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
• information automatically collected when you use our sites
• children's privacy
• how we disclose personal information
• independent licensees
• advertising and personalized content
• links to third-party services
• how may I review and correct my personal information?
• what security measures are used to protect my personal information? 
• how might this privacy notice be changed?
• contact information
• u.s. state privacy disclosures

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.

Links to third‑party services

Our Sites may include links to other websites or mobile applications whose privacy practices may differ from those of Zipcar.  We are not responsible for, any personal information practices of third‑party websites and online services or the practices of other third parties.  We encourage you to carefully read the privacy policy of any website you visit or mobile application that you use.

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.