Legal
Privacy Policy
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Guestologie helps restaurants recognize their guests and look after them better. This policy explains what personal information we handle, why, and the choices you have. It applies to True Loyalty Systems Inc., doing business as Guestologie ("Guestologie", "we", "us"), which operates the Guestologie platform and website.
1. Who we are
True Loyalty Systems Inc. (doing business as Guestologie), 650 W Georgia St #3200, Vancouver, BC V6B 4P7, Canada. Contact: privacy@guestologie.com.
- Privacy contact: Chief Executive Officer, privacy@guestologie.com
2. Information about restaurant guests
2.1 What restaurants use Guestologie for
Restaurants connect Guestologie to the systems they already use, such as their reservation platform (for example OpenTable or SevenRooms) and their point-of-sale system. Guestologie uses that information to help staff:
- recognize returning guests and see their visit history;
- note preferences and occasions, for example a favorite table or a birthday;
- suggest a personal touch for a visit, such as a manager stopping by the table or a complimentary dessert;
- understand how often guests return, and measure whether these touches made a difference;
- if the restaurant chooses, send text messages to guests who have opted in.
2.2 What we receive
The information we receive is limited to the categories below. Which of them we receive depends on the systems each restaurant connects.
- Identity and contact details: name, phone number, email address, and the guest ID used by the restaurant's systems.
- Reservation and visit history: date, time, location, party size, table, server, and booking status (for example, seated, cancelled or no-show).
- Spend information: bill total, tax and tip and, where the point-of-sale system provides them, the items ordered. We do not receive or store payment card numbers.
- Notes, preferences and tags: notes and guest tags recorded by restaurant staff or the reservation system, such as seating preferences, occasions and dietary requirements.
- Information we derive for the restaurant: a loyalty tier based on how often you visit, a summary of your visit history, preference notes, and suggested service actions. Summaries, preference notes and suggested actions are generated with the help of AI tools (Section 5).
- Text message records: if you opt in to a restaurant's text messages, the messages sent, your replies, and your opt-in and opt-out status.
2.3 Allergies and dietary information
Allergy and dietary information can count as health data. Restaurants record it so they can serve you safely. We use it only to show it to the restaurant's staff and for that purpose. We do not use it for marketing, segmentation, profiling, or building models.
2.4 Where it comes from
We receive this information from the restaurant, from its staff, and from the systems it connects to Guestologie, such as its reservation and point-of-sale platforms, which collected it from you when you booked, visited or paid. If you opt in to a restaurant's text messages, we also receive your replies directly from you. The information described in Section 2.2 as derived for the restaurant is generated by us.
3. When we act for a restaurant
When a restaurant uses Guestologie, we process its guests' information on the restaurant's behalf, following its instructions and under our agreement with it. The restaurant decides how your information is used and is responsible for telling you about it, including the legal basis it relies on. Please read the restaurant's own privacy policy for details. The only exceptions, where we decide how data is used, are listed in Section 4.
4. When we decide how guest data is used
We decide the purpose of the processing, and are a controller, only for the activities below. We rely on our legitimate interests for each of them. You can object at any time (Section 9); if you do, we will stop unless we have compelling legitimate grounds to continue or need the information for legal claims.
- Matching records: recognizing that records from different systems, or from more than one restaurant that uses Guestologie, belong to the same person, so that profiles are accurate and duplicates are merged. A restaurant never sees your visits to another restaurant unless both are operated by the same company or group.
- Aggregated insights and benchmarking: producing statistics that are aggregated or de-identified, for example typical return rates across restaurants. These statistics do not identify you.
- Improving our service: using guest data to test and improve our features and the models that predict, for example, how likely a guest is to return. We use aggregated or pseudonymized data wherever we can. Restaurants can choose to exclude their guests' data from this use.
- Security, fraud prevention and legal compliance: protecting the platform and the people who use it, investigating misuse, and meeting our legal obligations.
We do not sell guest personal information, and we do not use it for cross-context behavioral advertising.
5. AI and automated processing
Guestologie uses AI tools to draft visit summaries, suggest service actions and draft message text for restaurant staff. Staff decide what to do. We do not make decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you based solely on automated processing. Our AI provider (Google, through Vertex AI) is listed on our subprocessor page. It processes data only to provide the service to us, and our contract does not allow it to use the data to train its own models.
6. Information about website visitors, prospects and platform users
We are the controller for this information.
| What | Why | Legal basis (GDPR) |
|---|---|---|
| Contact details you give us (name, work email, phone, company, role) when you request a demo, sign up or write to us | To respond, provide the service and manage our relationship | Contract; legitimate interests |
| Platform account details (name, email, role, location, login activity) and how you use the platform | To provide, secure and support the platform; to report staff activity to your employer (the restaurant) | Contract with the restaurant; legitimate interests |
| Website and product usage data (pages viewed, device and browser, approximate location from IP address) collected through cookies and similar tools | Analytics, security, improving the site and product | Consent where required; otherwise legitimate interests |
| Marketing preferences | To send B2B updates you can unsubscribe from at any time | Consent or legitimate interests, as local law requires |
Cookies: see our Cookie Notice. We honor Global Privacy Control signals as an opt-out where the law requires it.
7. Who we share information with
- The restaurant (and its group) that the data relates to.
- Our service providers (subprocessors), who host, transmit or process data for us under contract. The current list, with each provider's purpose and location, is at guestologie.com/subprocessors.
- Integrations a restaurant switches on, such as its reservation or point-of-sale platform, under the restaurant's own instructions.
- Authorities or other parties where the law requires it, or to protect rights and safety.
- A buyer or successor if our business is reorganized or sold. Any such party remains bound by this policy.
Text messages: we do not sell or share mobile phone numbers or text-message opt-in data with third parties for their own marketing. Opt-in data and consent records are never shared with any third party except the service providers that deliver the messages.
8. International transfers
Our platform is hosted in the United States (Google Cloud, Oregon). If you are in the UK, the EEA or Canada, your information will be transferred to and processed in the US. For transfers from the EEA and the UK we use the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses and the UK International Data Transfer Addendum. For Quebec, we assess each transfer before it happens, as Law 25 requires. You can ask us for a copy of the relevant safeguards.
9. Your rights and how to use them
The rights available to you depend on the law where you live. They can include the right to:
- access your personal information and get a copy of it;
- correct it;
- delete it;
- restrict or object to how it is used, including the uses in Section 4;
- take it with you (data portability);
- withdraw consent, for example to text messages (reply STOP to any message);
- opt out of sale or sharing, targeted advertising, or profiling (US state laws);
- not be treated differently for using any of these rights.
How to make a request: use our privacy request form or email privacy@guestologie.com.
- If you are a restaurant guest, the restaurant is responsible for your request. We forward it to the restaurant within 10 business days and help it respond. We handle requests about the Section 4 uses ourselves.
- Checking it's you: we send a one-time code to the email address or phone number we hold for you. If we can't verify you that way, for example because we hold no contact details for you, we will ask for other information that matches our records. We use information provided for verification only to verify your identity.
- Authorized agents: someone can make a request for you if they have your signed permission or a power of attorney. We may still ask you to confirm your identity directly.
- How long it takes: we reply within one month (GDPR and UK GDPR), 30 days (Canada), or 45 days (US state laws). If a request is complex, we may extend this by up to two further months (UK and EEA), 30 days (Canada, outside Quebec) or 45 days (US states). If we do, we will tell you why within the original period.
- If we refuse all or part of your request, we will explain why and tell you how to appeal (US states) or complain.
Complaints: please contact us first. You can also complain to your local data protection authority, for example the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk), the Irish Data Protection Commission (dataprotection.ie), the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (priv.gc.ca), the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec (cai.gouv.qc.ca), or your state Attorney General.
10. Additional information by region
UK and EEA. Our legal bases are described in Sections 3, 4 and 6.
Canada (PIPEDA, BC/AB PIPA, Quebec Law 25). Restaurants are responsible for getting appropriate consent from their guests. We process guest information only for the purposes the restaurant has identified, plus the limited uses in Section 4. Quebec residents can contact us (Section 15) and ask how any automated processing works.
United States (California and other states with privacy laws). In the last 12 months we have collected these categories: identifiers, commercial information (visit and spend history), inferences (loyalty tier, preferences), and internet activity (website and product usage only). We collected them for the business purposes described above. We do not sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 16.
11. How long we keep information
We keep personal information only as long as we need it for the purposes above, or as long as the law requires. For guest data we process on a restaurant's behalf, the restaurant's agreement with us sets how long we keep it. Text-message consent records are kept for as long as we need to show that consent was given.
12. Security
We protect personal information with technical and organizational measures, including:
- Encryption: information is encrypted in transit and at rest. Credentials for the systems restaurants connect to Guestologie are stored in an encrypted vault (AES-256-GCM).
- Separation between clients: every record is tied to the restaurant organization it belongs to, and each user's access is checked against the organizations and locations they are authorized for.
- Staff access: Guestologie staff can access only the systems and information their role requires.
- Logging and monitoring of access and system activity.
- Vendor review: we assess the security and privacy practices of our subprocessors before we use them.
No system is perfectly secure. If a security incident affects guest information we process for a restaurant, we notify that restaurant without undue delay so it can meet its own obligations. If it affects information we control, we notify the relevant authorities and the people affected as the law requires.
13. Children
Guestologie is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 16.
14. Changes to this policy
We will post any changes here and update the date at the top. If a change is significant, we will give you more prominent notice.
15. Contact us
privacy@guestologie.com · True Loyalty Systems Inc., 650 W Georgia St #3200, Vancouver, BC V6B 4P7, Canada · Privacy request form