Privacy Policy

In short Two parties handle your data: the business you booked with, and us.

When you make a booking, two organisations are responsible for your personal information together — but for different things. We each decide independently what we do with the parts of your data we’re responsible for.

Where we make decisions about your data together — for example, the booking confirmation email — we’re jointly responsible. Where we each act on our own — for example, the business marketing to you directly — only that party is responsible for that bit.

If you are a business using METBooker to take bookings, please see our Data Processing Agreement and Terms & Conditions instead.

In short Your name, contact details, booking history. No card numbers.

In short To manage your booking. We don’t need to ask for your consent for this — it’s necessary to deliver the service you’re asking for.

We use your information to:

• Take, confirm, change or cancel your booking;
• Send you the booking confirmation, reminders and any receipts;
• Pass payment through your business’s chosen payment provider;
• Help you and the business if there’s a question or issue with your booking;
• Keep the platform running and protect it from fraud and abuse;
• Meet our legal obligations (for example, keeping basic records).

When we collect your consent

In short No data is sent to our servers until you have actively ticked both policy checkboxes and clicked Pay.

At the final step of the booking process, before the Pay button becomes available, you are shown two checkboxes — neither is pre-ticked:

• [Business Name] Policy Agreement — the terms, cancellation policy, and any other policies set by the business you’re booking with.
• METBooker Privacy Policy Agreement — confirming you’ve read and agree to this policy.

Both must be actively ticked before payment can proceed. This is a technical control built into the booking platform, not just a form of words — the Pay button is disabled until both boxes are checked. Your personal details are not submitted to our servers at any point before that moment.

The legal basis for most of this is contractual necessity — we need to use your details to deliver the booking you asked for. For security and platform protection we rely on legitimate interests. We don’t use your data for marketing, and we don’t sell it.

In short The business you booked with, and a small set of trusted services that help us run the platform.

The business or landlord you booked with sees your booking details so they can host you. We also use a small number of trusted suppliers to help us run the platform:

• Google Cloud / Firebase — secure hosting and database in the UK.
• Google Calendar & Gmail — calendar sync and sending booking emails (used when the business has connected their Google account).
• Microsoft 365 / Microsoft Graph — calendar sync and sending booking emails (used when the business has connected their Microsoft account instead of Google).
• Payment providers — the business chooses one of: Stripe, Airwallex, Square, SumUp, Dodo Payments, or Dojo. Your name and email address are passed to the payment provider’s checkout page to pre-fill the form for you. Your card details go directly to them; we never see them.
• DVLA Vehicle Enquiry Service — if you enter a vehicle registration number, that registration is sent in real time to the UK DVLA’s API to retrieve your vehicle details (make, model, year, fuel type). For security work (section 08), the garage can also use it to check the date of the latest V5C and whether the vehicle is marked for export. Only the registration number is sent. No other personal data is sent to the DVLA, and the DVLA does not retain query logs on our behalf.
• Google Cloud Vision: only for security work (section 08). If the garage photographs a VIN plate or a V5C to fill in its record, the photo is sent to Google Cloud Vision, run in the European Union, to read the text. Google reads the photo in memory and does not store it.

We don’t sell your information, and we don’t share it with anyone else for advertising. We may disclose information if we’re legally required to (for example, in response to a valid request from a regulator or law enforcement).

In short In the UK, on Google Cloud.

Your booking data is stored on Google Cloud (Firebase) in the United Kingdom (the europe-west2 region in London). Some of our suppliers may process small amounts of operational data outside the UK; when that happens we make sure it’s protected by proper legal safeguards (such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement) and modern encryption.

In short Your personal details are encrypted with AES-256-GCM, so even our staff can’t casually read them.

On top of standard secure hosting, we go a step further: the personal fields most likely to identify you — your name, email, phone number, address and (if applicable) vehicle registration — are encrypted with AES-256-GCM before they are saved. The encryption keys are stored separately in Google Cloud Secret Manager and are not accessible to platform staff in the normal course of operations.

Operational fields (like the service you booked, the date and the amount) are not encrypted because they’re needed to make the platform work. They don’t identify you on their own.

If you ask us to delete your data, we remove your personal fields from our records and any residual copies are made unreadable by the same process.

In short 6 years from your booking date. After that, your personal details are automatically and permanently anonymised. Payment transaction records are kept for financial compliance but stripped of your identity.

We keep your booking records — including your personal details — for 6 years from your booking date. This period is set to comply with HMRC’s requirement to retain financial records for a minimum of six years.

After 6 years, your personal data is automatically and permanently anonymised by a nightly background process. This means your name, email address, phone number, address and vehicle registration are replaced and can no longer be linked back to you. Financial information — booking amounts, payment transaction references, dates and service details — is retained beyond this point because we are required to keep it for accounting purposes, but it will contain no information that identifies you.

In-progress slot reservations that are not completed are automatically deleted within minutes of expiry and are never written to your permanent booking record.

Security work records have their own rule, set out in section 08.

You can ask us to delete your data sooner — see your rights below. If we have to keep something for legal reasons, we’ll tell you.

In short If a garage programs a key or works on your vehicle’s security system, it must check who owns the vehicle and keep a signed record for six years. That record cannot be deleted early.

Some garages using METBooker carry out security-related work, such as programming keys, immobiliser work or coding security modules. Under SERMI, the scheme that controls access to vehicle manufacturers’ security information, the garage must check who owns the vehicle, or has the owner’s authority, before starting, and keep a record of those checks. When the garage uses METBooker’s SERMI Records feature, that record is kept on METBooker.

What the record holds

• The vehicle’s registration, make, model and mileage, and its VIN as read on the vehicle and on the V5C.
• The registered keeper’s name and address and the V5C issue date, as printed on the V5C.
• The name of the person who brought the vehicle in, the type and number of the photo ID they showed, and the authority they have for the work (for example, the keeper being present, or a letter of authority).
• The work asked for, the reason for it, and the technician who did it.
• The declarations and the signature given at the garage.
• If the garage decides not to go ahead, the reason, and any police reference.
• If the garage chooses to keep them, photos of the VIN plate, the V5C or the photo ID.
• The result of any DVLA check (see section 04).

Who is responsible for it

The garage decides what goes into the record and is responsible for it. METBooker stores the record securely for the garage and does not use it for anything else.

How it is protected

The personal details in the record, including names, addresses, the VIN, the registration, the ID number and the signature, are encrypted with AES-256-GCM in the same way as your booking details (section 06). Once the record is signed it is sealed, so any later change to it would show.

Photos of documents

If the garage photographs a VIN plate or a V5C to fill in the record, the photo is sent to Google Cloud Vision, run in the European Union, to read the text. Google reads it in memory and does not store it. The photo is only kept with the record if the garage chooses to keep it.

Details sent before your visit

A garage may email you a one-time link to enter your V5C details before a visit. What you enter fills in the garage’s record of the job. You will still be asked to show your V5C and a photo ID at the garage. The link works once and expires at your appointment.

How long it is kept

Six years from the date of the work, or from the date the garage decided not to go ahead. After that, the personal details and photos are automatically and permanently removed, and what remains does not identify you. A record that is started but never signed is deleted after 90 days without changes.

If you ask for your data to be deleted

The garage needs this record to show that security work on your vehicle was carried out properly and to defend any legal claim about it. For that reason a request to erase your data will not remove a security work record before its six years are up (UK GDPR Article 17(3)(e)). We will tell you which records are kept and the date each one will be removed. Everything else about you is deleted as normal.

In short You’re in control. You can see, correct, download or delete your data — and complain if you’re not happy.

In short Start with the business you booked with. If you can’t reach them, email us and we’ll help.

1. Step 1 — Contact the business you booked with They hold your booking and are usually best placed to act quickly. Their contact details are on your booking confirmation email.
2. Step 2 — Can’t reach them? Email us Send your request to privacy@metbooker.com. Include your name, the email address you used to book, and what you’d like us to do.
3. Step 3 — What happens next We use an internal tool to find your data across the platform, export it, and (if you’ve asked) delete it. Every step is recorded in an audit log. Where a deletion request is actioned, your personal data is permanently deleted within 30 days of the request being upheld. Your payment transaction record (amount and transaction reference) is retained for legal and accounting compliance, but all personal details within it are anonymised at the same time as the deletion. The one other exception is a security work record (section 08), which is kept until its six years are up; we will tell you which records are kept and when each one will be removed.
4. Step 4 — We’ll respond within 30 days We’ll acknowledge your request quickly and respond fully within one calendar month. If your request is complex we may take longer and we’ll let you know.

You won’t be charged for making a request, and we won’t treat you any differently for using your rights.

In short Essential cookies always. Analytics only with your permission.

We use a small number of essential cookies to make the platform work — for example, keeping you signed in to your booking and protecting against fraud. These are always on and don’t require consent.

We also use analytics cookies to understand how the platform is used so we can improve it. These are off by default and only switched on if you opt in via the cookie banner. You can change your mind at any time using the “Cookie preferences” link in the footer.

We do not use cookies for advertising or for tracking you across other websites.

In short METBooker isn’t designed for children.

METBooker is not intended for anyone under the age of 16, and we don’t knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided their information to us, please email privacy@metbooker.com and we’ll delete it.

We may update this policy from time to time. If we make a material change, we’ll update the version and effective date at the top, and let you know where appropriate. The latest version is always available at metbooker.com/privacy/.

You may also find these related documents useful:

• Terms & Conditions — the rules that govern use of METBooker.
• Data Processing Agreement — for businesses using METBooker to take bookings.