GetYourGuide

Is GetYourGuide safe?

For booking a walking tour, a museum ticket or a day trip, GetYourGuide is one of the safer apps in travel. We found no data breach. It runs under EU privacy law with a Berlin data controller, and only people who booked an activity can review it. The mark against it is a consumer ruling. In April 2025 Italy's competition and consumer authority fined it €5.6 million for using bots to sweep up Colosseum tickets and resell them in pricier packages, and a court upheld the fine in 2026. We score GetYourGuide 61/100.

The Colosseum ticket fine

For years tourists complained that base-price tickets for the Colosseum sold out online within moments, while the same entry was easy to buy as part of a guided tour at a much higher price. Italy's AGCM opened an investigation in July 2023 and announced its decision on 8 April 2025. CoopCulture, which ran the official ticket office from 1997 to 2024, was fined €7 million for failing to stop bulk buying and for keeping many tickets for its own tours. Six online operators were fined more than €12 million between them: GetYourGuide Deutschland, Tiqets, Walks, Italy With Family, City Wonders and Musement. GetYourGuide's share was €5.6 million.

The regulator found that these operators used bots or other automated tools to buy base-price tickets as soon as they were released. They then sold them bundled with services such as guided tours or skip-the-line entry, at much higher prices. LaPresse reported that their conduct was found aggressive under articles 24 and 25 of Italy's Consumer Code. Unlike the hotel competition cases against Booking.com and Trip.com, this one is about harm to travellers, so we count it in full.

GetYourGuide rejected the finding. It said neither it nor its affiliate GetYourGuide Tours & Tickets ever used bots, and that its staff bought tickets by hand through a business channel CoopCulture provided. It took the case to the Lazio administrative court, which rejected the appeal in a judgment published on 12 February 2026 and ordered GetYourGuide to pay €3,500 in costs. The court found that the evidence showed automated bulk buying from July 2019 to October 2023, including by GetYourGuide Tours, and that the authority had reasonably linked it to the resale at higher prices.

For travellers the lesson is to check the official ticket office first and compare its price with any bundled tour.

What the app tracks

Apple's label for GetYourGuide is moderate for a travel app. Device identifiers are listed as used to track you across other companies' apps and websites. Your email address and device ID are linked to you and used for third-party advertising. Purchases, payment info, name, phone number, search history and support messages are also linked to you. Unlike Klook's label, it lists location only as not linked to your identity.

The privacy policy, last updated in August 2026, names the partners. Meta receives app events with hashed identifiers to measure and target ads. Google, TikTok, Criteo and Microsoft run remarketing and ad measurement. Adjust and Smartly analyse ad campaigns, and Hotjar records a sample of visitor sessions as heat maps, kept for 365 days. The policy says several of these run only if you consent. The app has a "Privacy Preferences" section in its menu where you can switch groups of trackers off.

Some data goes beyond GetYourGuide. For certain activities you may be asked for a passport number, participants' ages, or dietary and accessibility needs, which can count as health data. The operator running the activity receives what it needs, and the policy says operators are separate data controllers.

Security and accounts

We found no reported breach of GetYourGuide accounts or payment data. It accepts vulnerability reports through a public programme on HackerOne, but pays no bounties, which gives outside researchers less reason to look than Agoda's paid programme does. The policy says IP addresses are stored encrypted and deleted after 30 days. You do not need an account to book. Booking as a guest leaves less data behind.

How to book more safely

1. Book as a guest if you do not need an account.
2. Open "Privacy Preferences" in the app menu and switch off marketing trackers.
3. Check the cancellation terms on each activity before you pay; operators set them.
4. For famous sites, compare the price with the official ticket office before you buy a bundled tour.
5. For risky activities such as diving or boat trips, ask the operator about its licence and insurance; reviews do not tell you that.

How we scored it

Scams and harmful content (68) is the strongest factor, because only customers can post reviews and there is little else for others to post. Privacy (52) is the weakest, given email-based ad targeting and a long list of ad partners. Security (64) reflects a clean record but no paid bug bounty. The regulatory record (58) rests on the €5.6 million Italian consumer fine, now upheld in court. Airbnb scores 60 and Klook 56.