Privacy Policy

Last updated: May 2026  ·  The Maldives Concierge  ·  themaldivesconcierge.com

1. Who We Are

The Maldives Concierge is an independent Maldives travel advisory and resort directory platform, operated by Mark, based in Northumberland, England, United Kingdom. We are not a travel agent, tour operator, or affiliated with any resort, airline, or travel company.

Our website provides AI-powered resort matching, editorial travel guides, and a curated directory of Maldives resorts to help travellers make informed decisions about one of the world’s most significant holiday investments.

For privacy-related enquiries, please contact us at: privacy@themaldivesconcierge.com

2. Information We Collect

Information You Provide Directly

We collect information you voluntarily provide when using our services, including:

• Resort finder responses — your answers to our AI resort matching questionnaire (budget, travel party, preferences, dates). This data is processed to generate personalised resort recommendations and is not stored permanently.
• Purchase information — when you purchase our downloadable Maldives Holiday Guide bundle, we collect your name, email address, and billing information via our secure payment processor (Stripe). We do not store your full card details.
• Contact form submissions — your name, email address, and message content when you contact us directly.
• Email sign-ups — your email address if you subscribe to updates or guides.

Information Collected Automatically

When you visit our website, we and our third-party partners automatically collect certain technical information:

• Usage data — pages visited, time spent, links clicked, referring website, and navigation patterns
• Device information — browser type and version, operating system, device type, and screen resolution
• IP address — used to determine approximate geographic location (country/region level)
• Cookies and similar technologies — as described in Section 6 below

Information from Third Parties

We may receive aggregated, anonymised analytics data from services including Google Analytics and Google AdSense that help us understand how visitors use the site.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect for the following purposes:

• To operate and improve the AI resort matching tool and deliver personalised recommendations
• To process purchases of our downloadable holiday guides and deliver digital products
• To respond to enquiries and provide customer support
• To send transactional emails (purchase confirmations, download links)
• To send editorial updates and newsletters, where you have opted in
• To analyse website usage and improve the quality of our content and tools
• To display relevant advertising through Google AdSense
• To comply with legal obligations
• To detect and prevent fraud or abuse

4. Legal Basis for Processing (UK & EEA Users)

Under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, we process your personal data on the following legal bases:

• Contract performance — processing necessary to fulfil your purchase and deliver digital products
• Legitimate interests — analytics, site improvement, and fraud prevention, where these do not override your rights
• Consent — for marketing emails and non-essential cookies, which you may withdraw at any time
• Legal obligation — where we are required to process data by applicable law

5. How We Share Your Information

We do not sell your personal data. We share data only in the following limited circumstances:

Service Providers

We work with trusted third-party providers who process data on our behalf under strict data processing agreements:

• Stripe — payment processing for holiday guide purchases. Stripe’s privacy policy is available at stripe.com/privacy
• Anthropic — AI language model powering our resort finder tool. Resort finder responses are processed by Anthropic’s API. Anthropic’s privacy policy is available at anthropic.com/privacy
• Google Analytics — website analytics and traffic measurement
• Google AdSense — advertising display and personalisation
• Hostinger — website hosting and infrastructure
• WooCommerce / Automattic — e-commerce functionality for digital product delivery

Legal Requirements

We may disclose your information if required by law, court order, or regulatory authority, or where we believe disclosure is necessary to protect our rights or the safety of others.

Business Transfer

In the event of a sale, merger, or acquisition of The Maldives Concierge, your data may be transferred to the new owner, who will be bound by this Privacy Policy or a substantially similar one.

6. Cookies

Our website uses cookies — small text files stored on your device — to enable essential site functionality, analyse traffic, and serve relevant advertising. The categories of cookies we use are:

• Essential cookies — required for the website to function, including shopping cart and checkout processes. These cannot be disabled.
• Analytics cookies — Google Analytics cookies that help us understand how visitors use the site. These collect anonymised, aggregated data.
• Advertising cookies — Google AdSense uses cookies to serve advertisements relevant to your interests. These may include personalised advertising based on your browsing history across other sites.
• Functional cookies — cookies that remember your preferences, such as currency selection in the resort finder.

You can manage your cookie preferences through your browser settings. Note that disabling certain cookies may affect the functionality of the site. For information about Google’s use of advertising cookies, visit policies.google.com/technologies/ads. You can opt out of personalised Google advertising at google.com/settings/ads.

7. Google AdSense & Advertising

This website displays advertisements served by Google AdSense. Google uses cookies and similar technologies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this website and other websites. Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads based on your visit to our site and other sites on the internet.

Advertisements displayed on this site are clearly labelled as “Advertisement.” We do not control the specific ads shown, however Google’s advertising policies prohibit ads that are deceptive, inappropriate, or misleading.

The Maldives Concierge participates in Google AdSense in compliance with Google’s programme policies. We do not click our own ads or encourage others to do so.

8. Resort Finder & AI Processing

Our AI-powered resort matching tool uses the Anthropic Claude API to process your questionnaire responses and generate personalised resort recommendations. Your responses are transmitted securely to Anthropic’s servers to generate recommendations and are not stored by us after your session ends. We do not use your resort finder responses to build a personal profile or for targeted advertising.

The resort recommendations generated are based on a manually curated database of Maldives resorts. Resorts marked as “Featured” or “Premium” have paid for enhanced placement on this platform. This commercial relationship does not influence the independent editorial content or the AI matching algorithm for general recommendations.

9. Data Retention

We retain your personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes described in this policy:

• Purchase records — retained for 7 years to comply with UK financial record-keeping requirements
• Contact form data — retained for 2 years unless ongoing correspondence requires longer retention
• Email marketing lists — retained until you unsubscribe or request deletion
• Analytics data — retained in anonymised form per Google Analytics’ standard retention settings
• Resort finder responses — not retained after your session ends

10. Your Rights

Under UK GDPR, you have the following rights regarding your personal data:

• Right of access — to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• Right to rectification — to request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data
• Right to erasure — to request deletion of your personal data (“right to be forgotten”)
• Right to restrict processing — to request that we limit how we use your data
• Right to data portability — to receive your data in a structured, machine-readable format
• Right to object — to object to processing based on legitimate interests or for direct marketing
• Right to withdraw consent — to withdraw consent at any time where processing is consent-based

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at privacy@themaldivesconcierge.com. We will respond within 30 days. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk.

11. International Data Transfers

Some of our third-party service providers (including Anthropic, Google, and Stripe) are based in the United States. When your data is transferred outside the UK or EEA, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place, including Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the UK ICO or reliance on adequacy decisions.

12. Children’s Privacy

The Maldives Concierge is not directed at children under the age of 16. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe we have inadvertently collected data from a child, please contact us immediately and we will delete it promptly.

13. External Links

Our website contains links to third-party websites, including individual resort websites, booking platforms, airline websites, and travel service providers. This Privacy Policy applies only to themaldivesconcierge.com. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of external sites and encourage you to read their privacy policies before providing any personal information.

14. Security

We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against unauthorised access, loss, or destruction. Our website uses SSL/TLS encryption (HTTPS) for all data transmission. Payment processing is handled entirely by Stripe, which is PCI DSS compliant. We cannot, however, guarantee absolute security of data transmitted over the internet.

15. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, or legal requirements. We will post the updated policy on this page with a revised “Last updated” date. For significant changes, we will provide more prominent notice. Your continued use of the site after any changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.