Privacy policy
The internet portal of Karat-S and the booking portal integrated therein (hereinafter collectively referred to as “website”) are operated by Karat-S AD. (hereinafter referred to as “Karat-S” or “we”). We attach great importance to the protection of your personal data. For this reason, data protection at Karat-S has a high priority, and we strictly adhere to the legal provisions of the European Data Protection Policy and the United States Federal Data Protection Act in collecting, processing and using data.
1. Collection, processing, and use of personal data The processing of your personal data is based on the following legal basis:
1.1 Contractual relationship pursuant to Art. 6 (1) letter b of GDPR
We process the personal data voluntarily communicated to us (name, pursuant to Article 6 (1) letter b of GDPR) for the contractual processing of ticket orders, for carrying out transport and opening of a customer account or in the context of pre-contractual measures.
To do this, we need your first name, surname, and mobile telephone number. For the required payment processing, the following data may be required in addition: For payment of a booked trip with the credit card, Karat-S requires your full name, email address and credit card data.
1.2 Legitimate interests pursuant to Art. 6 (1) letter f of GDPR Due to a legitimate interest in accordance with Art. 6 (1) letter f and possibly letter b of GDPR, we process the necessary data for the following purposes:
The data stored for the contract processing and for carrying out the bus trips is forwarded to third parties (e.g., service providers for IT, transport, customer service, sending emails and newsletters, and payment processing) in the course of registration and for processing the ticket sale. In justified cases (e.g., damage to the buses), we reserve the right to forward the customer data to the respective bus transport partners. The data forwarded in this way may only be used by our service providers to fulfill their task and not for other purposes. Insofar as orders are processed, processing takes place in compliance with the requirements for order processing pursuant to Art. 28 of GDPR.
2. Newsletter The personal data collected at registration of the newsletter with your consent pursuant to Art. 6 (1) letter a of GDPR is used for communication with you (e.g., service messages, system notifications, email confirming your registration, sending user account information, information about your tickets and itineraries, or your travel profiles) as well as for mailing newsletters.
When we receive your email address in connection with the sale of goods or services and you have not opted out of this, we reserve the right to send you offers regularly via email for products from our range that are similar to those already purchased.
You can withdraw consent for the use of your email address and the processing and use of the data to create user profiles at any time by sending a message to operations@eurolines.bg or via the cancel registration link of the newsletter.
3. Data security We protect the privacy of users on our website and the connected systems using technical and organizational measures. To ensure secure transfer of personal data, we use the encryption protocol SSL 3.0 (RSA-2048 is used as the underlying encryption method for the public key infrastructure.) This procedure is used successfully throughout the World Wide Web. All personal data (name, address, payment data, etc.) are thereby encrypted and consequently securely transmitted on the internet. You can see via a symbol (closed padlock) in the upper left window bar of your browser that you are in a secure area.
4. Data transfers to third countries Data is processed on principle in Germany or countries of the European Union. Where processing in third countries is planned in certain cases, processing shall only be carried out if the appropriateness of the level of data protection in the third country has been established by the EU Commission under Art. 45 of GDPR or on the basis of standard EU contractual clauses.
5. Data storage period We store the data as long as it is required for the respective processing purposes (e.g., contract processing, advertising purposes) and for fulfilling the trade and tax legal retention provisions pursuant to Art. 6 (1) letter c of GDPR and Section 257 (1) of the German Commercial Code (Handelsgesetzbuch [HGB]) and Section 147 (2) of the Tax Code (AO).
6. Information and complaint rights Pursuant to the basic data protection regulation, you have a right to free information about your stored data and, where applicable, a right to rectification, deletion, limitation of processing and objection to your stored data. In this context, please contact Karat-S by sending us an email at operations@eurolines.bg
In addition, you have a right to complain about data protection to the supervisory agency responsible for us.
7. Use of cookies When you visit our website, information is stored in the form of a cookie (small text files stored on your browser). Information about your use of the website is saved there (identification ID, visit date, etc.). With the use of cookies, we facilitate the use of our online offer through various service functions (such as the recognition of previous visits) and consequently can better adapt the internet offer to your needs. You can stop the storage of cookies and delete existing cookies by making the appropriate changes to your browser settings. The help function of most browsers tells you how to change these settings. If you do not accept cookies, this may affect the service functions of the internet offer. We, therefore, recommend that the cookie function is left switched on.
In addition, we use third-party cookies for retargeting and remarketing technologies to optimize our web offerings as well as interest-based marketing purposes. The stored surfing behavior is analyzed using an algorithm so that targeted interest-related product recommendations in the form of advertising banners or advertisements can then be displayed on third party websites. Without the express consent of the person concerned, the pseudonymized user profiles will not be combined with the personal data of the user of the pseudonym.
Comprehensive information about how to accomplish this on a wide variety of browsers can be found on the following websites: youronlinechoices , Network Advertising Initiative and/or Digital Advertising Alliance . You can also find information there about how to delete cookies from your computer as well as general information about cookies.
7.1 Google AdWords To optimize our web offerings as well as for product recommendations, we use the technology provided by Google Inc. (1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA; “Google”) to create pseudonymized user profiles about the surfing behavior of the website visitors for marketing purposes. For this purpose, cookies may be used, which make it possible to recognize an internet browser on a return visit. The stored surfing behavior is analyzed using an algorithm so that targeted interest-related product recommendations in the form of advertising banners or advertisements can then be displayed on third party websites. Without the express consent of the person concerned, the pseudonymized user profile will not be combined with the personal data of the user of the pseudonym. The creation of pseudonymized user profiles for interest-based advertising/ad preferences can be refused at any time by visiting the https://www.google.com/settings/ads page. You can find more information about interest-related advertising at http://www.google.com/policies/technologies/ads/ .
7.2 Facebook Custom Audiences This website uses the Retargeting-Pixel Custom Audience of the social network Facebook, 1601 South California Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA. With the help of the Remarketing Pixel, it is possible to use the visitors of our website as a target group for the advertisements of Facebook ads. For this purpose, a Facebook cookie is stored on your PC. Please refer to the data protection (privacy settings) provisions of Facebook for information about the purpose and scope of data collection as well as the further processing and use of data by Facebook and your options for privacy settings at https://facebook.com/policy.php and https://www.facebook.com/ads/settings. You can object to the use of Custom Audiences at www.youronlinechoices.com/de/praferenzmanagement or for users with a Facebook account here.
7.3. Google Analytics This website uses Google Analytics, a web analysis service of Google Inc. (“Google”). Google Analytics uses “cookies”, text files, which are stored on your computer and enable analysis of your use of the website. In addition, this website uses the Google AMP Client ID API to link user activities to AMP pages with those on non-AMP pages via Google Analytics. The Google tracking codes of this website use the “_anonymizeIp()” function. As a result, the IP address within Member States of the European Union or in other States of the Agreement on the European Economic Area is only processed further abbreviated to exclude a direct personal reference. The complete IP address is only transmitted to a server from Google in the USA in exceptional cases and abbreviated there. On behalf of the operator of this website, Google uses this information to evaluate your use of this website, create reports about the website activities and provide other services connected with the use of the website and Internet for the website operator. The IP address transmitted from your browser within the context of Google Analytics will not be associated with other Google data. You can prevent storage of cookies on your computer via the corresponding setting of your browser software. However, we advise that this may mean that you are you unable to use all functions of this website to their full extent. You can also prevent Google recording data generated by a cookie with respect to your use of the website (incl. IP address) as well as Google processing of this data by downloading and installing the browser plugin available via the following link: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=de
7.4 Hotjar To improve your user experience on our internet pages we use software by Hotjar (http://www.hotjar.com, 3 Lyons Range, 20 Bisazza Street, Sliema SLM 1640, Malta, Europe). Using the software, we can measure and evaluate user behavior (mouse movements, clicks, keystrokes, scroll height, etc.) on our websites. For this purpose, cookies are placed on users’ terminals and data from users such as browser information, operating system, time spent on the page, etc. can be stored. You can find more information about the processing of data by hotjar at http://www.hotjar.com/privacy . You can object to the use of Hotjar’s services at https://www.hotjar.com/opt-out .