Privacy

This policy explains what ClearLot collects, why, who sees it and how long we keep it. It covers clearlot.co and our lots. We collect only what we need to run a neutral lot for private car sales, rentals and rent-to-own, and we don't sell your personal information.

What we collect

• Account: your name, email, phone, and either a securely hashed password or, if you use “Continue with Google,” your Google account identifier, email and name.
• Listings: vehicle information, VIN, photos, mileage, condition report and your written disclosures of known issues.
• Messages & requests: buyer messages, test-drive requests, contact-form submissions and the topic you select.
• Car rentals: your date of birth, your driver's license number, issuing state and expiration date, and photos you upload of the front and back of your driver's license, a selfie of you holding your license and your insurance card.
• Rent-to-own applications: everything listed for rentals, plus your current home address and how long you've lived there, your monthly income, its source and your employer or platform, and photos you upload of your insurance card or binder, income documents (pay stubs, gig-earnings screenshots, a benefits letter or a bank statement) and a proof-of-address document (a utility bill, lease or bank statement).
• Agreement records: when you sign a consignment agreement, rental agreement, rent-to-own acknowledgment, lot-space terms or test-drive waiver by typing your name, we record your typed name, the date and time, the document version and your IP address as proof of signing.
• Payments: when online payment is offered and you choose it, payment is processed by our payment processor (Stripe). We receive a record that a payment succeeded and the amount; we do not store your full card number.
• Site analytics: we keep a privacy-first log of page views (the page, referring site, general device type). It uses no cookies and does not store your IP address — visitors are counted with a salted identifier that rotates daily and cannot be traced back to you.
• Sign-in cookie: once you log in we set a single secure session cookie so you stay signed in. We don't use advertising or third-party tracking cookies.

How we use it

To run the lot: create and secure your account, review and publish listings, pass buyer messages to sellers, schedule test drives, verify renters' license, insurance and age, prepare and record signed agreements, take payments, bill fees and keep the records a transaction needs. We also use it to prevent fraud and abuse and to keep the site working.

Identity documents are used only for identity and eligibility verification. ClearLot staff compare your selfie with your license photo, check that your license is valid and unexpired and matches the details you typed, confirm your age and that your insurance is current, and, for rent-to-own, that your income and address documents support what you told us. We don't use them for marketing, we don't run credit checks or pull driving records with them, and we never sell them.

What's public

Approved listings show vehicle details, photos, VIN, condition and disclosures. Seller, renter and applicant names, emails, phone numbers, dates of birth, license details, addresses, income and uploaded documents are never shown publicly. The owner of a car you rent or apply for sees only your first name and the booking or plan dates, status and amounts, never your documents, license details, date of birth, address or income. Buyers and sellers reach each other through ClearLot.

Who we share it with

We don't sell your personal information. We share it only with service providers that help us run ClearLot, under their own terms:

• Stripe — to process online payments.
• Google — only if you choose to sign in with Google.
• Metrix (CSS Tech) — the platform ClearLot is built and operated on.
• Our hosting and database providers — to run the site and store your data securely.

We may also disclose information if required by law, or to protect the rights, safety and property of ClearLot and others.

How long we keep it

• Rental documents (license, selfie and insurance photos): deleted about 30 days after a rental is finished, declined, cancelled or left untouched, and never kept indefinitely. They're kept while the car is out on your rental.
• Rent-to-own documents (license, selfie, insurance, income and address): deleted within a day once an application is declined or withdrawn; about 30 days after an application is left untouched, after a plan is completed or ended, or after the last payment of a plan fell due. While a plan is within its term they're kept for the life of the contract.
• Details you typed (license number, state and expiration, date of birth, and for rent-to-own your address, time at address, income and employer): deleted along with the documents when a request or application never went ahead (declined, cancelled before pickup, withdrawn or abandoned). For rentals that happened and plans that started, they stay with the booking or plan record, as described below.
• Account, listing, booking and signed-agreement records: kept while your account is active and for as long as we need them for the transaction, disputes, tax and legal requirements.
• You can ask us to delete your account and data at any time (see below), subject to records we're required to keep.

Security

Passwords are stored only as salted hashes, never in plain text. Uploaded documents are stripped of embedded metadata (including any GPS location) and are viewable only by ClearLot admins (and, for rental photos, by you), never by the car's owner or other users. Every time an admin opens a document it's recorded in our audit log. We use encryption in transit and limit who can access personal data.

Your choices & rights

You can access, correct or delete your information, or ask what we hold, by emailing info@clearlot.co. Residents of California and other states with privacy laws (CCPA/CPRA and similar) have rights to access, delete and opt out of any “sale” or “sharing” of personal information; we don't sell or share your information for advertising, and we honor these requests at the same address.

Children

ClearLot is for adults. Accounts and transactions are not intended for anyone under 18, and renting requires you to meet the minimum rental age.

Changes

We'll update this policy as ClearLot changes and will revise the effective date above when we do.

Contact

Questions about your privacy? Email info@clearlot.co.