Privacy Policy

This policy describes which personal data are processed when you visit and use the website gentleman-swisscar.com, for what purposes this happens and what rights you have. It describes only those processing operations that actually take place on this website.

Last updated: 30 August 2026

1. Controller

The controller responsible for data processing on this website within the meaning of Art. 4(7) GDPR is:

No data protection officer has been appointed; in our assessment the statutory conditions requiring one are not met. For all questions concerning data protection you can reach us using the contact details above.

2. Legal bases

We process personal data on the following legal bases:

  • Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR (consent) – for example where you agree to the use of optional services via the consent banner, or consent to the processing of your contact details. Where information is stored on or read from your terminal equipment in this context, Section 25(1) TDDDG (German Telecommunications Digital Services Data Protection Act) applies in addition.
  • Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (contract and pre-contractual measures) – for handling booking enquiries, carrying out journeys and processing payments.
  • Art. 6(1)(c) GDPR (legal obligation) – in particular for the retention of booking and invoicing records under commercial and tax law.
  • Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interests) – for the technically secure operation of the website, the defence against attacks and the audience measurement described in section 9.
  • Section 25(2)(2) TDDDG – for storage and read operations that are strictly necessary in order to provide a service you have expressly requested.

3. Your rights as a data subject

You have the following rights against us in respect of the personal data concerning you:

  • Access (Art. 15 GDPR) – you may request confirmation of whether and which data we process about you, for what purposes, to which recipients they are disclosed and for how long they are stored.
  • Rectification (Art. 16 GDPR) – you may request the correction of inaccurate data and the completion of incomplete data.
  • Erasure (Art. 17 GDPR) – you may request the erasure of your data, provided that no statutory retention obligation prevents this.
  • Restriction of processing (Art. 18 GDPR).
  • Data portability (Art. 20 GDPR) – you may request that the data you have provided be released in a common, machine-readable format, provided that the processing is based on consent or a contract and is carried out by automated means.
  • Objection (Art. 21 GDPR) – you may object at any time, on grounds relating to your particular situation, to processing operations that we base on Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR. We will then no longer process those data unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds.
  • Withdrawal of consent (Art. 7(3) GDPR) – you may withdraw consent you have given at any time with effect for the future. The lawfulness of the processing carried out up to the point of withdrawal remains unaffected. You can change or withdraw your cookie consent at any time using the consent management button at the bottom of every page.

Right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority

Without prejudice to any other administrative or judicial remedy, you have the right under Art. 77 GDPR to lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority, in particular in the Member State of your habitual residence, place of work or the place of the alleged infringement.

The authority responsible for us is:

  • Landesbeauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit Nordrhein-Westfalen (State Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information of North Rhine-Westphalia)
  • Kavalleriestraße 2–4
  • 40213 Düsseldorf
  • Telephone: +49 211 38424-0
  • Email: poststelle@ldi.nrw.de
  • www.ldi.nrw.de

4. Hosting

This website is hosted by an external service provider in Germany:

  • ALL-INKL.COM – Neue Medien Münnich, owner: René Münnich
  • Hauptstraße 68, 02742 Friedersdorf, Germany

All data collected on this website – server log files, contact enquiries, booking data, audience measurement data – are stored on this provider’s servers in Germany. The provider processes these data exclusively on our instructions; a data processing agreement pursuant to Art. 28 GDPR is in place for this purpose. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR for the performance of contracts with our customers, together with Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR in our legitimate interest in the secure and efficient provision of our online offering.

Email delivery for this website (form confirmations and notifications) also runs through the same provider. Messages are delivered in encrypted form via the host’s mail server; no additional external email delivery service is involved.

5. Encrypted transmission

This website is delivered exclusively over a TLS-encrypted connection (HTTPS). You can recognise this in your browser’s address bar. The data you transmit to us are therefore protected against interception by third parties while in transit.

6. Server log files

When you access this website, your browser transmits technically necessary information which the web server stores in log files. The following are recorded in particular:

  • your IP address
  • the date and time of access
  • the address requested (URL) and the volume of data transferred
  • the HTTP status code of the response
  • the previously visited page (referrer), where transmitted
  • browser type, browser version and operating system

These data are required in order to deliver the website technically, to detect faults and to prevent misuse. They are not combined with other data sets, and they are not evaluated for advertising purposes.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in secure and fault-free operation).

Retention period: 7 days

7. Cookies and consent

Simply visiting this website does not set any cookies. Cookies and comparable storage operations on your terminal equipment only arise as a result of an action on your part.

We use the consent management tool Complianz to administer your consent. It runs on our own server; no transfer to third parties takes place. Only once you make a selection in the banner does Complianz store your decision in cookies named cmplz_banner-status, cmplz_consenttype, cmplz_policy_id, cmplz_functional, cmplz_preferences, cmplz_statistics, cmplz_marketing and cmplz_consented_services. These cookies contain no personal content, only your selection.

In addition, the following cookies may be created:

  • pll_language – stores the language you have selected (German or English); set by the translation plugin Polylang when you switch language.
  • _lscache_vary – technical cookie of the server-side page cache; set when a personalised delivery of the page is required.
  • pum-* – records that you have closed a notice dialogue so that it does not appear again.
  • wordpress_*, wp-settings-* – only for logged-in editorial accounts; these cookies are not set for visitors to the website.

Legal basis: for the cookies listed above, Section 25(2)(2) TDDDG in conjunction with Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR, since they are strictly necessary in order to provide a function you have requested. For all storage operations going beyond this, Section 25(1) TDDDG in conjunction with Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR (consent).

Retention period: the Complianz consent cookies are stored for 365 days. The other cookies listed expire at the end of the browser session or are likewise deleted after no more than one year. You can delete cookies at any time via your browser settings.

8. Forms on this website

Several forms are available on this website. What they all have in common is this: the details are not stored in this website’s database, but are sent exclusively by email to info@gentleman-swisscar.com and processed there in our mailbox. The only exception is the booking system described in section 11, which stores its data permanently.

8.1 Contact form

The contact form is embedded on almost every page of this website, including the Contact page. The following are collected:

  • first name or name
  • email address
  • telephone number
  • your message (“brief description”)
  • your confirmation that you have read this privacy policy and consent to the processing of your details for the purpose of handling your enquiry (mandatory)

To protect against automated submissions, this form is preceded by a character string in image form (captcha) which you have to type out. It is generated and verified entirely on our own server. No connection to any third-party service takes place in the process, and neither your usage behaviour nor your mouse movements are evaluated. The image files generated are automatically deleted from the server after a short time.

8.2 Enquiry forms for journeys

A form for non-binding journey enquiries is available on the Airport Transfer and Close Protection pages and their German counterparts. The following are collected:

  • preferred vehicle (free text entry)
  • pick-up location
  • pick-up time and date
  • destination
  • return or drop-off time and date
  • surname and first name
  • telephone number
  • email address
  • your confirmation that the privacy provisions apply to the processing of the form data (mandatory)

No map or address auto-completion takes place in these forms; the location details are transmitted as plain text. These forms are not preceded by a captcha.

8.3 Enquiry form on the English booking page

A separate enquiry form is available on the Online Book page, which calculates an approximate price for a journey. The following are collected:

  • the route selected from a predefined list
  • the desired date
  • the direction of travel (one way or return)
  • the vehicle selected from a predefined list
  • the price calculated from this
  • first name and surname
  • telephone number
  • email address
  • your preferred payment method from a selection list

The preferred payment method is solely an indication of your preference, which is communicated to us by email. No payment and no connection to a payment service provider takes place via this form; no card or account details are collected there. We then clarify the handling of any actual payment with you directly.

This form currently contains neither a consent checkbox nor a captcha. Your details are processed here solely in order to answer your enquiry.

8.4 Contacting us outside the forms

If you contact us directly by email or telephone, we likewise process the data you provide solely in order to deal with your request.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR where you have ticked a consent checkbox; otherwise, and in particular for the form described under 8.3, Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (performance of pre-contractual measures at your request) as well as Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in answering enquiries addressed to us).

Retention period: 6 months after the matter has been concluded

9. Audience measurement

We collect statistical information about how this website is used in order to improve its content and technology. Both tools used for this purpose run exclusively on our own server. No data are transmitted to third parties, no cookies are set and no cross-device profiles are created.

WP Statistics

The software is supplied by VeronaLabs, Tatari 64, 10134 Tallinn, Estonia; however, it runs entirely on our server. The following are recorded:

  • your IP address exclusively in anonymised and additionally cryptographically hashed form – the data set does not contain the IP address in plain text
  • the country of origin (country code)
  • the browser used
  • the page requested, together with date and time
  • the referring page and, where contained in the address, campaign parameters (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign and similar)

Storage of the full user agent string is disabled. No visit log for individual users is kept. Your browser’s “Do Not Track” setting is respected; if you send this signal, no recording takes place. Accesses by recognised search engine robots and by logged-in administration accounts are excluded.

Independent Analytics

This tool also operates entirely locally on our server. It stores no IP addresses. Instead, a pseudonymous identifier is generated per visit from technical characteristics and a secret additional value known only to us, which does not permit any attribution to you personally. The following are stored per session:

  • the pseudonymous session identifier
  • the pages accessed, with the time of access
  • country and – where it can be determined – city
  • device type, operating system and browser
  • the referring page and campaign parameters

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR. Our legitimate interest lies in designing our online offering to meet demand and in optimising it technically. Since both tools operate without cookies and without accessing information on your terminal equipment, and process exclusively pseudonymous or anonymised data, no transfer to third parties takes place.

Retention period: 14 months

10. Website security

To protect against attacks we use the security module Wordfence (Defiant Inc., 1700 Westlake Ave N, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98109, USA). Requests are filtered and attacks are detected on our own server. In the process, the IP addresses of accesses, blocked requests and failed login attempts are logged.

Detected attack patterns and the associated IP addresses of attackers are transmitted to the provider’s threat network in the USA so that it can update its protection rules. This transfer concerns attack traffic and not ordinary use of the website.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in defending against attacks and protecting the data processed on this website).

Retention period: the security module’s access log is automatically deleted after 30 days. Entries on block lists are removed once the relevant blocking period has expired.

11. Booking form

On the German-language page Online buchen you can enquire about and book a journey. For this we use the “Chauffeur Booking System”, which runs entirely on our own server. Unlike the forms described in section 8, the data are stored in this website’s database. This booking system is not used on the English-language page; section 8.3 applies there.

Which data we collect in the booking form

  • pick-up address in plain text together with the corresponding geographical coordinates (latitude and longitude)
  • destination address in plain text together with the corresponding geographical coordinates
  • where applicable, intermediate stops with address and coordinates
  • the distance and journey time calculated from these, and for return journeys additionally for the return leg
  • date and time of the pick-up and – for return journeys – of the return
  • the type of service (transfer journey by route or booking by the hour) and the direction of travel (one way or return)
  • the vehicle selected and any additional services booked
  • the number of passengers, broken down into adults and children
  • first name and surname
  • email address
  • telephone number
  • a free-text comment, if you enter one
  • the payment method selected and the calculated price components including tax rates
  • your confirmation of the consent declaration which precedes the form as a mandatory field

If you provide an invoicing address, we additionally collect: company name, street, house number, postcode, town or city, federal state or canton, country and – if provided – the tax number or VAT identification number.

The form offers a “Use my location” function. If you press this button, your browser asks you for permission to determine your current location. Only if you confirm this request are the location coordinates transferred into the address field and subsequently processed in the same way as an address you have entered yourself. Without your express consent in the browser, no location is determined.

After submitting a booking you receive a confirmation by email; at the same time a notification is sent to info@gentleman-swisscar.com.

No automated sending of SMS messages takes place. Nor is there any automated decision-making, including profiling, within the meaning of Art. 22 GDPR.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR for processing your booking and carrying out the journey; Art. 6(1)(c) GDPR for retaining records relevant to accounting; in addition, Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR on the basis of the consent you confirmed in the form.

Retention period: booking data that serve as the basis for an invoice or an accounting document are retained for ten years from the end of the calendar year in which they arose, in order to comply with the retention obligations under commercial and tax law set out in Section 147 AO (German Fiscal Code) and Section 257 HGB (German Commercial Code). Enquiries that have not led to a booking are deleted after 6 months. The system currently contains 109 booking records from the period June to August 2023; these will be deleted in accordance with the periods set out above.

12. Payment service providers

Stripe

For transfer journeys we offer payment by credit card through the payment service provider Stripe. The provider for the European Economic Area is Stripe Payments Europe, Limited, 1 Grand Canal Street Lower, Grand Canal Dock, Dublin, Ireland; an affiliated company is Stripe, Inc., 510 Townsend Street, San Francisco, CA 94103, USA.

A connection to Stripe is only established once you select this payment method and start the payment process. You are then redirected to a Stripe payment page. You enter your card details exclusively there; they are at no point transmitted to us and are not stored on our server. What is transmitted to Stripe is the amount payable, the currency, a transaction reference and the contact details required to process the payment. Stripe additionally processes your IP address and technical characteristics of your device in order to detect payment fraud; we have no influence over this.

In our own system we store only the payment reference (payment intent identifier) and the payment status for a booking paid via Stripe, but no card details.

Stripe’s privacy information: stripe.com/de/privacy

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (payment processing as part of the performance of the contract).

Retention period: the payment reference and payment status are retained together with the booking record in accordance with the periods set out in section 11. The provider’s own periods apply to storage at Stripe.

Other payment methods offered

In addition to Stripe, the booking form offers payment in cash, card payment on pick-up and bank transfer, depending on the type of service. With these payment methods no transfer to an online payment service provider takes place. In the case of a bank transfer, the payment data are handled by the bank concerned.

Payments are no longer processed via PayPal on this website. PayPal is disabled as a payment method in the booking system, and no connection to PayPal is established. Where PayPal can still be selected as a preference in the English-language enquiry form described in section 8.3, this is solely a preference transmitted by email, without any transfer of data to PayPal. For bookings paid via PayPal in the past, the information applicable at that time continues to apply; the payment records are retained for the duration of the statutory retention periods.

13. Fonts

To ensure a consistent presentation of typefaces, this website uses the font families Roboto, IBM Plex Serif and Raleway. These fonts are stored on our own server and are delivered from there.

No connection to Google servers is established in this process. Neither when a page is opened nor at any later point is your IP address transmitted to Google or to any other font provider. The DNS prefetch hint pointing to Google’s domain that was previously set has also been removed.

The switch to local delivery took place on 30 August 2026. Until that date, the fonts were loaded directly from servers operated by Google Ireland Limited on part of this website, and your IP address was transmitted to Google in the process.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in a consistent and technically reliable presentation of our online offering).

Retention period: No personal data is stored in this context; delivery takes place via our own server and is recorded only in the server log files described in section 6.

14. Google Maps

On the Online buchen page we use the mapping service Google Maps. The provider is Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland.

Google Maps performs several functions there that are necessary for the booking:

  • auto-completion of the pick-up and destination addresses you enter, as you type
  • conversion of these addresses into geographical coordinates
  • calculation of the route and journey time as the basis for determining the price
  • display of the route on a map

In order to provide these functions, a connection to Google servers is established when the booking page is loaded. In the process your IP address, the page accessed and technical characteristics of your browser are transmitted to Google. While you are typing, the address components you enter are additionally transmitted to Google in order to generate suggestions. Google may transfer these data to the USA. We have no influence over the extent of the processing carried out by Google.

We expressly point out that this connection is currently established as soon as the booking page is loaded and without prior consent. Google Maps is not loaded on any of the other pages of this website.

Further information: policies.google.com/privacy

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR, in so far as determining the addresses and calculating the route is necessary in order to carry out pre-contractual measures and to perform the transport contract; otherwise Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in an attractive and functional presentation of our booking service).

Retention period: the addresses and coordinates determined in the course of the booking are stored together with the booking record in accordance with the periods set out in section 11. The provider’s own periods apply to storage at Google.

15. WhatsApp contact button

All pages of this website carry a button through which you can contact us via WhatsApp. This is a plain link generated on our own server. As long as you do not click the button, no connection to WhatsApp or Meta is established and no data are transmitted there.

Only when you press the button does a chat with our telephone number +49 178 4147808 open in a new window via the WhatsApp service. From that point on, the privacy terms of the provider WhatsApp Ireland Limited, Merrion Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, Ireland, a company of the Meta group, apply. Your telephone number, the content of your message and further connection data are then processed by WhatsApp; a transfer to the USA is possible in this context. We have no influence over this processing.

If you wish to avoid a transfer to WhatsApp, please use the contact form, our email address or the telephone instead.

Privacy information: whatsapp.com/legal/privacy-policy-eea

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR – processing by WhatsApp requires an active click on your part and is therefore based on your decision; in addition Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR, in so far as your message is directed towards concluding a contract.

Retention period: chat histories that reach us via WhatsApp are treated in the same way as other contact enquiries; see 6 months after the matter has been concluded.

16. Language switching and translation

This website is offered in German and English. The editorially maintained language versions are delivered from our own server; no data are transmitted to third parties in this context.

In addition, a language switcher with flag symbols is embedded on individual pages. The symbols themselves are loaded from our server. Only once you select a language via this switcher is a translation program loaded from translate.google.com and the page translated by machine. In the process your IP address and the page content to be translated are transmitted to Google (Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland); a transfer to the USA is possible. Without your selection, no connection takes place.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR (the decision you express by making the selection).

Retention period: we do not ourselves store any data in this connection. The language choice is recorded locally in a cookie; see section 7.

17. Transfers to third countries

The services listed below may transfer personal data to countries outside the European Economic Area, in particular to the United States of America:

  • Google Fonts and Google Maps – the contracting party is Google Ireland Limited in Ireland; onward disclosure to Google LLC in the USA takes place. Google LLC is certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework; the transfer is therefore based on the European Commission’s adequacy decision of 10 July 2023 pursuant to Art. 45 GDPR, and additionally on standard contractual clauses pursuant to Art. 46(2)(c) GDPR.
  • Google Translate when the language switcher is used – on the same basis as above.
  • Stripe – the contracting party is Stripe Payments Europe, Limited in Ireland; onward disclosure to Stripe, Inc. in the USA takes place on the basis of standard contractual clauses pursuant to Art. 46(2)(c) GDPR. Stripe, Inc. is additionally certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.
  • WhatsApp when the contact button is used – the contracting party is WhatsApp Ireland Limited in Ireland; onward disclosure to companies of the Meta group in the USA is possible.
  • Wordfence (Defiant Inc., USA) – transfer of attack patterns and IP addresses of detected attacks on the basis of Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR.

We point out that, notwithstanding the adequacy decision, access by state authorities to transmitted data cannot be excluded in the USA to the same extent as within the European Union, and that the enforcement of data subject rights may be more difficult there.

All other processing operations described in this policy – hosting, email delivery, contact form, captcha, booking system, consent management and audience measurement – take place exclusively on servers in Germany.

18. Overview of retention periods

  • Server log files: 7 days
  • Consent cookies (Complianz): 365 days
  • Language and technical cookies: end of session up to a maximum of 1 year
  • Contact enquiries via form, email or WhatsApp: 6 months after the matter has been concluded
  • Captcha image files: automatic deletion after a short time, at the latest after one hour
  • Audience measurement data (WP Statistics, Independent Analytics): 14 months
  • Security log (Wordfence): 30 days
  • Bookings with the character of an invoice or accounting document: 10 years under Section 147 AO (German Fiscal Code) and Section 257 HGB (German Commercial Code)
  • Booking enquiries without a concluded contract: 6 months
  • Payment data at Stripe: in accordance with the provider’s periods; with us, only the payment reference in the booking record

Where data are no longer required for the purpose for which they were collected and no statutory retention obligations prevent this, we delete them. Where a retention obligation exists, we restrict the processing until the period expires.

19. Services not used

For the avoidance of doubt: none of the following services are used on this website. No data processing takes place in this respect:

  • Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager and Google Ads
  • Meta Pixel and other social network services for audience or advertising measurement
  • Yandex Metrica
  • Google AdSense or other advertising networks
  • Google reCAPTCHA and hCaptcha
  • newsletter mailings and email marketing
  • embedded videos, mapping services or social network content outside the booking map described in section 14
  • a customer account or registration area for visitors
  • a comments section

20. Changes to this policy

We will amend this privacy policy as soon as the actual processing operations on this website change or an altered legal situation requires it. The version available on this page applies in each case.