Privacy Notice

Last updated: June 7, 2023

Zipcar, Inc. and its subsidiaries, including Zipcar Canada (also referred to as “we,” “us,” “our,” “Zipcar Group” or “Zipcar”) respect your privacy.  This Privacy Notice describes how we collect, use, disclose, and otherwise process your personal information in connection with your use of zipcar.com, zipcar.com/en‑ca (Zipcar Canada) and their related mobile sites and applications (our “Sites”), as well as when you join Zipcar and use our services. However, this Privacy Notice is not a contract and does not create any legal rights or obligations not otherwise provided by law. If you have any questions or concerns regarding our Privacy Notice, please contact us in one of the ways provided below.  

Terms not defined in this Privacy Notice have the meaning defined in your Member Contract, which you can view when you log in to your Zipcar account, and the Terms of Use.

Note to EU/UK Residents:  If you reside in member countries of the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, please click here for our Zipcar (UK) Ltd. privacy notice.

Note to United States Residents:  If you reside in the State of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Nevada, Utah or Virginia in the United States, please see the U.S. state privacy disclosures section for additional U.S. State‑specific privacy disclosures.

Click on the links below to jump to each section:

What personal information we collect and how we use it

The principal purposes for which we collect and store your personal and financial information are to process your application, allow you to reserve and use our vehicles, authorize payment, bill you, respond to your inquiries, improve and communicate with you about our products and services and maintain your account with us.

If you voluntarily submit information to us, we may collect personal information including your name, email address, postal address, telephone number, or a picture of you or identifying documents.  This also includes information in your profile, or information you provide to us via an email, text or similar message, telephone call, or by other means.  Your telephone calls and other communications with us are usually recorded or monitored for quality control, training and similar purposes.  By using these communication methods, you are consenting to receiving information via these methods and the recording or monitoring of your calls and communications with Zipcar.  We use this information to create your account, provide our services and communicate with you.  From time to time, we may send marketing or other communications.  To edit your preferences, please go to your account settings page.  If during a reservation you connect or pair your mobile device with the Zipcar vehicle (for instance via Bluetooth or USB port), please unpair your device and delete any personal information stored on the vehicle’s infotainment system.

If you apply to join Zipcar, we collect information such as personal and financial information as you proceed through the stages of our application process, membership agreement and reservation process.  In addition to your name and contact information, we will also collect your driver’s license number and the jurisdiction in which you are licensed, credit card or other payment information, a photo, and other identifying information.  In certain cases, such as if you have a non‑U.S. driver’s license, we may also collect your passport information.  We may also collect information about you such as your driving record from you, from regulatory bodies where you live, or from other third party sources.  We use this information to process your application, determine your eligibility to use our services, to verify your identity, to detect and deter fraud, theft, or abuse of our service, comply with legal and recordkeeping requirements, process your payments and other purposes.

If you join Zipcar and use our services, we collect information about how you use our Sites and services, such as your searches for vehicles, reservations (dates, times, locations, etc.) and, your use of the Zipcar service (return time, mileage, accidents, etc.).  We may also collect precise location if you enable location‑based services on your mobile device.  We use this information to provide and optimize services for you, including for example, billing you, responding to your inquiries, providing and improving our products and services, maintaining your account with us, personalizing your Zipcar experience (e.g., by understanding your preferences), and providing personalized content and promotional offers. To learn more about how Zipcar customizes content and offers please see the advertising and personalized content section below.

If you use our cars, Zipcars are equipped with vehicle tracking and anti‑theft technology that uses Global Positioning System (GPS).  GPS is a network of satellites that allows us to determine the location (latitude and longitude) of Zipcars during your reservation.  Additionally, Zipcars also have an on‑board device that may monitor the state of the vehicle from moment to moment whether or not in a reservation, and the information may include its location and driver behavior monitoring such as crash detection factors or rate of braking or acceleration.  This information is transmitted to Zipcar and stored.  Zipcar uses this information for a variety of important purposes.  For example, we may monitor or store vehicle or GPS data to help you find a car you have reserved, to assist with roadside assistance, to assist in making a car available at the place and time you have reserved, to improve our service, to assist us in enforcing our legal rights, or to locate lost or stolen Zipcars.

If you refer a friend, we will ask you for your friend’s name and email address or phone number.  We may then send your friend one or more messages inviting your friend to join Zipcar.  Zipcar stores this information for the purpose of sending these communications and tracking the success of our referral program.  Your friend may contact us at [email protected] to request that we no longer send them refer a friend messages or other messages from Zipcar.

Information automatically collected when you use our sites

When you visit our Sites or use our services, read our emails, or otherwise engage with us through a computer or mobile device, we and our third party partners automatically collect information about how you access and use the Sites and information about the device you use.  We typically collect this information through a variety of tracking technologies, including cookies, Flash objects, web beacons, embedded scripts, location‑identifying technologies, and similar technology (collectively, “tracking technologies”) and we may use third party services or technologies to collect this information. Information we collect automatically about you may be combined with other personal information we collect directly from you or from other sources.

When you use our Sites, our servers automatically log certain information about your use of our Sites, such as your IP address, your browser type, operating system, browser language and service provider. We also collect information about your activities on our Sites, such as the pages you visit or the ads or links you click on.  We use this for a number of purposes, where we have a legitimate interest to do so, such as:  improving our services, developing new services based on what we learn from your activity; identifying products and marketing that may be of interest to you; personalizing our service to you; and carrying out statistical analysis and research with the purpose of allowing us to better understand our members and the products/services they want.  We also use this information to provide and adapt our services to take account of the technical capabilities of our users as well as identify issues with the website and user’s experience of it.

When you visit our online services, we may collect personal information automatically such as your IP address when you visit our websites to help us diagnose problems with our systems, for system administration, to report aggregated information to our business partners, and to audit the use of our website.  In select circumstances, we may use IP addresses to help us identify you to protect our service, site, users or others.  We also collect your browser type, Internet Service Provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, the pages viewed on our site, operating system, date/time stamp, and/or clickstream data to analyze trends in the aggregate and administer the site.

Session Replay:  When you visit our website, we may also record information about your browsing session on the site, including which pages you visited, your mouse clicks, movements, and page scrolling, and any text keyed into forms on the website.  We review this information to identify any technical issues in the operation of our sites and to improve the user interface on our sites.  If we use a third party to help us with this service, this information will be passed to that third party for this purpose.

Mobile Analytics:  When you download and use our apps, we may use mobile analytics software to help us better understand the functionality of our app on your mobile device.  Our analytics may record how often you use the app, how you use the app, aggregated usage, performance data and where you downloaded the app from.

Mobile GPS and Push Notifications:  If you allow us, when you use our apps, we may collect location markers using the GPS in your device.  Knowing approximately where you are would help the app provide you better service, such as finding the nearest Zipcar location near you.  This would also help us send you push notifications or other communications based on your location (for example, nearby special offers).  We will use push notifications to provide certain services such as emergency or other service notifications, return notifications, providing information about vehicle location, providing details regarding our products and services etc.  We will only share this information with third party providers for the purpose of providing you these services.  To ensure you receive proper notifications, we will need to collect certain information about your device such as operating system and user identification information.  If you change your mind about sharing your location or receiving push notifications from the app, adjust the settings of your mobile device to turn off transmission of geolocation data or to stop transmission of push notifications at any time.

We may also collect analytics data or use third‑party analytics tools such as Google Analytics to help us measure traffic and usage trends for our services and to understand more about the demographics of our users.

For more information about our use of cookies and other tracking technologies for advertising purposes, and to learn how you may control the use of your information for these purposes, please refer to the section called advertising and personalized content below.

Children’s privacy

Our services are not directed to, and we do not intend to, or knowingly, solicit or collect personal information from children under the age of 13. If an individual is under the age of 13, they should not use our services or otherwise provide us with any personal information either directly or by other means. If a child under the age of 13 has provided personal information to us, we encourage the child’s parent or guardian to contact us to request that we remove the personal information from our systems. If we learn that any personal information we collect has been provided by a child under the age of 13, we will promptly delete that personal information.

How we disclose personal information

Zipcar shares information with third parties outside the Zipcar Group in limited circumstances such as to provide the Zipcar service, fulfill a transaction you have requested, offer you personalized services, or in other circumstances that are permitted by law and consistent with the purposes for which we collected the information.  For example, we may disclose your personal information, including GPS information from any of our vehicles, within the Zipcar Group and to contractors, advisors, consultants and service providers acting on our behalf or under our instructions, including for purposes relating to the provision, operation, maintenance, administration, promotion, improvement, and oversight of our services, Sites and advertising services, or to fulfill your requests for information or service.  If you apply for Zipcar membership, some of the information you supply may be shared with regulatory bodies and/or service providers we utilize to obtain your driving record or other personal information. In addition, if you are associated or affiliated with another primary account (for example, if you are an associate member or affiliated with a business’s or university’s account or discount plan), the primary account holder (such as a business or university) will generally have access to certain information regarding your account or your use of our services, including specific reservation details.  Zipcar shares personal data with service providers such as Sift (as detailed further below) in order to detect and prevent fraud, theft and abuse.

We may also share your personal information with our affiliate companies, including other companies owned or controlled by Zipcar for business purposes, including internal management and administrative purposes.

We may disclose your personal information in connection with a corporate transaction, proceeding, or reorganization involving the business activities for which the information is maintained.  In the event that ownership of Zipcar or its business was to change as a result of a merger, acquisition or transfer to another company, your personal information may be shared or transferred. Personal information may also be disclosed in the event of insolvency, bankruptcy or receivership.

Zipcar may disclose your personal information, including location/GPS data, in response to legal process (for example, a court order, search warrant or subpoena) or requests from law enforcement or regulatory authorities; in other circumstances in which Zipcar believes the Sites, the Zipcar service or our vehicles are being or have been used in violation of our policies, applicable law or otherwise in the commission of a crime; when we have a good faith belief that there is an emergency that poses a threat to the safety of you or another person; or when necessary to protect the rights or property of Zipcar or third parties.

Identity verification.  We may use identity verification services provided by a third‑party provider to verify your identity documents, confirm your identity and protect against fraud and abuse.  When you create an account, you may be asked to submit a valid driver’s license, along with a selfie image.  Our third‑party provider may use a combination of machine learning tools and optical scans to authenticate your identity document, and may use facial recognition technology to produce a unique biometric identifier based on facial geometry that can be used to compare your selfie to the image on the identity document you provided to determine the likelihood that the images are a “match.”  Please see https://onfido.com/facial-scan-policy-and-release/.  Zipcar does not receive the biometric identifier generated from the images.  It is generated and held by our third‑party provider until we inform them that the biometric identifier is no longer needed for the purposes described in this paragraph, which will occur no later than 3 years after your last interaction with us.  For identity verification and security purposes, Zipcar will have access to the selfie image and will receive the information extracted from the identity scan of the ID document as well as the results of the identity verification process.  We may use this process and associated information to verify your identity, authenticate your identity documents, and protect against fraud and misrepresentation.  We do not use, disclose or retain your biometric information for any other commercial purpose.  Our third‑party provider processes this information on our behalf strictly in accordance with our contractual agreements.

Fraud detection and prevention.  It is important that Zipcar takes appropriate measures to detect and protect its services against fraud, theft and abuse.  We have therefore engaged a third‑party service provider, Sift Science (“Sift”), based in the United States, to assist with these measures.  We may share the following types of information that we have collected directly from you or through the use of tracking technologies (e.g., tags or Javascript snippets) with Sift for the purpose of detecting and preventing fraud, theft and abuse:

  • Contact detail information:  such as your email address, postal address, telephone number, user log‑in information;
  • Site transaction information:  such as details of your membership with us, including details you may provide such as occupation, ID verification details, date of birth and driver’s license details, as well as details of reservations you make including time, date, location and payment details, aggregated reservation details and other identifying information about your membership or reservation;
  • Device and browser information:  such as details of the device identifiers and attributes together with device and phone related meta‑data; and
  • Site and app usage information:  such as your device IP address, your location when using the website or app if available and session ID.

To learn more about the ways in which Sift uses this information to detect and prevent fraud, theft and abuse for Zipcar as well as for other Sift customers or if you have questions about Sift’s use of your information, please review the Sift privacy notice and contact Sift directly as described in the notice, available at: https://sift.com/service-privacy.

Independent licensees

Reservations of certain Zipcar vehicles outside of the U.S. and Canada may be operated by an independent licensee not owned or controlled by Zipcar, and in those instances this privacy notice does not apply.  Each independent licensee may collect personal information and use the personal information for its own purposes.  Zipcar does not control the independent licensee’s use of personal information.  For credit card transactions, the independent licensee, not Zipcar, may collect and process credit card information and receive payment for the Zipcar services.  In this case, the independent licensee is subject to the merchant rules of the credit card processors it selects.  This Privacy Notice also does not apply to any independent licensee’s website.  These licensees may also use email campaigns and other methods of telephone, electronic and direct mail solicitation without our consent or knowledge and are solely responsible for their content and methods of identifying and contacting addressees.

Advertising and personalized content

Customized offerings.  Zipcar uses personal information to provide custom, personalized content and information and to inform our marketing and advertising efforts, which may include sending you marketing or advertising communications via email or online.  If you do not want us to send you promotional emails, please adjust your settings on the “contact me” tab on the “my stuff” page or follow the instructions to unsubscribe in the footer of such emails.

Our Cookies.  Zipcar uses cookies, Flash objects and other tracking technologies that are placed in the browser on your computer or mobile device, and can be used to help recognize you on the Zipcar Sites and improve the user experience.  We use both session ID cookies and persistent cookies.  A session ID cookie expires when you close your browser.  We use session cookies to maintain session state and user identity.  A persistent cookie remains on your hard drive for an extended period of time.  We use persistent cookies and content to help remember user preferences and improve the user experience. We may also use third-party vendors to assist with these efforts. Our third-party vendors and partners may use these technologies to collect information about your online activities over time and across different websites or online services when you use or interact with our Sites and services.

We, and our third party partners, use this information collected through cookies and tracking technologies to:  (a) remember information so that you will not have to re‑enter it during your visit or the next time you use our services; (b) provide and monitor the effectiveness of our services; (c) monitor aggregate metrics such as total number of visitors, traffic, usage, and demographic patterns on our services; (d) diagnose or fix technology problems; (e) detect and prevent fraud or misuse, or (f) otherwise to plan for and enhance our services.

If you would prefer not to accept cookies, you can adjust your cookie preferences for this site by clicking the “Your Privacy Choices” link in the footer of the website. Alternatively, most browsers will allow you to: (i) change your browser settings to notify you when you receive a cookie, which lets you choose whether or not to accept it; (ii) disable existing cookies; or (iii) set your browser to automatically reject cookies.

You can also control Flash cookies via the Macromedia Flash application on your computer, or by going to the Macromedia Flash Player website, which allows you to view, modify, and delete Flash cookies.  If you reject all browser or flash cookies, however, some areas of our Sites may not function well or at all.  Depending on your device and operating system, you may not be able to delete or block all tracking technologies.  You may also be able to set your email options to prevent the automatic downloading of images that may contain technologies that would allow us to know whether you have accessed our email and performed certain functions with it.

Online Advertising and third‑party ad networks.  Zipcar uses third party ad network providers to serve you targeted advertisements based on your browsing history.  These providers use cookies or similar tracking technologies to collect information about your use of our Sites, including our mobile apps, over time so that they may play or display ads on our Service, on other websites, apps or services you may use, and on other devices you may use.  We may share a common account identifier with our third‑party advertising partners to help identify you across devices.  We and our third‑party partners use this information to make the advertisements you see online more relevant to your interests, as well as to provide advertising‑related services such as reporting, attribution, analytics and market research.

The use of cookies, web beacons, or similar technologies by content and ad network providers is subject to their own privacy policies, not ours.

Your choices for online advertising.  As outlined in the “Our Cookies” section above, you can adjust your cookie preferences for this site by clicking the “Your Privacy Choices” link in the footer of the website to block our third-party ad network providers use of cookies on our site. In addition, you may wish to visit the Network Advertising Initiative’s (“NAI”) online resources, at http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices and/or the Digital Advertising Alliance’s (“DAA”) resources at www.aboutads.info/choices to learn about interest‑based advertising and how you may be able to opt‑out of some interest‑based advertising by companies participating in NAI and DAA programs. Canadian visitors may also visit http://youradchoices.ca/choices/.

Please note that opting‑out of receiving interest‑based advertising through the NAI’s and DAA’s online resources will only opt‑out a user from receiving interest‑based ads on that specific browser or device, but the user may still receive interest‑based ads on his or her other devices.  You must perform the opt‑out on each browser or device you use.  These opt‑out choices may not affect online advertising that is not cookie‑based.  Some of these opt‑outs may not be effective unless your browser is set to accept cookies.  If you delete cookies, change your browser settings, switch browsers or computers, or use another operating system, you may need to opt‑out again.

You may also be able to limit mobile interest‑based advertising through the settings on your mobile device by selecting “limit ad tracking” (iOS) or “opt‑out of interest based ads” (Android).  You may also be able to opt‑out of some – but not all – interest‑based ads served by mobile ad networks by visiting http://youradchoices.com/appchoices and downloading the mobile AppChoices app.  You may be able to limit the use of location data for advertising purposes by adjusting your location services settings on your mobile device.  We are not responsible for the effectiveness of, or compliance with, any third‑parties’ opt‑out options or programs or the accuracy of their statements regarding their programs.

Please note that when you “opt‑out” of receiving interest‑based advertisements, this does not mean you will no longer see advertisements from us or on our services.  In addition, third parties may still use cookies to collect information about your use of our services, including for analytics and fraud prevention as well as any other non‑advertising purpose.

Google Analytics and Advertising.  We use Google Analytics to recognize you and link the devices you use when you visit our Sites or services on your browser or mobile device, log in to your account on our services, or otherwise engage with us.  We share a unique identifier, like a user ID or hashed email address, with Google to facilitate the service.  Google Analytics allows us to better understand how our users interact with our service and to tailor our advertisements and content to you.  We may also utilize certain forms of display advertising and other advanced features through Google Analytics, such as Remarketing with Google Analytics, Google Display Network Impression Reporting, the DoubleClick Campaign Manager Integration, and Google Analytics Demographics and Interest Reporting.  These features enable us to use first‑party cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookie) and third‑party cookies (such as the DoubleClick advertising cookie) or other third‑party cookies together to inform, optimize, and display ads based on your past visits to the services.  For information on how Google Analytics collects and processes data, as well as how you can control information sent to Google, review Google’s site “How Google uses data when you use our partners’ sites or apps” located at www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/.  You can learn about Google Analytics’ currently available opt‑outs, including the Google Analytics Browser Ad‑On here https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/.  You may control your advertising preferences or opt‑out of certain Google advertising products by visiting the Google Ads Preferences Manager, currently available at https://google.com/ads/preferences, or by visiting NAI’s online resources at http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices.

Social Media Advertising.  We may also use advertising platforms provided by Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites to promote interest‑based advertisements to you (or to not show you certain advertisements) and to measure how users interact with those advertisements.  We may do this using web tracking tools or by sharing certain information (such as hashed email lists) with these platforms for this purpose.

These advertisements are governed by the privacy policies of those social media companies that provide them.  If you do not want to receive targeted ads on your social networks, you may be able to adjust your advertising preferences through your settings on those networks.  You may learn more about advertising preferences by clicking on the following links.  To learn more about Facebook’s advertising privacy policies and how to opt out https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/.  To learn more about Twitter tailored ads, visit https://www.help.twitter.com/en/safety-and-security/privacy-controls-for-tailored-ads.  We may also use similar advertising programs for other social media sites you use.  Please note that these links are provided for your convenience only and we do not control the content or features that may be available on these third party services.

Social Sharing and Links.  Our website includes social media features, such as the Facebook Like button and widgets, such as the Share This button or interactive mini‑programs that run on our Sites.  These features may collect your IP address, which page you are visiting on our Sites, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly.  Social media features and widgets are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our Sites.  Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy notice of the company providing it.

How may I review and correct my personal information?

Zipcar is committed to providing you with reasonable and practical access to your information to allow you the opportunity to identify inaccuracies. Upon request, Zipcar may provide you with information about whether we hold any of your personal information. If you are a member of Zipcar, you can review and correct personal information by clicking on “account settings” under “my account,” and navigating through the “my account,” “my reservations” and “my statement” pages. If you would like to access, delete and/or correct other personal information held by Zipcar, please contact us in one of the ways provided below and we will aim to respond to your request within 30 days. If Zipcar is informed of any inaccuracy, we may make the appropriate corrections when commercially practicable. Under applicable laws you may have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you and have any inaccuracies corrected (we may charge a reasonable fee for such information requests and require you to prove your identity).

Please contact us if you wish to cancel your account.  We generally retain information for at least as long as your account is active.  However, we may also retain your information for a longer period to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, enforce our agreements or maintain backups or archives of our systems.  Please note, however, that we do not undertake to store your information, including records of your transactions, for you.  Please maintain any records you need of your transactions with Zipcar.

What security measures are used to protect my personal information?

Zipcar has put in place safeguards and security practices designed to help protect the integrity and security of your personal information.  However, no security system is impenetrable, and we cannot guarantee the security of our systems at all times.  It is your responsibility to choose a strong password, safeguard it, and never disclose it to a third party.  If you contact us by phone, we may ask you to verify certain information related to your account before providing any access to personal information.

How might this privacy notice be changed?

We may change this privacy notice from time to time, so it is advisable to review it frequently.  We will advise you of material changes to this privacy notice through our website or other means, and all amended terms shall automatically be effective as of the date of the amended notice.  When we make changes to this privacy notice, we will change the “last updated” date at the beginning of this privacy notice.  Your continued use of the Zipcar service or maintenance of a Zipcar account will be deemed to be acceptance of any revised privacy notice.  Certain provisions of the privacy notice may vary based upon the jurisdiction in which you reserve or use a Zipcar vehicle.  For example, in other jurisdictions, Zipcar may collect and use different location or other information associated with your reservation and may use it differently than in your home location.

Contact information

If you have questions about our handling of personal information, you may write to us at [email protected], [email protected], or Zipcar Privacy, 35 Thomson Place, Boston, Massachusetts 02210 USA.

U.S. state privacy disclosures

Nevada Residents: IF you are a resident of the state of Nevada in the United States, please note Chapter 603A of the Nevada Revised Statutes permits a Nevada resident to opt out of future sales of certain covered information that a website operator has collected or will collect about the resident. To submit such a request, please contact us at [email protected] with the subject line "Nevada Opt-Out".

California, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, and Virginia Residents: These U.S. State Privacy Disclosures (the “U.S. State Disclosures”) supplement the information contained in our Privacy Notice and apply solely to individual residents of the States of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, and Virginia (“consumers” or “you”).

Collection and use of personal information

Personal Information Collected

As described in more detail in the what personal information we collect and how we use it section of our Privacy Notice, we collect the following categories of personal information:

Identifiers, such as your name, address, phone number, email address, date of birth, Zipcard number, passport information, driver’s license information, or other similar identifiers.

Customer Records , such as driver’s license number, insurance information, passport number, credit card information, bank account information or other payment information.

Protected Classification Characteristics, such as age and gender.

Commercial Information, such as products or services purchased or considered and your use of the Zipcar services, including reservation details.

Biometric Information, such as facial geometry used solely by our third-party partners for identity verification purposes.

We do not receive any biometric information generated from these processes.

Internet/Network Information, such as device information, log, and analytics data.

Geolocation Data, such as information about your physical location collected from geolocation features on your device, including your IP address and GPS (e.g. latitude and/or longitude).

Sensory Information, such as pictures of you and recordings of phone calls between you and us, where permitted by law.

Professional/Employment Information, including the business or organization you are associated with and, where applicable, your title with that business or organization and information relating to your role with the business or organization.

Other Personal Information that you provide to us directly or through a third‑party service, including messages you send us through our services or on social media. This information could include the college or university you attend or are affiliated with, your driving records, claim information and driver behavior information.

Inferences, including information generated from your use of the Sites and your driving, vehicle and usage history.

Sources of Personal Information

We collect personal information directly from you, from your browser or device when you interact with our services, from your Zipcar vehicle, from publicly available sources, and from our business partners and affiliates, Zipcar licensees, third parties you direct to share information with us, your friends or acquaintances through our Refer a Friend program, and other third-party information providers (including individuals involved in or law enforcement investigating a motor vehicle incident in which you may have been involved). For representatives of our business customers, vendors, service providers and other third parties, we also collect personal information from the entity you represent.  

Purposes for Collection

As described in more detail in the what personal information we collect and how we use it section of our Privacy Notice, we collect personal information about you for one or more of the following purposes:

  • To fulfill or meet the reason you provided the information, such as to create your account, process your transaction or respond to your inquiry.
  • To communicate with you, including via email, text message, push notification and/or telephone calls.
  • To operate, maintain, and provide to you the features and functionality of the services.
  • To verify your identity, confirm the authenticity of your identity documents, and protect against fraud or misrepresentation.
  • To market to you, including through email, direct mail, phone, push notification and/or text message.
  • To personalize your experience and to deliver custom content and product and service offerings relevant to your interests, including targeted offers and ads through our website, third‑party sites, or on other devices you may use.
  • To recognize you and remember your information when you return to our Sites and services.
  • To help maintain the safety, security, and integrity of our services, including our Zipcars, technology assets, users and business.
  • For testing, research, analysis, and product development, including to develop and improve our services.
  • To respond to law enforcement requests and as required by applicable law, court order, or governmental regulations.

For representatives of our business customers, vendors, service providers and other third parties, we also collect your personal information to maintain an ongoing relationship between us and the entity you represent and to contact you in connection with our relationship with the entity you represent.

Sensitive Information

Some of the categories of personal information we collect may be classified as “sensitive” under certain U.S. state privacy laws (“sensitive information”), including government identifiers (such as driver’s license number or passport number), bank account or payment card information, biometric information (collected and processed by our service providers), and precise geolocation data. We use this sensitive information for the purposes set forth in the “Purposes for Collection” section above, as well as the purposes set forth in the what personal information we collect and how we use it section of our Privacy Notice, to the extent necessary for the operation of our services, to enter into and perform a contract with you, to comply with legal and regulatory requirements, to protect the life or physical safety of anyone or as otherwise permissible for our own internal purposes consistent with laws.

Deidentified Information

We may at times receive, or process personal information to create, deidentified information that can no longer reasonably be used to infer information about, or otherwise be linked to, a particular individual or household. Where we maintain deidentified information, we will maintain and use the information in deidentified form and not attempt to reidentify the information except as required or permitted by law.

Data Retention

We may retain your information for as long as you have an account with Zipcar, as needed to provide you our services, or as otherwise necessary for the processing purpose(s) for which the information was originally collected and any other legitimate business purpose, including, for legal, archival, accounting, and/or audit purposes.

To determine the appropriate duration of the retention of personal information, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of personal information, and whether we can attain our objectives by other means, as well as our legal, regulatory, tax, accounting, and other applicable obligations.

Once retention of the personal information is no longer necessary for the purposes outlined above, we will either delete or deidentify the personal information or, if this is not possible (for example, because personal information has been stored in backup archives), then we will not further process the personal information until deletion or deidentification is possible.

Personal information disclosure, sale, and use for targeted advertising

Disclosure

As described in the how we disclose personal information section of our Privacy Notice, we may disclose the categories of personal information identified above to the following categories of third parties for various business purposes:

  • Our service providers:  We engage a number of third‑party service providers that perform business or operational services for us or on our behalf, such as website hosting, infrastructure provisioning, IT services, customer service, email delivery services, marketing and advertising services, and other similar services, subject to contractual terms restricting the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information.
  • Third parties at your request.  We share your personal information with third parties with your consent or at your direction.
  • Businesses as needed to provide services.  We may share personal information with third parties you engage with through our services, or as needed to fulfil your request or transaction, including, for example payment processing services.
  • Our affiliate companies.  We may share your personal information with other companies owned or controlled by Zipcar, and other companies owned by or under common ownership as Zipcar, which also includes our subsidiaries (i.e., any organization we own or control) or our ultimate holding company (i.e., any organization that owns or controls us, such as Avis Budget Group) and any subsidiaries it owns.
  • Security providers.  We may share your personal information with third‑party security providers, for example, to detect, prevent, or otherwise address actual or suspected fraud, harassment, security or technical issues, violations of any law, rule, regulation or the policies of Zipcar.
  • Business partners.  We may disclose personal information to third parties with whom we partner to provide contests, joint promotional activities or co‑branded services, and such disclosure is necessary to fulfil your request or application.
  • Primary account holders.  If you sign up for Zipcar through an associated or affiliated primary account such as a business or university, we may share your information with the primary account holder.
  • Other third parties.  From time to time, we may disclose your personal information to third parties who use this information to market to you, to perform analytics and conduct research, or for other purposes, in accordance with their own privacy policies and terms.
  • Ad networks and advertising partners.  We work with third party Ad Networks and Advertising Partners to deliver advertising and personalized content to you on our services, on other sites and services you may use, and across other devices you may use.  These parties may collect information directly from your browser or device when you visit the Sites through cookies or other tracking technologies.  This information is used to provide and inform targeted advertising, as well as to provide advertising‑related services such as reporting, attribution, analytics and market research.
  • Analytics providers.  We work with third party analytics providers to better understand the demographics of our users and visitors, and to personalize, enhance and improve our services.
  • Social networks.  We may disclose personal information, such as a unique identifier, hashed email address, or information automatically collected through tracking technologies, to social networks for the purpose of displaying personalized advertising and content on those social networks.
  • Law enforcement and third parties pursuant to legal request.  From time to time, we may disclose personal information as reasonably necessary to respond to law enforcement requests and as required by applicable law, court order, or governmental regulations.
  • Third parties in the context of a corporate transaction.  We may disclose personal information as reasonably necessary to evaluate, negotiate or conduct a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of Zipcar’s assets, whether as a going concern or as part of a bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which personal information held by Zipcar about consumers is among the assets transferred or is otherwise relevant to the evaluation, negotiation or conduct of the transaction.

Sale and Targeted Advertising

Unless you have exercised your right to opt-out, we have sold or we may sell in the future, Identifiers (such as your name, email address and contact information), Commercial Information (such as products sold or considered), Internet/Network Information (such as analytics data), and Inferences (generated from your interactions with our services) to third parties who may use this information to communicate with you or to offer you products and services that may be of interest to you, such as services relating to your vehicle usage.  

We may also sell or disclose personal information (including Identifiers, Commercial Information, Internet/Network Information, and Inferences) to certain third-party ad networks, social networks and advertising partners to deliver targeted advertising (also known as “cross-context behavioral advertising”) and personalized content to you on our services, on other sites and services you may use, and across other devices you may use, as well as to provide advertising-related services such as reporting, attribution, analytics, and market research.

However, we do not sell the personal information of consumers we know to be less than 16 years of age or share such information for targeted advertising purposes.  

Depending on your state of residency and subject to certain legal limitations and exceptions, you may be able to limit or opt-out of the sale of personal information or the processing of personal information for purposes of targeted advertising (as described in the your privacy choices section below).

Sensitive Information

Although sensitive information may be disclosed for a business purpose as described above, we do not sell sensitive information, nor do we process or otherwise share sensitive information for the purpose of targeted advertising. Nonetheless, depending on your state of residency and subject to certain legal limitations and exceptions, you may be able to limit, or withdraw your consent for, our processing of sensitive information (as described in the your privacy choices section below), except where the processing of your sensitive information is necessary to provide you the services or otherwise required by law.

Your privacy choices

Depending on your state of residency and subject to certain legal limitations and exceptions, you may be able to exercise some or all of the following rights:

The Right to Know

The right to confirm whether we are processing personal information about you, and under California law only, to obtain certain personalized details about the personal information we have collected about you, including:

  • The categories of personal information collected;
  • The categories of sources of the personal information;
  • The purposes for which the personal information were collected;
  • The categories of personal information disclosed to third parties (if any), and the categories of recipients to whom this personal information were disclosed;
  • The categories of personal information shared for targeted or cross-context behavioral advertising purposes (if any), and the categories of recipients to whom the personal information were disclosed for these purposes; and
  • The categories of personal information sold (if any) and the categories of third parties to whom the personal information was sold.

The Right to Access & Portability

The right to obtain access to the personal information we have collected about you and, where required by law, the right to obtain a copy of the personal information in a portable and, to the extent technically feasible, readily usable format that allows you to transmit the data to another entity without hindrance.

The Right to Correction

The right to correct inaccuracies in your personal information, taking into account the nature of the personal information and the purposes of the processing of the personal information.

The Right to Control Over Sensitive Information

The right to exercise control over our collection and processing of certain sensitive information.

The Right to Opt-Out of Targeted Advertising

The right to direct us not to use or share personal information for certain targeted advertising purposes.

The Right to Opt-Out of Sales

The right to direct us not to sell personal information we have collected about you to third parties.

The Right to Request Deletion

The right to request the deletion of personal information we maintain about you.

Depending on your state of residency, you may also have the right not to receive retaliatory or discriminatory treatment in connection with a request to exercise the above rights. In addition, if the exercise of these rights limits our ability to process personal information (such as in the case of a deletion request), we may no longer be able to provide you our products and services or engage with you in the same manner.

Submitting privacy rights requests

To exercise your right to know, access/portability, correction and/or deletion:

  • Please click here, click to choose the appropriate option and submit your request; or
  • call 1‑866‑4ZIPCAR (1‑866‑494‑7227) to provide the necessary information to submit your request.

We will need to verify your identity before processing your request, which will generally either require the matching of sufficient information you provide us to the information we maintain about you in our systems, or the successful log-in to your account. We may at times need to request additional personal information from you, taking into consideration our relationship with you and the sensitivity of your request. In certain circumstances, we may decline a request to exercise the rights described above, particularly where we are unable to verify your identity.

To exercise your opt out rights in relation to targeted advertising or personal information sales:

  • For Cookie-Based Sales & Targeted Advertising Opt-Outs: You can exercise your right to opt-out as it relates to the use of cookies and other tracking technologies for analytics and targeted ads, by clicking the “Your Privacy Choices” link in the website footer to adjust your cookie preferences.  By visiting www.privacyrights.info or https://optout.privacyrights.info/?c=1, you can also opt out from sales of this type of personal information by businesses that participate in the DAA’s CCPA Opt-Out Tool. To make opt-out requests related to mobile apps on your device for businesses participating in the DAA’s CCPA App-based Opt-Out Tool, you can download the appropriate app at www.youradchoices.com/appchoices. In addition, you may follow the other steps set forth in the advertising and personalized content section of our Privacy Notice to further exercise control over cookies and related technologies. Please note these opt-outs are browser specific. You must reset your preference if you clear cookies or use a different browser or device.
  • Non-Cookie-Based Opt-Outs for Non-Members: If you are not a Zipcar member, we do not collect your sensitive information, nor do we sell your personal information or use your personal information for targeted advertising purposes except in relation to cookies. You may opt-out of such cookie-based sales and targeted advertising as described above.
  • Non-Cookie-Based Opt-Outs for Zipcar Members: Please login to your account.  Once you have logged in to your account, please select the “Your Privacy Choices” link in the footer of the website and follow the instructions provided in the pop‑up window to be added to our Opt-Out List.  If you have set your browser to block or reject pop‑ups, you may need to change your settings to allow the Opt-Out pop‑up to appear. Alternatively, you can call 1‑866‑4ZIPCAR (1‑866‑494‑7227) to provide the necessary information to submit your request.

Appealing privacy rights decisions

Depending on your state of residency, you may be able to appeal a decision we have made in connection with your privacy rights request. Please submit all appeals requests by replying to the communication resolving your original request or emailing us at [email protected].

Authorized agent

In certain circumstances, you are permitted to use an authorized agent to submit requests on your behalf through the designated methods set forth above where we can verify the authorized agent’s authority to act on your behalf. In order to verify the authorized agent’s authority, we generally require evidence of either (i) a valid power of attorney or (ii) a signed letter containing your name and contact information, the name and contact information of the authorized agent, and a statement of authorization for the request. Depending on the evidence provided and your state of residency, we may still need to separately reach out to you to confirm the authorized agent has permission to act on your behalf and to verify your identity in connection with the request.

California notice of financial incentive

The following disclosures only apply to residents of the State of California.

We may choose to provide programs and other offerings intended to provide benefits to eligible participants that qualify as financial incentives under certain privacy laws. For example, the financial incentives we may choose to make available to interested individuals may include discounts, coupons and other special offers for engaging with us.  

To obtain access to certain of these programs and other offerings, we may ask to collect or share an interested individual’s personal information, including name, contact information, and service history. We have determined that the value of any of these programs and other offerings are reasonably related to the value of the personal information we would receive and otherwise process in connection with these programs and offerings, based on our reasonable but sole determination. We estimate the value of the personal information we would receive and otherwise process in connection with these programs and offerings by considering the expense we would incur in collecting and processing the personal information, as well as the expenses related to facilitating the program or offering.

The terms applicable to each program and other offering will be provided at the time an eligible individual is offered an opportunity to participate. Interested individuals can opt-in to these financial incentives by following the instructions presented at the time the offer is made. Participating individuals may withdraw from our programs and other offerings at any time by following the instructions provided in connection with each offering or emailing us at [email protected].