Privacy — The Passport Awards

1. Who we are

The Passport Awards is run by Lemon Group International Limited, a company registered in England and Wales with company number 05807099, whose registered office is at 167–169 Great Portland Street, 5th Floor, London W1W 5PF. We are the controller of the personal data described in this notice, which covers thepassportawards.com, the emails we send and the 2027 awards season. Contact us about anything in this notice at hello@thepassportawards.com, or by post at the address above.

This notice applies to people who nominate, vote, suggest creators for the Stamped 100, register for the premiere, ask for reminders, join our mailing list, enquire about partnerships, and to the creators who are nominated or listed. You must be 16 or over to use the forms on this site (see section 11).

2. What we collect, by activity

Activity	What we collect	Why
Nominating a creator	Your name, email address and relationship to the creator; the creator details you give us (name, handles, links, platform, country, languages, audience size, categories, bio, photo, and your reasons); the date.	To confirm the nomination by email, publish the nominee page once you confirm, judge the awards, and tell you about your nominee. If you tick the optional box, to send you news and voting reminders.
Voting	Your first and last name, email address, the nominee and award, the round, where the vote came from (for example a WhatsApp or X link), and a one way hash of your connection's IP address.	To confirm your vote, enforce one vote per email per award, detect automated or bought votes, audit the result, and show your Passport stamps. If you tick the box, to tell you the winners and the Stamped 100.
Stamped 100 suggestions, swipes and votes	Your name and email, the creator you suggest or vote on, your up or down vote and when you cast or changed it.	To build the longlist, count verified public votes on the board, and prevent duplicate or automated votes.
Premiere registration	Your name, email address and the role you choose.	To send you the link, a reminder the day before and a note when it starts. News between seasons only if you tick the box.
Reminders	Your email address and which reminder you asked for.	To send that reminder and one final nudge before the window closes.
Mailing list	Your email address, role and where you signed up.	To send the news you asked for, until you unsubscribe.
Partner enquiries	Your name, email, company and anything you tell us.	To reply, send the partnership pack and discuss a partnership.
Claiming a nominee page or asking for removal	Your name, email, your relationship to the creator and the proof you offer.	To verify you and act on the request.
Every visit	The page address and the date, added to a daily total. No cookie, no IP address, no identifier.	To count page views in aggregate.

We also keep a record of the emails we send you and of any messages you send us, so we can answer you and show what was sent.

3. Data about nominees, and where it comes from

If you are a creator listed on this site, you may not have given us your details yourself. This section is our notice to you under Article 14 of the UK GDPR.

What we hold: your name or creator name, handles, links to your public profiles, platform, country, a short bio, your profile photo or a photo supplied by the nominator, public follower counts and, for the Stamped 100, public engagement and growth figures. Where we hold one, a public business contact email or the email you gave us when claiming your page.
Where it comes from: the person who nominated you; our panel's own research of public sources; your public social media profiles, including public profile data available through Instagram's business discovery service; and you, if you claim your page.
Why we use it: to list nominees, run the public vote, judge the awards, compile the Stamped 100, tell you that you have been nominated, invite you to claim your page, and report the results.
Lawful basis: our legitimate interests in running and publicising a public awards programme for travel creators. We have weighed this against your interests: we use only professional information you have already made public as a creator, we do not publish contact details, and you can have your page edited or removed at any time.
Who sees it: your nominee page, share card and Stamped 100 entry are public. Our hosting and email providers process it for us (section 5).
How long: see section 7. Pages from a finished season stay as part of the historical record of that edition unless you ask us to remove them.
Your choice: to correct or remove your page or Stamped 100 entry, email hello@thepassportawards.com or use the removal link on the Stamped 100 board. We act within two working days. You can object at any time and we will stop, unless we have compelling grounds, for example keeping a record that a past winner won.

4. Our lawful basis, activity by activity

Activity	Lawful basis
Nominating, voting, Stamped 100 suggestions and votes	Legitimate interests: running a fair competition you have chosen to take part in, including confirming emails and checking for vote fraud.
Emails about your own nomination or vote (confirmation links, your nominee's page, a vote receipt)	Legitimate interests. These are service emails about something you did; they are not marketing and are sent without a tick.
Premiere registration and reminders	Contract: providing the free service you asked for.
Marketing email (news, voting reminders, winners, the Stamped 100)	Consent, given by an unticked box or by joining the mailing list. Withdraw it any time with the unsubscribe link in any email or by writing to us. Withdrawing does not affect emails already sent.
The IP hash and rate limits on forms	Legitimate interests: protecting the vote and the site from automated abuse.
Nominee listings and the Stamped 100	Legitimate interests (section 3).
Partner enquiries	Legitimate interests: replying to a business enquiry and discussing a partnership.
Keeping records for tax, accounts or legal claims	Legal obligation and legitimate interests.

5. Who processes it for us

We do not sell personal data, and we do not share it with sponsors or partners. Partners receive only aggregated, anonymised vote analytics. If we ever offer to put you in touch with a partner, we will ask you separately with an unticked box that names the partner, and share nothing without that tick.

Who	What they do
123reg (part of GoDaddy)	Hosts the website and its database, and runs the mail server our emails are sent through.
Accolade	Our awards platform, run by the same group, where it is used for judging administration. It processes data only on our instructions.
Google Fonts	Your browser loads our typefaces from Google, which receives your IP address to deliver them. Google does not set cookies for this.
Meta (Instagram)	We read public profile data about nominees from Instagram's business discovery service. We do not send visitors' data to Meta. Share buttons only contact WhatsApp, X, Facebook or others if you click them.

We may also disclose data to professional advisers, or where the law requires it.

6. Transfers outside the UK

Our hosting is provided from data centres in the European Union, which the UK recognises as giving adequate protection. Some of our providers, including GoDaddy and Google, are based in the United States and may access data from there. Where that happens we rely on the UK's adequacy regulations for the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework or on the UK International Data Transfer Addendum, as the provider has put in place. Ask us for details.

7. How long we keep it

Data	Kept for
Votes, including the IP hash	12 months after the premiere (to 15 March 2028), so the result can be audited, then deleted or anonymised.
Nominator details	24 months after the premiere, then deleted. Unconfirmed nominations are never published and are deleted at the end of the season.
Nominee pages	For the season, then as the historical record of that edition unless the creator asks us to remove them.
Stamped 100 suggestions, sign ins and votes	12 months after the list is published.
Premiere registrations	3 months after the premiere.
Reminder requests	Until the reminder and its final nudge are sent, then deleted within 3 months.
Mailing list	Until you unsubscribe. We then keep only your email address on a suppression list, so we never email you by mistake.
Partner enquiries and correspondence	24 months after our last contact.
Records of emails we sent	24 months.
Rate limit records	2 days.

8. Your rights

Under the UK GDPR you have the right to:

be told how we use your data (this notice);
get a copy of your data (access);
have it corrected (rectification);
have it deleted (erasure);
limit how we use it (restriction);
receive it in a portable format, or have it sent to someone else (portability);
object to our use of it, including any marketing, at any time (objection);
withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on consent; and
not be subject to decisions made solely by automated means that significantly affect you. We do not make any: every award result and the final Stamped 100 involve the panel.

To use any of these rights, email hello@thepassportawards.com. We reply within one month. It is free. If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow SK9 5AF, ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, 0303 123 1113. We would appreciate the chance to put it right first.

9. Cookies and device storage

We set one referral cookie, an admin session cookie, and a few items in your browser's storage to remember your details on your own device. There is no advertising or analytics tracking. The full list is on our cookies page.

10. Security

The site runs over HTTPS. Votes are linked to a one way hash of your connection, never to the address itself. Access to the admin area is password protected and limited to our team.

11. Under 16s

This site is not meant for children. You must be 16 or over to nominate, vote, sign up or register, and nominees must be 18 or over. If we learn that we hold data about a child under 16 who used our forms, we delete it. A parent or guardian who thinks this has happened can email hello@thepassportawards.com.

12. Changes

We will update this notice if what we do changes, and change the date at the top. If a change matters to you, for example a new use of your data, we will tell you by email before it applies.