Privacy policy

Kioo is an app that puts drivers who need a car repair in touch with people nearby who can fix it. This policy explains what information Kioo keeps, why, and your rights. Kioo is run by Simon Turner, 60a Eastworth Road, Chertsey, Surrey KT16 8DR, who is responsible for your information (the "controller"). Contact: [email protected].

What Kioo keeps

• Your phone number, verified with a text message code when you sign in.
• Your email address, if you add one, used to sign you in with a code and, if you choose email alerts, to send them. It's never shown to anyone.
• Your alert choices: which alerts you want and how (the app, this browser, email or text). For the app and for browser notifications, Kioo keeps the address that your phone or browser gives it for delivering them. This address isn't your email or number.
• Your name and area. Your area is a postcode district such as KT16 and a rough position, never your address. Locations are rounded to about 1 km.
• If you fix cars: your business name and type, what you fix, and a Google listing if you link one.
• Repair jobs and quotes: the repairs, the car's make, model, year, fuel and mileage, budgets, prices, dates and messages about the job, and any photos you add to a job.
• Ratings you give and receive after a job.
• Tokens: your balance and what you spent them on; any purchases.

Your cars' registrations stay on your phone. Kioo looks a registration up with the DVSA (MOT history) and DVLA (vehicle details) through its own server, but doesn't store it there and never sends it to an AI service or to other users.

Who sees what

• A repair job shows fixers the repairs, the car's make and model, the budget and the area, never your address or registration.
• A driver's phone number is shown to a fixer only after the driver accepts the fixer's quote and the fixer confirms the job, and only while the job is confirmed or booked. The fixer's number is shown to the driver in the same way. Kioo doesn't copy numbers into the job.
• Names are checked before anyone else sees them.
• If you link a Google listing as a fixer, Kioo searches Google Maps for your sign-in phone number to find your listing, and to check the listing is yours it may text or call the number on the listing with a one-time code. Kioo keeps only Google's reference for the listing and how and when you showed it's yours, not the listing's number. Your quotes then show the listing's name and "Google listing verified", and if others link the same listing (for example staff at the same garage), each of you can see the others' names and phone numbers in Profile. Drivers who accept your quote still call your own number.
• Photos you add to a job are checked, and number plates and faces are blurred on your phone before they go anywhere. They're stored with the job when you post it, so anyone looking at the job on the board can see them. Once the job leaves the board, only you and the fixers who quoted can see them. They're kept in private storage, never at a public web address.
• Other users see rating totals, never who gave which rating.

Alerts

Kioo can tell you about new quotes, changes to your jobs and, if you fix cars, new jobs near you. You choose how: a notification in the Kioo app, a notification in your web browser, an email, or a text message. You can choose more than one and change your choice at any time in Profile > Settings > Notifications.

• An alert says only what happened and the car's make and model, for example "A fixer sent a quote for your Ford Fiesta job", with a link to the job. It never contains a name, phone number, address or registration.
• Browser notifications are delivered by the push service of the company that made your browser: Google for Chrome, Apple for Safari, Mozilla for Firefox, Microsoft for Edge. Kioo encrypts each alert so that only your browser can read it.
• Emails go to the email address on your account, and texts go to your sign-in number. Kioo sends them only if you choose them.

Services that handle information for Kioo

• Supabase: Kioo's database and server.
• Twilio: sends the sign-in text message codes, the codes that check a fixer's Google listing (by text or voice call), and alerts by text if you choose them.
• Resend: sends alerts by email if you choose them.
• Google: AI that writes repair descriptions, checks photos and names, and answers questions (Gemini); maps and nearby businesses (Maps and Places), including finding a fixer's own listing by their phone number; repair videos (YouTube); notifications in the app (Firebase Cloud Messaging); and Play Store purchases.
• Your browser's push service (Google, Apple, Mozilla or Microsoft, depending on your browser): delivers browser notifications if you switch them on. They're encrypted, so the push service can't read them.
• DVSA and DVLA: official vehicle and MOT records, looked up by registration.

AI services receive the car's make, model and history and the repair, never your registration, name, number or address. [Where these services are, and how transfers outside the UK are protected, to be confirmed.]

Why Kioo uses it (lawful basis)

[To be confirmed by the solicitor: to provide the service you sign up for (contract); to keep Kioo safe and prevent misuse (legitimate interests); to keep sales records (legal obligation).]

How long it's kept

• Car lookups for a car you check once: up to 90 days.
• Phone numbers: each side sees the other's only while a job is confirmed or booked.
• Alerts: the address for browser notifications is deleted when you turn them off, sign out in that browser, the browser stops using it, or you delete your account. Kioo keeps a record of which alerts it sent, and whether they arrived, for 30 days.
• Job photos: deleted when the job is done, withdrawn or cancelled, or when you delete your account, and always within 60 days of being added. Your own copies stay on your phone.
• Your account: until you delete it. Paid purchase records are kept for six years for the accounts, with nothing linking them to you.

Shared data that can't identify you

Kioo builds anonymous statistics from checks and repairs, such as what commonly comes up on a model at a given mileage. These contain no registration, name, number or device identifier.

Your rights

You can ask to see, correct or delete your information, object to how it's used, or take a copy of it. You can delete your account in the app at any time. Contact [email protected]. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk).