Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

The responsible party for your personal information is Jimmys Car Hire (Pty) Ltd, trading as Jimmy’s Car Hire, registration number 2022/633884/07.

• Registered office: 68 Melville Road, Illovo, Johannesburg, 2196
• Operating address: 17 Bree Street, Cape Town City Centre, 8000
• Email: bookings@jimmyscarhire.com
• Phone and WhatsApp: +27 68 653 2778

Information Officer: Ross Ikin, reachable at bookings@jimmyscarhire.com (please put “Privacy request” in the subject line) or on the number above.

2. Who this policy covers

It covers website visitors, people who send us an enquiry, renters, additional drivers named on a rental, business customers, and partners who contact us through our partner page. It applies to information we collect online, over WhatsApp, email and phone, and in person when you collect or return a car.

3. What we collect

• Identity and contact details: name, email address, phone and WhatsApp number, home address and country.
• Driver details: date of birth, ID or passport number, driving licence number, photographs of your driving licence taken at handover, and an international driving permit where one is needed. We collect the same details for each additional driver.
• Booking and rental details: dates, times and handover locations, the car and extras you choose (including child or baby seats), flight details if you give them to us, fuel and odometer readings, photographs of the car’s condition, and your signature on the rental agreement and inspection report.
• Payment details: amounts, payment references and payment status. You enter your card details on our payment provider’s secure page. We never see or store your full card number.
• Business billing details: company name, VAT number and billing address, if you ask us to invoice a business.
• Messages: the emails and WhatsApp messages you send us (including any location you share), notes of phone calls, and any feedback or reviews.
• Fines, incidents and claims: traffic and parking fine notices issued during your rental, accident and damage reports, police case numbers and insurance claim information. A fine notice is an allegation of an offence, which POPIA treats as special personal information. We process it only to redirect the fine to the driver responsible and to protect our legal rights, as the law allows.
• Checks: the results of identity, driving licence and credit checks on the renter and any additional drivers.
• Vehicle data: the location, speed and distance travelled by the car during your rental (see section 7).
• Website and device data: IP address, browser and device type, pages viewed, how you arrived at our site (including advertising campaign codes), cookie identifiers, and anything you type into our enquiry forms.
• Account details: if you create a My Bookings account, your name, email and username. Your password is stored in encrypted (hashed) form.

We do not rent cars to anyone under 18 and do not collect children’s personal information. A child or baby seat request tells us only that a seat is needed. We do not ask for information about race, religion, health, biometrics or other special categories, beyond the alleged offences described above.

4. Where we get it

Mostly from you. We also receive information from:

• the renter, when they give us the details of an additional driver;
• traffic authorities and municipalities (fine notices), the police, our insurers and claims assessors;
• credit bureaux and identity-verification services, when we carry out checks;
• our vehicle tracking provider;
• our payment providers (confirmation that a payment succeeded);
• review and social media platforms, when you review us or mention us publicly.

5. Why we use it

POPIA only allows us to process personal information for a lawful reason. The reasons we rely on are shown in brackets.

We do not use your information for a new purpose that is incompatible with the one we collected it for.

6. Do you have to give it to us?

To rent a car you must give us your name, contact details, date of birth, ID or passport number, driving licence details and address, and the same for any additional driver. Our rental agreement and insurance require this. Without it we cannot rent a car to you. Some of it (for example ID and licence checks) is also needed so we can meet our obligations under road traffic law.

Everything else is voluntary: flight details, marketing preferences, non-essential cookies, and anything extra you choose to tell us.

7. Vehicle tracking

Our cars are fitted with a tracking unit run by our tracking provider. During your rental it records the car’s location, speed and distance travelled. We use this only to:

• recover the car if it is stolen or not returned on time;
• help you if you break down or have an accident;
• investigate accidents, damage, fines and insurance claims;
• calculate distance-based charges; and
• enforce the rental agreement.

We do not use it to follow where you go for any other reason. If we have to recover a car that has not been returned, we work through our tracking provider and, where needed, the police.

8. WhatsApp and automated tools

Messages to our WhatsApp line may first be answered by an automated assistant. It can look up your booking to answer questions such as times, locations and payment status. Ask for a person at any time and a member of our team will take over. We also use automated tools to read traffic fine notices, and to help our staff search our booking records.

These tools are provided by an AI provider under contract as our operator. Its terms do not allow it to use your messages to train its models. We do not make any decision about you based solely on automated processing.

9. Who we share it with

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only with people and businesses who need it for the purposes above.

Service providers who process it for us (operators)

Others we may share it with

• traffic authorities, municipalities and the police, for fines, accidents and stolen vehicles;
• our insurers, claims assessors, repairers, towing and roadside assistance providers;
• credit bureaux, debt collectors and tracing agents, if money owed to us is not paid;
• our lawyers, accountants and auditors;
• courts, regulators and others where the law requires it; and
• a buyer of our business, who must keep using it as this policy describes.

Our operators may only use your information on our instructions and must keep it secure and confidential.

10. Information sent outside South Africa

Several of the providers above store or process information outside South Africa, mainly in the USA and the European Union. We only send your information abroad if:

• the recipient is subject to a law, binding corporate rules or a written agreement that protects it at least as well as POPIA;
• the transfer is needed to perform our contract with you, or to take steps you asked for; or
• you have agreed to it.

11. Marketing messages

We send offers and news about our rentals by email or WhatsApp only if:

• you have opted in; or
• you have rented from us before, the message is about our own similar services, and you did not opt out when we collected your details.

Every marketing email includes an unsubscribe link. On WhatsApp, reply STOP. You can also email us at any time. Opting out is free, and it does not affect messages we need to send about a booking you have made.

12. Cookies and website tracking

Cookies are small files your browser stores for a website. We use:

• Essential cookies that make booking, checkout and your My Bookings account work, and that protect forms from spam (Google reCAPTCHA). The site cannot work without these.
• Analytics cookies (Google Analytics) that tell us how visitors use the site, so we can improve it.
• Advertising cookies and pixels (Google Ads and the Meta Pixel) that measure whether our adverts work and show our adverts to people who have visited our site.
• Embedded content (Google Maps, Trustpilot and review widgets, and our WhatsApp chat button) that may set their providers’ own cookies when they load.

Where the site shows cookie settings, you can accept or refuse non-essential cookies there and change your choice at any time. You can also block or delete cookies in your browser, and control advertising through your Google ad settings and Meta ad preferences.

13. How long we keep it

We keep personal information only for as long as we need it for the purpose we collected it for, or as long as the law requires. After that we delete it or remove anything that identifies you.

Backup copies are overwritten on a rolling cycle and are not used for any other purpose.

14. How we protect it

We take reasonable technical and organisational steps to keep your information safe. These include:

• encrypted (HTTPS) connections on our website and systems;
• staff access limited to what each person needs, with sign-in controls and activity logs;
• card payments handled only by certified payment providers;
• written agreements requiring our operators to keep information secure; and
• regular review of these safeguards.

No system is perfectly secure. If we believe your personal information has been accessed or acquired by someone without authority, we will tell you and the Information Regulator as soon as reasonably possible, as POPIA requires.

15. Your rights

Under POPIA you have the right to:

• ask whether we hold personal information about you, free of charge, and ask for a copy of it;
• ask us to correct or delete information that is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, excessive or unlawfully obtained, or that we are no longer allowed to keep;
• object to our processing where we rely on our legitimate interests, and to direct marketing at any time;
• withdraw your consent where we rely on it. This does not affect what we did before;
• not be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing that significantly affects you; and
• complain to the Information Regulator (section 16).

To use any of these rights, email our Information Officer at bookings@jimmyscarhire.com or send us a WhatsApp. You do not have to use a particular form, but you may use the Information Regulator’s Form 1 (objection) or Form 2 (correction or deletion). Objecting is always free.

We may ask you to prove your identity before we act. We will respond within 30 days, and tell you if we need longer or cannot do what you ask and why. Requests for copies of records are dealt with under the Promotion of Access to Information Act. Our PAIA manual explains how, and what fees may apply.

16. Complaints to the Information Regulator

Please talk to us first so we can try to put things right. You are also entitled to complain to the Information Regulator:

17. Information about other people

If you give us personal information about someone else, you confirm that you are allowed to. This includes an additional driver, a passenger, or a colleague you are booking for. Please show them this policy. We will also give additional drivers our privacy notice when they complete their driver form.

18. Changes to this policy

We will update this policy when the way we handle personal information changes, and show the date of the latest version at the top. If a change affects how we use information you have already given us, we will tell you before it takes effect. Where the law requires it, we will ask for your consent.