VisaMate will consider a request to make that username unavailable for other users.

Confidentiality and Security

We limit access to personal information about you to the authorized users who need access to that information to provide services to you or in order to run the site.

We have physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect personal information about you, and your VisaMate account information is protected by a password that you select. VisaMate uses industry-standard encryption to protect data transmissions.

All user data is stored on servers located within the European Union.

No organization, including VisaMate, can fully eliminate security risks associated with personal information. We make all reasonable efforts to maintain consistency and security of your data, but VisaMate cannot be deemed liable in case of accidental data losses and incidental damage.

Other Sites

Any provision of a link to any other website or location is for your convenience and does not signify our endorsement of such other website or location or its contents. We have no control over, do not review, and cannot be responsible for these outside websites or their content. Please be aware that the terms of our Privacy Policy do not apply to these outside websites.

Contact Us

Should you have any questions or concerns regarding this Privacy Policy, please contact us

Changes to this Privacy Policy

VisaMate may update this policy from time to time. We will notify you about significant changes in the way we treat Personal Information by sending a notice to the primary email address specified in your VisaMate account or by placing a prominent notice on our Website. If you object to any such changes, you must cease using our Website. Continued use of our Website following notice of any such changes shall indicate your acknowledgement of such changes and agreement to be bound by the terms and conditions of such changes.

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We envision a world made better by overseas travel and global travel made richer by connection. Visamates share their lives with the people they encounter, fostering cultural exchange and mutual respect.

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