Privacy Policy – Drive Automatic
Last updated: 31 October 2026
This notice explains how we use personal information when you contact us, use our website, book lessons or training, appear in recordings, or complete our learner media permission form. Reading this notice, booking lessons or accepting lesson terms does not give us permission to publish your photograph, voice or other identifiable information.
1. Who is responsible for your information?
Anthony Moon trading as Drive Automatic is the controller for handling enquiries, arranging bookings, marketing, school and franchise administration, this website and the school's media permission records. Contact us at info@driveautomatic.co.uk or on 0330 094 6898.
Your lessons are given by an independent driving instructor working under the Drive Automatic brand. Your instructor is a separate controller, responsible for their own lesson and progress records, safety records, any recordings made in their vehicle and payments made directly to them. Your instructor must explain their role, contact details and recording arrangements before collecting your information. Permission given to Drive Automatic does not give an instructor permission to publish content on their own accounts.
2. Information we use
We use contact details, enquiry details (including messages you send us through our website form, by email, phone or WhatsApp), lesson and training bookings, progress notes, relevant driving licence information, payments and test information where needed to provide our services. If you phone us, your call may be answered by Jodie, the AI phone assistant service we use (heyjodie, app.heyjodie.com). Jodie takes your name, phone number, postcode and enquiry details and emails them to us so we can get back to you.
If a parent, guardian or someone else contacts us or books lessons for you, we use the details they give us and they should let you know. Please avoid sending unnecessary identity documents or sensitive information. Where health or disability information is needed to support lessons, we explain the purpose and applicable legal basis, including the additional condition required for sensitive information.
Our learner media form records your name, email, instructor's name, whether you are 18 or over, the content description, your individual permissions or refusals, typed confirmation, the date and time, the wording shown to you, email verification and subsequent review or withdrawal events. The instructor name helps us match the record to the correct learner and content.
Our website and hosting services may process IP addresses, device information and security logs. The consent receipt itself does not store an IP address. Brief pseudonymous identifiers used to limit repeated form requests last no more than one hour. Optional prefilled form links retain a short content description under a random reference for up to 30 days; these descriptions should not include unnecessary personal or sensitive details.
3. Why we use information and our lawful bases
- Contract: replying to your enquiry and taking other steps you ask for before booking, arranging and providing lessons or training, and managing payments.
- Legitimate interests: proportionate security, handling enquiries and complaints, protecting people and property, and keeping evidence of media choices so we can respect them and demonstrate what was authorised, and telling pupils about changes to our service, terms or prices. We assess these interests against your rights.
- Legal obligation: records or disclosures required by an applicable law. An insurer's request is not automatically a legal obligation.
- Consent: optional identifiable publicity, marketing messages where the law requires consent, and other activities for which we specifically request consent. You can opt out of marketing at any time.
We ask only for information relevant to the purpose. If required booking information is not provided, we may be unable to arrange or provide the service. Publicity permission is always optional.
4. Cameras and audio in vehicles
Some vehicles have road-facing cameras, interior cameras or microphones. Your instructor must explain what is operating, why, who controls the recordings and how to raise concerns before recording you. Audio is particularly intrusive and should only operate where its necessity and proportionality have been assessed; the presence of a camera does not mean every feature is always active.
Recordings may be used where justified for safety, incidents, insurance claims or complaints. Lesson review and instructor training require their own explanation and lawful-basis assessment. Identifiable training footage shared beyond those arrangements requires separate permission where applicable. The learner publicity form does not authorise routine recording, unrestricted training use or driving-test recording. DVSA driving-test recording restrictions apply separately.
Routine recordings are retained for no more than 90 days and may be deleted or overwritten sooner. This limit applies to retained copies as well as camera storage. A relevant extract may be kept longer for a specific incident, complaint, insurance claim or legal matter. We record the reason, restrict access, review the continuing need and delete it when the matter and any necessary evidence requirements are concluded. We do not promise that every camera deletes footage automatically.
5. Learner photographs, videos and publicity
We obtain specific written permission before publishing identifiable learner photographs, videos, audio or personal information. Permission identifies the content and the selected uses. The form lets you choose separately whether we may use photographs, video, your voice, first name and test-result details, and which listed channels we may use: our website or blog, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Google Business Profile.
No permission boxes are preselected. Selecting all listed channels is optional and you can change each choice. Giving permission for a channel does not grant permission for every type of information. Choosing no permission, or later withdrawing it, does not affect your lessons, price, instructor support or treatment.
We verify the email address and review the learner, instructor, specific content and proposed caption before use. A submission alone does not mean content has been approved. New content or uses outside the permission require a new decision from you. For learners under 18, our additional safeguarding policy requires appropriate parent or guardian permission evidence alongside the learner's own wishes before publicity is approved.
Public posts can be viewed, copied and reshared by others. Selected platforms process content under their own privacy policies and may process it internationally. We cannot guarantee removal of copies made by people outside our control.
6. Changing your mind
You can withdraw all or part of your permission at any time using the withdrawal section at driveautomatic.co.uk/learner-consent/, by emailing or calling us, or by telling your instructor. You do not have to use the website or give a reason. We may make a proportionate identity check to protect your information.
We stop the relevant use and remove content from the places we control without undue delay. If a request needs clarification, we pause the affected use while resolving it. Withdrawal does not make earlier lawful use unlawful. We keep only any limited evidence justified for respecting the withdrawal or resolving a specific dispute; this does not permit continued publicity.
7. Storage, access and sharing
Media permission records are stored in our WordPress website database on Hostinger hosting. The website server is in the United Kingdom; Hostinger stores the hosting backups in Germany. Access to the consent dashboard is restricted to authorised administrators. Hostinger also provides the configured outgoing email service for form confirmations. Staff and instructors receive only the information needed for their role. When you enquire or book, we share the details needed to arrange your lessons (such as your name, contact details, pickup area, availability, bookings, payment status, progress and any support needs you have told us about) with the instructor offered your lessons.
Your first lesson is paid to Drive Automatic by bank transfer, and we hold that payment on your instructor's behalf until the lesson has taken place. Where card payments are taken through Drive Automatic, we collect them on your instructor's behalf. Card payments are processed by the card payment providers we use from time to time (for example Stripe), which handle your card details under their own terms and security standards. Later lessons may be paid directly to your instructor.
Other recipients may include lesson-management providers such as Total Drive, payment providers used for your transaction, messaging services such as WhatsApp (provided by Meta) when you message us or we message you, our phone answering service Jodie (heyjodie) for call enquiries, our professional advisers, insurers and authorities where a disclosure is necessary and lawful. We do not sell your personal information or provide it to others for their unrelated marketing.
Where providers process personal information on our behalf, appropriate contractual and security arrangements are required. Where information is transferred outside the UK, the applicable transfer arrangements must provide the protection required by UK law, for example an adequacy arrangement or approved contractual safeguards. You can contact us for details of the providers and applicable safeguards.
8. How long other information is kept
Booking and lesson records are kept for the service and then for any continuing accounting, complaint or legal requirements. Accounting and payment records are kept for as long as tax law requires. Retention depends on the record's purpose, the applicable statutory requirement and whether a specific matter remains unresolved; information no longer needed is deleted.
Permission records are kept while the authorised content is in use and for 12 months after that use ends, to evidence the permissions and handle questions about past use. We review continuing need at least every 90 days. A relevant record may be retained longer only for a specific unresolved complaint or dispute, with the reason documented and deletion when that need ends. Guardian permission evidence follows the same period, with unnecessary supporting information deleted sooner. Publicity media is removed from the places we control when no longer needed or when the relevant permission is withdrawn; retaining a permission record does not authorise continued use of the media. Unverified or abandoned submissions are reviewed and deleted when no longer needed for verification or a pending request.
Reviews and deletion are managed by staff; a dashboard review reminder is not automatic deletion. Deleted information may remain temporarily in restricted backups until those backups expire through the hosting backup cycle. Restoring a backup requires reapplying recorded deletions and withdrawals before renewed use.
9. Your rights and complaints
Depending on the circumstances, you can request access, correction, deletion, restriction or portability of your information, object to processing based on legitimate interests, and withdraw consent. These rights have legal conditions and exceptions. We do not use the learner permission form to make decisions about you solely by automated processing with legal or similarly significant effects.
Contact info@driveautomatic.co.uk to exercise your rights or make a privacy complaint. We normally respond to rights requests within one month, subject to permitted extensions and any necessary identification or clarification. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/ or on 0303 123 1113.
10. Cookies and updates
Essential cookies support website security and form submission. A small essential cookie (da_cookie_consent) remembers your cookie choice for 6 months.
With your permission, we also use Google Analytics (cookies such as _ga and _ga_*) to understand how our website is used, and Google Ads conversion measurement (cookies such as _gcl_au) to see whether our adverts lead to enquiries. These are optional. The Google Analytics and Google Ads tags do not run, and these cookies are not set, unless you choose Accept in our cookie banner. If you choose Reject, or make no choice, they stay off. Google processes this information under its own privacy policy and may process it outside the UK.
You can change your choice at any time using the Cookie settings link on this page. Browser settings provide additional controls but do not replace your choice in our banner.
We update this notice when our arrangements change. The current version is available on this page. Changes to the notice do not expand a learner's existing publicity permission.