Privacy Policy

This policy explains what happens to your personal information when you use this website, send us an enquiry, or book a safari, stay or taxi with us. It is written to be read, not to be skipped.

Bigstriped Cat Safari Tours (“we”, “us”, “our”) is a private travel agency based in Sawai Madhopur, Rajasthan, India, operating safari bookings, hotel stays and transport services in and around Ranthambore and other parks. We handle your data under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the rules made under it. Where we hold information that a government authority requires us to keep — park permits in particular — we keep it for the period that authority requires, and no longer.

We may update this policy as our services or the law change; the “last updated” date above shows the latest revision. If something here does not match what you have experienced, tell us and we will correct it.

We only collect what we need to put your safari in the diary and put you in the vehicle. In practice that means:

• Booking details: names, dates of birth, e-mail address, phone or WhatsApp number, nationality, and the number of adults and children travelling.
• Identity documents: the type, number and issuing country of the ID you provide for each traveller. This is required by the Forest Department and we cannot file a permit without it.
• Passport details for foreign nationals, including the passport number, for the same reason.
• Correspondence: if you call, e-mail, message on WhatsApp or use the contact form, we keep the record so we know what was agreed.
• Trip preferences: special needs, hotel choices and any other details you choose to share so we can shape the booking.

Specifically, to:

• Respond to your enquiries and check availability for the dates you ask about.
• File and confirm your park permit, including your zone, gate and reporting time.
• Arrange the services you book — safari vehicle, accommodation, transfers and the Chambal boat trip.
• Contact you before and after the trip about your booking, and answer questions or handle a complaint or refund request.
• Meet our legal and tax obligations, which includes keeping booking records.
• Send occasional trip ideas only if you have opted in to hear from us.

We do not use your information to build an advertising profile, and we do not sell, rent or trade it to anyone for their marketing.

We share only what is necessary, and only with these parties:

• Forest departments (Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and others as applicable): your name and ID details, to issue the permit and admit you to the park.
• Hotels, transporters and boat operators: the name and contact number needed to run your booking.
• Payment channels: payments are made to us by UPI or bank transfer, so they pass through your bank rather than through this website. We never see or store card numbers.
• E-mail, hosting and messaging providers: messages and files are delivered through third-party services (including WhatsApp/Meta) which process them on our behalf.
• Government authorities: where disclosure is required by law.

Each party receives only the information they need, and we expect them to treat it appropriately.

Booking and identity records are kept for as long as the law requires for tax and permit-record purposes, and then deleted or anonymised. Enquiries that do not become bookings are deleted after twelve months. Any analytics data, if we add analytics in future, would be retained only in aggregated form and not linked to an individual.

We recommend you avoid sending sensitive personal or financial data in unsecured messages; messages sent through contact forms or WhatsApp are handled by the relevant platform.

This site is served over encrypted connections (HTTPS), and access to your booking information is limited to the people who need it to run your trip. Paper records of identity documents, where we keep them, are not left where guests can reach them.

No system is perfectly secure, and we will not claim ours is. If a breach affecting your data happens, we will tell you and the relevant authority as required under the Act.

Our website does not require cookies to work, and we do not run advertising or analytics trackers on it today. Third-party services you choose to open from the site — Google Fonts when the page loads, WhatsApp when you tap our chat link — set or read cookies under their own policies.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings at any time. If we add analytics or advertising tools in future, we will update this policy and, where required by law, ask for your consent first.

Under the Act you can ask us to:

• Confirm what personal information we hold about you and give you a copy of it.
• Correct anything inaccurate.
• Delete your information, where we are not legally required to keep it.
• Withdraw consent for promotional messages at any time.
• Nominate someone to exercise these rights on your behalf, or complain to the Data Protection Board of India.

E-mail or WhatsApp us with your booking reference and we will action straightforward requests within thirty days. We may ask you to confirm your identity before we release anything, so that we do not hand your records to the wrong person.