Privacy notice

This notice explains how Nationwide Commercials Ltd, trading as Car Assistant, handles personal information when you use our website and vehicle-check services. Nationwide Commercials Ltd is the data controller and is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office under reference ZA765630.

Information we use

Depending on the service, we may process your contact details, account and purchase information, vehicle registration or VIN, mileage and asking-price details, service communications, and technical information needed to secure and operate the service.

Why we use it

We use information to provide requested checks, take payment, prevent fraud and misuse, support customers, improve reliability, meet legal obligations and keep a privacy-safe audit record. We limit audit data and avoid storing full provider responses where a smaller record is sufficient.

Providers and payments

Vehicle identifiers and relevant request details may be sent to data suppliers to perform a check. Their coverage varies. Payments are processed by Stripe; Car Assistant does not receive or store your complete card number. Where report email is enabled, Postmark processes the checkout email address and report content solely to send the requested transactional message.

Analytics and search performance

Optional Google Analytics runs only after you choose “Allow analytics”. We use it to understand aggregate journeys and service usage, with advertising signals disabled. Analytics page addresses exclude query strings, and event fields are restricted to a small approved list. We do not send registrations, VINs, mileage, email addresses, report findings, payment details or supplier responses to analytics. You can reopen Privacy choices from the website footer. Google Search Console may provide aggregate information about how the site appears in search results; it does not receive vehicle-check form data from us.

Retention and security

Customer report and secure browser re-access records normally expire after 90 days. Rate-limit records expire automatically after their short control window, and privacy-minimised operational audit entries are age-limited to 90 days and count-limited. Raw registration numbers, VINs, radio serials and email addresses are not written to those audit entries.

Stripe, our accounting records or a supplier may retain transaction or check records for a different period where required for payment administration, contractual claims, fraud prevention or legal obligations. We use access controls, encryption, rate limits and data minimisation to protect information while it is retained.

Your choices and rights

You may ask about the information we hold, request correction or deletion where applicable, or raise a privacy concern. Some records may need to be retained to meet legal or fraud-prevention obligations.

Contact

Email support@car-assistant.co.uk for privacy questions or requests. We may update this notice as the service and its provider network develop.