Privacy Policy

What changed on 25 September 2026

• Chat and in-app calls with your driver, and what we keep about them.
• Live location: the car’s position, “last seen”, and live links you share.
• Cashback, your ZeroLanes balance and ZeroLanes Pro replace reward points.
• Emailed sign-in links, flight numbers and address search.
• Zero and our staff writing assistant, and the AI provider behind them (Anthropic).
• A full list of the providers we use, including Amazon SES, Twilio, FlightAware and Cloudflare.
• Why we use each kind of data (the lawful basis) and where it is processed.
• Retention periods for each kind of record, taken from our retention policy.
• Download a copy of your data yourself from your account.
• Marketing emails: consent, one-click unsubscribe and who sends them.
• Cookies and what the site keeps in your browser.

Who we are

ZeroLanes is a UK private hire company. When you book a journey with us we are the data controller for the information described below.

What we collect

Your account. Your name, email address and, if you give it, your mobile number. Your password is stored only as a one-way hash, so nobody at ZeroLanes can read it. If you ask for an emailed sign-in link, we keep a scrambled copy of it until it is used or expires after 15 minutes.

Your journeys. Where you are travelling from and to, when, how many people and bags, the class of car, any extras, the flight number when an airport is involved, any note you add, the price you were quoted and the status of the booking.

Address search. What you type into an address box is sent to Google to suggest places. If you choose to use your current location for a pickup, your device’s position is used to find the address. Places you save to your account, and your recent searches kept in your browser, are there only to make booking quicker.

Payment. We do not see or store your card number. Card details go from your browser to Stripe, our payment processor, and we hold only the reference Stripe gives us, the amount, and whether the payment succeeded. The same applies to split fares, tips and ZeroLanes Pro payments.

Your balance, cashback and ZeroLanes Pro. A record of each amount added to or taken from your ZeroLanes balance and why (cashback, credits, balance used on a journey). If you join ZeroLanes Pro, your plan, its status and renewal date, Stripe’s reference for the subscription, the drivers you mark as favourites, and the person you invite to share your perks.

Location during a journey. While your driver is on the way to you and while you are travelling, your driver’s app or portal reports the car’s position, including in the background on the driver app, so we can show you where it is and estimate arrival. If the position stops updating, we show when it was last seen. If you use the emergency (SOS) button, your own location at that moment is sent with the alert, if your device gives it.

Chat with your driver. The messages you and your driver send each other. Phone numbers and email addresses are removed before a message is saved.

In-app calls. Calls are not recorded, and we keep no voicemail or transcript. We log who called whom on which journey, when the call started, whether it was answered, how long it lasted, and Twilio’s reference for the call. We never show either of you the other’s number.

Contact with us. Messages you send us, including anything you pass on from a chat with Zero, reports you make (such as an emergency alert, lost property or a driver refusing an assistance dog), and a record of the emails and text messages we send you.

Ratings and safety settings. Ratings and comments you give after a journey, and the trusted contacts you add (a name and phone number) so you can share a journey with them from your own phone. We do not message them ourselves.

Company accounts. If you book on a company account, the company’s administrators can see the journeys booked on it, what they cost and any cost centre.

Devices. If you use the ZeroLanes app and turn on notifications, a device token so we can send them, and a list of devices signed in to your account.

Why we use it

• To carry out your booking (performance of our contract with you): to price, arrange and carry out the journey, share the car’s location, let you chat with and call your driver, follow your flight, take payment, run your balance and ZeroLanes Pro, and send you the messages about them.
• To meet legal obligations: tax and accounting records, and the licensing and record-keeping requirements that apply to private hire.
• To keep people safe (legitimate interests, and vital interests in an emergency): handling emergency alerts, reviewing driver chats, checking reports and keeping an audit record of who did what.
• To run and improve the service (legitimate interests): answering you, handling complaints and disputes, preventing fraud and misuse, and fixing faults.
• Marketing (consent): the newsletter and offers, only if you have said yes. You can withdraw consent at any time.

We do not sell your data, and we do not use it to build advertising profiles.

Zero, and AI in our support tools

Zero is the helper in the chat bubble and on Messages. When Zero’s AI answers are switched on, what you type to Zero and the conversation so far are sent to Anthropic, whose Claude model writes the reply from our help pages. Questions about your own bookings are answered by our own system and are not sent to Anthropic. When the AI is not switched on, Zero answers from our help pages instead. Your chats with Zero are kept in your browser, up to ten for 30 days, and cleared when you sign out; we do not keep them on our servers unless you pass the chat to our team.

Our team can use a writing assistant, also run by Anthropic and only when switched on, to draft a reply to your message. It reads your conversation with us and the journey it is about. A person always reads the draft, changes it if needed, and sends it; the assistant cannot act on your booking.

Who else sees it

Only the people and services that need it. The services below act for us as processors:

• Your driver sees your name, your pickup and destination, your flight number if there is one, any note you added and your chat with them. They do not see your email address, your card, or any of your other journeys, and in-app calls and chat do not show them your phone number.
• Stripe processes card payments, split fares, tips and ZeroLanes Pro subscriptions, and holds your card details.
• Google Maps Platform suggests addresses as you type and works out routes, distances and arrival times, and shows the maps.
• Postmark delivers our service emails, such as booking confirmations, receipts and sign-in links.
• Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) delivers our marketing emails, such as the newsletter and offers.
• Twilio delivers text messages, and carries in-app calls when they are switched on.
• Expo delivers push notifications if you have turned them on.
• FlightAware, when connected, receives the flight number on an airport journey so we can follow the flight.
• Anthropic, when switched on, receives what is described under Zero above.
• Cloudflare stores photos and files uploaded to the service (for example the photos with a cleaning report), and, when switched on, runs the check that a form is sent by a person rather than a bot.
• Railway and Vercel host the service, its database and the website.
• Sentry, our error monitoring service, when switched on, receives technical details of faults, which can include the request that failed.
• People you choose to share with. Anyone you send a live journey link to can see the car and the journey while it is live, without an account. Each person in a split fare sees only their own share.
• Your company, if you book on a company account (see above).
• Licensing authorities, the police or insurers where we are required to provide records, or where it is necessary after an incident.

If you choose another language from the footer, the page opens through Google Translate, which then receives the address of the page you were reading.

Where it is processed

Our data is processed in the UK and, through some providers, in the European Economic Area and the United States. Where personal data is sent outside the UK, it is protected by the safeguards UK data protection law requires, such as adequacy regulations or the approved contract clauses for international transfers.

How long we keep it

• Journeys: six years, then anonymised: the names and addresses are removed, and the figures kept for the accounts.
• Payment records: six years, because UK company and VAT law require it, then anonymised.
• Location traces from a journey: three months, then deleted.
• Messages with us: two years, then anonymised.
• Our record of emails and texts sent to you: twelve months, then anonymised.
• Push notification tokens: six months, then deleted.
• Our audit record (including the call log above): six years, then anonymised. It cannot be deleted on request, because it is the record of what was done to each account.
• Your account: while it is open, and after that only as long as the records above that refer to it.

Ask us to close your account and we will delete or anonymise what we are not required to keep. Records the law requires us to keep are anonymised where possible rather than deleted.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you can ask us for a copy of your data, ask us to correct it, ask us to delete it, object to how we use it, ask us to restrict that use, and withdraw any consent you have given.

• A copy of your data: go to Your account, Settings, Privacy and data, and choose Download my data. You get a file with your details and choices, your journeys, the ratings you gave, your messages with us and the devices you signed in on.
• Deleting your account: on the same page, ask us to delete your account. A person reviews every request.
• Anything else: email us, and we will answer within one month.

If you are not satisfied, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk.

Marketing emails and the newsletter

We send marketing only if you have agreed to it: by email if you have said yes on your account or signed up to the newsletter, and by push notification only if you have also said yes to offers in the app. If you sign up for the newsletter, we keep your email address, where you signed up, when, and the wording you agreed to, as the record of your consent.

Every marketing email has a one-click unsubscribe link. When you unsubscribe we keep a note that you did, so we never add you back by mistake. Our emails may include articles from the ZeroLanes Journal and a box to join the newsletter.

Service emails come from addresses such as bookings@, accounts@, billing@, rewards@ and safety@zerolanes.co.uk. Marketing emails come from addresses such as news@, offers@ and blogs@zerolanes.co.uk.

Your privacy choices

You choose whether to get marketing, from Communication choices in your account or from any marketing email. We do not use advertising or tracking cookies, so there is nothing else to switch off.

Cookies and your browser

This site sets cookies only to keep you signed in: one for your session, one that renews it, and, while you are entering a two-step sign-in code, one that holds that step. They are not used for advertising or analytics, and they are removed when you sign out.

On the card step, Stripe’s card form may set its own cookies to help prevent fraud. When the bot check is switched on, Cloudflare may do the same on the forms that use it.

The site also keeps a few things in your browser’s own storage, which are never used to track you: a booking you have not finished, your recent address searches, your chats with Zero, your appearance and text size choices, notices you have closed, and journey updates you have already seen.

Contact

Write to us at privacy@zerolanes.co.uk, or message us from your account.