Version 2.5 · Effective October 1, 2026
Draft for attorney review. Fill in [COMPANY LEGAL NAME], [ADDRESS], [EMAIL], [PHONE]. Written to satisfy the California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA), the App Store / Google Play privacy requirements, and — if and when the company meets its thresholds — the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the CPRA.
This policy explains what [COMPANY LEGAL NAME] ("Service On Scene," "we") collects when you use the Service On Scene app, how we use and share it, how long we keep it, and the choices and rights you have. It is part of our Terms of Service.
You give us: name, email, password (stored hashed), phone number, role (driver, mechanic, shop, technician); for Providers: photo, date of birth (we show your age, not the date), business name, address, bio, services, rates, service radius, licenses, certifications and insurance documents you upload, portfolio photos and videos, working hours and dispatch preferences; for Drivers: vehicles (make, model, year, color, plate, VIN, mileage, photos), saved places, contact preferences and arrival notes, an assistance note if you add one; job requests (problem description, photos of the vehicle and issue, location and address), quotes, approvals, Service Agreements (including the typed name you sign with), messages, reviews, ratings, private job notes (Providers), notification settings and setup answers.
We collect automatically: precise location — for Drivers while you use the app to place your request (or the address / pin you choose instead), for Providers continuously while you are online and during a job so Drivers can see your arrival; device and app information (device model, OS version, app version, language, push token); connection information (IP address, timestamps); how you use the app (screens, actions, errors); and, when you sign a Service Agreement, the time, IP address and device string of the signature.
From others: vehicle recall and VIN data from the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; address lookups from OpenStreetMap/Nominatim; route estimates from OSRM; and information other users post about a job with you (for example a rating). Apple and Google give us limited information about app installs and purchases if any.
Card payments (Providers): when a mechanic or shop adds money to their promotion balance by card, they pay on the payment page of our payment processor, Stripe. The card number, expiry and security code go to Stripe, never to us. We send Stripe the provider's name, email and account ID so the payment and any saved card belong to the right account, and we keep what Stripe tells us back: the payment's amount, status and Stripe IDs, and the card's brand, last four digits and expiry, so the app can show "Visa •••• 4242". Stripe handles the payment under its own privacy policy (stripe.com/privacy).
Deals (Providers): a deal a provider posts is public within the app, with the business details the provider adds for it (for a California repair dealer, the firm name, registration number and phone number the Bureau of Automotive Repair has on file). When a driver requests a deal, what the deal said is kept with the job and its Service Agreement.
Reports: if you report another user, we keep the report (reason, your description, any photos, the job it relates to) to review it, to act on it, and as a record if the same person is reported again. We do not tell the person who reported them. If you are reported, we keep the report in your account's record; you will not be told who made it, and your data-download does not include reports made about you because they are another person's statements.
We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18.
To run the app: match requests to Providers, show Providers on the map, deliver messages and notifications, compute ETAs, keep job histories, receipts and Service Agreements, and show reviews and profiles. To keep the platform safe and honest: verify accounts, investigate incidents and complaints, prevent fraud and abuse, and enforce our Terms. To improve the app: fix bugs, understand which features are used, and develop new ones (we use aggregated or de-identified data where we can). To communicate: service messages, reminders, and — only if you opt in — marketing. To comply with law and protect rights.
De-identified data. We create datasets that cannot reasonably identify you — for example typical repair prices by service, make, model and area; which problems appear on which cars at which mileage; what parts get used; where and when roadside requests happen — and we sell or license them to businesses such as parts retailers, insurers, warranty companies, fleet operators, manufacturers and researchers. Before any of this leaves us we remove names, contact details, addresses, VINs, plates, photos and free text, reduce locations to roughly 5-kilometre areas and dates to the month, round mileage and amounts, and drop any group of fewer than five jobs. We publicly commit not to try to re-identify this data, and every recipient signs a contract that forbids re-identifying it or linking it back to a person. Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, de-identified data of this kind is not personal information. If you would rather your jobs were left out of these row-level datasets anyway, turn off "Include my jobs in research data" in Profile → Your data.
Usage analytics. The app records in-app events (which screens are opened, when a request is sent, when a quote is accepted, and so on) and sends them to our own server — no third-party analytics or advertising SDK. We use them to improve the app and to build the demand datasets above. Turn this off in Profile → Your data.
Offers — the one way we sell personal information, and only if you turn it on. Profile → Your data has a switch called Get offers about my car. It is off unless you turn it on. When it is on, and only then, we sell the following personal information about you to the kinds of companies you tick — extended warranty and vehicle protection companies, car insurers, parts and accessories stores, and dealers or service centers (including for free recall repairs) — at three moments: when you send a repair request, when a job is completed, and when your car has an open safety recall:
Companies that receive it may contact you by phone, text (including automated messages) and email about their offers; when you turn the switch on you agree to that. We never sell or share your precise location, the addresses you type, your photos, your messages, or the notes you write. We do not sell personal information about anyone we know to be under 16, and we do not sell it to anyone who has told us not to (below). Each company signs a contract limiting use to the categories you ticked, forbidding resale, and requiring them to stop using your details when we tell them to.
Turning it off. Switch it off in Profile → Your data at any time. From that moment no new record is created, and every company that received one is told to stop using it. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information (Profile → Your data) and a browser or device Global Privacy Control signal do the same thing and take priority over the offers switch. Limit the Use of My Sensitive Personal Information applies to precise location, which we only ever use to run the service and never sell.
Sponsored content in the app. You may see a card marked Sponsored on a job summary, a vehicle page or a receipt, and Providers marked Sponsored at the top of a search. We choose what to show on our own servers from the context of that screen — the service you asked for and your car's make, type, model year and mileage — and from nothing about you as a person. The advertiser is not given your name, contact details, location, job or vehicle, and we do not place any cookie or advertising identifier for this purpose. They receive only daily totals of how many people saw and tapped their placement. A sponsored Provider only ever appears in a search they already qualified for (on Browse, one may be a little beyond your search radius when their own service area covers you — the real distance is shown); paying changes the order, not who is shown, and never changes ratings or reviews. To tell Providers how busy their area is, we count searches by ZIP code and service, without your name, account or exact location. This is contextual advertising on our own service and is not a sale or sharing of your personal information. How matching and ads work.
We do not use your personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising or to train third-party AI models.
Other users. A Driver who sends a request sees the Provider's profile (name, photo, age, business, licenses, rates, reviews, live location during the job) and, during the job, the Provider's phone number. A Provider who receives a request sees the Driver's name, verified badge, driver rating, phone number, vehicle, photos, problem description, location, contact preferences and notes, and whether they have worked together before. A shop sees its technicians' jobs, messages and summaries and, while a technician is online, where they are on a map (the shop's Map tab); a technician who goes offline drops off the map. Reviews are public within the app. A finished-work photo appears in a Provider's portfolio only if the Driver allows it.
People a Driver shares a trip with. If a Driver taps Share my trip during a request, anyone they give the link to can see, without an account, until the Driver stops sharing or 12 hours pass: the service asked for, the Driver's first name, where the car is (the pin on the request), and the Provider's first name, business name, photo and rating; while the Provider is on the way, also the Provider's live location, route and estimated arrival. Once the request is finished or cancelled the link only says so. The link never shows phone numbers, messages, prices or surnames. Providers: your live location is shared this way only while you are on your way to a Driver who turned sharing on.
Service providers who work for us, under contract, to host the app and database, deliver email, push notifications and text messages, store uploads, and monitor errors. Today the app runs on our own server; when we move to hosted infrastructure we will list the providers here.
Third-party services that receive limited data when you use a feature: OpenStreetMap/Nominatim (the address you search), OSRM (start and end coordinates for a route), NHTSA (a VIN or make/model/year), Apple/Google (push notifications), your phone's map or dialer app when you tap Navigate or Call, and — for Providers who pay by card — Stripe (name, email, account ID and the payment; the card details go straight to Stripe).
Law and safety. We disclose information when the law requires it, to respond to lawful requests, to investigate or prevent fraud, abuse, safety threats or violations of our Terms, to enforce a Service Agreement at a party's request (for example, providing a copy of the signed agreement and its signature record), and to protect the rights, property and safety of users, the public or Service On Scene.
Companies that buy offers data (only with your Get-offers switch on; see Section 2): extended warranty and vehicle protection companies, car insurers, parts and accessories stores, and dealers or service centers, limited to the kinds you tick. Their current names are available on request at [EMAIL].
Business transfers. If Service On Scene is acquired or merges, your information may transfer to the new owner under this policy.
Account and profile data: while your account is open and for up to 90 days after you close it, except as noted. Jobs, Service Agreements, receipts, messages and reviews: 4 years after the job, because they are records of a transaction that either party may need for a dispute, tax or warranty claim (California's statute of limitations for written contracts is four years). Location history: Provider location pings are kept 30 days; the job location is kept with the job. Signature records: with the Service Agreement. Reports about users: 4 years, or as long as the reported account exists if longer. Logs and error reports: up to 12 months. We may keep de-identified or aggregated data indefinitely, and keep what the law requires us to keep.
You can edit your profile, vehicles, places and preferences in the app. You can turn off notification types in Profile → Notifications, and stop text messages by replying STOP. You can deny location permission in your phone's settings (the app then needs a typed address or pin, and Providers cannot go online).
Profile → Your data has the privacy controls: Get offers about my car on/off (with the kinds of companies you allow); usage analytics on/off; include my jobs in research data on/off; Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information; Limit the Use of My Sensitive Personal Information; Download my data (a file with everything we hold about your account); and Delete my account. Deleting your account removes your profile, photos, vehicles, saved places and analytics events and anonymizes the rest; records of completed jobs and signed Service Agreements are kept, without your name or contact details, for the retention period above because they are records of a transaction between you and another user.
If the California Consumer Privacy Act applies to Service On Scene, California residents have the right to know what personal information we collect, use and disclose; to request a copy of it; to correct inaccurate information; to delete it (subject to exceptions, for example records of a transaction we must keep); to opt out of sale or sharing (we sell personal information only when your Get-offers switch is on — Section 2 — and the Do Not Sell or Share control and Global Privacy Control signals stop it immediately); to limit use of sensitive personal information (we use precise location and license/ID documents only to provide the service and for safety, and never sell them); and not to be discriminated against for exercising these rights. To exercise them, use Profile → Your data in the app (download, delete, opt-out and limit controls work immediately) or email [EMAIL] with the subject "Privacy request". We will verify your identity by confirming control of the email on your account and may ask for more information. You may use an authorized agent; we will ask for proof of authorization. We respond within 45 days, extendable once by 45 days with notice.
The categories of personal information we collected in the last 12 months are those listed in Section 1 (identifiers, customer records, commercial information, geolocation, internet activity, audio/visual (photos), professional information (Providers), and inferences limited to service matching such as "works on EVs"). We collect them from the sources in Section 1, use them for the purposes in Section 2, and disclose them for business purposes to the recipients in Section 3. Categories sold, and only to users who turned Get offers on: identifiers (name, email, phone, ZIP), customer records (your car and its VIN), commercial information (the repair, price and outcome), and the consent record — to the categories of buyers named in Section 2. We do not share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising. We have no actual knowledge of selling or sharing information of anyone under 16. We do sell de-identified data as described in Section 2, which is not personal information.
Right to know who received it. Profile → Your data shows how many offers records have gone out about you; email [EMAIL] with the subject "Privacy request" for the list of companies.
Do Not Track / Global Privacy Control. The app has no third-party tracking; we honor GPC signals where technically possible.
Passwords are hashed; connections to our server are encrypted in transit when the server is deployed with HTTPS; uploads are stored with random names and served only to logged-in users; access to production data is limited to people who need it. No system is perfectly secure; tell us at [EMAIL] if you find a problem.
Service On Scene is for adults. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18, and we delete it if we learn we have.
We will post changes here with a new version and effective date, and tell you in the app or by email when a change is material.
Version 2.5 (October 1, 2026): a shop sees where its technicians are on a map while they're online (Section 3). Nothing you have to accept again.
Version 2.4 (September 26, 2026): Share my trip — what someone following a Driver's trip link sees (Section 3). Nothing you have to accept again.
Version 2.3 (September 26, 2026): Providers can pay for promotion by card through Stripe, and post deals (Sections 1 and 3). Nothing changes for Drivers; nothing you have to accept again.
Version 2.1 (September 23, 2026): described the Sponsored cards and sponsored Providers (Section 2). No new collection, no new sale; nothing you have to accept again.
Version 2.2 (September 26, 2026): sponsored Providers slightly beyond your search radius on Browse; searches counted by ZIP code and service with nothing about you; a link to "How matching and ads work" (Section 2). No new sale; nothing you have to accept again.
Version 2.0 (September 22, 2026): added the Get-offers switch and the sale of personal information it allows (Section 2), the categories of buyers (Section 3) and the matching California disclosures (Section 6). Nothing is sold about anyone who has not turned the switch on after accepting this version.
[COMPANY LEGAL NAME] · [ADDRESS] · [EMAIL] · [PHONE]
Service On Scene