GDPR Policy

1. Who we are

Soton Cars Ltd is the data controller for the personal information described on this page, under the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. That means we decide why and how that information is used, and we are responsible for it.

We are a licensed private hire operator based at 255A Foundry Lane in Shirley, Southampton. Our booking line is answered 24 hours a day, every day of the year, and most of what we do happens on the phone or by email. That is deliberate: it means the amount of personal information we hold about you is small, and it is held for a short time.

This page sets out the commitments we work to, the information we handle and the rights you have, in short form. The full notice, with the detail behind every statement here, is our Privacy Policy.

2. Our data protection commitments

Article 5 of the UK GDPR sets out the principles every data controller must follow. In plain English, they are the promises we make about your information:

• Lawfulness, fairness and transparency: we only use your information where the law gives us a basis to do so, and we tell you what we are doing with it.
• Purpose limitation: we collect information for the journey or the enquiry you have asked us about, and we do not use it for unrelated purposes.
• Data minimisation: we ask only for what the booking needs. Because most bookings happen on the phone or by email, the amount we hold is small.
• Accuracy: we keep information accurate where it matters, and we correct it when you tell us it is wrong.
• Storage limitation: we keep information only for as long as there is a reason to hold it, and then we delete or anonymise it.
• Integrity and confidentiality: we protect information against loss and misuse, and the services that process it for us act only on our instructions.
• Accountability: we are responsible for each of the principles above, and for being able to show how we meet them.

3. The personal data we handle, at a glance

We handle a small amount of personal information, in four groups:

• Booking and journey details: your name, your phone number, the pickup and drop-off points, the date and time, and any flight or arrival detail you choose to give us.
• Contact details: an email address if you want a reply in writing, alongside the number you call or message us from.
• Enquiry messages: what you write in the contact form on this site, sent with the address of the page you wrote it on so we know where the enquiry came from.
• Booking records: the journey and contact details held in our records, and in our online booking system, after you travel with us, kept for the reasons our Privacy Policy explains.

4. The lawful bases we rely on, in brief

We must have a lawful basis for every use of your information. In brief, we rely on the following. Section 4 of our Privacy Policy sets out each use and its basis in full.

• Contract: taking, confirming and carrying out your taxi booking, including dispatching a driver and following a flight for an airport transfer. Without these details we cannot quote or carry out a journey.
• Legal obligation: the records the law requires us to keep, for example tax and accounting records and the records attached to our operator licensing.
• Legitimate interests: running a reliable service, replying to enquiries, keeping this website secure and understanding how it is used so we can improve it, always considered against your privacy.
• Consent: for anything optional rather than necessary to your booking. Where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time.

5. Your rights, in brief

Under the UK GDPR you have the following rights. We will not charge for exercising any of them. Sections 10 and 11 of our Privacy Policy give the full wording.

To use any of these rights, email bookings@sotoncars.co.uk with the subject line "Data request", or write to us at the address at the bottom of this page. We may ask you for a little information to confirm that it is you making the request, and we aim to respond within one month.

• Access: to be told whether we hold personal information about you, and to get a copy of it.
• Rectification: to have anything that is inaccurate corrected.
• Erasure: to have your information deleted, where we no longer have a reason to keep it.
• Restriction: to limit or stop how we use it, for example while a disagreement is being resolved.
• Portability: to receive your information in a portable, machine-readable form.
• Objection: to object to our use of your information where our basis is legitimate interests.
• Automated decision-making: we do not make decisions about you using automated means, and we do not build a profile of you for advertising.

6. Who we share it with, in brief

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for marketing or for anyone else's advertising. A small number of service providers process information for us, each acting on our instructions and for our purposes only. Some of those providers operate outside the United Kingdom. Sections 7 and 8 of our Privacy Policy cover sharing and international transfers in full.

• Our web hosting provider, which stores the pages of this site and serves them to you.
• Our email service provider, which delivers the contact form and the quick booking form to our bookings mailbox.
• Google, as the provider of Google Analytics, which processes usage information on our behalf.
• The provider of our online booking system, which processes the journey details you enter in that system.
• Our professional advisers and insurers, and public authorities, but only where we are legally required to disclose.

7. Cookies, in brief

This site uses the following categories of cookies and similar browser storage. Section 9 of our Privacy Policy covers cookies in full.

• Strictly necessary: needed for the site to work, including the record of the choice you make in our cookie banner. We do not set advertising cookies and we do not track you across other websites.
• Analytics: cookies set by Google Analytics, which tell us which pages are visited and how the site performs. You can block these in your browser, or choose Necessary Only in our cookie banner, and the site will still work.
• Local storage: your cookie choice is saved in your own browser rather than as a cookie, so it is not sent to us on every request.

8. Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please tell us first so that we can put it right. You can call us on +44 2380 333 000 at any hour, or use the email address above.

If you would rather go straight to the regulator, or if we cannot resolve it, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK data protection regulator: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF. The ICO website is ico.org.uk, with telephone 0303 123 1113.

9. Changes to this page

We update this page from time to time, for example if we change which services we use. The current version is always this page, and the date below the heading tells you when it last changed. Last updated: October 2026.