Privacy policy

    This Privacy Policy was last updated in October 2023. 

    Motorway Online Ltd (“Motorway”, “we” or “us”) is an online used car marketplace. Save for where specified otherwise, capitalised terms on this page shall bear the same meanings as those given to them in our Terms and Conditions.

    We offer you the ability to track the value of your vehicle over time and to sell your vehicle to dealers who compete to give you their best price. We offer these Services through this website, www.motorway.co.uk, and/or our iOS or Android application (together referred to as the “Website”).

    In order to provide these Services, we require certain information about you and your vehicle. This privacy policy details the types of personal information we collect and process about you, what we use them for, how we use them, who we share them with and why. Please read this policy carefully and contact us using the details set out below, if you have any questions. If you disagree with any of the ways in which we might use your personal data in this privacy policy, you should not use our Services. 

    Information we process about you

    When you take up our Services or use the Website, we will collect certain information about you, such as:

    • basic contact information which you provide to us;
    • information to enable our Car Buying Partners and/or any third party transport providers to collect and inspect your car; 
    • your account details and account profile;
    • images, video, technical, and/or model information of your car; 
    • photographs or scans of documents relating to the ownership and history of your car;
    • records of how you use our Services and/or your account;
    • information we obtain from public sources (such as the DVLA);
    • information we receive from third parties (e.g., business partners, service providers, advertising networks, analytics providers, automotive data providers, search information providers or social networks);
    • records of communications you have with us (e.g., emails, texts, call recordings);
    • other information you provide to us voluntarily, including as part of a survey or promotion; and
    • technical information about your device and website usage, including cookies (see our Cookies Policy).
    Find out more…

    Basic contact information you provide to us

    If you decide to complete a valuation of your car (even if you don’t end up proceeding with a sale through our platform), we will collect your name, postcode, email address, telephone number and information about your car (see also ‘General vehicle information’ below). We will also use this information to create an account for you so you can come back to your valuation at any time and track this valuation through our ‘car value tracker’ tool. Your vehicle location will be used to enable us and our Car Buying Partners to estimate costs of collection.

    If you decide to participate in Motorway’s refer-a-friend scheme, we will collect your name and email address.

    Your account details

    Once we have created your account, you may also provide us with certain additional information about yourself which forms part of your account, such as other vehicles you own, and other services you may be interested in.

    General vehicle information

    Whether you are planning on selling your car through our platform or are merely looking to track the value of your car through our valuation tracker, we will ask for certain information about your car. This may include but is not limited to images or videos of the car, the make, model, age, mileage, technical vehicle information, service history, vehicle registration number, and/or vehicle identifier number (usually found on the driver’s side door). 

    Sale documentation

    If you choose to sell your car through the Motorway platform, we will use our document capture feature to collect further information relating to your car, including photographs or scans of the following documents: V5C logbook form, driving licence, proof of purchase invoice, and finance settlement letters. 

    As part of our fraud prevention efforts, we may also ask you to provide photographs or scans of the following through our document capture feature: death certificate (if you are selling on behalf of a registered keeper who is deceased), signed letter of authority or consent from the registered keeper and/or owner, driving licence of registered keeper and/or owner, and/or proof of address (e.g. via a utility bill). 

    The above documents may include the following categories of personal information: name, address, date of birth, signature, photograph, and bank or credit card information. 

    Your bank account details

    Once a sale is complete, we or the Car Buying Partner will transfer sale proceeds to you using your name, account number, sort code, and bank account type (business or personal). 

    Records of how you use our Services

    This may include details of your use of our Website (captured through cookies and similar tracking technologies), your car’s make, model and mileage, its valuations over time and, if you complete a sale through our platform, and a record of that sale.

    Information we obtain from public sources

    We obtain information about your car and its ownership from the DVLA, such as MOT records.

    Information we obtain from third parties

    We may also work with third parties (including, for example, business partners, service providers such as CAP HPI, advertising networks, analytics and profiling providers, automotive data providers, search information providers or social networks) and may receive information about you from them to make sure our Services are as effective as possible. 

    Records of communications you have with us

    If you contact us with a question or query, or to provide us with feedback, we will keep a record of your communications with us.

    Other information you provide to us voluntarily, including as part of a survey or promotion

    This may include data that you provide to us if you enter a competition or prize draw on our Website or the details of any feedback that you provide to one of our online or in-person surveys or focus groups. Typically, we will obtain your consent before you participate in any surveys or focus groups. 

    Technical information about your device and Website usage

    When you use our Website, we collect certain technical information including:

    • details about your device, such as your IP address, device type, operating system and browser;
    • information relating to use of the Website, such as the pages you visit and elements of the page you interact with. We do this through the deployment of cookies and similar technologies on your device. For further information about how we make use of cookies, please refer to our Cookie policy.

    How we use your personal information

    We use personal information about you for various purposes connected with our Services, including:

    • to facilitate your use of our Services, which includes sharing your information, including your approximate location, with: (i) our network of preferred car buying partners engaging through the Motorway auction platform (“Dealer Partners”), and (ii) our preferred partners who provide car valuation and buying services outside of the Motorway auction platform (“Online Car Buyers” and, together with Dealer Partners, “Car Buying Partners”) to provide you with valuations and to connect you with them, and to create and manage your account with us;
    • to facilitate the collection and delivery of your vehicle to the purchasing Car Buying Partner (where they have asked us to do so); 
    • to provide you with up-to-date valuations of your car; 
    • to communicate with you in relation to your use of our Services and provide you with customer support;
    • for internal management, administrative and organisational reasons;
    • to share information with our suppliers and other third parties in order to provide you with the Services which you have requested of us;
    • to develop and improve our business, including understanding you better through the use of data analytics and benchmarking; and
    • to enable us to provide you with advertising and marketing that we believe is relevant to you through the use of data analytics and profiling.

    In order to use your personal information, we must have a legal basis for doing so. The legal bases that we rely upon are explained further in the “find out more” section below. We will only use your personal information where it is necessary:

    • to fulfil our obligation to provide our Services to you;
    • to comply with a legal obligation to which we are subject; and
    • for our legitimate business interests, so long as our interest does not conflict with your own interests, rights, and freedoms under applicable data protection laws. 

    Where none of the above reasonably applies, we will request your consent (which we will ask for before we use your information).

    Find out more…

    The table below sets out further information about the purposes for which we use information about you, with the corresponding methods of collection and legal basis that we rely upon for its use.

    PurposeMethod of collection and legal basis for processing
    To facilitate your use of our Services and to create and manage your account
    In order to provide you with the Services you have requested, we need to collect your information and, where you enquire about selling your car with us, we will share it with our Car Buying Partners in order to:confirm the identity of the registered owner of the relevant car; confirm details relating to your car (or the car for which you are using our services), including with respect to ownership;provide you with up-to-date valuations for your car, based on our latest valuation data; provide you with valuations from different Car Buying Partners who may be interested in purchasing your car (where you have agreed to put it up for sale through our platform);connect you with Car Buying Partners who are interested in purchasing your car, whether this is a preferred Car Buying Partner we choose as the most relevant for you, or a Car Buying Partner you have selected; andto create and manage your account so you can easily access your valuations.
    Method of collection
    This information will be provided by you directly when you either (i) first complete a car valuation request, (ii) subscribe to our valuation tracker tool, (iii) set up an account with us, (iv) and then during the course of using our Services. Some of this information will be collected via our valuation app (in the form of basic information and photos of your car), and via our document capture feature, through which you will provide photographs or scans of documents relating to you and the car for which you are using our Services.
    Legal basis
    We use this information because it is necessary for us to do so in order to provide the Services which you have requested. In all other cases, it is in our legitimate business interest to provide efficient Services and to verify details relating to the cars being sold via our Services.
    To confirm your authority to sell your car and to prevent fraud 
    In some cases, we will use the photographs or scans of documents which you submit to us to ascertain your right to sell a given car, and to prevent fraud.
    Method of collection
    This information is collected via our document capture feature. 
    Legal basis
    It is in our legitimate business interest to ensure sellers have the right to sell their cars via our Services, and to prevent fraudulent activity on our platform.
    To facilitate payment to you 
    We will collect and share your bank account details with either the relevant Car Buying Partner or our third party payments provider, in order to facilitate payment to you of the proceeds of the sale of your car.
    Method of collection
    Your bank account details will be collected via our document capture feature, once you have accepted an offer for your car. 
    Legal basis
    This information is necessary for us to perform the contract we have with you where you have sold your car to a Car Buying Partner through our platform.
    To communicate with you
    We will provide confirmation of the offers received for your vehicle by email and text message.We will remind you about your offers from Car Buying Partners for a set period after you’ve received their offers, if you haven’t sold your car through our platform (note that offers expire after 7 days so you will need to re-value your car to receive up-to-date offers).If you haven’t sold your car through our platform, we will sometimes remind you to re-value your car, if we consider there to be preferential offers or times to sell your car.If you have signed up for our valuation tracker, we will provide you with regular updates as to the value of your car, including when might be a great time to sell. We will provide you with customer support and answers and/or respond to any queries or feedback that you send to us.To assist you with any technical problems you have with the Services or Website.To collect reviews of our Services and those of our Car Buying Partners in order to improve our business.To update you with any changes to our terms and conditions / other policies.
    Method of collection
    This information is collected any time when we communicate with you or you communicate with us.
    Legal basis
    It is our legitimate business interest to inform you of relevant information in relation to the Services that we provide, respond to your communications and to improve our business.
    Internal management, administrative and organisational reasons
    To manage our Website and resolve technical issues with the same.To administer and manage our Services and business in an efficient and proper way (e.g., accounting, billing, etc).To manage how we work with other companies that provide services to us.To establish and protect our business, our  legal rights, and our ability to defend ourselves against any legal actions.To comply with legal requirements and obligations to which we are subject.
    Method of collection
    This information is collected from you both directly and indirectly.
    Legal basis
    It is our legitimate business interest to manage and properly administer our Services and our Website. 
    It is our legitimate business interest to retain information to be able to bring or defend actual or potential legal claims and prevent fraudulent use of our Services. 
    In other instances, we may be required to keep or process personal data to comply with laws and regulations to which we are subject (e.g, HMRC requirements). 
    To share information with service providers
    Please refer to the section ‘Who do we share your information with, and for what purposes?’ for more detail.
    Method of collection
    This may include any of the information we hold about you, whether collected by direct or indirect means.
    Legal basis
    We rely on trusted third party service providers in order for us to provide you with the Services which you have requested. 
    To improve and develop our Services and Website
    We conduct data analytics and benchmarking in order to understand, for example, the best performing Car Buying Partners and the most relevant Car Buying Partner for given vehicles and customer types. This enables us to improve our Services and offer the best and most relevant offers to you and our other customers.We conduct data analytics and benchmarking to understand how our Website and Services are used; for example, which pages are visited and which elements of the page are interacted with. This enables us to improve our Website and Services.We conduct data analytics on the vehicle data we collect, for example to understand the most popular makes, models or fuel types of vehicle and their values. This enables us to release information into the public domain about trends and changes in car ownership.
    Method of collection
    This information is collected across your interactions with the Website and your use of our Services.
    Legal basis
    It is our legitimate business interest to identify ways to develop and improve our Services, Website and business.
    To enable us to provide you with advertising and marketing that we believe is relevant to you
    We conduct data analytics and profiling to understand you better and to enable us to provide you with advertising and marketing that we believe is relevant to you. For example, we may engage with third parties (such as Sky) that you also engage with to better understand your interests and preferences (such as your TV viewing preferences).
    Method of collection
    This information is collected across your interactions with the Website and your use of our Services.
    Legal basis
    It is our legitimate business interest to understand you better and to provide you with advertising and marketing that we believe is relevant to you.
    To facilitate your participation in our refer-a-friend scheme
    We collect your name and email address in order to facilitate your participation in our refer-a-friend scheme, giving you the opportunity to receive a reward when a friend sells their car with Motorway using your referral link.
    Method of collection
    This information is collected directly from you if you voluntarily decide to participate in our refer-a-friend scheme.
    Legal basis
    It is our legitimate business interest to be able to incentivise customers by offering and fulfilling a refer-a–friend scheme.

    In some instances, we may use your personal information in ways that are not described above. We will inform you before doing so and, if necessary, seek your consent to do so.

    Who do we share your information with and for what purposes?

    We may share your personal information with:

    • our Car Buying Partners;
    • service providers, such as our vehicle transport providers and their drivers, data storage providers, payments providers, data matching, analytics and technical support providers, content and data providers and customer management and support providers (including our outsourced customer service centre);
    • law enforcement agencies or authorities where where we believe this is necessary for the prevention, detection or enforcement of a crime; and
    • our professional advisers and investors.
    Find out more…

    Our Car Buying Partners

    When you request a car valuation, we share information about your vehicle (such as its registration number, make, model and mileage) together with your postal code with our Car Buying Partners in order to provide you with a valuation. If you select a valuation offer provided by a Car Buying Partner, we will also share your name, email address and telephone number to enable them to contact you about your car, so that you can proceed with your sale should you wish to do so. Further, if the selected Car Buying Partner is a Dealer Partner, we will also share with them the information we collect via the document capture feature (see ‘Sales Documentation’ and ‘Your bank account details’ in ‘Information we process about you’ above), in order to facilitate your sale to them. If the selected Car Buying Partner is an Online Car Buyer, they will inform you of any further information required from you in order for them to progress the sale. 

    We also will share your information with our Car Buying Partners for analysis, reporting, billing and debugging purposes. If you proceed with the sale of your car, we will receive certain information about your transaction from the relevant Car Buying Partner, such as the date of your car sale and the final price you were paid, for billing and reporting purposes.

    We work with several Car Buying Partners. Each of these partners is a controller for any personal information we share with them. We recommend that you refer to the relevant Car Buying Partner’s Privacy Policy for more information on how your information will be handled by them.

    If you would like to receive a current list of our Car Buying Partners then you can get in touch with us using the details provided in the section ‘Contact Information’, below.

    Our Service Providers

    We use carefully selected service providers, which process personal information about you on our behalf, as described below:

    • Data storage providers: Such providers help operate the functionality of the Website and enable us to provide user accounts. They also provide backup, debugging and logging purposes.
    • Data matching, analytics and technical support providers: Providers such as Sky and Google assist us in better understanding your use of our Website and Services, as well as your preferences, allowing us to provide a better customer experience for you. For example, these third parties may use marketing profiling tools to allow us to understand you better so that we can send you marketing and advertising that we believe is more relevant and of interest to you. 
    • Content and data providers: Such providers assist us to, for example, verify your email address and telephone number, use your town / city to calculate routes between you and our Car Buying Partners, obtain your MOT records, and use your postcode to geocode your approximate location.
    • Customer management and support providers (including our outsourced customer service provider): Such providers may support you with the sales process for your car, over the phone. They may also deliver personalised email or SMS reminders to you in relation to your car valuation, and collect customer reviews of our Services.
    • Transport providers: Such providers may be engaged by us and/or our Car Buying Partners to carry out the collection and transport of your car. In order to provide the transportation services, they will receive your address, your contact details, details of the condition and appraisal of your vehicle, photographs of your vehicle, and scans of any vehicle-related documents. 
    • Payment providers: Such providers help facilitate payment to ensure you receive the proceeds from the sale of your car. We use a third party payments processing provider, Modulr FS Limited (“Modulr”). Modulr’s privacy policy is available here
    • Our refer-a-friend scheme provider: We partner with a third party, Mention Me, who enable the facilitation of our refer-a-friend scheme.

    Law Enforcement Agencies or Authorities

    We may have to share your personal information with law enforcement agencies or authorities where we are required to comply with certain legal and regulatory requirements, and may process your personal information for compliance with such legal or regulatory obligation, to which we or regulators or law enforcement agencies are subject.

    This includes sharing your personal information where we believe this is necessary for the prevention, detection or enforcement of a crime (for example, if we believe that a transaction through our Website is fraudulent by using a stolen vehicle).

    Our Professional Advisers and Investors

    If required, we may share your personal information with professional advisers to obtain professional advice (for example, with a lawyer or insurer regarding a complaint, claim or potential claim relating to you).

    We may also share your personal information if required as part of our obligations to our investors.

    We may also share your personal information with third parties in the event that we sell or buy any part of our business or its assets, in which case we may disclose your personal information to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets, along with its professional advisers.

    If you would like to receive a full list of our suppliers and other third parties who we share your information with, then you can get in touch with us using the details provided in the section Contact Information.

    Storage of your personal information

    Information about you may be transferred outside the UK to a country, territory or international organisation that may not have UK equivalent data protection standards.

    This may be when we transfer your personal information to our trusted third party service providers (for the purposes described above) outside of the UK and European Economic Area. 

    In such cases, we will ensure that your personal information is protected by implementing appropriate safeguards. This includes assessing the risk and protections afforded by laws in any third country, having in place appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal information, and enforcing strong contractual commitments with our third party service providers. If you would like more information about any of the transfer safeguards on which we rely please contact us using the details set out in this privacy policy.

    How do we protect your personal information?

    We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal information that we hold from unauthorised disclosure, use, alteration or destruction. Where appropriate, we use encryption and other technologies that can assist in securing the information you provide. We also require our service providers to comply with strict data privacy requirements.

    How long will your personal information be kept?

    The period for which we may retain information about you will depend on the purposes for which the information was collected, whether you have requested the deletion of the information, and whether any legal obligations require the retention of it (for example, for regulatory compliance). We will not retain information about you for longer than is necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected.

    The Website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy policies. When you leave our Website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of the websites that you visit.

    Your rights

    You may have some or all of the following rights in respect of the information about you that we process:

    • the right to request us to give you access to your personal information;
    • the right to request us to rectify it, update it, or erase it;
    • the right to request us to restrict our using it, in certain circumstances;
    • the right to object to our using it, in certain circumstances;
    • the right to withdraw your consent to our using it;
    • the right to have your personal data transferred to a third party, in certain circumstances;
    • the right to opt out from our using it for direct marketing; and
    • the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office, which is responsible for data privacy supervision in the UK.
    • You are able to exercise these rights by contacting us using the details set out in the section Contact Information.

      Find out more…

      You have the rights set out in the table below:

      Right in respect of the information we hold about you Further detail (note: certain legal limits to all these rights apply)
      Right to information about who we are and how we use your personal information This is included in this privacy policy. In particular:our name and contact details;the purposes of our processing;the categories of personal information which we process and why;the categories of persons with whom we share the information and, where any person is outside the EU, the appropriate safeguards for protecting the information; the sources of personal information, where we do not collect it from you; andthe criteria for determining the period for which we will store the information.
      Right to access copies of the information which we process about you At your request, we will provide you with a copy of the personal information which we hold about you. Where records also contain personal information about other individuals, sensitive business or confidential information, or anything which might be covered by legal protections, these may be redacted from our response to your request. 
      Right to ask that we rectify information or records about you where they are inaccurate of incomplete This applies if the information we hold is inaccurate or incomplete and you believe it requires updating. 
      Right to request erasure or deletion of your personal data This applies if:the personal information we hold about you is no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which we use it;we use the personal information on the basis of your consent and you withdraw your consent (in this case, we will remember not to contact you again, unless you tell us you want us to delete all information about you, in which case we will respect your wishes);we use the personal information on the basis of legitimate interest and we find that, following your objection, we do not have an overriding interest in continuing to use it;the personal information was unlawfully obtained or used; orto comply with a legal obligation.
      Please note, the right to have your data erased is not absolute. We may have legal reasons to retain your information. For example, where we are required to retain it in order to comply with a legal obligation, where it has been truly anonymised, or where we might need it to defend or commence legal proceedings. 
      Right to ask that we restrict the way in which we use your personal data This right applies, temporarily while we look into your case, if you:contest the accuracy of the personal information we use; orhave objected to our using the personal information on the basis of legitimate interest.
      If you make use of your right in these cases, we will tell you before we use the personal information again.
      This right applies also if:
      our use is unlawful and you oppose the erasure of the personal information; orwe no longer need the personal information, but you require it to establish a legal case.
      Right to object to our processing of your personal data You have two rights here:
      If we use your personal information for direct marketing, you can “opt out” (without the need to justify it) and we will comply with your request.
      If we use your personal information on the basis of legitimate interest for purposes other than direct marketing, you can object to our using it for those purposes, giving an explanation of your particular situation, and we will consider your objection.
      Right to withdraw your consent to our using your personal data This right applies to any personal information which we have collected and processed based on your consent.
      You have the right at any time to withdraw the consent you have provided to us.
      Right to have your personal data transferred to a third party (also known as the right to data portability) This right applies:to personal information that you have provided to us; andif we use that personal information on the basis either of your consent, or on the basis of discharging our contractual obligations to you.
      If both parts (i) and (ii) above apply, you have the right to receive the information back from us in a commonly used format (such as .csv, PDF, Word etc).
      Right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office or take your case to a national court Each European Union country has a supervisory authority responsible for upholding data protection rights. In the UK, this is the Information Commissioner’s Office who are responsible for upholding rights under the UK GDPR. 
      You also have the right to obtain a remedy from a UK court.

      Contact information

      For the purpose of UK data protection laws, the controller of your personal information when you use our Website and/or Services is Motorway Online Ltd (Company Number 10285711) of International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN.

      If you have any questions, or wish to exercise your rights, please contact us at any time on privacy@motorway.co.uk or 0203 988 2266.