Cookies and other tracking technologies
What is a cookie: A “cookie” is a small text file that is placed onto an Internet user’s web browser or device and is used to remember as well as obtain information about that party. You might be assigned a cookie when visiting our websites or when using our mobile applications or other digital channels. In some instances, where permitted under the applicable law, cookies may also be used for the purposes of certain email campaigns.
What types of cookies we use and how we use them: We use three primary types of cookies, which include:
Functional Cookies – these cookies support the use of the website and applications and enable certain features to enhance your experience. For example, we use functional cookies to facilitate your reservation and to remember your selections as you move from page to page. We also use functional cookies for remembering things like your sign-in information and hotel preferences to avoid you having to re-enter it.
Performance Cookies – these cookies collect information needed to support the website and our applications and allow us to improve our website and identify any problems that you faced while visiting us. For example, performance cookies may provide us with information about how you came to our website and how you navigated around our website during your visit. We also use these cookies to provide us with certain statistical and analytics information, such as how many visitors came to our website or how effective our advertising is.
Targeting Cookies – these cookies are used to collect information from you to help us to improve our products and services as well as serve you with targeted advertisements that we believe will be relevant for you. We use targeting cookies across our websites and applications for various marketing initiatives and campaigns. For more information, please see the Targeted advertising section below.
To learn more about cookies and how they are used, please visit: http://www.allaboutcookies.org/.
Cookies: As described above, we use a number of service providers to help us manage, carry out and improve our advertising. These parties set cookies at our direction to help us collect information and provide you with advertisements that we believe would be relevant for you. In some instances, these parties may also assist us by providing certain statistical and analytics information in relation to our marketing practices. We also may disclose information collected through cookies (and other tracking technologies) with third parties to use for their own analytics and marketing purposes. These third parties may serve targeted advertising to you about IHG and non-IHG branded hotels. The scope of information shared may include information collected through cookies, such as your IP address/device ID, and information about the search that you performed on our website (e.g., you were looking for a hotel in New York City), but would not include your name or IHG® One Rewards information.
Managing cookies and opting out: You can change your cookie preferences in our Cookie preferences tool, which is also available from the Privacy and Cookies Center. You can choose to visit our web sites without cookies, but in some cases certain services, features and functionality may not be available. To visit without cookies, you can configure your browser to reject all cookies or notify you when a cookie is set. Each browser is different, so check the "Help" menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.
In relation to cookies placed by our service providers, we participate in the Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising managed by the Digital Advertising Alliance (“DAA”). As part of this commitment, IHG has agreed to comply with the standards and guidelines promulgated by the DAA. For more information regarding targeted advertisements and/or to opt out of automatic collection for these purposes, please visit http://www.aboutads.info/choices/ or http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp. Within the EU, UK and Canada the local DAA organizations operate a similar "ad choices" scheme: see http://www.youronlinechoices.com (UK/Europe) and http://youradchoices.ca/ (Canada). If you opt-out of these targeted advertising cookies, your opt-out will be specific to the web browser or mobile device from which you accessed the opt-out. If you use multiple devices or browsers, you will need to opt out each browser or device that you use.
Other technologies: Other technologies such as pixels and web beacons may also be used on our websites, mobile applications, in email messages and in other areas of our business. These technologies are used to improve our products and services as well as our marketing efforts. We use pixels in our emails to help us determine the success of our advertising campaigns, such as to give us insight into whether you opened, deleted, or forwarded an email, or clicked on a link contained in the email.
Targeted advertising: We and our service providers may serve targeted advertisements through the use of first-party or third-party cookies, pixels and web beacons when you visit our website, use our mobile applications, or visit websites owned by other entities. In some instances, these cookies may be persistent cookies. As described in the Using our websites, mobile applications and other technology section above, we and our service providers may also use cookie and other information to try to identify other devices and web browsers that you may use so we and our service providers may serve targeted advertisements to those devices. We do this to provide you with advertising that we believe may be relevant for you as well as improve our own products and services, including the functionality and performance of our websites and mobile applications. To learn more about opting out of certain types of targeted advertising, please see the Managing cookies and opting out section above.
Do-Not-Track: Currently, our systems do not recognize browser “do-not-track” signals. You may, however, disable certain tracking as discussed in this section (e.g., by disabling cookies); you also may opt-out of targeted advertising by following the instructions at the DAA and the Network Advertising Initiative websites.
Location Information and Services
Mobile Applications
Online Channels and Other Information Sources
Use of WI-FI services (IHG Connect)
When you use the IHG Connect WI-FI service (IHG Connect), we may collect and process certain additional information.
What information we collect
Registration and User-Provided Information: When you register to use IHG Connect, we may collect personal information about you including your last name, IHG® One Rewards number, room number and, depending on your location and applicable law, other personal information (such as mobile phone number). You may also provide us with personal information about you in various ways when you use IHG Connect, for example, when you send us customer service-related requests.
Device Identifiers. In the course of providing IHG Connect, we may automatically collect a device identifier (such as your IP address, MAC address, or device name or other unique identifier) for the computer, mobile device, technology or other device you use to access IHG Connect. A device identifier is a number that is automatically assigned to your device when you access IHG Connect, and we may identify your device by its device identifier. When you use IHG Connect, we may view your device identifier and use this information to enhance our service. We may associate your device identifier with other information about you, such as your IHG® One Rewards number.
Other device information: We may also automatically record certain information from your device including, device type, the web pages, apps or sites that you visit, and the dates and times that you visit, access, or use IHG Connect (Internet activity information). While generally this information is pseudonymous and/or aggregated, this information may be associated with your IHG® One Rewards number and/or other IHG service account information or persistent identifiers. This data helps us to manage our networks and provides us with information about the use of IHG Connect. We do not, however, collect and process the contents of email communications or other electronic communications you send or receive when using IHG Connect.
Location information: We may collect information about your location through your use of the WI-FI services we provide at our hotels to enable us to improve our service and provide certain services to you such as customized offers and promotions.
How We Use the Information We Collect
We use personal information only for the purposes described in this Privacy Statement, except if otherwise disclosed to you at the time the data is collected or otherwise authorized by law or by you. We use the personal information that we collect through IHG Connect:
to operate, maintain, enhance and provide all features of the service, to provide services and information that you request, to respond to comments and questions and to provide support to users.
to understand and analyze the usage trends and preferences of our users, to improve the IHG Connect service, and to develop new products, services, features, and functionality. If you provide your contact information or your IHG® One Rewards number, we may (with your consent or where permitted by applicable law) send you personalized offers based on your web usage and location. You can opt out of receiving these offers when signing in to use the IHG Connect service or at any time within your IHG® One Rewards account. Please see the 'Managing your preferences and information' section below.
Using Personal Information to create profiles
Our goal is to create a personalized and customized experience for you when you stay at an IHG-branded property. In order to determine appropriate advertising and to customize your experience, as described in the section above in relation to cookies, we have relationships with companies such as Google and Facebook which enable us to serve targeted advertising. In addition to the activities described under the heading Targeted Advertising above, we also match Facebook and Google users across sites and devices which enables us to better understand your interests. We use this information to enable us to tailor our marketing communications to you so we can make sure we tell you about things which are most likely to be of interest to you. You have options about how we disclose your information; please log into the preference center at any time to view and exercise your choices. In addition, certain U.S. state residents may have the option of clicking on the Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information link, which would eliminate the disclosure that might constitute a "sale"/"share" under applicable law.
How we secure your information
We are committed to protecting the confidentiality and security of the information that you provide to us. To do this, technical, physical and organizational security measures are put in place to protect against any unauthorized access, disclosure, damage or loss of your information. The collection, transmission and storage of information can never be guaranteed to be completely secure, however, we take steps to ensure that appropriate security safeguards are in place to protect your information.
Managing your preferences and information
We want to ensure that you have the necessary tools at your disposal to control the information that you provide to us, including how we communicate with you. It is also important that you contact us to update your information if any of it is inaccurate or changes. Please click the relevant section below to learn more about how to control how we communicate with you and how to update, modify and delete your information. EU, UK and Turkey Data Subjects, please see also the Data Subject Rights under UK/EU/EEA and Turkey Data Protection Laws specific-section. U.S residents, please see also the U.S.-specific section. Californians, please see also the CA-specific section. Data Subjects located in Brazil, please see also the Brazil-specific section. Data Subjects located in PRC, please see also the PRC-specific section.
Managing your communication preferences
Managing your information
Links to Other Sites
Our websites and applications contain links to websites that are maintained and/or controlled by non-affiliated parties. In some instances these websites may be co-branded and display our logos or other trademarks. You can always tell whether you are on one of our websites by checking the uniform record locator ("URL”) on the page that you are visiting. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of these websites as their privacy practices may differ from ours.
Children
Our websites are not intended for children and we do not intentionally solicit or collect personal information from individuals under the age of 18. If we are notified or otherwise discover that a minor’s personal information has been improperly collected, we will take all commercially reasonable steps to delete that information. In limited instances, we may have a campaign or program targeted toward children. In these instances, details on the information practices will be presented within the terms and conditions of the program or campaign.
Retaining your information in our systems
We generally only keep your information for as long as is reasonably required for the purposes explained in this privacy policy. In some cases we keep transactional records (which may include your information) for longer periods if necessary to meet legal, regulatory, tax or accounting needs. We will also retain information if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation.
We maintain a data retention policy which we apply to the records we hold.