Your privacy is important to us. We value the trust you have placed in us, and are committed to protecting and safeguarding any personal information you give us. This document, which we update from time to time, describes how we use and process your personal information. It also tells you how you can contact us if you have questions about your personal information.
Global Car Hire offers online rental car services through its own websites and mobile apps and through other online platforms such as partners’ websites. The information that follows applies to all of these platforms.
Privacy
What kind of personal information does Global Car Hire use?
When you make a rental car booking or request a quote, you will be asked for the relevant pieces of information required to fulfil the rental car services requested; this may include the main driver’s name, age, contact details (email, address and telephone number), date and place of birth, passport information, driving licence information and payment information.
To make it easier to manage your bookings, you can open a user account. This allows you to save your personal settings, review previous bookings and manage future bookings.
When you visit our website, even if you do not make a booking, we may collect certain information, such as your IP address, which browser you’re using, and information about your computer’s operating system, application version, language settings and pages that have been shown to you. If you are using a mobile device, we might also collect data that identifies your mobile device, device-specific settings and characteristics and latitude/longitude details. We might also calculate and process data related to the type of apps installed on a mobile device, such as the name of the app, an app description and the category it belongs to. None of this information by itself will be able to tell us who you are, but it can still considered to be ‘personal’ information.
We may also receive information about you when you use certain social media services.
Why does Global Car Hire collect, use and share your personal details?
Bookings: First and foremost, we use your personal information to complete and administer your rental car booking and forward required details to the rental car supplier.
- Customer service: We provide international customer service 24/7 from our offices in over 40 languages. Sharing your details with our customer service staff allows us to respond when you need us – including helping you find appropriate rentals and responding to queries related to your booking.
- Customer reviews: We may use your contact information to invite you to answer a short questionnaire regarding your rental car. The survey results will be used to help us better understand and improve the service our rental car partners provide to all our customers.
- Marketing activities: We also use your information for marketing activities, as permitted by law. For example:
- You may choose to subscribe to our Special Offers service in order to receive emails notifying you of any promotions or new services we are offering. You can opt out of this service at any time by clicking on the ‘unsubscribe’ link in any emails we send to you.
- Based on the information you share with us, individualised offers may be shown to you on the Global Car Hire website, in mobile apps or on third-party websites, including social media sites.
When we believe that a particular offer may be of interest to you, we may decide to make contact with you by phone.
Other communications: There may be other times when we get in touch by email, by phone or by texting you, depending on the contact information you share with us. There could be a number of reasons for this:
- We may need to respond to and handle requests you have made.
- If you have not finalised a booking online, we may email you a reminder to continue with your booking. We believe that this additional service is useful to you because it allows you to carry on with a booking without having to search for the rental car again or fill in all the booking details from scratch.
- When you use our services, we may send you a questionnaire or invite you to provide a review about your experience with Global Car Hire.
- We may also send you other material related to your booking, such as how to contact Global Car Hire and your rental car supplier if you need assistance, or a summary of previous bookings you made through Global Car Hire.
Market research: We sometimes ask our customers to take part in market research. Any additional personal details that you give us as part of the market research will be used only with your consent.
Fraud detection and prevention: We may use personal information for the detection and prevention of fraud and other illegal or unwanted activities.
Improving our services: Finally, we use personal information for analytical purposes, to improve our services, to enhance the user experience, and to improve the functionality and quality of our online travel services.
How does Global Car Hire share your data with third parties?
In certain circumstances, we may share your personal data with third parties.
The rental car you booked: In order to complete your booking, we need to transfer relevant booking details to the rental car supplier you have booked with. This may include information such as your name, age, contact details (email, address and telephone number), date and place of birth, passport information, driving licence information, payment information and any preferences you specified when making a booking.
Third-party service suppliers: We may use third-party service suppliers to process your personal information on our behalf for the purposes specified above. For example, we may use service suppliers to send the booking information on our behalf to the supplier of the rental car you booked with us, or we may instruct third parties to contact you. When a booking requires it, we may also work with third-party payment service suppliers to facilitate payment or payment guarantees. We also work with third-party advertisement networks to market services on other platforms, or involve third-party suppliers for analytical purposes. The third parties involved in any of these services will be bound by confidentiality agreements and will not be allowed to use your personal information for any purposes other than those specified above.
Our business partners: We work with partner websites around the world to distribute the rental cars listed on our website and mobile apps. When you make a booking on one of these business partners’ websites, certain personal information that you give them may be shared with us. Similarly, we may share information with this business partner, for example, in order to manage your booking, so that they can address queries related to your booking and for marketing purposes. In this context, your information is governed by the privacy policies of these business partners.
Competent authorities: We may share your personal information with government or investigative authorities if we are required by law (or any regulation having the force of law) to do so. Such requirements include court orders, subpoenas and orders arising from legal processes and criminal investigations. We may also disclose your personal data if it is strictly necessary for the prevention, detection or prosecution of criminal acts.
How does Global Car Hire make use of mobile devices?
We have free apps for a variety of mobile devices. These apps collect and process your personal details in much the same way as our website does – and they also allow you to use location services to find local rental car services.
Security
What security procedures does Global Car Hire put in place to safeguard your personal information?
In accordance with UK and European data protection laws, we observe reasonable procedures to prevent unauthorised access and the misuse of personal information.
We use appropriate business systems and procedures to protect and safeguard the personal information you give us. We also use security procedures and technical and physical restrictions for accessing and using the personal information on our servers. Only authorised personnel are permitted to access personal information in the course of their work.
Marketing Emails
How can you control marketing emails?
Upon completion of a quote or rental car booking we provide options to opt out of marketing and sales emails, if you have remained opted in, we hope you enjoy receiving our emails, but if you would prefer not to be kept up-to-date with our special offers, you can opt out, or unsubscribe, from marketing communications at any time using the ‘Unsubscribe’ link in each newsletter.
Contact
How can you control the personal information you have given to Global Car Hire?
Global Car Hire tries to be open as it can be in terms of giving people access to their personal information. Individuals can request a copy of their information by contacting us in writing at the following email
[email protected] stating 'Subject Access Request' in the subject, we may ask for further information to validate the identity of the requester to ensure the security of the data we hold.
General Terms and Conditions
Website Security