App Privacy Policy

1. Who is responsible, and what the app is

SAR Driving School is the data controller. That means we decide what is recorded, and we are answerable for it.

The SAR app is a working tool for our instructors and the office. It holds the diary, pupil records, lesson history and payments.

This notice is written for pupils and for the parents of pupils under 18. If you would rather have it explained on the telephone, call the number at the bottom and we will talk it through.

2. What we record about you

Your instructor enters this when you book and as your lessons go on. Some of it is optional and simply left blank if you would rather not give it.

So we can find you and teach you

• Your name
• Your telephone number, and your email address if you give one
• The address or postcode we pick you up from, and drop you at
• Whether you are learning manual or automatic
• Your provisional licence number, if you give it to us
• Whether you have passed your theory test, and when

So we can run your lessons

• Every lesson: date, time, length, where it started and finished
• Whether a lesson was taught, cancelled, or missed
• What your instructor covered, and what to work on next
• A rating for each driving skill, so progress can be tracked over time
• Which days and times usually suit you

So we can charge you correctly

• The hourly rate agreed for each lesson
• What has been paid, how, and when
• Anything still owed, and any block of hours paid for in advance

Your driving test

• The date and test centre
• The result, and the number of faults, once you have taken it

Notes

Your instructor can write notes about your lessons. These are working notes about your driving, and you are entitled to see them — see Your rights below.

3. What we do not do

• We do not use your phone's location. The app opens Apple Maps for directions and nothing more.
• We do not track you, and there is no analytics or advertising in the app.
• The app does not send notifications.
• We do not sell, rent or share your information with anyone for marketing.
• We do not use your information to make automated decisions about you.

4. Why we are allowed to hold it

Under UK data protection law we rely on two grounds:

• Performance of a contract. We cannot teach you to drive, pick you up, or charge you the right amount without your name, contact details, address and lesson history.
• Legitimate interests. Running a driving school means keeping records of what was taught, what was paid, and how pupils are progressing. We have balanced this against your privacy and kept what we record to what the job needs.

Where something is genuinely optional — your email address, for instance — you are free to withhold it.

5. Who else can see it

Nobody at another driving school, and nobody who buys data.

Your record is stored using Google Firebase, which provides the database and sign-in for the app. Google processes it on our instructions and for no purpose of their own. The data is held in Google's London (europe-west2) region, so it stays in the UK.

We will only ever hand information to anyone else if the law requires it — for example a lawful request from the police, DVSA, or a court.

6. Keeping it safe

• Only signed-in staff can reach any of it, and the rules that enforce this run on the server, not in the app. Hiding a screen is not security; the database itself refuses.
• Each instructor can see their own pupils. The owner can see the whole school.
• Passwords are handled by Google's sign-in service. SAR never sees or stores them.
• Records are not deleted outright but marked as removed, so an accident cannot quietly destroy someone's history.

No digital system can be guaranteed to be completely secure, but we take reasonable steps to protect the information we hold.

7. How long we keep it

• While you are learning with us, and then for six years after your last lesson. That is how long HMRC requires business and payment records to be kept.
• Lesson and progress records are kept for the same period. They are what lets us answer questions about what was taught and when.

Records are never sold or reused. If you want your record removed sooner, ask — see below.

8. Deleting your information

Because pupils have no accounts, there is no account for a pupil to delete. To have your record removed, contact us using the details at the bottom of this page and we will do it, except where we are required to keep something for tax or accounting.

Staff accounts are created by the school and disabled by the school when someone leaves. A member of staff who wants their own account removed should contact us in the same way.

9. Your rights

You can ask us to:

• Show you everything we hold about you
• Correct anything wrong
• Delete your record, where we are not required to keep it for tax or accounting
• Stop or limit what we do with it
• Hand it over in a portable form, to you or to another school
• Object to us relying on legitimate interests

Ask by WhatsApp, telephone or email using the details below. We will respond within one month, and it costs you nothing.

If you are under 18, you have exactly the same rights, and a parent or guardian may exercise them on your behalf.

If you think we have got it wrong, please tell us first and we will try to put it right. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office:

• ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint
• 0303 123 1113

10. Pupils under 18

You can hold a provisional licence and take driving lessons in the United Kingdom before you are 18, so some of our pupils are 16 or 17.

We record the same information for them as for anyone else, and no more. A parent or guardian may exercise any of the rights above on their behalf.

11. Changes to this notice

If we change what we record or why, we will update this page and change the date at the top.

12. Getting in touch

If you have questions about this notice, your information, or the SAR app, contact us: