Carwow Privacy Policy

carwow.co.uk, carwow.es, and carwow.de provide an online service owned and operated by Carwow Ltd or its subsidiary companies (“Carwow”, “we” or “us”). Please take the time to review this privacy statement which explains the information that Carwow collects about you, how we use it, and your rights in relation to that information.

Carwow Ltd of 2nd Floor, 10 Bressenden Place, London, SW1E 5DH, United Kingdom is the data controller of the personal information collected via or in connection with our websites (carwow.co.uk, carwow.es, and carwow.de) and our app (the “sites”).

What personal information do we collect about you?

We collect personal information from you when you provide it to us directly and through your use of the sites. This information may include:

• Information you provide to us when you create an account with us, which will include your name, email address, postcode and password;
• Information you provide when using the sites, for example your telephone number, searches, IP address reviews and comments;
• Information you provide when you are looking to sell your car through our site, for example details of the car wish to sell and how to contact you;
• Any correspondence you have with dealers/manufacturers/partners via our sites;
• Records of your interactions with Carwow (e.g. if you contact our support team). We maintain a record of and recordings of certain telephone calls to and from Carwow/dealers/manufacturers/partners made in connection with the Carwow service for quality control, complaint resolution and training purposes. Please do not provide sensitive or payment data during these calls;
• Information you provide to us when you enter a competition, participate in a promotion or participate in a survey; and
• Where you propose to sell your car to certain dealerships: car service history, VRN, V5, copy driving licence, ID, your address and bank account details; and
• Information collected automatically, using cookies and other tracking technologies (e.g. which pages you viewed and whether you clicked on a link in one of our email updates). We may also collect information about the device you use to access our sites, your IP address (which may allow us to see your geographical location) and your browser or operating system type and version.

We may also receive confirmation from our dealers/manufacturers/broker (“Partner”) if you buy a car from them having had contact through our site, for our accounting purposes and to manage the Partners account with us.

If you use our AI assistant (“Ask Mat”), please do not share personal data in your queries. However, we do not collect data about you (or attempt to identify you from these chats). Our use of data collected from these chats is for internal business purposes (for example, improving the AI assistant, debugging, research, etc.).

Car Dealerships, Manufacturers, Brokers and Job Applicants

This privacy statement is primarily aimed at users of our sites. However, if you work for a car dealership, broker, or manufacturer with whom we partner or are applying for a job with Carwow, please read the below.

Car Dealerships, manufacturers & brokers

If you work for a car dealership, car buying group, manufacturer or broker with whom we partner, we will collect your business contact details such as name, email address, job title and telephone numbers as well as other information relevant to our professional relationship with you, including a photo to display on the sites. We will also maintain a record of your communications with us and with users via our sites.

We may collect information about you from you directly, from your employer, from a user of our sites, or from publicly available sources (e.g. your websites).

We may monitor, record, store and use any telephone, email or other communication with you in order to check any instructions given to us, for training purposes and for quality control purposes.

We will use this information for the purposes of developing and maintaining our partnership with you. If you would like to update or delete your dealer, manufacturer or broker profile on our sites, please contact us.

We maintain a record of and recordings of telephone calls to and from you for quality control resolution and training purposes.

We will share your email address and phone number with customers to facilitate you buying or selling a car.

Job Applicants

If you apply for a job with Carwow, we will collect and use the information you provide to us in the course of your application to assess your suitability for the position you have applied for and for other roles in the future, and to monitor diversity and equal opportunities within our recruitment process. Please note that as part of the application process, we may also collect information about you from third parties, for example recruiters, referees, or from publicly available sources (e.g. LinkedIn). Please visit our sites for more information about careers at Carwow, or contact us using the details below.

What do we use this personal information for?

Depending on how you use our sites, your interactions with us, and the permissions you give us, the purposes for which we use your personal information include:

• To fulfil requests submitted via the sites and maintain your online account;
• To contact you about your use of the sites and send you car offers;
• To conduct checks of your car and car-related documents;
• To contact you about your car listing, and to show your car to potential buyers and to enable potential buyers to make you an offer;
• When you contact a dealer via our sites, Carwow (or its service provider) may telephone you to confirm whether you bought a car from that dealer. This telephone call may be recorded for training, complaint resolution, complaint resolution and quality control purposes;
• To assist you and the buyer of your car to complete the sales process;
• To manage and respond to any queries or complaints to our customer service team;
• To personalise the sites to you and show you content we think you will be most interested in, based on your account information and your history on the sites;
• To fulfil our obligations to the Partners we work with;
• To improve and maintain the sites, and monitor its usage;
• For market research, e.g. we may contact you for feedback about your experience on our sites;
• To send you marketing messages and show you targeted advertising, where we have your consent or are otherwise permitted to do so;
• For security purposes, to investigate fraud and where necessary to protect ourselves and third parties;
• To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations; and
• To share the data we collect about you with brands and retailers (see Marketing & Advertising below), where we have your consent or have a legitimate interest to do so.

Our basis for processing under UK data protection law

Generally, we rely on your consent to process the personal information collected via our sites, so that we can provide you with the services we offer; for example, when you subscribe to receive emails from us, offer your car for sale, browse for cars or correspond with dealers via our sites. You can withdraw your consent at any time, such as by unsubscribing for our service.

We may also process your personal information where it is in our legitimate interests to do so, in order to maintain our sites and conduct our business. For example:

• We conduct an analysis on our user base and the searches made via our sites;
• We (or our service provider) may contact you after you have used our sites to ask if you have bought or sold a car (so that we can collect commission from the relevant dealer, and for our own internal research purposes); and
• Where you or a Partner confirm that you have found or sold a car via the sites, we will process your personal information in order to fulfil our obligations to the partners we work with and collect any commission due.
• Where you work for a Partner to monitor and record our and customers communications with you for the purposes set out in the paragraph above.
• We may keep records of your discussions with us to monitor the quality of our customer services and for training purposes.

Marketing & Advertising

We love to communicate with our users and so, depending on your marketing preferences, we may use your personal information to send you marketing, including by email, SMS or post. Some of these messages may be tailored to you, based on your previous use of our sites.

If you no longer want to receive communications from us (or would like to opt back in!), you can change your preferences at any time by contacting contact@carwow.co.uk, clicking on the ‘unsubscribe’ link in any email, or visiting ‘Settings’ in your account. If you unsubscribe please note we will still contact you with transactional messages from time to time, including to send you offers from dealers in response to a request you make on the sites.

You may see adverts on our sites and also see adverts for our sites on third party websites, including on social media. These ads may be tailored to you using cookies (which track your web activity, so enable us to serve ads to users who have visited our sites) and/or similar technologies or using information that you provide to us through your online account. Where you see an ad on third party websites, our sites or social media, this may be because we have engaged the third party or social network to show ads to our users, or others who match the demographic profile of our users. In some cases, this may involve sharing your email address, postcode or other unique identifiers (such as a cookie ID) with the third party (such as Google) or social network (which includes Facebook) so that they can identify you as one of our users and serve you with an advert. If you no longer want to see tailored ads you can change your cookie settings on our website and app - please see our cookies management centre for further information about the cookies we use and how to amend your settings.

When you use our sites, we may from time to time share information about this via a unique identifier which relates to you or via sharing your hashed email address and/or user ID with certain third parties (for example car manufacturers or digital optimization providers) with whom we partner from time to time. Certain third parties will use this information to verify if you have previously consented to receive email marketing from them (or where they are otherwise legally permitted to send you marketing), and if so, so they can personalise their marketing to you accordingly. Please note that the marketing you receive from any such third parties is subject to the privacy notices and practices of the relevant third party and not Carwow. If you have any concerns about any marketing you receive from any third party car manufacturer (or other third party advertiser), you should contact the relevant third party.

We may also share your data with brands, service providers and retailer partners who will match it with data that they receive about you from other sources for tracking, digital optimization, targeted advertising and email marketing purposes.

We use the services of Zeotap GmbH, Mehringdamm 32-34, 10961 Berlin and Adform A/S, Central Business Register (CVR) no. 26434815, Silkegade 3b, stuen & 1. sal. They provide solutions for linking data from our sites including to form pseudonymous user profiles and target group segments. The profiles and segments are used to analyse and optimise our communication and advertising activities in line with your interests on our sites and on third-party sites. See our cookie management centre for more information and details of how to opt out.

Who do we share this personal information with and who we might pass your phone number to?

We share users’ personal information with third parties in the following circumstances:

• Where you are buying a car with car dealers, manufacturers or brokers, to pass on your interest or specific query. Please note, however, that Carwow does not share your full contact details with Partners for contact purposes, except for (i) car enquiries where you have specifically requested the seller contact you and you provided your details (sellers will use your details in accordance with their privacy policy) and (ii) where you have requested to use the concierge service where we pass details of your enquiry to our concierge partner (your details will the used in accordance with the concierge partner’s privacy policy). Save where the exceptions apply, the only information which they receive from us is your name and postcode, as well as any information you choose to share via our messaging tool or which you provide as part of enquiry request for a used car. On occasion we may share your email address and other hashed personal data with Partners for the purpose of confirming that a particular sale was made through the site. Where you purchase a car from a Partner we refer you to this Partner may let Carwow know that you have purchased or viewed a car as a result of our referral (this way we can track how useful our site has been to customers);
• If you want to sell your car, we’ll share the car details (including VRN) you’ve given us including the photos you provided, along with an approximate location, with dealers and car buying groups when we advertise your car. Carwow shares the service history you provide with prospective car purchasers; we recommend any personal information should be removed from the service history photo before uploading it to the site. If a dealer or car buying group wants to purchase your car, we’ll give them your name, email, phone number so they can contact you as well as details about your vehicle location and postcode Dealers and/or car buying groups are likely to call you about their offer;
• Carwow works with a number of car buying groups including: The Car Buying Group, , Elite Car Buyer, Best Price for Cars, Yotrader, We Want Any Car, Money for your motors, Best Car Buyer, We Buy Ur Car (and others who we may decide to partner with from time to time) and your details may be passed on to them if your car isn’t sold through a listing, and where we believe they may wish to purchase your car. We do this to give our customers the best chance of selling any vehicle listed. They will contact you directly where they wish to make an offer for your car and are likely to call you about their offer. You can opt-out from Carwow sharing your details with these groups at any time by contacting us at contact@carwow.co.uk.
• When you propose to sell your car to certain dealerships where Carwow has in place with such dealership a document collection and checking service we will request the car service history, V5, copy driving licence, ID and finance settlement letter (if applicable) and we will also ask you to complete a form with your bank account details and ask you to confirm your address. We will pass these documents to the buying dealership in order for them to process the sale. We will ask you to complete and sign the dealership’s purchase order form or other sales document;
• With our suppliers and service providers, for example we may use a service provider from time to time to contact you via telephone to confirm whether you bought a car via our sites or to assist with the sale of your car;
• With car collection companies who our dealers and partners use to collect your car when you are selling your car;
• With third parties for direct marketing and targeted advertising purposes (see Marketing & Advertising above);
• With our professional and legal advisors;
• With third parties engaged in fraud prevention and detection;
• With our group companies as Carwow employees work for different parts of the Carwow group;
• With law enforcement or other governmental authorities, in response to a lawful request or court order;
• In the event that we are involved in a merger, investment or sale of any business assets, the personal information of our users may be disclosed to a potential buyer. In the event we are seeking investment the personal information of users might be disclosed to a potential investor. In these events, we will make reasonable attempts to ensure the buyer or potential investor will be bound by the terms of this Privacy Policy and enters into a non disclosure agreement with us; and
• Otherwise where we have your consent or are otherwise legally permitted to do so.

Carwow may text you with details of offers where you provide your number;

We also disclose aggregate data, which does not identify any user personally, including to third parties working in media, consumer research and the car industry (for example, as analysis of popular cars in a given year).

Storage and Deletion

Our sites are hosted by Amazon Web Services which has servers based around the world, and we may use other international service providers. Consequently, your personal information will be processed in countries outside of Europe, including in countries where you have fewer legal rights in respect of your data than you do under local law. When we transfer personal information outside the European Economic Area we will, as required by applicable law, ensure that your privacy rights are adequately protected by appropriate safeguards, (including by using the EU Standard Contractual Clauses), or by an adequacy decision of the European Commission. Please contact us if you would like more information about these safeguards.

If you would like to delete your account with Carwow, please contact us using the details below. Please note, however, that if you delete your account we may retain some of your details (for example if you have made a complaint about our sites), for as long as is necessary to protect us from a legal claim. If you unsubscribe from our marketing communications, we will keep a record of your email address to ensure we do not send you marketing emails in future.

Users under 18

Our sites are not intended for, and should not be used by, anyone under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from individuals under 18.

Cookies

Our sites use cookies and similar technologies to provide certain functionality to the sites, to understand and measure its performance, and to deliver targeted advertising. Please see our cookie management centre here for further information about the cookies we use and how to amend your cookie settings.

Your rights

You have certain rights in respect of your personal information, including the right to access, correct, and request the erasure of your personal information.

You also have the right to object to your personal information being used for certain purposes, including to send you marketing. See ‘Marketing’ above, for more details of how to opt-out of marketing.

We will comply with any requests to exercise your rights in accordance with applicable law. Please be aware, however, that there are a number of limitations to these rights, and there may be circumstances where we are not able to comply with your request. To make any requests regarding your personal information, or if you have any questions or concerns regarding your personal information, please contact us using the details below. You are also entitled to contact the UK’s supervisory authority for data protection, the Information Commissioner’s Office, or your local supervisory authority.

Contact us

If you have any queries on any aspect of our Privacy Policy or want to close your account, please contact us by email at contact@carwow.co.uk or by post at the address below.