Welcome to Call4ride. We deeply value your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal data through rigorous compliance with global data protection standards. This Privacy Policy outlines exactly how Call4ride ("we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, processes, stores, and safeguards your information when you download, install, register an account, or utilise our mobile application and associated services (collectively, the "Application").
By creating an account, accessing, or using Call4ride, you explicitly consent to the collection, processing, and sharing of your information as detailed in this policy. If you do not agree with these practices, please refrain from downloading or using the Application.
1. Information We Collect
To provide a highly secure, reliable, and efficient ride-hailing experience, we collect specific categories of personal data. This data is mandatory for operational safety, legal compliance, and trip dispatching.
A. Personal Identification and Contact Information
We collect detailed personal credentials to build your profile, verify your identity, and establish reliable lines of communication:
- Full Name: Used to legally identify you within our system and to display to passengers so they can cross-verify who is picking them up.
- Phone Number: Essential for account security, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and providing a direct line of communication between you, your passengers, and our administration.
- Email Address: Used for primary account management, sending trip summaries, receipts, policy updates, and critical security notices.
- Date of Birth: Collected to verify your legal age and ensure you meet the statutory requirements to operate a commercial vehicle or provide transport services in your region.
- Gender: Optional demographic information used to personalise the application profile and assist us in compiling internal platform statistics.
- Operating City: Used to register your primary service zone, allowing our routing algorithms to assign localised requests.
B. Detailed Vehicle Specifications
To maintain passenger trust and ensure that all vehicles on our platform meet regional transport regulations, we collect comprehensive vehicle attributes:
- Vehicle Identity and Model: The precise brand, model name, and year of manufacture to ensure the vehicle is structurally safe and meets our platform's age standards.
- Aesthetic Details: The exterior colour of the vehicle, which is displayed to passengers to make your vehicle instantly recognisable at the pickup point.
- License Plate Number: A unique alphanumeric identifier required to monitor your vehicle's identity, facilitate police checks if necessary, and ensure accountability.
- Seating Capacity: The absolute maximum number of available passenger seats, ensuring that the platform matches you only with groups your vehicle can safely accommodate.
- Transmission Type: System details regarding whether the vehicle features a manual or automatic transmission, used for fleet categorisation and performance optimisation.
C. Legal and Verification Documentation
Operating a transport service requires strict validation. We collect and store physical and digital documentation to prevent fraud and ensure platform integrity:
- Driver’s License Number: The unique state-issued or government-issued number linked to your driving record, used for background vetting and legal compliance.
- Account Classification: Indication of whether you operate as an independent individual contractor or under a corporate fleet or transport company.
- High-Resolution Images and Digital Documents:
- Driver's License (Front and Back): Mandatory, clear images of both sides of your official license to verify its validity, expiration date, and visual authenticity.
- Profile Photo: A clear, high-resolution portrait photograph of your face. This image is displayed to passengers within their application prior to and during the ride for essential safety matching.
- Vehicle Insurance Document: A digital file or image proof of valid commercial or third-party vehicle liability insurance, ensuring all trips are covered in the event of an accident.
D. Real-Time Precise Location Data
The core functionality of Call4ride relies heavily on continuous tracking of your physical location:
- Precise Geographic Location: We collect high-precision latitude and longitude coordinates via your device’s GPS, cellular towers, and Wi-Fi access points.
- Foreground and Background Tracking: For service providers (drivers), this tracking occurs while the app is actively on your screen, as well as in the background when the app is minimized or your screen is locked—provided your profile status is set to "Online" or "Available."
- Purpose of Location Processing: This constant stream of data is required to map optimal routes, calculate exact Estimated Times of Arrival (ETAs), pair you with the closest available passengers to reduce deadhead mileage, track active trips for physical safety, and calculate final fares based on distance travelled.
2. Comprehensive Data Usage
We process your data through lawful methods under the legal bases of contractual obligation, legitimate operational interests, and statutory compliance. Your data is used for:
- Operational Management: Creating, maintaining, and updating your active profile; processing ride requests; and enabling seamless transitions from one trip to the next.
- Enhanced Safety Protocols: Cross-matching your profile picture and license plate with the physical vehicle to prevent identity fraud; tracking live trips using real-time GPS telemetry to identify anomalies, long delays, or unauthorised route changes.
- Financial Processing: Calculating exact trip metrics to generate fares, split commissions, and process driver payouts.
- In-App & Direct Communication: Powering masked or direct communication channels so you can contact passengers regarding pickup coordinates without exposing long-term personal contact info needlessly, and enabling our support centre to reach you.
- Technical Maintenance and Optimisation: Analysing user behaviour data to fix software bugs, enhance map rendering speeds, and improve application battery efficiency.
3. Elaborate Data Sharing and Disclosure
Call4ride maintains a strict policy: we do not sell, rent, or lease your personal data to third-party data brokers or marketing firms. Data is disclosed only to facilitate the service, comply with the law, or protect lives:
- With Passengers (Riders): To create a trusted environment, passengers who request a ride are shown your full name, profile photo, vehicle make, model, colour, license plate number, current star rating, and your live, moving GPS location on their map.
- With Corporate Fleet Managers: If your account type is set to a "Company," all data relating to your trips, location history, active hours, revenue generated, and documents may be fully accessible by your corporate employer or fleet administrator.
- With Specialised Third-Party Service Providers: We securely stream data to vendors who assist our infrastructure, including cloud hosting platforms, mapping and navigation APIs (e.g., Google Maps API), messaging networks, and automated identity verification or background check services.
- Legal and Regulatory Disclosures: We will share any or all collected data with law enforcement agencies, traffic authorities, tax departments, or judicial systems if we receive a valid subpoena, court order, or if we determine in good faith that disclosure is necessary to prevent immediate physical harm, financial fraud, or violations of public safety.
4. In-Depth Security and Data Retention
Data Security Infrastructure
We enforce robust administrative, technical, and physical security measures to safeguard your data.
- All database communication is encrypted using industry-standard protocols.
- Uploaded files, such as driver’s licenses and insurance records, are archived in restricted-access cloud environments utilising encryption at rest.
- Internal access to your documents is strictly limited to authorised verification personnel who require it for vetting and dispute resolution.
Data Retention Periods
We keep your personal information stored for as long as you maintain an active account with Call4ride.
- If you submit a formal request to delete your account, we initiate an anonymisation or deletion process.
- Important Exception: Certain regulatory data, including trip history records, identification logs, financial transactions, and insurance files, will be securely archived for an extended period (typically matching regional statutory limitation periods, up to several years) to satisfy legal, tax, auditing, and corporate compliance obligations before being permanently destroyed.
5. Your Rights, Choices, and Controls
We believe in giving you maximum control over your personal privacy footprint. Depending on your local legal framework, you may exercise the following rights:
- Access and Data Portability: You can request a summary breakdown of the personal data we hold about you.
- Correction and Rectification: If any information (such as a typo in your name or an outdated phone number) is inaccurate, you can modify it instantly through your profile dashboard or by uploading updated documentation.
- Location Access Control: You can revoke the application's permission to access your precise location through your mobile device’s native OS settings. However, doing so will immediately disable your ability to receive trip requests, effectively rendering the application non-functional for driving purposes.
- Account Deletion: You can request the permanent erasure of your account profile directly from the app interface or by contacting our data privacy desk via email.
6. Protection of Minors
Call4ride is strictly designed and intended for adults of legal driving age who possess a valid government-issued driver's license. We do not knowingly market to or collect any data from individuals under the age of 18. If we discover that a minor has managed to establish an account by circumventing our validation systems, we will freeze the profile, terminate access, and permanently delete the associated records without delay.
7. Dynamic Amendments to This Policy
As our technology evolves and regional transport regulations change, we will update this Privacy Policy. When structural changes are made, we will adjust the date listed at the top of this document. If the changes significantly impact how your data is processed, we will provide a prominent notice within the Call4ride app user interface or send an alert directly to your registered email address. We encourage you to review this policy periodically to stay fully informed.
8. Dedicated Privacy Contact
If you have any granular questions regarding this policy, want to file a formal complaint regarding data handling, or wish to exercise your rights to data deletion or access, please contact our dedicated data operations officer directly:
- Support Email Address: callmeforride@gmail.com
