Privacy Policy

Υour privacy is important to us. That means we’re committed to protecting and safeguarding any personal data you give us. We act in our customers’ best interest and we are transparent about the processing of your personal data.

Personal data you give us

We can’t help you book your car rental without information, so when you use our services there are certain things we ask for. This is typically routine information – your name, email address, and your payment information. We might also ask for your home address, phone number, date and place of birth, passport and driving license information, and the names of any additional drivers.

In addition to this, we also collect information from the computer, phone, tablet or other device you use to access our services. This includes the IP address, the browser you’re using and your language settings. There are also situations in which we receive information about you from others or when we automatically collect other information.

If you need to get in touch with our customer service team, or reach out to us in a different way (such as social media) we’ll collect information from you there, too. This applies whether you are contacting us with feedback or asking for help using our services.

You might also be invited to write reviews to help inform others about your car rental experience. When you write a review on our platform, we’ll collect any information you’ve included, along with your display name.

If you create a user account, we’ll also store your personal settings and reviews of previous bookings. This saved data can be used to help you plan and manage future bookings or benefit from other features only available to account holders (such as incentives or other benefits).

We may offer you referral programs or sweepstakes, and participating in these will mean providing us with relevant personal data.

Personal data you give us about others

You might be booking a car rental with an additional driver or making a booking on someone else's behalf. In both those scenarios, you will provide their details as part of the booking.

In some cases, you might use our site to share information with others. This can take the form of participating in a referral programme, as described when you use the relevant feature.

At this point, we have to make it clear that it's your responsibility to ensure that the person or people you have provided personal data about are aware that you've done so, and that they have understood and accepted how Rentalcars.com uses their information (as described in this Privacy Statement).

Personal data we collect automatically

Whether or not you end up making a booking, when you visit our websites or apps we automatically collect certain information. This includes your IP address, the date and time you accessed our services, and information about your computer’s hardware and software (such as the operating system, the internet browser used, software/application version data and your language settings). We also collect information about clicks and which pages have been shown to you.

If you’re using a mobile device, we collect data that identifies the device, as well as data about your device-specific settings and characteristics, app crashes and other system activity. When you make a booking using this kind of device, our system registers how you made your booking (on which website), and/or which site you came from when you entered the Rentalcars.com website or app.

Personal data we get from other companies

It’s not just the things you tell us, though – we may also receive information about you from other sources.

These include business partners, such as affiliate partners.

Anything we receive from these partners may be combined with information provided by you. When you use any of these services, you provide the booking details to our business partners who then forward your details to us.

Additionally, we collect information in the regrettable case that we receive a complaint from you.

We may also receive information about you in order to show you more relevant ads, such as the additional cookie data social media partners make available to us.

Why do we collect and use your personal data?

The main reason we ask you for personal details is to help you organise your online bookings and ensure you get the best service possible

We also use your personal data to contact you about the latest deals, special offers and other products or services we think you might be interested in. There are other uses, too. If you'd like to find out what they are, read on for a more detailed explanation.

We use the information collected about you for a variety of purposes

Your personal data may be used in the following ways:

  1. Bookings: First and foremost, we use your personal data to make and administer your booking, and to forward the necessary details to the company that provides your car (or other product or service, such as insurance). This includes sending you communications in relation to your booking, such as confirmations, modifications and reminders. In some cases this may also include processing your personal data to enable online check-in or processing personal data in relation to damage deposits.
  2. Customer service: For the best customer service, we need your details so they can help you make a booking, for example, or to reply to any queries you may have before, during or after your booking.
  3. Account facilities: To make things easier, you can create a user account on our platforms. This involves giving us your personal data, and it lets you do a number of useful things. We use the information you give us to administer this account, allowing you to do a number of useful things. You can manage your bookings or other purchases, take advantage of special offers, and manage your personal settings and preferences. It also makes it easier to make future bookings. Managing personal settings gives you the ability to easily see car rentals you've searched for and check information you've provided.
  4. Marketing activities: We use your information for marketing activities. These activities include:
  1. Using your contact information to send you regular news about our special offers discounts and updates, including details of our travel-related products and services (and/or those of our group companies or affiliate business partners). You can unsubscribe from email marketing communications quickly, easily and at any time - just click the "unsubscribe" link in any email.
  2. Based on your information, individualised offers might be shown to you on our website, in mobile apps or on third-party websites/apps (including social media sites) and the content of the site displayed to you might be personalised.
  3. Contacting you by phone, email or SMS with information about insurance products that you didn't include in your booking.
  4. Inviting you to participate in promotional activities (such as sweepstakes, referral programmes or competitions). When you participate in other promotional activities (such as sweepstakes, referral programmes or competitions), only the relevant information will be used to administer these promotions.
  5. Communicating with you: There might be other times when we get in touch, including by email, by post, by phone or by texting you. Which method we choose depends on the contact information you've previously shared. We process the communications you send to us. There could be a number of reasons for this, including:
  6. Responding to and handling any requests you have made.
  7. If you have started but not finished a booking online, we might contact you to invite you to continue with your booking. We believe that this additional service benefits you as it allows you to pick up the process where you left off without having to search for a car rental or fill in your booking details again.
  8. When you use our services, we might send you a questionnaire or invite you to provide a review about your experience with us.
  9. Even if you don't have an upcoming booking, we may still need to send you other administrative messages, which could include security alerts.
  10. Sending you a summary of your previous bookings
  11. Market research: We sometimes invite our customers to take part in market research. Please see the information that accompanies this kind of invitation to understand what personal data will be collected and how that data is used.
  12. Improving our services: We also use personal data for analytical purposes and product improvement. This is part of our commitment to making our services better and enhancing the user experience. In this case, we use data for testing and troubleshooting purposes, as well as to generate statistics about our business. The main goal here is to get insights into how our services perform, how they are used, and ultimately to optimise and customise our website and apps, making them easier and more meaningful to use. As much as possible, we strive to use de-identified data for this analytical work.
  13. Customer reviews: During and after your booking, we might invite you to submit a review. This invite asks for information about the car rental company and your experience. You can choose to display a screen name next to your review, instead of your real name. By completing a review, you're agreeing that it can be displayed on, for example, our platforms, on our mobile apps, on our social media accounts and social media apps. This is to inform other customers about the quality of the car rental company you used and any other experiences you choose to share.
  14. Legal purposes: Finally, in certain cases, we may need to use your information to handle and resolve legal claims and disputes, for regulatory investigations and compliance, to enforce our Terms and Conditions or to comply with lawful requests from law enforcement and other public authorities.

To process your personal data like this, we rely on the following legal grounds:

As applicable, for purpose A and B, we relie on the legal basis that the processing of personal data is necessary for the performance of a contract, specifically to finalise and administer your booking. If the required personal data is not provided, we cannot finalise the booking, nor can we provide customer service. In view of purposes C to I, we relie on its legitimate interest to provide its services, to prevent fraud and to improve its services (as set out more specifically under C to I).

When using personal data to serve our company or a third party's legitimate interests, we will always balance your rights and interests in the protection of your personal data against company's rights and interests or those of the third party. For purpose J, we also relie, where applicable, on compliance with legal obligations (such as lawful law enforcement requests).

Finally, where needed under applicable law, we will obtain your consent prior to processing your personal data, including for email marketing purposes or as otherwise required by law.

If you wish to object to the processing set out under C to I and no opt-out mechanism is available to you directly please contact us at info@brtrentacar.gr, stating 'Privacy'; in the subject line.

What third parties do we share your personal data with - and why?

There are different parties integrated into our services, in various ways and for various reasons. This includes, for example, financial institutions, etc. Or, in some cases, if we're required to by law, we might share your data with governmental or other authorities.

These third parties include:

  1. Market research
  2. Fraud detection and prevention (including anti-fraud screening)
  3. Payment: We use third parties to process payments, handle chargebacks or provide billing collection services. When a chargeback is requested for your booking, either by you or by the holder of the credit card used to make your booking, we need to share certain booking details with the payment service provider and the relevant financial institution so they can handle the chargeback. This may also include a copy of your booking confirmation or the IP address used to make your booking. We may share information with relevant financial institutions, if we consider it strictly necessary for fraud detection and prevention purposes.
  4. Marketing services: We share personal data with advertising partners, including your email address, as part of marketing services via third parties (to ensure that relevant advertisements are shown to the right audience). For information on other personalised advertisements and your choices, please read our Cookie Statement.
  5. Competent authorities: We disclose personal data to law enforcement to the extent that it is required by law or is strictly necessary for the prevention, detection or prosecution of criminal acts and fraud, or if we are otherwise legally obliged to do so. We may need to further disclose personal data to competent authorities to protect and defend our rights or properties, or the rights and properties of our business partners.

What security and retention procedures do we put in place to safeguard your personal data?

We have implemented a range of procedures to prevent unauthorised access to, and the misuse of, personal data that we process. We have procedures in place to prevent unauthorised access to, and the misuse of, personal data.

We use appropriate business systems and procedures to protect and safeguard the personal data you give us. We also use security procedures and technical and physical restrictions for accessing and using the personal data on our servers. Only authorised personnel are permitted to access personal data in the course of their work.

We’ll keep your personal data for as long as we have determined it's necessary to enable you to use our services or to provide our services to you, to comply with applicable laws, resolve any disputes and otherwise to allow us to conduct our business, including to detect and prevent fraud or other illegal activities. All personal data we keep about you is covered by this Privacy Statement

How can you control the personal data you have given us?

You have the right to review the personal data we keep about you at any time. You can request access to or deletion of your personal data. If you want to find out more about your rights to control your personal data, read on. We want you to be in control of how your personal data is used by us. You can do this in the following ways:

  1. You can ask us for a copy of the personal data we hold about you,
  2. You can inform us of any changes to your personal data, or you can ask us to correct any of the personal data we hold about you. As explained below, you can make some of these changes directly online yourself when you have a user account,
  3. In certain situations, you can ask us to erase, block, or restrict the processing of the personal data we hold about you, or object to particular ways in which we are using your personal data,
  4. In certain situations, you can also ask us to send the personal data you have given us to a third party,
  5. Where we are using your personal data on the basis of your consent, you are entitled to withdraw that consent at any time subject to applicable law, and where we process your personal data based on legitimate interest or the public interest, you have the right to object to that use of your personal data at any time, subject to applicable law.

We rely on you to make sure that your personal information is complete, accurate and current. Please do let us know about any changes to, or inaccuracies in, your personal information as soon as possible.

If you have a BrtRentaCar user account, you can access a lot of your personal data through our website or apps. You’ll generally find the option to add, update or remove information we have about you in your account settings.

If any of the personal data we have about you isn’t accessible through our website or apps, you can send us a request.

For any requests relating to this Privacy Statement, to exercise any of your other rights, or if you have a complaint, please contact via email info@brtrentacar.gr .

Cookie statement

Cookies can be used in various ways, including to make our website work, to analyse traffic, or for advertising purposes.

Cookies can be used in various ways, including to make our website work, to analyse traffic, or for advertising purposes.

  1. First party cookies are the cookies served by the owner of the domain – in our case that’s BrtRentACar. Any cookie we place ourselves is a ‘first party cookie’.
  2. Third party cookies are cookies placed on our domains by trusted partners that we’ve chosen to allow to do so. These can be social media partners, advertising partners, security providers and more.
  • And they can be either ‘session cookies’ or ‘permanent cookies’:
  1. Session cookies only exist until you close your browser, ending what is called your ‘session’. They are then deleted.
  2. Permanent cookies have a range of different lifespans and stay on your device after the browser is closed. On our platform, we try to only serve permanent cookies (or allow permanent cookies to be served by third parties) that have a limited lifespan. However, for security reasons, or in other exceptional circumstances, we might sometimes need to give a cookie a longer lifespan.
  1. Alongside cookies, we also use tracking technologies that are very similar. Our website, emails and mobile apps may contain small transparent image files or lines of code that record how you interact with them. These include ‘web beacons’, ‘scripts’, ‘tracking URLs’ or ‘software development kits’ (known as SDKs):
  • Web beacons have a lot of different names. They might also be known as web bugs, tracking bugs, tags, web tags, page tags, tracking pixels, pixel tags, 1x1 GIFs or clear GIFs.
    In short, these beacons are a tiny graphic image of just one pixel that can be delivered to your device as part of a web page request, in an app, an advertisement or an HTML email message.
  •  Scripts are small computer programs embedded within our web pages that give those pages a wide variety of extra functionality. Scripts make it possible for the website to function properly. For example, scripts power certain security features and enable basic interactive features on our website. Scripts can also be used for analytical or advertising purposes. For example, a script can collect information about how you use our website, such as which pages you visit or what you search for.
  •  Tracking URLs are links with a unique identifier in them. These are used to track which website brought you to our website or app you’re using. An example would be if you click through from a social media page, search engine or one of our affiliate partners’ websites.
  •  Software Development Kits (SDKs) are part of our apps’ source code and unlike browser cookies, SDK data is stored in the app storage.
    . They’re used to analyse how the apps are being used or to send personalised push notifications. To do this, they record unique identifiers associated with your device, like device ID and IP address, as well as your in-app activity and your network location.

All these tracking technologies are referred to as ‘cookies’ here in this Cookie Statement.

How are cookies used?

Cookies are used to collect information, including:

  • IP address
  • Device ID
  • Viewed pages
  • Browser type
  • Browsing information
  • Operating system
  • Operating system
  • Timestamp
  • Whether you have responded to an advertisement a referring URL features used or activities engaged in on the website/apps
  • They allow you to be recognised as the same user across the pages of a website, across devices, between websites or when you use our apps. When it comes to purpose, they are divided into three categories – functional cookies, analytical cookies and marketing cookies.

 

Functional cookies: These are cookies required for our websites and apps to function and they must be enabled in order for you to use our services. Functional cookies are used to create technologically advanced, user-friendly websites and apps that adapt automatically to your needs and preferences, so you can browse and book easily. This also includes enabling essential security and accessibility features. More specifically, these cookies:

  1. Enable our website and apps to work properly, so you can create an account, sign in, and manage your bookings.
  2. Remember your selected currency and language settings, your past searches and other preferences to help you use our website and apps efficiently and effectively.
  3. Remember your registration information, so that you don’t have to retype your login credentials each time you visit our website or app (passwords will always be encrypted.)

Remember your registration information, so that you don’t have to retype your login credentials each time you visit our website or app (passwords will always be encrypted.)

  1. Help us understand how visitors and customers like you use the website and our apps.
  2. Help improve our website, apps, and communications to make sure we're interesting and relevant.
  3. Allow us to find out what works and what doesn't on our website and apps.
  4. Help us understand the effectiveness of advertisements and communications.
  5. Teach us how users interact with our website or apps after they have been shown an online advertisement, including advertisements on third-party websites.
  6. Enable our business partners to learn whether or not their customers make use of any car rental offers integrated into their websites.

The data we gather through these cookies can include which web pages you have viewed, which referring/exit pages you have entered and left from, which platform type you have used, which emails you have opened and acted upon, and date and time stamp information. It also means we can use details about how you’ve interacted with the site or app, such as the number of clicks you make on a given screen, your mouse movements and scrolling activity, the search words you use and the text you enter into various fields.

Marketing cookies: These cookies are used by our company and our trusted partners to gather information about you over time, across multiple websites, applications, or other platforms. Marketing cookies help us to decide which products, services and interest-based advertisements to show you, both on and off our website and apps. More specifically, these cookies:

  1. Categorise you into a certain interest profile, for instance, on the basis of the websites you visit and your click behaviour. We use these profiles to display personalised content (such as car rental ideas or specific car rental offers) on our website.
  2. Display personalised and interest-based . This is called ‘retargeting’ and is based on your browsing activities, such as the destinations you’ve been searching for, the car rental you’ve viewed and the prices you’ve been shown
    . It can also be based on your shopping habits or other online activities. Retargeting ads can be shown to you both before and after you leave our website, as their purpose is to encourage you to browse or return to our website. You might see these ads on websites, in apps or in emails.

We work with trusted third parties to collect data. We may also sometimes share information with these third parties, such as your email address or phone number. These third parties might link your data to other information they collect to create custom audiences or deliver targeted ads.

Non-cookie techniques – email pixels

We may also use techniques, such as pixels, which we don’t mark as cookies because they do not store any information on your device.

We sometimes place pixels in emails, such as newsletters. A ‘pixel’ is an electronic file the size of a single pixel, that is placed in the email and loaded when you open it. By using email pixels, we can see if the message was delivered, if and when you read the message and what you click on.

We also receive this information about the push notifications we send you. These statistics provide us with feedback about your reading behaviour, which we use to optimise our messages and make our communication more relevant to you.

What are your choices?

To learn more about cookies and how to manage or delete them, visit allaboutcookies.org or the help section of your browser. In the settings for browsers like Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox or Chrome, you can choose which cookies to accept and which to reject. Where you find these settings depends on which browser you use:

Cookie settings in Chrome

Cookie settings in Firefox

Cookie settings in Internet Explorer

Cookie settings in Safari

 

If you choose to block certain functional cookies, you may not be able to use some features of our services. In addition to specific settings that we may offer our website and apps, you can also opt-out of certain cookies:

Analytics: To prevent Google Analytics from collecting analytical data on certain browser types visit the following link Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

Advertising: We always aim to work with advertising and marketing companies that follow industry standards and codes of conduct and allow you to opt out of behavioural advertising.

It’s possible that your mobile device allows you to limit information sharing for retargeting purposes through its settings. If you choose to do so, it’s good to be aware that opting out of an online advertising network doesn't mean you’ll no longer see or be subject to online advertising or marketing analysis. It just means that the network you've opted out from will stop delivering ads that are tailored to your web preferences and browsing patterns.