Privacy policy

AutoFixFair is operated by [Company legal name], a company registered in England and Wales with company number [Company number], whose registered office is at [Registered address]. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) under registration number [ICO registration number].

For the personal data described in this policy we are the controller, except where we say otherwise (for example, customer records a garage adds itself, described in section 3). You can contact us about privacy at support@autofixfair.com.

What we collect

• Account details: your email address, your name (if you give it) and your password, which we store only as a one-way hash. We record whether you have verified your email address. We hold a phone number only if one has been added to your account.
• Your vehicle: the registration you enter and the details we look up from it: make, model, year, colour, fuel type, MOT status and expiry date, and tax status.
• Your repair jobs: the service you need, your description of the problem, your town or city and postcode, your preferred date, and for vehicle recovery jobs the drop-off postcode and whether the vehicle can be driven.
• Quotes and bookings: the quotes garages send you, the quote you accept, the booking amount and status, and a payment reference from our payment provider, Stripe. Your card details are entered on Stripe’s checkout page and are never seen or stored by us.
• Reviews: the star rating and any comment you leave after a completed booking.

Why we use it and our lawful basis

We do not send drivers marketing emails. If that changes we will ask for your consent first.

What we collect

• Account details for the person who runs the account: email address, name and hashed password.
• Your business profile: business name, whether you are a physical garage or mobile mechanic, description, address, town, postcode and map location, service radius, services and prices, and opening hours. Your profile is public.
• Payments: your Stripe Connect account reference and whether onboarding is complete. Stripe collects your identity and bank details directly; we do not store them. We keep a commission record for each completed booking.
• Marketplace activity: quotes you send, bookings, booking status changes, responses you post to reviews, and your email notification preferences.
• Verification: where the law in your country requires it, licence and insurance details you provide.
• If you claimed a directory listing: the listing you claimed and whether you verified it through the link we emailed to the listing’s published business address.
• Our contact with you: a record of emails, calls and notes our team has had with you, and whether emails we sent were delivered, opened or bounced.

We use this information to run your account and profile, match you to drivers’ jobs, send you new job and booking emails and MOT and service reminder digests (both can be switched off in your settings), pay you through Stripe, calculate commission and help you finish setting up. Our lawful basis is contract, legal obligation for financial records, and legitimate interests for onboarding support and service improvement.

Customer data in your garage customer list

Garages can keep a customer list on AutoFixFair. When a driver’s booking with you is confirmed and paid, we share that driver’s name, phone number (if we hold one), email address and vehicle registration with you so you can carry out the job, and we add them to your customer list. Bookings cancelled before confirmation never share these details.

For customers and vehicles you add to your customer list yourself (for example walk-in or regular customers), you are the data controller. You must have a lawful basis for holding and using their details and you are responsible for how you use them. [Confirm whether AutoFixFair acts as your processor for these records, and whether the garage is an independent controller for platform customers once shared]. Reminder digests about MOTs and services due are sent to you only; AutoFixFair does not contact your customers on your behalf.

Our public directory lists UK garages, MOT test centres and vehicle recovery operators, including businesses that have not signed up (“unclaimed listings”). We build it only from public sources:

• the DVSA list of MOT test stations (trading name, address and postcode), published under the Open Government Licence;
• the Companies House register (company number, registered name, status and whether the business is a limited company), under the Open Government Licence;
• OpenStreetMap (map location, business category, services, and published business phone number and website), © OpenStreetMap contributors, under the Open Database Licence;
• the business’s own website, or the website recorded for it at Companies House, from which we may record a published business email address for limited companies.

We only keep business contact details. Mobile phone numbers are filtered out and never stored or published, and we do not record email addresses for sole traders. Where a listing relates to a sole trader or partnership, its trading name and address may still be personal data. We rely on legitimate interests to publish this public business information so drivers can find local garages, and we keep a record of where each item of data came from.

If you run a listed business you can claim the listing to manage it, ask us to correct it, or ask us to remove it by emailing support@autofixfair.com.

• Founding Partner applications: if you apply on our for-garages page we collect your business name, contact name, email, phone number, business type, area, postcode and any message, and track the application through to sign-up. We use this to contact you about joining (legitimate interests, and steps you asked us to take before entering a contract). A copy of each application is emailed to our team inbox.
• Referrals: a garage owner can recommend another garage to us, giving its name and, optionally, a contact name, email, phone number, town and note. We use this to make a personal introduction that mentions who referred you (legitimate interests). If you were referred and do not want to hear from us, tell us at support@autofixfair.com and we will not contact you again.
• Waitlist: your email address and, if you give it, your postcode, so we can confirm your signup and tell you when AutoFixFair is available near you [lawful basis: consent or legitimate interests, to confirm].
• Feedback: the page you were on, your message and, if you choose to give it, your email address, so we can improve the site and reply to you (legitimate interests).

• Usage analytics: pages viewed (including the page address), and actions such as posting a job, comparing quotes, booking, paying and leaving a review, together with device and browser information. We use PostHog and Vercel Web Analytics for this, configured so that neither sets a cookie on your device. We use it to understand how the site is used and to improve it (legitimate interests [confirm basis for analytics under PECR]).
• Advertising: our car repair guides and MOT station directory pages load Google AdSense, which may set cookies and collect information about your device and browsing to serve and measure ads. See the cookie policy. [consent mechanism for advertising cookies to be added before this policy is final]
• Server logs: our hosting provider records technical information such as IP address, browser and the pages requested, to run and secure the site (legitimate interests).
• Emails to us: if you contact support we keep the correspondence to deal with your request.

Garages and drivers

When you post a job, garages and mobile mechanics that offer that service near you can see the service, your description, your town and postcode, your preferred date and your vehicle’s make, model and year. They do not see your name, contact details or registration at this stage.

When your booking with a garage is confirmed and paid, we share your name, phone number (if we hold one), email address and vehicle registration with that garage so it can carry out the job. If a booking is cancelled before it is confirmed, these details are not shared. The garage also sees your name and email next to any review you leave it.

Drivers see a garage’s public profile, its quotes and, once booked, the details needed to attend the booking.

Service providers and other organisations

We may also share information if the law requires it, to protect the rights and safety of our users or others, or with a buyer if our business is sold. We do not sell personal data.

Our website and database are hosted in the United States, and some of our other providers process data outside the UK. Where personal data is transferred outside the UK we rely on UK adequacy regulations (including the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where the recipient is certified) or the International Data Transfer Agreement or UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses. [confirm the transfer mechanism for each provider] You can ask us for more information about these safeguards.

• Password reset links stop working after one hour and can be used once.
• Email verification links stop working after 24 hours and can be used once.
• If a business opts out of our lead emails, we keep a record of the opt-out for as long as the listing exists so that we never email it again.
• Accounts, jobs, quotes, bookings and reviews: [retention period, to confirm].
• Payment and commission records: [retention period, to confirm (tax and accounting rules)].
• Founding Partner applications, referrals, outreach records, waitlist signups and feedback: [retention period, to confirm].
• Directory listings and the audit records of lead emails we sent or decided not to send: [retention period, to confirm].

To close your account, email support@autofixfair.com. You can also ask us to delete your data at any time (see section 11).

When a driver posts a job near a business that has an unclaimed listing, we may email that business once to let it know a local customer is looking for that service and invite it to claim its free listing. We only do this for limited companies (corporate subscribers under PECR), only to a published business email address, and never to sole traders. Each business receives at most four such emails in total, no more often than once every 14 days, and no driver’s personal data is included.

Every one of these emails contains a one-click opt-out link. Once you use it, we will not send that business lead emails again; the free directory listing stays in place unless you ask us to remove it.

We may also email garages that applied to become Founding Partners, or started but did not finish setting up an account, to help them get started. To stop these emails, reply to the email or contact support@autofixfair.com and we will stop. Addresses that bounce or report an email as spam are suppressed automatically.

You have an absolute right to object to direct marketing at any time.

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

• ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you;
• ask us to correct data that is wrong or incomplete;
• ask us to delete your data;
• ask us to restrict how we use your data;
• object to our use of your data where we rely on legitimate interests, and to object to direct marketing at any time;
• receive data you gave us in a portable format, where we rely on contract or consent;
• withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on consent.

We match jobs to garages automatically by service and location, but we do not make decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you based solely on automated processing.

To use any of these rights, email support@autofixfair.com. We will respond within one month, and we may need to confirm your identity first. Some rights have exceptions, for example where we must keep records by law.

We use strictly necessary cookies to keep you signed in and protect forms, and our car repair guides and MOT station directory pages load Google AdSense, which can set advertising cookies. Our analytics tools are configured not to set cookies. Full details are in our cookie policy.

Passwords are stored only as one-way hashes. Password reset and email verification links are single use and expire, and we store only a scrambled (hashed) form of them. Garage access to customer contact details is limited to confirmed, paid bookings, and each garage can only see its own customer list. Payment card details are handled by Stripe. No system is perfectly secure, so please use a strong, unique password.

AutoFixFair is for adults. You must be 18 or over to create an account, and we do not knowingly collect data from children.

We will update this policy when the way we use personal data changes, and change the “last updated” date above. If a change is significant we will tell account holders by email.

For any question about this policy or your data, email support@autofixfair.com, or write to [Company legal name], [Registered address].

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, please tell us first so we can try to put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK data protection regulator, at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113.