Privacy policy — Going Global

Who we are

Going Global Relocation Guides (“Going Global”, “we”, “us”) publishes city relocation guides for families on international assignment. We are the controller of the personal data described in this policy. Our company particulars are in the Legal notice. Our data-protection contact is privacy@goingglobalguides.com.

What this policy covers

Three things: this website at goingglobalguides.com; the Going Global app, the public edition for iPhone, iPad and Android from the App Store and Google Play, which you sign in to with your email address; and the partner edition, the white-label version of the guide that relocation companies and employers’ HR departments give their people, which collects no personal data from them. Your employer or relocation company may hold its own records about you under its own policy; this policy covers what we do.

The short version: in the Going Global app we collect what the guide needs to work, and the newsletter is a separate choice you make. The partner edition collects no personal data from the people who read it. We do not sell personal data, we do not run advertising trackers, and nothing you write in the guide is used to train any artificial-intelligence model.

This website

You can read this website without giving us any personal data. When you visit, our hosting provider records standard server logs — the IP address of your connection, the pages requested, the time, and the browser and device type — which are used to run and secure the service and are kept for a limited period by the provider. The page uses a small piece of browser storage to remember that you have already seen the opening film in this browsing session; it identifies nothing about you and is cleared when you close the browser. We do not set advertising or analytics cookies of our own.

If you write to us, or ask to be told when the app is available, we keep your message and your email address for that purpose and for as long as the conversation or the request is live.

How we count visits

We count page visits without cookies and without storing your IP address. When a page opens, a small script on this website sends our own server the page’s address and, if you arrived from another site, that site’s name only (for example “google.com”, never the full address you came from). The server adds one to that day’s total for the page and for that site, and keeps nothing else: no cookie is read or set, and no IP address, browser or device details, or identifier of any kind is stored, so a visit cannot be linked to you or to another visit. The same totals count, per day, notify-me sign-ups, sample-chapter downloads, newsletter opt-ins, partner enquiries, live maps opened, and neighbourhood matches finished, with which neighbourhood came top (never your answers).

If your browser sends Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control, nothing is counted at all. Automated visitors are recognised by the browser name they announce, which is looked at and then discarded, and are not counted. The daily totals are kept in a private folder on our own hosting, outside the public website, and are read only by Going Global. We keep them for 13 months and then delete them automatically. No analytics company is involved.

The notify-me list

If you ask to be told when the guide is available, we keep your email address, the city you chose (if any), the page you signed up from and the date. We use them for one thing: to send you a single email on the day the guide, or your city’s edition, is published. The list is stored on our own hosting, outside the public website, and is not shared with anyone. When you sign up, we also send ourselves one plain notification email with your address and chosen city, so a person at Going Global knows you asked.

We delete the list once that email has been sent, unless you ask us to keep you on it. You can remove your address at any time on the remove page, which deletes it straight away, or by writing to privacy@goingglobalguides.com. To stop automated sign-ups, the form keeps a short-lived counter of attempts per connection, stored as a scrambled code rather than your IP address and cleared within 24 hours.

The free sample chapter and the newsletter

If you ask for the free sample chapter (Five Pillars of Relocation Success, from the Ho Chi Minh City First Edition), we keep your email address, the page you asked from, the date, the fact that you asked for the chapter, and whether you ticked the newsletter box. It goes on the same private list as notify-me sign-ups, stored on our own hosting outside the public website, and is not shared with anyone. We also send ourselves one plain notification email saying that you asked, and whether you chose the newsletter.

The chapter is sent the same way whether or not you want the newsletter: the download never depends on it. The download link is personal to your request and stops working after 30 minutes; the file itself has no public address.

The newsletter is a separate choice. Its box is never ticked for you. We send the newsletter only to addresses that ticked it, occasionally, and you can leave it at any time. If you did not tick it, we do not write to you. To remove your address, from the chapter list, the newsletter and the notify-me list together, use the remove page (or the link on the download page), which deletes it straight away, or write to privacy@goingglobalguides.com. The same short-lived, scrambled counter of attempts described above protects this form from automated requests.

If you did not tick the newsletter box, we keep your address for 24 months after your last request for the chapter, and then delete it automatically. If you did tick it, we keep it for as long as you stay on the newsletter.

Partner enquiries

If you write to us through the enquiry form on Partners, we keep what you enter: your organisation, your name, your role if you give it, your work email address, the type of organisation, the rough number of families you relocate a year if you choose a range, your message, the page and the date. We use it only to reply to you and to discuss working together. It is kept in its own private file on our own hosting, outside the public website, separate from every other list, and it is not shared. We also send ourselves one plain email with the same details, so a person at Going Global can reply.

The form is for your business contact details only. It never asks for information about the families you relocate, and we ask you not to include any. You can remove your enquiry at any time with the link on the thank-you page, on the remove page, or by writing to privacy@goingglobalguides.com. The same short-lived, scrambled counter of attempts described above protects the form from automated messages.

We keep an enquiry for 24 months after you send it, and then delete it automatically.

The move planner

“Your move, week by week” works in your browser. Your departure date and answers are not sent to us or stored: they live only in the page’s address, after the #, so that a saved link rebuilds the same plan. The calendar file is made in your browser too.

If you choose Email me my plan, we send one email to the address you give, containing the link to your plan. To send it, the link passes through our server once and is not kept. We keep your email address and your departure month (for example 2027-01), on the same private list as the notify-me sign-ups, so you can ask us to remove them; nothing else from the planner is kept. Remove them at any time on the remove page or with the link in the email. The same short-lived, scrambled counter of attempts described above protects the form.

Ask Gigi, the guide assistant

Gigi answers questions about moving to Ho Chi Minh City from the guide’s own text. When you ask Gigi a question, it goes to our server, which finds the parts of the guide that answer it. We then send your question, with those parts of the guide, to Anthropic, the company whose Claude AI model writes Gigi’s answer. Anthropic acts as our service provider under its standard data processing terms: it uses your question only to write the answer, does not use it to train its models, and deletes it within 30 days. If Anthropic’s automated safety systems flag a question as breaking its usage policy, Anthropic may keep it for up to two years. Anthropic receives the question from our server, not from your browser, so it does not receive your IP address.

We do not keep your question or Gigi’s answer. To limit each reader to 40 questions a day, our server counts questions against a scrambled code made from your IP address and a random value that changes every day. It cannot be turned back into your address, and the counts are deleted after two days.

Please do not include names, health details or other personal information in a question; Gigi does not need them to answer. If Gigi’s answer touches on a medical, legal, visa or financial decision, check it with a professional.

Maps from Google

Some pages on this website offer an interactive map from Google My Maps. It loads only if you choose to open it; nothing from Google loads before that. Once you open it, Google receives your IP address and browser information, under Google’s own privacy policy. We receive nothing from it.

The Going Global app

The Going Global app is the public edition, free to read, from the App Store and Google Play. To read it you sign in with your email address and a one-time code, and signing in is what lets us keep your place. The data involved is:

What	Examples	Why
Account	Your email address; your name if you give it; the one-time codes we send to sign you in	To create and secure your account
Newsletter choice	Whether you have chosen to receive the Going Global newsletter, and when	To send the newsletter only if you asked for it. It is a separate, optional choice: signing in never signs you up, and you can leave at any time
Reading activity	Which city and articles you open, how long you read, which listings you tap, the language you read in, and whether you press an inquiry button for a school or venue	To keep your place and to improve the guide
Device and technical	Device type and operating-system version, app version, language setting, crash reports, and a push-notification token if you turn notifications on	To make the app work on your device and to fix faults
Downloaded content	City packages you download for offline reading, stored on your device	So the guide works without a connection
Questions to the in-app assistant	The text of a question you ask the guide’s assistant	To answer it from the verified guide. Questions are processed to produce the answer and are not used to train any model
Reports you send us	A wrong listing, a closed venue, a broken link, and the details you give with it	To check and correct the guide

We do not collect your precise location, your contacts, your photos, or your calendar. The maps in the guide hand you to your device’s own maps application; what you do there is governed by that application’s policy. Videos in the guide that are hosted by YouTube play only when you choose to play them, through YouTube’s privacy-enhanced player; YouTube’s own policy applies once you press play.

We do not use advertising identifiers and we do not track you across other apps or websites. Advertising in the guide is placed by category and is never targeted at you as an individual.

The partner edition

Relocation companies and employers’ HR departments can give the people they send a partner edition of the guide: a white-label version under the organisation’s name, which we run as a hosted service. The partner edition collects no personal data from the people who read it. There is no registration and no personal account; we do not ask for, or receive, your name, your email address or a history of what you read. If an organisation chooses to put its edition behind a login, it is an organisation login, issued by the employer or relocation company, that identifies the organisation and not the person using it. Because we hold no personal data about readers of a partner edition, we have none to share with the organisation or with anyone else.

Like any website, our host keeps standard server logs, which include IP addresses, for security and troubleshooting only. We never use them to identify or track anyone.

Why we use your data

To provide the guide — sign-in, offline packages, your reading position, notifications you have asked for. Basis: the agreement under which you use the guide.
To send the newsletter — only if you chose it. Basis: your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
To measure the guide honestly — how often listings are opened and inquiry buttons pressed, so that what we tell the schools and venues that advertise in the guide is true. These figures are reported as totals. Basis: legitimate interest.
To keep the guide accurate and the service secure — investigating reports, fixing faults, preventing abuse. Basis: legitimate interest and, where applicable, legal obligation.
To answer you when you write to us. Basis: your request.

Where the law where you live requires your consent for any of the above — including for the cross-border transfer of your data — we ask for it separately, purpose by purpose, when you first sign in, and you can withdraw it at any time in the app or by writing to us.

Relocation companies and employers that provide a partner edition receive nothing about individual readers: the partner edition collects no personal data, so there is none to share. They receive nothing about readers of the Going Global app either.
Service providers who host the app and its data, send sign-in codes and notifications, and process crash reports, acting on our instructions under contract. A current list is available on request.
Schools and venues receive an inquiry only when you press the inquiry button for them, and only the details you choose to send.
Authorities where the law requires it.
Anthropic, which writes Gigi’s answers, receives the questions you ask Gigi, with the parts of the guide that answer them, and nothing else about you.

We do not sell personal data, and we do not share it with advertisers or data brokers. Our editorial and verification work never sees who advertises; the same separation applies to your data.

How long we keep it

Your account for as long as it is open, and for thirty days after you delete it, so that a deletion made in error can be reversed. After that it is erased from our systems, and from backups on their normal rotation.
Reading activity linked to your account for the life of the account, then erased with it. Aggregated figures that no longer identify anyone are kept.
Sign-in codes for minutes, not days.
Reports and correspondence for as long as the matter is live and for a reasonable period afterwards.
Server logs for the limited period our hosting provider keeps them.
Questions to Gigi: not kept by us; Anthropic deletes them within 30 days (see Ask Gigi). The daily question counts: two days.

Your rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us to tell you what personal data we hold about you, to correct it, to give you a copy, to restrict how we use it, to withdraw a consent you have given, to object to processing based on our legitimate interests, and to delete your account and the data with it. Deleting your account is available inside the app and on our account deletion page.

We answer every request. Where the law where you live sets a deadline we meet it; in every case we acknowledge within two working days and complete a deletion within thirty days unless the law requires us to keep something, in which case we tell you what and why. If you are not satisfied, you may complain to the data-protection authority where you live; we would rather you told us first.

International transfers

The guide is read in many countries and our systems are hosted outside most of them. Your data may therefore be stored and processed in a country other than the one you live in. Where the law where you live requires safeguards for such a transfer — contractual terms, an impact assessment, a regulatory filing, or your explicit consent — we put them in place before the transfer. Readers in Vietnam: we ask for your consent to cross-border transfer when you sign in, and you may withdraw it; withdrawing it will end your use of the app, because the app cannot run without it.

Questions you ask Gigi may be processed by Anthropic in the United States, Europe, Asia or Australia, and are stored in the United States, under Anthropic’s data processing terms, which include the standard contractual clauses for international transfers.

Security

Data travels encrypted. Accounts are protected by one-time sign-in codes rather than stored passwords. Access inside Going Global is limited to the people who need it for the purposes above. If a breach ever affects your data we will tell you and, where required, the relevant authority, promptly and plainly.

Children

The guide is written for adults planning a family’s move. It is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly create accounts for anyone under sixteen. If you believe a child has an account, write to us and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

When we change this policy we change the version number and the effective date at the top, and we tell signed-in readers in the app before a material change takes effect. Earlier versions are available on request.

How to reach us

Privacy questions and requests: privacy@goingglobalguides.com. Everything else: Contact & support.

Your data, plainly.