Andrew Bertran, doing business as Auto Shop App, makes Auto Shop App, software that automotive repair and collision shops use to run their business. This policy explains what personal information flows through that software, why, who else touches it, and what rights people have.
Three things worth knowing up front:
Andrew Bertran, doing business as Auto Shop App, a sole proprietorship based in California. We refer to ourselves as "we," "us," and "our." You can reach us at info@autoshopapp.com (§12).
This policy covers:
It uses these terms:
| Term | Who |
|---|---|
| Shop | Our customer: the repair business that subscribes to Auto Shop App. |
| Shop Staff | The people who sign in: owners, service advisors, technicians, estimators, office staff. |
| Shop Customer | The vehicle owner or claimant whose information a Shop enters into Auto Shop App. Shop Customers do not have accounts with us and are usually not our users. |
This distinction runs through the whole policy.
When a Shop enters its customers' or its employees' personal information into Auto Shop App, the Shop is the "business" (in other privacy laws, the controller) and we are the "service provider" (the processor), as those terms are defined in the California Consumer Privacy Act, Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.140(ag).
That means, by law and by contract:
These commitments come from Cal. Civ. Code §§ 1798.100(d) and 1798.140(ag), and the CCPA regulations on service-provider and contractor contracts (Cal. Code Regs. tit. 11, § 7051). The contract version is in the agreement between us and the Shop, and is available on request.
For information about the people who use Auto Shop App (their accounts, sign-ins, support requests) and about our own customers' billing, we act as the business. We decide why and how that information is processed, and this policy describes it.
If you are a Shop Customer and you contact us directly about your information, we will generally have to refer you to the Shop, and we will tell the Shop you contacted us. We are not permitted to reach into a Shop's records and change or delete them on a third party's instruction. See §7.4.
| What | Examples |
|---|---|
| Identity and contact | Name, work email address, phone number |
| Account and access | Role and permissions, employment status in the app, password hash (we never store or see a plaintext password), kiosk PIN hash, session and refresh tokens, language and time-zone settings |
| Technical | IP address, device and browser type, timestamps, recorded with each session and with each action in the audit log |
| Activity | An audit log of actions taken in the app: who created, changed, approved, sent, voided, or deleted a record, and when |
| Support | Messages you send us, and our replies |
Why: to authenticate people, enforce permissions, keep the Shop's records attributable to a named person (which California recordkeeping expects), investigate problems, detect abuse, and provide support.
This is the largest category, and it is entered or captured by the Shop, not by us.
| What | Examples |
|---|---|
| Identity and contact | Name, phone number, email address, postal address |
| Vehicle | Year, make, model, trim, VIN, licence plate, mileage/odometer reading, colour, engine |
| Photographs | Photos of the vehicle, including damage photos, the odometer, the VIN plate, and the licence plate, taken by Shop Staff |
| Inspection and repair | Inspection notes and findings, technician notes, diagnostic results, labour and parts lines, part condition, repair history across visits |
| Documents and consent | Estimates, authorizations, invoices, teardown disclosures, towing authorizations, electronic signatures on authorizations (with the timestamp, and the IP address and browser or device used to sign) |
| Payment records | Amount, date, method, card brand and last four digits of a card, and the payment processor's reference. We do not store full payment card numbers, magnetic stripe data, CVV codes, or PINs. Those go directly to the payment processor |
| Insurance and claim | Carrier name, claim number, adjuster contact, deductible, and carrier estimates the Shop imports where it uses collision features |
| Communications | See §4.4 |
Why: because a repair shop cannot produce a legal estimate, obtain authorization, order parts, perform the repair, invoice the customer, or keep the records California requires without this information. We process it to provide those functions to the Shop.
Photograph location data. When a photograph is uploaded, Auto Shop App re-encodes the image before storing it, which removes all embedded metadata, including any location coordinates the camera recorded.
No feature of Auto Shop App collects a Shop Customer's driver's licence number, Social Security number, or date of birth.
Auto Shop App includes features for a Shop to manage its own people:
| What | Status |
|---|---|
| Name, work contact details, role, employment status | Collected |
| Home address | Collected where the Shop records it. Every read is recorded in the audit log with who read it |
| Pay type (hourly, flat rate, salary), rate and commission settings | Collected |
| Time records: clock in/out, job time, flag hours | Collected |
| Technician efficiency metrics derived from the above | Collected, restricted to roles with permission to see them |
| Payroll export | The Service produces a file (for example in ADP's import format) that the Shop downloads and uploads to its own payroll provider. We do not connect to or send data to the payroll provider |
| Social Security numbers, driver's licence numbers, bank account details | Not collected |
| Form I-9 and W-4 documents | Not collected |
Why: to help a Shop pay its people, track job time against labour, and meet California wage-and-hour recordkeeping obligations.
| What | Detail |
|---|---|
| Text messages to Shop Customers | Message content, the sending and receiving phone numbers, timestamps, and delivery status (queued, sent, delivered, failed, undeliverable), plus any reply and any opt-out (STOP). Sent through Twilio |
| Email to Shop Customers | Message content, addresses, timestamps, and delivery status (delivered, bounced, complained). Sent through Amazon SES. An address that bounces or complains is suppressed and not emailed again |
| Internal notes | Notes Shop Staff write for one another inside the app |
Why: to send the estimate approval requests, authorizations, status updates, appointment confirmations and reminders, payment links, and invoices a Shop chooses to send, and, only where the Shop turns them on and the customer has agreed, reminders that a vehicle's next service is due. We keep the record so a Shop can prove what it sent and whether it arrived, which matters when an authorization is later disputed.
The Shop decides who gets messaged and is responsible for having consent to message them, including under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. The Shop records a customer's agreement to be texted at check-in, with the date and the employee who took it; every STOP reply is recorded permanently and checked before each message. Service-due reminders need the customer's separate agreement, and a reminder sent by email carries an unsubscribe link. See the SMS Program Terms and the agreement between us and the Shop.
Business contact details for the Shop, the subscription plan, invoices and payment status, and the brand, last four digits and expiry date of the card on file with Stripe's reference for it. The card itself is entered on Stripe's own page and never reaches our servers.
We do not use any analytics, advertising, or tracking tags on autoshopapp.com or in the Auto Shop App application: no Google Analytics, no tag manager, no advertising pixels. Our marketing site loads its typefaces from Google Fonts, which means your browser requests them from Google's servers and Google receives your IP address and browser details as part of that request. The Auto Shop App application does not.
We do not keep logs of visits to the marketing site. When someone uses the application, their IP address and browser or device details are recorded with their session and in the audit log (§4.1), and our servers write operational logs (for example, errors and the requests that caused them), which are kept for six months.
When you use the website's "get started" form, we receive your name, your business's name, your email address and anything else you type into it, such as a phone number or a message, and use it only to contact you about Auto Shop App. If you choose a plan and subscribe, you enter your card on Stripe's own page.
We use only what is strictly necessary for the Service to work:
The marketing site sets no cookies. We do not use advertising cookies or third-party tracking pixels.
We use a small number of vendors to run Auto Shop App. The full list, with what each receives and where, is at autoshopapp.com/subprocessors.html. In summary:
| Subprocessor | What it does | What it receives | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon Web Services, Inc. | Hosting, database, photo and document storage, logs; email through Amazon SES | All data in the Service; email addresses and message content | United States: us-west-2 (Oregon) for the application, database and files; us-east-1 (N. Virginia) for email, the website, and content delivery |
| Twilio Inc. | Text messages a Shop sends its customers, replies, delivery status, STOP handling. Built, and switched on once carrier registration clears | Recipient phone number, message content, delivery and opt-out events | United States |
| Stripe, Inc. | Billing Shops for their Auto Shop App subscription | Billing contact and card details, entered on Stripe's own page. Card numbers never reach our servers | United States |
| Google LLC | Email sent to our own addresses (for example info@autoshopapp.com) is forwarded to a Google Gmail mailbox | Whatever the sender writes | Google's data centres |
Amazon Web Services, Twilio and Stripe process personal information for us under their data processing terms, which limit them to providing their service to us. Email forwarded to our Gmail mailbox is held under Google's standard terms.
Not our subprocessors, but you should know about them:
We may also disclose personal information:
We will give Shops at least 30 days' notice before adding a new subprocessor that handles Shop Customer personal information.
Because it is the disclosure most people would want and least expect, and burying it in a vendor table would not be honest.
When Shop Staff use an Automotive Intelligence feature (for example, asking for suggested repair lines from a customer's description of a problem), the draft is produced on our own servers, by our own software. No photograph, estimate, or customer record is sent to a third-party AI provider. The request goes through a queue on our servers, and the draft is recorded with the software version that produced it.
If we ever use a third-party AI provider (for example, to analyze damage photographs), then before any personal information is sent to it we will: add it to the subprocessor list and give Shops the notice above; describe here what it receives; and require it by contract to process the data only to return a result to us and not to use it to train its models.
Under the CCPA, as amended by the CPRA, a California resident has the right to:
| Right | What it means | Statute |
|---|---|---|
| Know / access | Learn what personal information is collected about them, where it came from, why, who it was disclosed to, and get a copy | Civ. Code §§ 1798.100, 1798.110, 1798.115 |
| Delete | Ask that their personal information be deleted, subject to exceptions | § 1798.105 |
| Correct | Ask that inaccurate personal information be corrected | § 1798.106 |
| Opt out of sale or sharing | Direct that their information not be sold or shared for cross-context behavioural advertising | § 1798.120 |
| Limit use of sensitive personal information | Restrict use of sensitive categories to what is necessary to provide the service | § 1798.121 |
| Portability | Receive information in a portable, readily usable format | § 1798.100(d) |
| Non-discrimination | Not be denied service, charged more, or given a lower quality of service for exercising these rights | § 1798.125 |
We do not sell or share personal information, so there is nothing to opt out of. We say this plainly rather than offering a link that does nothing.
These rights belong to California residents, including Shop Staff and Shop employees. The CCPA's exemptions for employee and business-to-business personal information expired on January 1, 2023, so employees and business contacts have the same rights as anyone else.
We operate as though the CCPA applies to us. Our Shops may be businesses the CCPA covers, and they rely on us to meet a service provider's obligations; we would rather meet those obligations for everyone than work out case by case whether we must.
You may exercise your rights with us directly. Email us at info@autoshopapp.com. We will verify who you are before acting, usually by confirming control of the email address on the account, and for a deletion or a copy request, by an additional check.
You can also delete your own sign-in yourself, without contacting anyone: in the Auto Shop App iPhone and iPad app under Account → Delete Account, or in the web portal from the account menu under Delete account. We ask for your password again before doing it. Deleting your sign-in at a Shop:
It applies to the one Shop you are signed in to. If you use the same email address to sign in to another Shop, that is a separate account, and you delete it from inside that Shop. If you are the only owner of a Shop who can sign in, we will ask you to make someone else an owner first, or to contact us to close the Shop's account, so the Shop is not left with nobody who can manage it.
Your employer, the Shop, controls your access to its Auto Shop App account and its records of your work. Deleting your account does not delete the Shop's business records of what was done on its jobs (repair orders, time punches, signed documents, payroll history, and your employee record, which the Shop keeps), and it does not remove entries from the Shop's audit log. Those are the Shop's records and, for repair work, records California requires the Shop to keep.
If you had work done at a repair shop and want to know what it holds about you, or want it corrected or deleted, contact that shop. The shop decides what happens to its records. We hold the information on the shop's behalf and are not permitted to change or delete a shop's records because a third party asked us to.
You can also write to us at info@autoshopapp.com. If you do:
Someone may submit a request for you if they have your written permission, or a power of attorney. We will ask for proof of the authorization and, in most cases, will still verify your identity directly.
Auto Shop App uses Automotive Intelligence to draft content for a person to accept (§6). It does not make automated decisions about a person's employment, credit, housing, education, healthcare, or access to essential goods or services.
We confirm receipt of a request within 10 business days and respond within 45 calendar days, extendable by another 45 days where the request is complex; we will tell you if we need the extension. There is no charge for a reasonable request. We will not discriminate against anyone for making one.
People outside California may have similar rights under their own state's law. We apply the process in this section to any such request rather than maintaining separate procedures.
We use the following controls:
No system is perfectly secure. We cannot guarantee that information will never be accessed without authorization, and we do not claim to. What we can say is that we designed the isolation, access control, and audit trail deliberately, and that we will tell you promptly if something goes wrong (§10). We hold no third-party security certification (such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001) and do not claim one.
We keep personal information for as long as the Shop's account is active, and afterwards only as long as needed for the purposes described here or as the law requires.
| Data | Retention |
|---|---|
| Shop Customer records, documents, and photographs | For the life of the Shop's account; then §9.3 |
| Shop Staff accounts | For as long as the account is active, until deleted under §7.3; then §9.3 |
| In-app audit logs | For the life of the Shop's account, with no earlier expiry; then §9.3 |
| Operational server logs | Six months |
| Message content and delivery status | For the life of the Shop's account; then §9.3 |
| Whole-account data exports a Shop downloads | Available to download for 7 days, then deleted |
| Email sent to our own addresses | A copy is kept on our servers for one year; the forwarded copy is kept in our mailbox |
| Billing records and invoices | As long as tax and accounting law requires (generally at least seven years) |
| Encrypted database backups | 35 days after the data is deleted from the database |
| Previous versions of stored photographs and documents | 30 days after a file is deleted or replaced |
Deletion requests interact with retention obligations, and the obligations usually win.
The CCPA itself recognises this: a business may decline a deletion request where retaining the information is necessary to comply with a legal obligation (Civ. Code § 1798.105(d)). When we decline or limit a deletion on this basis, we will say which basis applies rather than refusing without explanation.
A Shop should export and keep its own copies of anything it is legally required to retain, before these windows close. Our retention windows are a product feature; the Shop's recordkeeping obligation is the law.
If we learn of a breach of the security of the system involving personal information, we will:
We will not delay notice to investigate more comfortably. We may delay only where law enforcement determines that notice would impede an investigation, as the statute permits.
Auto Shop App is business software. It is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 16.
We do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of anyone under 16; we do not sell or share personal information at all. If we learn that a child's personal information reached us in a way that requires deletion, we will delete it. Email info@autoshopapp.com.
All personal information in the Auto Shop App Service is stored and processed in the United States. Our infrastructure runs in AWS us-west-2 (Oregon), with email (Amazon SES), DNS, the website and content delivery in us-east-1 (Virginia). Our subprocessors are United States companies. Email sent to our own addresses is forwarded to a Google Gmail mailbox, and Google does not commit to a storage location for it.
We do not offer data residency outside the United States. If you are outside the United States, understand that your information will be transferred to and processed here, under United States law.
Browsers send a "Do Not Track" signal inconsistently and there is no agreed standard for honouring it, so we do not respond to it. We do not track people across other websites. Where we are required to honour an opt-out preference signal such as Global Privacy Control, we will, though since we do not sell or share personal information, such a signal has nothing to act on here.
The Service links to third-party sites and systems. This policy does not cover them.
We may update this policy. If a change is material, we will give Shops at least 30 days' notice by email and in the app before it takes effect, and we will update the "Last updated" date. Prior versions are available on request. Continuing to use the Service after a change takes effect means you accept it.
For any privacy question or request, email info@autoshopapp.com. We operate exclusively online, so email is how to reach us, including for the requests described in §7.
Andrew Bertran, doing business as Auto Shop App
Email: info@autoshopapp.com
Web: autoshopapp.com
If you are a Shop Customer, please also see §7.4: starting with the shop that did your repair will usually get you a faster answer.