Privacy policy

1. Who is responsible

The controller under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is:

For all questions about your data, write to this address.

2. Visiting the website

When you open Poolina, your browser sends technical data to our server. Our web server writes an access log with your IP address, the date and time, the page or address requested (including search details such as places and date in the address), the status code, the amount of data, the previous page (referrer) and your browser's identification (user agent).

We use the logs only to keep Poolina running and secure, and to investigate abuse and attacks. They are deleted automatically after 14 days. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in a secure service (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).

Poolina is available in the EU, Norway, Switzerland and the United States. To enforce this, your IP address is compared with a country list (DB-IP Lite) on our own server, in memory. Nothing is stored about this check and no data leaves our server. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (offering the service only where we can run it properly).

3. Your account and signing in

You sign in with your e-mail address: we send you a link that is valid for 15 minutes and deleted afterwards. Your account is only created when you use the link. We store your e-mail address, your language, when you created the account and when you last signed in.

If you choose “Continue with Google” or “Continue with Apple”, you are sent to that provider. We receive your e-mail address and a pseudonymous account ID from them and store only the provider and that ID. Google and Apple only learn about it when you click their button. They are responsible for their own processing: see the privacy policies of Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland) and Apple Distribution International Ltd. (Hollyhill Industrial Estate, Hollyhill, Cork, Ireland).

Legal basis: providing the service you signed up for (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR).

4. Your profile

We ask for your first name and the initial of your last name only when you first offer a ride, ask for one or write to someone. Everything else is optional: a profile photo, a few words about yourself, your car (make, model, colour) and a car photo. Photos are resized and saved again without their metadata (such as location or camera details).

Visitors who aren't signed in see only your first name with initial, your average rating and how many rides you've shared. Signed-in members also see your photo, your text, your car and the reviews about you. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR.

5. Rides, requests and messages

• Rides you offer (route, stops, date and time, seats, preferences, contribution) are public until they depart, so passengers can find them. Afterwards they stay in your own list of rides until you delete your account.
• Ride requests are visible to signed-in members only and are deleted 30 days after the date you asked for.
• Messages are visible only to you and the person you're writing with. They are deleted 12 months after the date of the ride they belong to. The other person can download their conversations, including your messages.
• “Did you travel together?”: after a ride, we ask both people. Your answer stays private. Once both of you have said yes, you can review each other. Reviews are visible to signed-in members; the average rating and the number of shared rides are shown to everyone. Reviews are kept until the author's or the reviewed member's account is deleted.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR.

6. E-mails we send

We send sign-in links, notifications about new messages (with the sender's first name and the first 200 characters of the newest message), new rides or requests that match yours, and the question whether you travelled together. These e-mails are part of the service. We don't send newsletters or advertising.

E-mails are sent through Brevo (Sendinblue SAS, 106 boulevard Haussmann, 75008 Paris, France), which processes them on our behalf under a data processing agreement. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR.

7. Reports and protection against abuse

If you report a member, we receive an e-mail (sent through Brevo, see section 6, and forwarded as described in section 9) with your and their name as shown on Poolina and member ID, the reason, your optional details and, if you reported from a conversation, which ride it was about. Reports are not stored in Poolina. We delete the e-mail once the case is closed, at the latest after 3 months, unless we need it to defend against legal claims.

To stop spam and bots, we count certain actions per account (such as posting rides or first messages) and delete these counts after 2 days. Forms also make your browser solve a small calculation before sending; this happens entirely on your device and our server, without any third party. Sign-ups from disposable e-mail services are refused. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in a safe platform (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).

8. Cookies and local storage

We use only what's technically necessary, so there is no cookie banner:

poolina_session (cookie)

Keeps you signed in. Deleted when you sign out, at the latest after 30 days.

poolina_oidc, poolina_oidc_next (cookies)

Only while signing in with Google or Apple: protect the sign-in and remember which page to return to. Deleted after 10 minutes at the latest.

poolina.locale (local storage)

The language you chose. Stays in your browser until you clear it.

Legal basis: § 25(2) no. 2 TDDDG (strictly necessary) and Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR. There are no tracking or advertising cookies.

9. Hosting, backups and who receives data

Poolina runs on a server of Hetzner Online GmbH (Industriestr. 25, 91710 Gunzenhausen, Germany) in a data centre in Germany. The database is backed up every night to a Hetzner storage box in Germany; backups are kept for 14 days. Data you delete therefore disappears from the backups after 14 days at the latest.

E-mails to an @poolina.eu address, such as info@poolina.eu or member reports, are forwarded by our domain provider Spaceship, Inc. (USA) to the operator's mailbox at STRATO GmbH (Otto-Ostrowski-Straße 7, 10249 Berlin, Germany). On the way, these e-mails pass through Spaceship's servers in the USA. We use them only to answer you and to handle reports. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in being reachable (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR) and, for members, Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR.

Hetzner, Brevo and Strato process data on our behalf under data processing agreements (Art. 28 GDPR). Apart from that, we only pass on data if the law requires it, for example to authorities or courts. Except for the e-mail forwarding described above, we don't transfer data to countries outside the EU.

10. How long we keep data

Sign-in links

15 minutes

Sessions

30 days, or until you sign out

Access logs

14 days

Backups

14 days

Action counts against spam

2 days

Ride requests

30 days after their date

Messages

12 months after the ride's date

Reports (e-mail)

until the case is closed, at the latest 3 months

Account, profile, rides, reviews

until you delete your account

11. Your rights

You have the right to:

• access your data and receive a copy (Art. 15 and 20 GDPR): “Download my data” on your profile gives you everything as a file;
• correct it (Art. 16): edit your profile at any time;
• have it deleted (Art. 17): “Delete my account” on your profile deletes your account and your data;
• restrict processing (Art. 18);
• object to processing based on our legitimate interest (Art. 21);
• complain to a data protection supervisory authority (Art. 77), for example the one where you live.

For anything you can't do yourself on your profile, write to .

When you delete your account, your messages are deleted too. The other person keeps their own messages, shown next to “Deleted member”.

12. Other things you should know

• Poolina is for people aged 18 or older.
• We don't use automated decision-making or profiling.
• All connections are encrypted (HTTPS).
• If this policy changes, we'll update it here and change the date at the top. We'll tell members about important changes by e-mail.