This is an English translation of our Portuguese privacy policy (Política de Privacidade). If the two versions differ, the Portuguese version prevails.
Zarpela is a platform that lets travel agencies create digital itineraries and share them with their clients. This policy explains, in plain language, what data we handle, why, and what your rights are. We take this seriously: the platform was designed to keep as little data as possible.
At this stage, Zarpela is operated by its founder as an individual. The operator’s full identification is available at any time on request: hello@zarpela.com. For any question about privacy, contact us at the same address.
Who is who (important)
Zarpela serves two kinds of people, with different roles:
Travel agencies — our direct customers. They create an account, build itineraries and manage their travelers’ data. For the agency’s account data, Zarpela is the controller.
Travelers — the agencies’ clients, who receive a trip link. Travelers’ data is entered and controlled by the travel agency, which is the controller of that data. Zarpela acts as a processor: we store and display that data on the agency’s behalf, following its instructions, and use it for nothing else.
If you are a traveler and want to correct or delete your data, the most direct route is to speak to your travel agency — it controls the content of your trip. You can also contact us directly and we will pass the request on.
What data we handle
Agency account data: the agency’s name, login email, the name and contact details of its consultant(s) (name, photo, phone, WhatsApp — whichever the agency chooses to show), its logo and brand colors.
Trip data (entered by the agency): the traveler(s)’ names, dates and destinations, itinerary details (flights, hotels, activities, transfers), travel documents uploaded by the agency (tickets, vouchers, insurance policies, etc.), update messages, and emails from tour operators and suppliers, and booking confirmations, that the agency forwards to us or copies us on.
Minimal technical data: the server logs needed for the service to work and stay secure. We do not use advertising cookies or marketing tracking tools. We do not use analytics tools or tracking cookies — we do not even know how many times you opened your trip (except demo trips, below). The trip page records the date and time it was last opened online, visible only to the agency.
When someone opens a demo trip we sent them, we record when it was opened, how many times, and whether on a phone or a computer, so we know the demo was seen. We do this with our own tools, without cookies or third-party services, and delete this data when the demo is deleted (at most 60 days).
What we use the data for
Solely to provide the service: showing the itinerary to the traveler through the trip link, letting the agency manage its trips, sending strictly service-related emails (for example, password recovery), and keeping the platform secure and running. We do not sell data. We do not advertise. We do not use trip data to train anything or for any other purpose.
When the agency turns on the AI features — importing a travel document or asking the dashboard’s assistant questions —, the trips’ content, including the names of the clients and of the agency’s team, is processed by Anthropic, acting as Zarpela’s processor, to produce the answers. Anthropic does not use this data to train models and keeps it only for the limited period set out in its terms. Before any request, we remove passport and ID numbers, dates of birth, phone numbers, email addresses, postal addresses, payment details and health notes (allergies and medical information). By default, a document uploaded to the dashboard does not leave the agency’s computer: only its text is sent. The exception is an image that the agency expressly chooses to send to be read by the AI: that image is sent as it is, without the data above being removed first. Emails that the agency forwards to its private Zarpela address, or copies that address on, including its suppliers’ replies, reach our servers in the European Union: the original email and its attachments are deleted as soon as its text has been read — usually within seconds —, except PDFs and images, which are kept until the agency decides whether to save them to the trip’s documents, for 7 days at most; a saved attachment becomes a trip document, as if the agency had uploaded it. The email’s text is kept only until it has been processed, for 7 days at most. The same data above is removed before any request to the AI. To avoid duplicates, we keep a record of each email received (sender, date and what was done with it) for 90 days; the subject line is deleted after 30 days. Conversations with the assistant are kept in the agency’s account and are deleted automatically after 12 months without use.
How trip links work
Each trip has a unique address that cannot be guessed, shared by the agency only with the traveler. These pages are marked not to be indexed by search engines. The agency can revoke a link at any time (by generating a new one or unpublishing the trip). Travel documents are kept in private storage and served through temporary, signed addresses. So that it works without internet, the page and its documents may be stored on the traveler’s phone — under the control of the device itself.
Where the data is kept
The data is hosted in the European Union: the database and the files are at Supabase (Ireland region). The application is served by Vercel and service emails are sent through Resend. Emails forwarded by the agency, or that the agency copies us on, are received through Amazon Web Services (Ireland region). These providers act as processors and are bound by data processing agreements. Payments are processed by Stripe, which receives the billing and card details directly — Zarpela never receives or stores them. We may also use technical error-detection tools (so that we know when something fails and can fix it), which receive only technical information about the error.
The AI service may process that text outside the European Union, under standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission.
How long we keep the data
For as long as the agency’s account is active. When an agency deletes a trip, a document or a client, that data is removed. When an account is closed, the associated data is deleted within a reasonable period, unless the law requires it to be kept. Technical backups expire in the normal backup cycles.
Your rights
Under the GDPR, you have the right to access, correct, delete and receive a copy of your data, and to object to or restrict its processing. To exercise these rights: hello@zarpela.com (if you are a traveler, your agency is usually the quickest route — see above). You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Portuguese supervisory authority, the CNPD (www.cnpd.pt).
Changes to this policy
If we change this policy in a meaningful way, we will update this page and the date at the top. Significant changes to how agencies’ data is handled will be communicated by email.