Privacy Policy

GarageFlow is shop management software for auto repair businesses. This policy is issued by GarageFlow Systems OÜ, a Osaühing (private limited company) registered in Estonia in the Estonian Business Register (Äriregister) under registry code 17601459, with its registered office at Sepapaja tn 6, 15551 Tallinn, Harju maakond, Estonia.

For any question about this policy or about how we handle personal data, write to [email protected]. We have not appointed a Data Protection Officer, as we are not required to under Article 37 GDPR.

GarageFlow handles personal data in two distinct capacities, and which one applies changes who is responsible for what. This is the most important section of this policy.

If you are a vehicle owner who received a booking link, an estimate to approve, an invoice, or a message from a repair shop using GarageFlow: the shop is the controller of your data, not us. We host and process it on their behalf. Direct requests about your data to the shop you dealt with. If you cannot reach them, contact us at [email protected] and we will help you identify and reach the right controller.

We do not run advertising, we do not profile you, and we make no decisions about you by automated means that produce legal or similarly significant effects.

When a shop uses GarageFlow, it enters data about its own business and customers. We process it solely to provide the service, under the shop's instructions and our Data Processing Agreement. This typically includes:

• Customer records — name, phone, email, company, address, notes, tags, contact and language preferences
• Vehicle records — make, model, VIN, registration plate, mileage history, photographs
• Work records — estimates, repair orders, inspections and their findings, parts and labour
• Financial records — invoices, payments, and payment terms
• Correspondence — messages exchanged between the shop and its customers through the product
• Approvals — electronic signatures captured when a customer authorises work
• Staff time records — clock-in and clock-out entries for the shop’s own employees
• Marketing records — whether a customer has opted out of marketing, which campaigns and service reminders they were sent, and whether each was delivered, opened, or clicked
• Review records — review invitations sent, and reviews the shop has received on its connected Google Business Profile

Shops are responsible for having a lawful basis for this data, for telling their own customers how it is used, and for not entering special categories of personal data (such as health data) into free-text fields. We do not use this data for our own purposes, we do not sell it, and we do not use it to train artificial-intelligence models.

This website does not use a cookie banner, because it does not need one. GarageFlow runs no analytics, no advertising trackers, no third-party marketing pixels, and no session recording. Fonts are served from our own servers rather than a third-party font service, so loading a page does not disclose your IP address to anyone else. We do not profile you across other websites, and we never sell or share data for advertising.

What we store on your device is either strictly necessary to deliver a service you asked for, or a preference you set yourself — both exempt from the consent requirement in Article 5(3) of the ePrivacy Directive — with one exception, noted in the last row and explained below it. In full:

The gfc cookie is the exception. It is set only if you click a link in a marketing email a repair shop sent you, and it holds nothing but a reference to that send, so the shop can see which of its emails produced a booking. It is not used for advertising, it is not read by anyone but us and the shop that sent the email, and it cannot follow you to any other website. Because it is measurement rather than strict necessity, the shop that sends the email is responsible for the lawful basis for it — see the next section.

One exception worth naming: if a shop administrator chooses to connect WhatsApp, the connection screen loads a component supplied by Meta in order to run that sign-up flow. It loads only on that screen, only for signed-in administrators, and only when they start the connection. It never loads on this website.

If we ever introduce analytics or any further non-essential tracking on this website, we will ask for your consent first and update this policy before doing so.

If you are a customer of a repair shop:that shop may use GarageFlow to send you service reminders — that your oil change is due, that work you deferred is still outstanding — and occasional offers, along with invitations to review the work. The shop decides who receives these and what they say. It is the controller for them, and it is responsible for having a lawful basis to send them. We provide the tool and send on the shop's instructions.

Every one of these messages carries an unsubscribe link, and mail clients that support one-click unsubscribe will show a button of their own. Unsubscribing takes effect immediately and applies to all marketing from that shop. It never stops the messages you need — the confirmation of your appointment, a reminder that it is tomorrow, your invoice, a receipt — which are sent to carry out the work you asked for, not to market to you, and which you can control separately by telling the shop.

Where a booking form we host collects your address, it offers this choice at that point, so you can decline before anything is ever sent.

So that shops can see whether their messages work, we record whether each one was delivered, whether it was opened, and whether a link in it was clicked, and — via the gfc cookie described above — whether a click led to a booking. This is measurement for the shop that sent the message. It is not combined across shops, not used to build a profile of you, and not shared with advertisers.

To stop marketing from a shop, use the unsubscribe link in any of its messages or ask the shop directly. If you cannot reach them, contact us at [email protected] and we will pass it on.

GarageFlow includes two optional AI features, both of which draft text for a person to review. Neither makes a decision about anyone, and neither produces anything that reaches a customer without a human choosing to send it.

• Suggested replies — a shop employee can ask for a draft answer to a customer message. The recent messages in that conversation, with the customer name, vehicle, and shop context, are sent to our AI provider, Anthropic, to generate it.
• Suggested review responses — a shop can ask for a draft reply to a review on its Google Business Profile. The review text, the reviewer name as it appears publicly on Google, the star rating, and the shop context are sent to Anthropic to generate it.

In both cases the draft appears on screen for a human to read, edit, and decide whether to use. Nothing is published or sent automatically — a review reply in particular is never posted to Google without someone approving it. Data sent for these purposes is not used to train the provider's models. Both features are off unless a shop enables them, and a shop that prefers not to use AI at all can simply not use the buttons.

We use a small number of vetted providers to run the service. Each is bound by a data processing agreement and may use personal data only to provide their service to us.

Providers marked optional are used only if a shop chooses to connect that integration. We maintain this list as our providers change, and we notify subscribing shops in advance of adding a new sub-processor so they have the opportunity to object. The same list, with the transfer safeguard relied on for each, is Annex III of our Data Processing Agreement.

We also use a third-party vehicle catalogue to populate makes, models, and trim levels. That service receives no personal data — we download a reference list of vehicle specifications and store it on our own servers — so it is not a sub-processor.

Our application servers, primary database, and file storage are all hosted by Hetzner in Nuremberg, Germany. Your data — accounts, customers, vehicles, orders, invoices, messages, and every document and photograph you upload — is stored in the European Union and stays there.

Some of the providers listed above are established outside the EEA. Where personal data is transferred to them, we rely on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses, or on an adequacy decision where one applies to that country. You may request a copy of the safeguards in place by writing to [email protected].

A shop can delete an individual customer record at any time from within the product, which removes that record from the live service.

Where we are the controller of your data, you have the right to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you, and receive a copy
• Have inaccurate data corrected
• Have your data erased, where no legal obligation requires us to keep it
• Restrict or object to processing based on our legitimate interests
• Receive your data in a portable, machine-readable format
• Withdraw consent at any time, where we relied on consent
• Lodge a complaint with a data protection authority

Write to [email protected] to exercise any of these. We respond within one month. We do not charge for this, and we will not treat you differently for asking.

If you are a vehicle owner whose data was entered by a repair shop, please direct these requests to that shop — they are the controller. If they do not respond, we will assist you in reaching them.

Our supervisory authority is the Estonian Data Protection Inspectorate (Andmekaitse Inspektsioon), Tatari 39, 10134 Tallinn, Estonia — https://www.aki.ee/en. You may also complain to the data protection authority in your own country of residence.

Data is encrypted in transit. Passwords are stored only as salted hashes and are never recoverable. Each shop's data is isolated so that one shop cannot reach another's records. Access to production systems is restricted to those who need it, and administrative actions are logged.

If a personal data breach occurs that is likely to result in a risk to your rights, we will notify the supervisory authority within 72 hours and inform affected users without undue delay. Security concerns can be reported to [email protected].

GarageFlow is a business tool and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 16.

We will update this policy as the service changes. The version number and effective date at the top of this page always reflect the current text. If a change materially affects your rights, we will notify subscribing shops by email before it takes effect.