Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

This policy explains how Soton Cars Ltd handles personal information about people who visit sotoncars.co.uk, people who contact us to book a taxi, and people who travel with us. Soton Cars Ltd is the data controller for that information and is responsible for it under the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.

We are a licensed private hire operator based at 255A Foundry Lane in Shirley, Southampton. Our booking line is answered 24 hours a day, every day of the year, and most of what we do happens on the phone or by email. That is deliberate: it means the amount of personal information we hold about you is small, and it is held for a short time.

This policy covers this website and the booking requests you send us through it. It does not cover the Soton Cars mobile apps or any other website we link to from this one; those have their own privacy information.

2. What we ask for, and what you can leave out

In each of these cases you decide what to tell us, and every optional field can be left blank:

• The contact form on our contact page: your name, your phone number, an email address if you want a reply in writing, the service you are interested in, and the message you write. The web address of the page is sent with the request so we know where the enquiry came from.
• The quick booking request on our homepage: your name, your phone number, the pickup point, the drop-off point, the date and time, and the service you select.
• Phone, WhatsApp or email: whatever you tell us when you book, including your number, the journey itself, and any flight or arrival detail you choose to volunteer.
• Our online booking system: the journey and contact details you enter there. That system is operated for us and has its own privacy information, which applies when you use it.

3. Information collected automatically

When a page is served to you, technical information is recorded in order to deliver it, including your IP address, the browser and device you are using, the page requested and the time of the request. Our hosting provider makes that information available to us for security and to keep the site working. We do not use it to try to identify you.

We also use Google Analytics on this website to understand which pages are used and how the site performs. See section 9 for what that means in practice.

Some pages embed content from other providers, including the Google map on our contact page and the online booking system on the homepage. Loading an embed means the provider behind it can see the request, so their own privacy information applies alongside this one.

Our forms each contain a hidden field that only automated spam software fills in. If that field is filled in, the message is discarded and never reaches a person or our mailbox. A short per-IP rate limit is applied to both forms for the same reason.

4. How we use your information, and why that is allowed

Under the UK GDPR we must have a lawful basis for every use of your personal data. We rely on the following:

• To take, confirm and carry out your taxi booking, including dispatching a driver, following a flight for an airport transfer, and handling changes or cancellations. This is necessary to take steps at your request before entering into a contract, and then to perform that contract. Without these details we cannot quote or carry out a journey.
• To reply to your enquiry and to keep a record of what was agreed. The same performance-of-a-contract basis.
• To send you a confirmation, or an update about a journey you have booked. Performance of a contract; for anything that is not strictly about your booking, our legitimate interest in operating a reliable service and in resolving any disagreement fairly.
• To meet our legal and accounting obligations, for example tax records relating to fares we have been paid. Legal obligation.
• To keep this website secure, prevent abuse of our forms and investigate any misuse of the site. Our legitimate interest in protecting our business and our customers.
• To understand how the site is used so we can improve it. Our legitimate interest in improving our service, considered against your privacy and never used to build a profile of you.

5. How long we keep it

We keep personal data only for as long as there is a reason to hold it, and the reason is different for different kinds of record:

• Booking and enquiry emails: for as long as they are needed to deal with your booking and any question or complaint that follows from it, and no longer. Once a booking is finished and nothing is outstanding, we delete or anonymise what is left.
• Records we are required to keep by law, such as tax and accounting records: for the period the law requires, and not longer.
• Analytics data: for the retention period set within Google Analytics, after which Google deletes or aggregates it.
• Server logs: for a short period for security purposes, then deleted on a rolling basis.

6. Special category data and children

We do not ask for health, biometric or other special category information, and our booking process does not need any. If you choose to include it in a message, for example because a journey involves a hospital appointment, we will treat it carefully, use it only to arrange that journey, and delete it once there is no longer a reason to keep it.

This site and our booking service are not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect information from children. If you believe a child has given us personal information, please contact us and we will delete it.

7. Who we share it with

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for marketing or for anyone else's advertising. We use the following processors, each acting on our instructions and for our purposes only:

• Our web hosting provider, which stores the pages of this site and the technical data described in section 3 in order to serve them to you.
• Our email service provider, which handles the encrypted outbound mail relay used to deliver the contact form and the quick booking form to the bookings@sotoncars.co.uk mailbox.
• Google, as the provider of Google Analytics, which processes usage information on our behalf.
• The provider of our online booking system, which processes the journey details you enter in that system.
• Our professional advisers and insurers, and public authorities, but only where we are legally required to disclose.

8. Transfers outside the United Kingdom

Some of the processors in section 7 operate outside the United Kingdom, so a limited amount of your information may be processed there. Where personal data is transferred out of the UK we rely on the international transfer mechanisms recognised by the UK GDPR: adequacy regulations where those apply to the destination, and standard contractual clauses or an approved data transfer agreement where they do not. We also keep transfers to a minimum, sending only what the service actually needs.

9. Cookies

This site uses the following categories of cookies and similar browser storage:

• Strictly necessary: needed for the site to work, including the record of the choice you make in our cookie banner. We do not set advertising cookies and we do not track you across other websites.
• Analytics: cookies set by Google Analytics, which tell us which pages are visited and how the site performs. You can block these in your browser, or choose "Necessary Only" in our cookie banner, and the site will still work and you will still be able to call and book with us.
• Local storage: your cookie choice is saved in your own browser rather than as a cookie, so it is not sent to us on every request.

10. Your rights

You have the following rights under the UK GDPR. We will not charge for exercising any of them.

• To be told whether we hold personal information about you, and to get a copy of it (access).
• To have anything that is inaccurate corrected (rectification).
• To have your information deleted (erasure), where we no longer have a reason to keep it.
• To limit or stop how we use it (restriction), for example while a disagreement is being resolved.
• To receive your information in a portable, machine-readable form (portability).
• To object to our use of your information where our basis is legitimate interest.
• To withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent. Because our business is carrying you from A to B, most of what we do is necessary to perform your booking rather than optional, so there is usually nothing to withdraw.
• To complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.

11. How to exercise those rights

Email bookings@sotoncars.co.uk with the subject line "Data request", or write to us by post at the address at the bottom of this page. Say which right you want to exercise. We may ask you for a little information to confirm that it is you making the request, particularly if you are asking us to delete information, so that we do not delete somebody else's by mistake. We aim to respond within one month.

We do not make decisions about you using automated means, and we do not build a profile of you for advertising.

12. Changes to this policy

We update this policy from time to time, for example if we change which services we use. The current version is always this page, and the date below the heading tells you when it last changed.

13. Complaints and the Information Commissioner's Office

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please tell us first so that we can put it right. You can call us on +44 2380 333 000 at any hour, or use the email address above.

If you would rather go straight to the regulator, or if we cannot resolve it, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK data protection regulator: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF. The ICO is the supervisory authority for data protection in the United Kingdom, and its website is ico.org.uk with telephone 0303 123 1113.