Last updated: 13 November 2026
This privacy policy explains how Vehicle Data Solutions Ltd, trading as Carcheck123 ("we", "us"), collects and uses information about you when you use https://carcheck123.com and its sub-domains (the "Website"), or look up a vehicle through our connector for AI assistants. It should be read alongside our Terms of use.
1. Definitions
- Data: any information about you that we collect or that you give us, including personal data as defined in the Data Protection Laws.
- Data Protection Laws: the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018, the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, and any law that amends or replaces them.
- Cookies: small text files that the Website places on your device. See section 11.
- User or you: anyone who uses the Website or the connector, other than our employees and contractors acting for us.
Headings are for convenience only. "Including" means "including without limitation".
2. Who we are
Vehicle Data Solutions Ltd, trading as Carcheck123, is the data controller for the Data described here. This means we decide why and how it is used. You can contact us at contact@carcheck123.com.
This policy does not cover other websites, including ones we link to. Please read their own privacy policies.
3. Data we collect
a. When you check a vehicle: the registration you enter, and for some checks the mileage.
b. When you buy a check or create an account: your name, email address and postal address; a securely hashed version of your password (never the password itself); the checks you have bought and their results; and your order and payment details. Card details are entered directly with our payment providers, Stripe and PayPal, and never reach us.
c. When you use the Website: your IP address, your browser and device type, and how you use the Website. See sections 4 and 11.
d. When you contact us: whatever you send us.
4. Data collected automatically
a. Free-check records. When we show you the result of a free vehicle check, we keep a short record that the check happened. The record holds a scrambled version of the registration you entered, the time of the check, and which version of the results page you saw. It does not hold the registration itself, your IP address, or any account or cookie details. The registration is scrambled using a secret key kept in our own systems. This means the record can't be read without that key, but it is not anonymous: with the key, the registration could be worked out. We use these records for one purpose: to count how often a free check of a vehicle is followed by a paid check of the same vehicle, and to compare versions of the results page we are testing. When a paid check is made, our system automatically checks whether the same vehicle had a free check first. Our staff look only at the resulting totals. We don't use these records for marketing or to build a profile of you.
b. Protecting the free check from abuse. To protect the free check from abuse, such as automated bulk lookups, and to keep our use of the government and commercial vehicle-data services we query within their limits, we count how many checks are made from each network (IP) address. We may temporarily block an address that goes over the free allowance. When your free check includes an AI overview, we also count overviews per IP address to apply its daily free limit. See section 9 for how long each is kept.
c. Technical logs. Our systems keep technical logs of every free check. These include the registration you entered, and can include your IP address and the type of browser and device you're using. Our access logs record the IP address that connects to our systems for every request. Our website firewall logs every request to the Website, including your IP address, the address of the page you asked for (which can include a registration) and your browser's details. It doesn't record your Cookies or sign-in details. We use these logs to keep the service running, to find and fix problems, and to spot abuse.
d. Cookies. With your consent, we use Cookies to understand how the Website is used and to measure our adverts. See section 11.
5. Using Carcheck123 through an AI assistant
We use the registration to look the car up, and for one minute to stop the same plate being looked up over and over. We send it to DVSA and DVLA, and keep their answer in our server's memory so that follow-up questions within 3 hours don't repeat the lookup. It's never saved to a database. When you use the connector through the Claude or ChatGPT apps, the network address we see is Anthropic's or OpenAI's server, not yours. If you connect from a program or AI tool on your own computer, we see your address, and we keep it to protect the service: in short-lived usage counts, and in our access logs. We don't receive your conversation, your name or your account details. ChatGPT may attach a rough location, your language setting, a hint about your device or browser, and anonymous IDs to each request, which we ignore and don't store. Our records of which tool was used, which assistant asked and whether it worked are deleted after 7 days, and our access logs, which keep the connecting address, the app's software name, the time and the status, after 30 days.
Usage counts and any temporary block expire after at most 8 days, and are then deleted automatically, usually within a few days. The assistant's provider receives the results and handles them under its own privacy policy.
6. How we use your Data
We use your Data to:
a. provide the vehicle checks you ask for, and your account;
b. take payment, and send you order confirmations and account emails;
c. protect the Website and our services from fraud and abuse;
d. understand how the Website is used, and improve it;
e. keep the records we must keep by law;
f. invite you to review us on Trustpilot after an order.
We don't send you marketing emails or texts.
7. Our legal basis
We use your Data on these legal bases:
- to perform our contract with you (6a and 6b);
- to meet our legal obligations (6e);
- our legitimate interests in running a secure and useful service (6c and 6d) and in inviting reviews of it (6f);
- your consent, for Cookies that aren't strictly necessary.
Where we rely on legitimate interests, you can object (see section 12).
8. Who we share your Data with
We share Data only as needed to provide our services:
a. Payment: Stripe and PayPal process your payment. If you choose to save your details with Stripe's Link service at checkout, Stripe handles that under its own privacy policy, and may contact you itself, for example with a verification code.
b. Vehicle data: to run a check, we send the registration (and, for some checks, the mileage) to our data suppliers: the DVLA, the DVSA, UK Vehicle Data and Regcheck. We don't send them your name or contact details.
c. Hosting and email: Amazon Web Services hosts our systems and sends our emails.
d. Reviews: Trustpilot receives your email address and order details so it can invite you to leave a review.
e. AI assistants: if you use Carcheck123 through an AI assistant, see section 5.
f. Advertising and analytics: Google, Microsoft (Bing and Clarity). See section 11.
g. Our people and advisers: our employees and professional advisers, where they need it to do their work.
h. If the business changes hands: if we sell or transfer all or part of our business, Data relevant to that part may be transferred to, or shared with, the buyer or prospective buyer, to be used for the purposes it was originally collected for. We'll take steps to protect your privacy when this happens.
9. How long we keep your Data
| Data | How long |
|---|---|
| Free-check records (scrambled registration and time) | About six months |
| Abuse-protection counters and temporary blocks | About 10 days |
| AI-overview limit records | 2 days |
| Technical logs (which can include registrations and IP addresses) | 7 days |
| Access logs (which include the IP address that connects to our systems) | 30 days |
| Website firewall logs (your IP address, the pages you asked for and browser details, not Cookies) | 14 days |
| AI-assistant lookup records (section 5) | 7 days |
| Your account | Until you ask us to close it, or 3 years after you last sign in |
| Paid checks, their results and vehicle photos | For as long as your account exists, so you can see your reports again |
| Order and payment records | 6 years |
We back up our databases automatically. Some of our databases can also be restored to any point in the last 35 days. Monthly backups are deleted after 180 days. So a copy of Data we have deleted may remain in a backup for up to 180 days afterwards.
Our payment providers, our email provider and our vehicle-data suppliers keep their own records under their own retention policies.
10. Keeping your Data secure
We use technical and organisational measures to protect your Data. For example, access to your account is protected by your email address and password, and we store only a secure hash of your password. We store your Data on secure servers, and we have measures in place to deal with any suspected data breach.
If you suspect any misuse, loss or unauthorised access to your Data, please tell us straight away at contact@carcheck123.com.
For advice on protecting yourself online, see Get Safe Online at www.getsafeonline.org.
11. Cookies
a. When you first visit the Website, a message bar asks which optional Cookies you allow. We place only strictly necessary Cookies until you choose. Analytics and advertising Cookies are not set, and the tools that use them are not loaded, unless you allow them. You can refuse optional Cookies and still use the Website. You can change or withdraw your choice at any time through the "Cookie settings" link at the bottom of any page.
b. The Website may place these types of Cookies:
| Type of Cookie | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Strictly necessary | They remember your cookie choices. They are always on, because the Website can't respect your choice without them. |
| Analytical/performance | They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around the Website. This helps us improve the way the Website works, for example by making sure users find what they're looking for easily. We also use them to test changes to the Website, by showing different visitors different versions of a page and comparing the results. Set only if you allow analytics Cookies. |
| Advertising | They let Google and Microsoft Bing measure whether our adverts on their search engines lead people to visit the Website or buy a check. Set only if you allow advertising Cookies. |
c. You can also block or delete Cookies in your browser's settings. If you delete them, the Website will ask for your cookie choices again. For more on cookies, see aboutcookies.org.
Cookies schedule
Strictly necessary
| Cookie | Set by | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| cookie_control_consent, cookie_control_enabled_cookies | Carcheck123 | Remember which optional cookies you allowed |
| state | Carcheck123 | Keeps the vehicle you chose and your basket as you move between pages |
| auth._token.local, auth._refresh_token.local, auth.strategy, auth.user | Carcheck123 | Keep you signed in (set only when you sign in, for up to 90 days) |
| __stripe_mid, __stripe_sid | Stripe | Process your payment securely and prevent fraud (set at checkout) |
Analytical/performance (only with your consent)
| Cookie | Set by | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| _ga, _ga_NKLHMSXDYV | Google Analytics | Gain insight into how visitors use the Website |
| exp_writeoff_explainer_row | Carcheck123 | Keeps you on the same version of the free check result page during a test, so the comparison is fair. Expires on 4 February 2027 |
| _clck, _clsk | Microsoft Clarity | Map how visitors interact with the Website, to improve it |
Advertising (only with your consent)
| Cookie | Set by | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| _uetsid, _uetvid, MUID | Microsoft Bing (Universal Event Tracking) | Measure whether our Bing adverts lead to visits and purchases |
| _gcl_au, _gcl_aw, _gcl_dc | Google Ads | Measure whether our Google adverts lead to visits and purchases |
12. Your rights
You have these rights over your Data:
a. Access: to ask for a copy of the Data we hold about you. We won't charge for this unless a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive. If we refuse a request where the law allows us to, we'll tell you why.
b. Correction: to have inaccurate or incomplete Data corrected.
c. Erasure: to ask us to delete your Data, including closing your account.
d. Restriction: to ask us to limit how we use your Data.
e. Portability: to ask us to move, copy or transfer your Data.
f. Objection: to object to our use of your Data, including where we rely on legitimate interests.
To use any of these rights, to ask a question, or to withdraw consent where consent is our legal basis, email contact@carcheck123.com. We handle each request individually, including requests to close an account and delete its Data. For Cookies, use the "Cookie settings" link at the bottom of any page. Withdrawing consent doesn't affect processing that took place before you withdrew it.
If you're not happy with how we handle a complaint about your Data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at https://ico.org.uk/.
Please tell us if your Data changes, so that what we hold stays accurate.
13. General
You may not transfer your rights under this policy to anyone else. We may transfer ours where we reasonably believe your rights will not be affected. If a court or authority finds any part of this policy invalid, the rest still applies. A delay in exercising a right is not a waiver of it. This policy is governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction.
14. Changes to this policy
We may change this policy when we need to, or when the law requires it. We'll post any change on this page and update the date at the top.