LEGAL STUFF: PRIVACY POLICY


At WestJet we are committed to respecting your privacy. This policy describes how we collect, use and disclose personal information concerning our guests and other individuals.  This policy may be modified from time to time by posting updated versions on the WestJet website and you may also be notified of changes upon logging in to the website.

WHAT IS PERSONAL INFORMATION?
Personal information is information about an identifiable individual. Your personal information includes your full name, address, telephone number, date of birth, email address, and any other information that identifies who you are or would allow someone to contact you. Personal information only becomes known to WestJet when you provide it to us, or when a third party, such as a travel agent, family member or other party books a ticket on your behalf, or when a third party, such as AIR MILES or a credit card services provider provides personal information to WestJet with your consent.

CONSENT
It is our policy to collect, use and disclose personal information about you with your knowledge and consent, unless otherwise required or allowed by law. Prior to collecting personal information, it is our policy to identify the purposes for doing so and to limit the collection, use and disclosure of personal information to those purposes.

Generally, we will collect personal information from you, and use it and disclose it with express consent received from you or from someone on your behalf. There will be occasions where we will rely on opt-out consent with respect to contacting you with offers that we feel will be of interest to you. We will use opt out consent only in circumstances where the personal information in question is not sensitive, where the purposes and circumstances are limited and well-defined and brought to your attention at the time personal information is collected, or where you are given an opportunity to opt-out or withdraw your consent then or at any time by contacting us.

If we identify a new purpose for using or disclosing your personal information, unless otherwise required by law, we will contact you to obtain your consent for the new use or disclosure and we may use your contact information, including your email address, to do so.

COLLECTION AND USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
If you would like to fly with us, book a hotel or car, join a mailing list, apply for a job, participate in a program or enter a contest that may be offered by WestJet from time to time, you will be asked for personal information as described in this policy and as stated to you at the time of collection. Personal information may be collected by us through our call centre, or by interaction with our Website, or from you in person, or about you by us from a travel agent or other party obtaining travel services for you on your behalf.

It is our policy to collect personal information about you directly from you where possible or reasonable to do so.  However, there are circumstances where personal information about you will be collected from a third party obtaining travel services for you on your behalf with your consent.

Personal information provided by you or on your behalf to book flights or other travel services will generally not be provided to anyone, including a spouse, family member, friend or coworker, without your consent, or as required by law, or as otherwise provided in this privacy policy.  To protect your privacy rights and personal information, and for security and legal purposes, we therefore generally cannot disclose your personal information to any individual contacting us and claiming either to be a spouse, family member, friend, coworker or otherwise entitled to your personal information, or claiming to have your consent for us to do so, unless and until we have verified with you that you do in fact consent to our disclosure of your personal information to such specified individual.  The exceptions to this are:

Booking a Flight
When you book a flight with us, or when someone books a flight with us on your behalf, we will ask for your gender, name, address, email address, phone number, and credit card information. We collect this information in order to process your request for travel services or to process refunds. We need your gender to determine the weight and balance of our aircraft and to assist us in identifying you for legal and security purposes. We may also use your personal information to contact you about your flight booking or about anything that may affect your flight booking or your flight, and to notify you that any credit that you have with WestJet is going to expire.

WestJet may also use your personal information to contact you about your travel patterns and your experiences when flying with us.

Adequate personal identification documents, including photographic likenesses, will generally be required in order to permit you to board an aircraft or access other services. This information is collected for security, legal and identification purposes and is generally returned to you immediately and not retained.

Requirements of Government Authorities
Because of the nature of the airline industry, and concerns with respect to safety and security, there may be situations in which WestJet is required by legal authorities to collect, use or disclose personal information about you, particularly when you are traveling with us, without your knowledge or consent. Information that we are required to collect by any Canadian, U.S. or international government authorities, depending on your boarding location and destination, may include, as required by such authorities, your full name, date of birth, citizenship, gender, passport number and country of issuance, U.S. Visa number, Resident Alien card number, the means by which you paid for your flight, details as to how it was booked, and any other personal information collected by us as set out in this policy or as required by such government authority.

Special Needs and Unaccompanied Minors
Subject to certain restrictions and the WestJet Booking Terms and Conditions, services are offered to persons with special needs and for unaccompanied minors.

In order to properly serve persons with special needs, and to assure the health and safety of all concerned, WestJet may require additional personal information, including relevant medical information and information on particular requirements, such as whether a wheelchair, oxygen supply or other special equipment are required, information on connecting flights or connections, as well as additional contact information in the event of an emergency.

In order to serve unaccompanied minors, WestJet will require personal information concerning adult(s) dropping off the child at the commencement of their travel with WestJet as well as the adult(s) meeting the child at the conclusion of their travel with WestJet, as well as additional contact information in the event of an emergency.  We do not allow unaccompanied minors to proceed to flights with other carriers without first being met by a designated adult or adults.  For security purposes, we may ask the designated adult or adults for sufficient personal information, including personal identification with photographic likenesses, returning such information to the designated adult or adults once identity has been verified.

Travel Agents
When you book with us through a travel agent, your travel agent will provide us with the same personal information that we would otherwise collect from you directly in order to book a flight or other travel services. Unless and until we are advised otherwise, we will consider a travel agent to have your authority to provide us with your personal information to be used and disclosed by us pursuant to this privacy policy. Collection, use and disclosure of your personal information by your travel agent will be subject to your dealings with the travel agent and their privacy policies and practices.

Travel agent access to online information from WestJet is governed both by WestJet policies and by restrictions and levels of permission set up by the travel agency. Personnel in each travel agent office may be able to gain access to personal information concerning all clients and customers of the travel agency. Access to your personal information may not be limited to the individual travel agent you have dealt with as travel agents may share information.  Any inquiries about another travel agency accessing your personal information should be directed to the original travel agency with whom you booked your flight.

Corporate and Other Third Party Bookings
If a third party, including a family member or friend, or your employer or another party other than a travel agent, has made or will be making a booking on your behalf, that party will provide us with the same personal information that we would otherwise collect from you directly in order to book a flight or other travel services. Unless and until we are advised otherwise, we will consider such third party to have your authority to provide us with your personal information to be used and disclosed pursuant to this privacy policy. Collection, use and disclosure of your personal information by a third party will be subject to your dealings with them and any applicable privacy policy and practices they may have.

Certain employers and other parties may be granted access to online information from WestJet with respect to your booking where your employer or other party has made that booking on your behalf. Such access is governed by our TERMS OF USE. Such other party, including any others to whom it grants permission, will be able to gain access to personal information concerning all individuals for whom they have made bookings.

Hotels and Car Rentals
If you book a hotel room and/or a car rental, you will be asked for your name, address, phone number, email address, and credit card information. This information is used and disclosed to confirm the hotel and/or car rental for you.

WestJet Member and Mailing Lists
Our optional Guest Profile feature allows you to provide us with your personal information for your convenience in using our website, should you choose to enroll. When you log in, our systems will automatically complete the fields when booking a flight, using your Guest Profile information to fill in fields for your convenience, and after that the information is used and disclosed for the same purposes as if you had filled in the fields manually yourself. We strive to continuously improve the function of the fields available, but unless we advise you otherwise, any improvement in or addition to the fields will be subject to the same policies as set out in this policy. If you wish, you can remove your information from the Guest Profile feature at any time, following which you will still be able to purchase services from us through our website, but you will have to fill in all the fields manually.

For certain opt-in services, WestJet may, with your consent, collect profile information about you (e.g. hotel and car preferences, etc), as well as demographic information (e.g. education level, etc). This information will be used to communicate specific information to you based on the profile and demographic information you provide.

If you would like to do any one or more of the following:

  1. join our JetMail mailing list and be informed of seat sales and other promotional offers;
  2. be informed of special offers from our partners from time to time; or
  3. participate in research surveys from time to time,

you must first set up a Guest Profile and check the applicable option or options, following which we will use your Guest Profile to communicate with you via email as you have requested. You may withdraw your consent to any of the foregoing options at any time.

Promotional Contests
WestJet may offer various promotions from time to time. When you enter a promotional contest, we ask for your name, date of birth, address (email and/or residential) and phone number so that we may communicate with you in the event you are a winner and so that we may verify that you are of sufficient age to participate or that you meet other eligibility requirements stated in any specific contest rules. Other information related to the promotion or contest may be requested if required by law.

Employment Opportunities
WestJet offers employment opportunities over its website. If you would like to apply for a job at WestJet, you will be asked to provide your name, telephone number, address, email address, and other information concerning your application such as employment history, references and education. This information is used to contact you and to review your application, including to contact any references on your behalf or any other third parties that you may consent to our contacting and discussing your work history and related matters.

Cookies
A cookie is a small amount of data, often including an anonymous unique identifier, that is sent to your browser from a website's computer and stored on your computer's hard drive. We use "cookies" to collect and compile general statistical data - cookies do not give us access to any of your personal information. Cookies track the movements of visitors to our website and allow us to collect anonymous information about visitor website usage patterns to better understand and meet their requirements with improved website design. If you have registered with us, cookies also allow our website to recognize your computer the next time you visit and sign in and automatically fill in fields as mentioned above in WestJet Member and Mailing Lists.

WestJet uses third-party advertising technology to serve ads when you visit our website and certain sites on which we advertise, using information from your visits to our website and those other sites to serve more targeted ads to you. In the course of serving ads to you, a unique third-party cookie may be placed or recognized by your browser. In addition, we use pixels or transparent GIF files, often referred to as "web beacons", to help manage and optimize our online advertising. These are provided by DoubleClick, and enable our ad servers to recognize a browser's cookie when a browser visits our website and to learn which banner ads bring users to our website. The technology may also allow other service providers to receive information from our website related to our online advertising. With both cookies and web beacons, the information that we collect and share is anonymous and not personally identifiable and does not contain your name, address, telephone number, or email address.

DoubleClick is subject to contractual restrictions with respect to personal information to protect your privacy. For more information about DoubleClick, including information about how to opt-out of these technologies, go to http://www.doubleclick.net/us/corporate/privacy

DISCLOSURE
WestJet discloses your personal information with your consent to third parties as required to process your request for travel services, including flights, hotel and car bookings, and to provide services to you, or as required by applicable law, or as otherwise set out in this policy.

WestJet is continuously seeking ways in which to better serve you. WestJet may therefore also disclose personal information concerning you to other organizations who may have affiliated programs to WestJet or other offers of interest to you to allow them to contact you, but WestJet will do so only with your consent, which you may withdraw at any time.

Partners and Related Service Suppliers
WestJet may provide you with the opportunity to access products and services from third parties. Those third parties may collect, use and disclose personal information from you or about you in order to provide their products or services to you. The collection, use and disclosure of personal information by those third parties will be governed by their privacy policies and any consent you provide and, unless we advise you otherwise, WestJet has no access to or control over your personal information collected from you by those third parties.

AIR MILES®+ Reward Program (the "Program")
If you have an AIR MILES Collector Number for the Program and consent to provide it to us, we will use and disclose that information for the purpose of providing it to the Loyalty Group in order to allow the Loyalty Group to process any reward miles or other benefits you may receive from the Program. You consent to our doing so by providing the number to us.

If you have asked us to include your AIR MILES Collector number in the Guest Profile feature, it is used to complete the AIR MILES field for you, and will be retained on our systems for that purpose until you advise us that you no longer wish to participate in the Guest Profile feature, following which it will be removed.

WestJet™ and Mosaik® MasterCard®* Affiliate Program
With your consent, WestJet may disclose your mailing contact information to BMO in order to allow BMO to make offers to you from time to time with respect to this program, which allows you to earn flight credits and other rewards. You may withdraw your consent at any time.

If you have a WestJet BMO MasterCard (the "Card") and consent to provide information concerning your Card account to us, we will collect, use and disclose that information for the purpose of allowing you to book flights and other travel services using the Card, as well as to track your bookings so as to provide you with any free flights and companion tickets you may earn, as well as any other rewards that may be available from time to time. You consent to our doing so by providing the Card account number to us.

Travel Insurance
Any travel insurance purchased by you through this website is solely and directly offered, provided and underwritten by RBC Travel Insurance Company ("RBC Insurance") and WestJet expressly disclaims any responsibility with respect to such travel insurance purchased from RBC Insurance. By choosing to purchase travel insurance from RBC Insurance you are consenting to allow WestJet to transfer your personal and credit card information ("Guest Information") provided to us through this website to RBC Insurance. RBC Insurance will bill you directly for any travel insurance product purchased from RBC Insurance. Any indication on this website of the cost of a travel insurance product purchased from RBC Insurance ("Travel Insurance Cost") indicates an Travel Insurance Cost charged by and determined by RBC Insurance, and is provided to you by WestJet for your convenience, in order to provide you with a combined cost of airfare purchased from WestJet and insurance purchased from RBC Insurance, based on Travel Insurance Costs provided by RBC Insurance. WestJet has no control over Travel Insurance Costs and disclaims any responsibility in regard to such costs, including their accuracy, timeliness or availability.

Other Reward Programs
From time to time we may assist you in participating in other reward programs, and unless you are advised otherwise, the same general rules will apply as stated above.

Requirements of Government Authorities
As mentioned above, we are required to collect personal information by government authorities in the U.S., Canada and other countries, and that information may be disclosed to those authorities without your knowledge or consent as required by law.    It is the policy of WestJet to only collect and disclose what is required by law, and nothing further.

SECURITY
WestJet has in place sophisticated security measures and procedures to ensure that your personal information is protected from misuse and from unauthorized access.

However, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. We cannot ensure the security of the information you transmit to us over the Internet.

RETENTION OF INFORMATION

Retention Periods
Personal information collected by WestJet is retained for as long as it is reasonably required for the purposes for which it was collected, or as required by law, following which it is securely destroyed or made anonymous.  If you withdraw your consent to our retaining your personal information, we will advise you as to the consequences, if any, of your doing so.

Canceling your profile
If you have signed up to become a Guest to the WestJet website, you are then able to manage your own personal information, to view it and to modify it as you choose.  You are also able to cancel your profile completely at any time, but the consequences of doing so include no longer receiving JetMail or other recurring emails you may have signed up for and loss of automatic population of fields with your information.  We also advise you of the consequences of cancelling by way of a "what's this?" link next to the link to "Expire your account" and we ask you to confirm that you really do wish to cancel the account before you can proceed to do so. Following cancellation you will be advised that your account has been deleted, you have been unsubscribed and logged out. You can create a new Guest Profile at any time, even after you have cancelled your profile.

Expiry and Termination of Accounts
Until your consent is withdrawn, it is our policy to keep your guest account open indefinitely for your convenience in the event you decide to access it again, and, if you have enrolled for JetMail, to continue sending you JetMail until you advise us that you wish to no longer receive it. However, we do reserve the right to terminate accounts and JetMail distribution at any time without notice.

ACCESSING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
Feel free to contact us if you have any questions or concerns about this policy or the accuracy and completeness of any information in your file, if you wish to update any of your information, if you would like to see a copy of the information we have on file about you, or an account of the use that has been made of your information. To do so, simply contact WestJet at:

Toll Free: 1-877-WJ CARES (1-877-952-2737)
Fax: 1-866-227-3329

You may also use the above information to withdraw any consent you have provided, or to register a concern or complaint with us. In all cases, we may require that requests for information or withdrawal of consent be received by us by email, fax, mail or otherwise in written form.  We will also require that you provide sufficient information to allow us to locate your information to deal with your request.

RESPONDING TO YOU
All requests for access to information and complaints must be provided in writing and our response will be subject verifying your identity before replying. At this time we do not accept requests or complaints via email. It is our policy to respond to all inquiries, requests for access to personal information and concerns or complaints within 30 days of our receiving them unless otherwise allowed or required by law. If we cannot fully respond within 30 days, we will still advise you of that within 30 days.

However, we cannot give you access to personal information that we do not have, or that would disclose personal information concerning another individual without their consent, or that we otherwise cannot disclose under applicable law. There are legal restrictions in certain cases where we are prohibited from providing you with certain information. We reserve the right, in limited circumstances, to refuse to provide access to information where not legally required to do so, in which case we will advise you of the reasons for doing so, of the name of a person who can answer any questions you may have, and other details of your legal rights.