Privacy Policy

This is the privacy notice ("Privacy Notice") of Silvercar, Inc. ("Silvercar," "we," "us," or "our").

We at Silvercar recognize the importance of protecting your personal information. To demonstrate our commitment to maintaining the privacy of your personal information, we have created this Privacy Notice to inform you of our privacy practices for the personal information that we collect and receive through use of our products and services either offline or online (collectively, the “Services”). Our online operations include all websites and applications (collectively, the “Sites”) of Silvercar.

 

What Personal Information Silvercar Collects

What personal information we collect depends on what Services you choose to use and how you interact with us.  

Generally we collect the following when you create an account:  

• Name and contact information
• Date of birth
• Payment information (i.e., credit card number and expiration date)
• Information from your driver's license or other government issued identification (e.g., passport)
• Background or credit check information
• Username and password that you may select in connection with establishing an account on our Sites
• Emergency contact information
• Your photograph, social media handle or digital or electronic signature
• Publicly available information (e.g., public posts on your social media accounts)

When you interact with our Sites, we collect:

• IP address
• Information on your interaction with our Sites and advertisements such as pages you visit on our Sites

When you rent a vehicle, we will also collect:

• Geolocation data
• Photographs you submit of you, including copies of your driver's license
• Information about relevant health conditions you have that assist us in providing you with Special needs/optional equipment
• Vehicle rental information, including the location of where the vehicle is rented, date of rental, type of rental and your preferences
• Partner member numbers or use of a corporate or other discount number. For example, if you wish to use a discount that Silvercar provides to members of an association/affiliate to which you belong, we may collect information about your membership to verify and provide you with the correct discount for our Services
• Other vehicle preferences (e.g., vehicle type, use of ski or surf rack)
• If you choose to use Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, we are not responsible for any information left in the vehicle due to your use. We cannot guarantee the privacy or confidentiality of that information, and you must delete it before you return the vehicle to us

We may aggregate any personal information that we collect in connection with our Services, such that the information is no longer personally identifiable or attributable to you. We may use such aggregated information for our own legitimate business purposes without restriction.

 

How Silvercar Collects Personal Information

We may collect personal information from various sources, including:

• Directly from you by telephone, fax, postal mail, email, at our on-site locations, upon completion of an application or enrollment form
• Through your use of our Sites or the Internet
• From our vendors and third parties such as a travel agent, an account program in which you or your employer participates or through one of our partner programs
• From our parent company, affiliates and third parties that may provide us with information about you
• Automatically from devices you use to connect with our Sites
• From social media accounts you choose to link with your Silvercar account
• From third party service providers, data brokers or business partners
• From government agencies or public records

You may choose not to provide some of your personal information to us, but this may prevent us from providing our Services to you, or limit our ability to provide you with the level of service that you would otherwise expect from us.  For example, we cannot rent you a vehicle without verifying your hold a valid driver’s license. 

From time to time, we may use or augment the personal information we have about you with information obtained from other sources, such as public databases, social media platforms and other third parties. For example, we may use such third party information to confirm or verify license information or to better understand your interests by associating demographic information with the information you have provided.

How Silvercar Uses Personal Information

To provide the level of service we believe you expect from us, we may use your personal information to:

• Provide and administer the Services that you request such as reserving and renting vehicles
• Communicate with you regarding our Services and offerings
• Provide customer service and support
• Enroll you in our loyalty programs
• Research, develop, manage, protect and improve our Sites and Services
• Maintain and develop our service-oriented software and other business systems
• Analyze data, or to have a third party do so on our behalf
• Send you information about our affiliates' and business partners' products and services and other information and materials that may be of interest to you
• Process your payment
• Evaluate what portions of our Sites are visited more often than others and to determine where visitors came from, where they go, and how long they stay on a particular page or on our Sites in general
• Develop a profile of you and your interactions with the Service in order to provide you with a more personalized experience
• Protect our legal rights and manage the security of our Services, vehicles and property
• Prevent fraud and protect our business interests and rights, privacy, safety and property, or that of the public
• Protect and enforce our contractual rights

Our vehicles are equipped with Global Positioning Systems (“GPS”) that we use for vehicle tracking and anti-theft purposes.  GPS allows us to determine the location of your Silvercar during your reservation.  We also equip our cars with technology that monitors driver behavior and accident detection factors.  Silvercar uses this data to manage where its vehicles are stored and parked, help you locate a car you have reserved, provide roadside assistance, improve our services, locate lost or stolen vehicles, and enforce our legal rights.  

From time to time, we also may combine your personal information with information obtained from other sources, including third parties, in order to provide you with more customized Services and product offerings.

How Silvercar shares your personal information

We share your information with the following parties:

• Your employer or organization if you use our Services under a corporate or other commercial account
• Our program partners (e.g., if you are a member of an affiliate program, such as a relocation company or frequent traveler program and you have asked us to send details of your rental agreement with us to obtain your benefits from that program)
• Our Service Providers, which include ad networks, content providers, credit card processors, data processors, website development and support, fulfillment services providers, e-mail list hosting companies and distribution companies). These types of third parties are not permitted to use your personal information for any secondary purposes
• Any intermediary you use to use the Services, such as a travel agent, broker or booking engine, in relation to any aspect of your rental
• Independent licensees for use in providing the Services and offerings which you have requested and to communicate with you regarding such Services and offerings
• Your credit card issuer
• Credit reporting and fraud checking agencies
• Debt collection agencies, if you fail to pay monies owed to us
• Government or private organizations responsible for the processing or handling of traffic or parking related violations
• Driver licensing authorities, directly or through intermediary organizations, when needed to verify compliance with Silvercar's safe driver criteria for qualified drivers and/or to verify license information
• Government, regulatory and law enforcement agencies where the disclosure is required or authorized by law, and otherwise as we believe is necessary or appropriate to satisfy any law, regulation or other governmental request, to operate our Sites properly, or to protect or defend our rights or the rights or well-being of our employees, users or others or if you are involved (or are suspected by governmental authorities or our security functions to be involved) in any illegal activity, even without a subpoena, warrant or court order

We may share your personal information with our parent company, Audi, and our affiliates. 

We may also transfer or assign your personal information to third parties as a result of or in connection with a sale, merger, consolidation, change in control, transfer of assets, reorganization, or liquidation.

We do not sell your personal information or transfer personal information to third parties to use for their own benefit.

Website Tracking and the Use of Cookies and Other Technologies

If you use our Sites, certain information may be collected from your computer in the course of your use of our Sites. As with many websites, we may use both session based and persistent "cookies" and/or other technology (e.g., web bugs, e-mail bugs, clear GIFs, web beacons, tracker GIFs and "clickstream" data logs) in our Sites or in our electronic communications with you to enhance the functionality of our Sites and Services. These technologies also make your transactions and other activities more convenient and efficient.

Cookies

"Cookies" are small amounts of data that a website can send to your web browser and store on your computer. It is our policy not to save sensitive data, such as passwords or credit card information in cookies.

Most web browsers are initially set up to accept cookies. You have the option of disabling or refusing cookies at any time in your browser preferences. However, note that some parts of our Sites will not function properly or may be considerably slower if you refuse cookies. For example, without cookies, you will not be able to set personalized preferences, and/or may have difficulty completing transactions.

The use of cookies is an industry standard, and as such, you will find that most major websites use them. Silvercar and Silvercar's affiliates have two (2) primary uses for cookies. First, we use them to specify a user's preferences. For example, we use cookies to store information about your travel preferences or rental history so you don't have to repeatedly tell us your preferences. Second, we use cookies to track Site usage trends and patterns. This helps us understand our users' needs better and improve areas of our Sites.

Because there is not yet a consensus on how companies should respond to web browser-based do-not-track (“DNT”) mechanisms, we do not respond to web browser-based DNT signals at this time.  Please note that not all tracking will stop even if you delete cookies.

IP Addresses

Silvercar collects IP addresses for the purposes of: helping us diagnose problems with our main computers, for system administration, to report aggregated information to our business partners, and to audit the use of our Sites. When users request Web pages from our Sites, our Web servers log the User's IP address.

In select instances, we may use IP addresses to help us identify you when we feel it is necessary to enforce compliance with our Terms of Use or to protect our Service, Site, users or others.

Third Party Use of Technology

Third parties (including, but not limited to, software vendors, advertisers, ad servers, content providers, and services providers) may also use similar technologies by or through our Sites or through their own websites. In connection therewith, such entities may collect information about you and your usage activity on this and other websites. Silvercar does not control these third parties and is not responsible for the actions of our third party business partners. We encourage you to check their terms of use and privacy policies for such information.

Interest Based Advertising

We may use third-party servicing technology and service providers to serve ads on our behalf across the Internet and sometimes on our Sites. They may collect information about your visits to our Sites, and your interaction with our products and Services. They may also use information about your visits to send you targeted advertisements for goods and services. This information is collected through the use of a pixel tag, or similar technology which is industry standard technology used by most major websites. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used, please visit http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp.

We may also share Site usage information about visitors to our Sites with selected third parties for the purpose of targeting our Internet banner advertisements on our websites and other websites. To do this, we use web beacons and cookies provided by our third-party ad server on our Site. In connection therewith, such third parties may have access to and use information about your online usage activity. The use of advertising cookies and web beacons sent by such third-party Web servers is standard for commercial activity in the Internet industry.

Web Beacons

Web pages may contain an electronic file called a web beacon that allows a website to count users who have visited that page or to access certain cookies.

Visiting Third-Party Websites

Our Sites may contain links or references to third party websites. These websites are outside of our control, and the privacy policies of these sites may differ from our own. Please be aware that we have no control over these third-party websites and our Privacy Notice does not apply to such websites. We encourage you to check the terms of use and privacy policies of such websites before disclosing any personal information via such websites.

Occasionally when linking to a third-party website from our Sites, you may still see Silvercar affiliate logo or a Silvercar affiliate website frame. This is to provide you with a seamless experience when visiting our Sites. In these cases, you are no longer on our Sites but the third-party website, and therefore the information collection practices of the third party's website may differ from Silvercar's. The privacy notice of the third party website will govern how information collected from you is used by the owner of the website. You can always know what website you are on by checking the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) in the location bar within your browser.

Linking your Silvercar Accounts to Your Social Profiles

Social Authentication

In order to provide you with more personalized services, we may give you the option of linking your social profiles with your Silvercar accounts on our Sites. Some of our Sites may allow you to link social profiles from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google and Windows Live. We may add or remove the availability of any or all platforms at any time in our sole discretion. This functionality is entirely optional for all users and you may link or unlink your account(s) at any time.

What Information is Collected from Your Social Profiles and What It's Used For

If you exercise the option to link your social profile to any of our Sites, we may collect personal information and additional information from your social profiles, which will be used by Silvercar and agents acting on our behalf to customize your Silvercar customer experience. Some examples of the type of information we may collect from these social profiles include:

• Profile picture, gender, marital status, birthday, list of friends (but not the information on your friends' social profiles unless they have also linked their profiles)
• Professional information such as prior and current work history
• Personal likes, activities and interest information

The information we collect may be used to:

• Serve you customized offers and deals on our Sites
• Send you email offers with special deals and discounts
• With express prior consent, send you offers by mobile phone text messages
• Update your profile information on our Sites
• Publish check-in and check-out information to your linked social media accounts
• Share your upcoming trips with friends
• View your friends that have linked their profiles with upcoming trips

Unlinking Your Accounts

You may unlink your social profiles at any time. In order to unlink your profiles, you must log into each Silvercar account that has been linked and then select "Unlink" next to the social media channel you wish to unlink.

Social Sharing

In an effort to provide our customers with new ways of sharing content, we may enable some of our online content to be shared on social websites through hosted sharing links and icons. Users who share content and links through their social media profiles should be aware that all activities of this nature are public.

Please note, when you share (with or without adding your own comments) any of our content on your social media profile, that action is governed by the privacy notice of that social media platform, and not Silvercar's Privacy Notice. We do not track or store a record of those comments or actions.

If you choose to participate in posting or sharing activities, you are electing to share and display such public activities via our Sites. Due to the public nature of your posting or sharing your posts may be included in RSS feeds, APIs and made available to other websites via other formats. As a result, your public activities may appear on third-party websites, blogs or feeds. We are not responsible for any personal information you CHOOSE TO MAKE PUBLIC VIA YOUR SHARED POSTS.

Premium Rewards and other discounts  

On occasion, Silvercar may offer special programs, like its Premium Rewards program, that have additional terms, privacy notices and/or consent forms that explain how any personal information you provide will be processed in connection with that program. We strongly suggest you review the terms applicable to those programs before participating.

How We Protect the Security of Personal Information

The security of your personal information is important to us. We exercise reasonable care in implementing generally accepted standards of security to protect your personal information from loss, misuse and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration or destruction, such as firewalls and Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption for some of your more sensitive personal information. It is our policy to retain personal information for as long as we believe appropriate for the purposes for which the personal information was collected or as required by applicable law.

Unfortunately, "perfect security" does not exist on the Internet, and no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee that personal information stored on our servers, or transmitted to or from a user, will be free from unauthorized access. By using our Services and corresponding with us, you acknowledge that you understand and agree to assume these risks.

You are responsible for maintaining the strict confidentiality of your account passcode, membership numbers and pin numbers, and you will be responsible for any access to or use of our Sites by you or any person or entity using a passcode provided to you, whether or not such access or use has been authorized by or on behalf of you, and whether or not such person or entity is your employee, relative or agent. In the event of the unauthorized use of your passcode, account, or membership number, or any other breach of security involving your information as it pertains to Silvercar, you agree to immediately notify us. It is your sole responsibility to ensure that you exit from your account at the end of each session, control the dissemination and use of your passcode, control access to and use of your account and membership number, and notify us when you desire to cancel your account on our Sites. We will not be responsible or liable for any loss or damage arising from your failure to comply with this provision.

In addition, some personal information will be stored on your mobile device if you choose to use our mobile app. In this case, you are solely responsible for protecting the security and integrity of all such personal information, and we are not responsible for any disclosure of personal information or for any use of your account that someone may make using the mobile app on your mobile device, even if such use is not authorized by you.

It is our policy that we will never request your sensitive personal information, such as your credit card number, passcode, membership number or pin number, in an e-mail, text or on a website that is not located at the domain name used by Silvercar or an affiliate. If you receive an e-mail or other correspondence requesting that you provide any such information via e-mail or to a website that is not on such domain name, please do not provide such information, and report such request to our privacy officer at privacy@silvercar.com.

Your Marketing Choices

You can opt-out of our use and disclosure of your personal information for marketing purposes and customer satisfaction surveys, and/or withdraw your prior consent for same, by the methods provided below. Upon requesting an opt out, your consent will be withdrawn; however, please note that it often takes some time to process these requests. Therefore, it is possible that you may receive promotions scheduled prior to our receipt of your withdrawal of consent.

You may reply to a promotional or marketing e-mail that you have received from us with the word "Unsubscribe" in the subject line or you can email us directly at unsubscribe@silvercar.com. You may also unsubscribe from receiving marketing or other commercial emails by following the instructions included in the email. (If you use more than one e-mail address, then send your opt-out e-mail from each of your e-mail addresses.) To opt-out of any other promotional mailings from Silvercar and our partners you may notify us at support@silvercar.com.  We may also provide additional methods for you to opt-out of having your personal information used or disclosed for promotional and marketing purposes.

Please note, even if you opt out of receiving marketing or commercial communications, we retain the right to send you non-marketing communications such as correspondence about your existing business relationship with us, information about reservations or rentals, payment receipts, or notifying you of updates to our Privacy Notice or Terms of Use.

Your Privacy Choices

You may have certain rights and choices regarding our processing of your personal information.  Depending on your jurisdiction, applicable law may entitle you to additional consumer rights, including the right to:

• Know the categories and/or specific pieces of personal information collected about you, including whether your personal information is sold or disclosed, and with whom your personal information was shared
• Access a copy of the personal information we retain about you
• Request deletion of your personal information

We reserve the right to verify your identity in connection with any requests regarding personal information to help ensure that we provide the information we maintain to the individuals to whom it pertains, and allow only those individuals or their authorized representatives to exercise rights with respect to that information.  If you are an authorized agent making a request on behalf of a consumer, we may require and request additional information to verify that you are authorized to make that request.

Under some circumstances, we will use multi-factor authentication to verify your identity. We may also request additional information. For example, if we suspect an access request is fraudulent, we will request additional information in order to verify your identity.

We reserve the right to deny your request if we cannot verify your identify. Where we deny your request in whole or in part, we will endeavor to inform you of the denial,  provide an explanation of our actions, and the reasons for the denial.

We will not restrict or deny you access to our Services because of choices and requests you make in connection with your personal information. Please note, certain choices may affect our ability to deliver the Services. For example, if you ask us to delete your license information, you will not be able to rent or drive a Silvercar vehicle unless you provide us with your current license information. 

If you wish to contact us to access or correct your personal information we have, or to inquire or provide feedback about our privacy practices, you can email us directly at privacy@silvercar.com or submit a request via our app.

Mobile and Location-Based Services

Where you consent, Silvercar may provide apps that can be downloaded to smart phones or other devices. These apps provide services and may collect personal information that will be used in accordance with this Privacy Notice.

Silvercar apps may use the device’s Global Positioning System (GPS) technology to provide relevant location-based information. To the extent any geo-location data is combined with personal information, that information will be treated as personal information in accordance with this Privacy Notice.

You may stop sharing your location data by adjusting your mobile device’s location services settings. For instructions on changing the relevant settings, please contact your service provider or device manufacturer.

Children's Privacy

Our Sites and Services are not directed to children under the age of 18. If you are under the age of 18, then please stop using our Sites or our products and Services and do not provide us with personal information of any kind whatsoever. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under the age of 18, we will endeavor to delete that information.

Data Retention

We retain personal information for as long as is necessary for the processing purpose(s) for which the data was collected, and any other permissible, related purpose. When we no longer need the personal information we collect, we either deidentify the information or securely destroy the information.

International Data Transfers

The Site is controlled and operated by us from the United States and is not intended to subject us to the laws or jurisdiction of any state, country or territory other than that of the United States. Any information you provide to us through use of the Sites and Services may be stored and processed, transferred between and accessed from the United States and other countries which may not guarantee the same level of protection of personal information as the one in which you reside.  We may need to send your personal information overseas as part of our normal business operations. Provided the data protection laws of these other countries differ from those in the United States, please be assured that we take reasonable steps to ensure that your privacy is protected.

Changes to this Privacy Notice

We may at any time in our sole discretion revise or update this Privacy Notice. We will post any changes on this page and indicate at the top of this page the date this Privacy Notice was last revised. You may read a current, effective copy of this Privacy Notice at any time by visiting this page. We will also notify you of any material changes either through a pop-up notice, email or through other reasonable means. We encourage you to periodically review this Privacy Notice in order to keep apprised of any changes.

Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Notice, or if you would like to request to exercise any individual rights, please contact us by emailing us at privacy@silvercar.com, or write to the following address or call our toll free number:

 

Silvercar
Privacy Office
211 E. 7th St. #1000
Austin, Texas 78701
Toll free number:  855-953-1977