Privacy Policy
Date: 3rd December 2021
Ola UK Private Limited (“Ola UK”), OLA Netherlands B.V. (“Ola NL”), referred to as (“we“, “us“, “our“, “Ola”) are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy and providing the information, options and choices necessary for you to control how we use your information. This privacy policy describes how we collect and use personal information to provide services operated by or on behalf of us.
Personal Information is defined as any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person; an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person. When anonymous information is directly or indirectly associated with personal data, the resulting information also is treated as personal data.
This policy applies to users of our website (“Website” or “Site“) or mobile application (“App“).
Users include:
Riders who make requests for and avail transportation (also knowns as “Customers”; and
Driver-partners (also known as “Drivers”) who use the App to provide transportation.
This policy (together with our policy on ‘Cookies and other technologies’) sets out:
Information we collect about you
How and why we use your information
Legal Bases for Processing
Who we give your information to
Where we store your information
Child safety
Payment processing
How we protect your information
How long we keep your information
Your rights
Changes to this policy
Contact us
For information on our collection and use of cookies, tags and other information, please see our policy on ‘Cookies and other technologies’.
Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.
By engaging with the Site and/or App, you acknowledge you have read and understood this privacy policy.
For the purposes of the data protection laws and directives applicable to the European Union, (the “Data Protection Law“), the data controllers are:
Ola UK Private Limited, Unit 139, Business Design Centre 52 Upper Street, Islington, London N10QH, United Kingdom for Customers
ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd., India will act as an Independent Controller for Customers and Drivers, only for purposes of investigation, complaints, legal, cyber defence, network and service.
Ola UK and Ola NL will act as Joint Controllers, for the purposes of processing data, mentioned in this Privacy Notice for Drivers
For the purposes of the data protection laws and directives applicable to the European Union, (the “Data Protection Law“), the data processors are:
OLA NL for Customers, only for the purpose of generating and sending invoices to them after completion of ride.
ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd., India, for both Customer and Driver data.
We will collect and process the following personal data from you:
Information you give us:
This is information about you that you give us directly when you interact with us, as a Customer. This includes your profile information, login details, and other details required to create your account.
This is information about you that you give us directly when you interact with us, as a Driver. This includes your profile information, login details, personal documents, photo and other details required to onboard you on our driving portal. This also includes special category data or criminal conviction data which is used to conduct background verification and check the eligibility of drivers.
This is information you provide to us when we ask you for in-app permissions, to facilitate interaction with the App basis your device functions. It includes information like location that helps us to provide our services to you in your preferred location and mobile number that facilitates account security verification and enables communication between Customerand Driver via the App.
This is financial information that you give our payment service provider like bank account details, card details etc., and/or the information we process (for
example- unique identifiers like , transaction id) based on your transactions. This information is used to process bills, calculate incentives and enable payments.
This is information about you that you give us by filling in forms on the Site or App or by corresponding with us by phone, e-mail or otherwise. It includes information you provide when you register to use the Site or App, subscribe to our service, search for a ride, place an book a ride on the Site or App, enter a promotion or survey, submit a query, and when you report a problem with the Site or App.
The information you give us may include your name (including account username), address (including the city you live in), e-mail address and phone number,, personal description (including age and gender), photograph including selfies drivers submit after selfie authentication triggers, login and password details. It may also include certain personal details of your emergency contacts that you add to your account, and whether you have a connection with others whose personal data we may collect or hold, for example family members and friends.
We may also access contacts stored on your device in order for you to add them to your favorites or emergency contacts, or when you refer someone from your contact for our services. Please note that we do not import or sync your contact with the Site/App. When you use your account to book a cab ride for someone else from your contact list using the Services, we will collect and store such contact information and share the ride details with that selected contact.
Information we collect about you from your use of the Site and/or App:
We will automatically collect information from you each time you visit the Site and/or use our App. This includes technical information, information about your visit, and your location data.
Technical information – Technical information may include the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your phone/ computer to the Internet, your login information, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, browser type, referring / exit pages and URLs, number of clicks, domain names, landing pages, pages viewed and other such information.
Information about your visit – Information about your visit may include the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL), clickstream to, through and from our Site (including date and time), products you viewed or searched for, page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), methods used to browse away from the page, and any phone number used to call our customer service number or social media handle used to connect with our customer service team. It may also include reference numbers used when you book a service through the Site or the App, and details of what, how, when and where you have engaged in services which we provide or services procured or booked using our services. Where the Services allow you to call or text other users
using the Services, the information may also include call and text information, including the date, time and duration of the calls and texts.
Location data – we collect information through the Site/App as to your real time location to provide location services where requested or agreed to by you in order to deliver content and services that are dependent on knowing where you are, such as allowing passengers to find drivers, allowing drivers to find passengers for pickup and allowing the App to calculate the fare applicable to your journeys. Please note that we only collect your live location on the Site/App if you specify in your setting that you would like us to “always collect” your location. If you have not specified this, we do not collect your live location unless you are accessing the Site/App or availing our services. This information is collected in combination with an identifier associated with your device to enable us to recognise your mobile browser or device when you return to the Site/App. You may also feed in your location manually in the Site/App. You may turn off location access using your device or not provide us your location manually, however, please note that without the ability to collect your location we will not be able to provide you our services.
Device information i.e. the devices you use (mobile phones, computers, tablets, etc.) to access our services such as the hardware models, operation system information, software information and version, file names, language preferences, IP address cookie information, advertising identifiers, browser version, device settings, and mobile network information. We collect your device related information to understand the customer base and know which devices allow maximum bookings. Please see our policy on ‘Cookies and other technologies’ for more information on how we use device information.
Other than your locations and device information, we do not link this automatically-collected data to personally identifiable information.
Information we receive from other sources. This is information we receive about you:
o if you use any of the other websites or apps we operate or the other services we provide.
o from third parties through whom you are able to access or register for the services (e.g. where you are able to log in with a Google or Facebook account).
o from third parties that conduct quality assessments for drivers.
o from third parties acting as payment gateways.
o from third parties that process data on our behalf, to provide services to you.
In this case we will inform you when we collect that data, if we intend to share your data internally and combine it with data collected on this site. We will also have told you for what purpose we will share and combine your data.
We are working closely with third parties (including, for example, business partners, sub contractors in technical, payment and delivery services, advertising networks, analytics providers, and search information providers). We will notify you when we receive information about you from them and the purposes for which we intend to use that information.
You may be given the option to access or register for the service through the use of your user name and passwords (or any other identifier) for certain services provided by third parties (each, an “integrated service”), such as through the use of your Google account, accounts with payment systems or wallet providers, or otherwise have the option to authorize an integrated service to provide personal data to us. By authorizing us to connect with an integrated service, you authorize us to access and store your personal data that the integrated service makes available to us (including but not limited to name, email address(es), date of birth, gender, current city and profile picture URL), and to use and disclose it in accordance with this policy. Please review the terms of service, terms of use and privacy policies of each integrated service carefully before using their services and integrating with our services. Please check your privacy settings on each integrated device to understand what personal data has been integrated with our services.
Depending on the nature of your dealings with us or the services which we provide to you or which you may obtain or make available to others using our services, we may collect other types of personal data from third parties, including:
where you are involved in providing transport-related services, identification, taxation, government or regulatory identifier (such as drivers’ licence details), and vehicle and insurance details;
personal data relating to any complaints you make or are made about you, including recording of any calls in that regard;
personal data collected and held via financial or payment systems about the payment mechanism or method that you might use (including credit card details) and the payments you may make for our services or any services procured or booked using our services;
personal data collected by third-party marketing, survey and advertising service providers;
personal data which is accessible from your use of online sites or applications in which we have an interest or provide (such as messages for the purposes of issuing and receiving one time passwords and other device verification) and device-related or device-generated personal data. The latter might include your device details, device IDs, your location, network connections, network access and communication and session data. Location data may also be collected or derived from IP addresses, mobile numbers and network information.
You generally have the option of not identifying yourself or of using a pseudonym when dealing with us, but not where this is impractical (for example when you transact online with us or you apply to provide transport-related services) or where the law or a court order provides otherwise.
Purpose of Processing:
We conduct the following type of processing with your personal information (either in isolation or in combination):
In connection with transport-related services by:
o providing Customers and Driver’s personal data (including name, current location, photograph, ratings and vehicle information) to each other in connection with the arrangement of specific transport-related services and to facilitate communications between drivers and users; and
o using your location data to record and verify trip and payment information if you provide or procure transport-related services using our services or are logged onto our website or application.
to store your data and retrieve as necessary to provide you with our services. We currently store all personal data in secure servers provided by Amazon Web Services, which are based in Singapore
to generate invoices after completion of ride. For customer invoicing, data will be shared with OLA NL and ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd. who act as data processors. ● to process and facilitate your payment for services, including as required by law; ● for direct marketing. We will also share your personal information to OLA group entities for the purpose of direct marketing;
for third-party advertising;
for automated processing and data profiling (See section titled ‘Automated decision making and profiling’ below);
for verification of your identity;
for additional security measures (for example, if you’re a driver with us, you will receive a request for selfie authentication, once a week, which will allow us to monitor misuse of your account).
If you want to understand the selfie authentication process better, please refer to our terms and conditions and the FAQ section here.
to develop insights about you or to personalise your offerings or experience in using our services or services of our third party business partners, including drivers; ● for research and development or to improve goods and services, for example in connection with safety and security and preventing fraud;
where you are involved in providing transport-related services, for any purposes reasonably connected with your application and our assessment of your application, including identification, document verification, driving history, criminal history and background checks (including verification of health information and to verify whether you are a driver eligible to provide private hire vehicle services or taxi service) and other manual processing checks regarding the verification of drivers and vehicles. We will use and may also disclose to our affiliates and third-party partners your personal information to verify your vehicle and licence details, set up your account and also contact you regarding your process. This includes sending you communications from time to time to remind you to complete your application if it is incomplete or if we need more information from you;
provide any additional services or categories of services for you, for example to enable accessibility features and fulfil your preferences regarding communications from us or with the customers and drivers.
in collaboration with certain third party business partners, where certain aspects of the processing is completed by the third party and personal information they collect about you is transferred to us in order to provide you Services as promised to you by that third party;
to assist in dispute resolution, investigating complaints and in enquiries and support; ● for incidental or other purposes related to the provision of services to you or the purposes referred to above.
where you have requested us for your personal data to be processed, such as any
human intervention in automated decision making, fulfilment of any subject rights requests, requests placed with our customer care; or any other information or action requested by you; and
as required or permitted by law, court order and any government, law enforcement or other regulatory body.
We may also use information held about you in the following ways:
Take steps in order to enter into any contract or carry out our obligations arising from any contract entered into between you and us including:
administering your account with us;
verifying and carrying out financial transactions in relation to payments you make through the Site and/or the App;
verifying that your account is not hacked/ stolen/ not wrongfully used;
verifying customer complaints about riding with a different driver
notifying you about changes to our service.
to register you and onboard you on the driving portal;
to calculate driver’s bills and incentives as a part of Accounting and Billing system;
to enable payments for drivers as a part of Accounting and Billing system;
to calculate driver’s bills and incentives as a part for Driver Incentive and performance system.
Ensure in our legitimate interests that:
content from our Site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your devices.
we provide you with the information, products and services that you request from us.
We will use this information in our legitimate interests, where we have considered these are not overridden by your rights:
To administer the Services and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes.
To keep the Services safe and secure.
For measuring or understanding the effectiveness of advertising we serve to you and others, and to deliver relevant advertising to you.
To improve the Services to ensure that content is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer.
To allow you to participate in interactive features of our service, when you choose to do so.
For purposes of investigation, complaints, legal, cyber defence, network and
service.
We may combine information we receive from other sources with information you give to us and information we collect about you in our legitimate interests (where we have considered that these are not overridden by your rights). We will use this
information and the combined information for the purposes set out above (depending on the types of information we receive).
We will share promotional updates and communications with your consent. Where you give us your consent, we will use your personal information for marketing analysis and to provide you with promotional update communications by email, text messages, in-application messages and/or push messages about our products and/or services. We may also share your personal information with third-party social media and other partner platforms in order to provide you with promotional update communications. You may view our partner platforms here.
You can object to further marketing at any time in your profile settings or by selecting the “unsubscribe” link at the end of all our marketing and promotional update communications to you.
The personal data we collect and hold is what is reasonably necessary for the provision of services to you and our business functions and activities. The legal bases for Ola’s processing of personal data are primarily that:
the processing is necessary for providing our products and services in accordance with our terms of service and that the processing is carried out in our legitimate interests;
the processing is necessary for the purpose of entering into or performance of a contract between you and us;
the processing is required and/or authorized under applicable law; 4. we have taken your consent where necessary, in the following scenarios:
For Customers:
to send marketing emails
to send communication via sms, email, push notification
For Drivers:
to send marketing emails
to identify the exact location of the driver
to upload selfie on the adjudication portal for SelfieAuth, for driver verification
to send communication via sms, email, push notification
to process special category of personal data
to process criminal conviction data
Additionally, the legal bases for Ola’s processing of special categories of data are primarily that:
the processing is required to prevent fraud
the processing is required for employment purposes
the processing is required for social security and social protection purposes Additionally, the legal bases for Ola’s processing of criminal conviction data are primarily that:
the processing is required for employment purposes
the processing is required for social security and social protection purposes
Please note that one of our primary purposes of processing is automated decision making and profiling based on the personal data provided. Automated decision making and profiling is a necessary processing activity without which we will not be able to provide you with our services. To learn more, please see our section on ‘Automated decision making and profiling’ below. We may process your personal data for other purposes which are within reasonable expectations. These may relate, for example to acting on your requests; our involvement in relationships between users, drivers and third-party suppliers of goods or services to you. We may also process your data for legal reasons such as: (i) legal process and legal requests; (ii) enforcement of the Terms of Service; (iii) claims that any content violates the rights of third parties; (iv) requests for customer service; (v) technical issues; (v) protecting the rights, property or personal safety of OLA, its users or the public; (vi) establishing or exercising our legal rights or defending against legal claims; or (vii) as otherwise required and/or permitted by law. We may anonymise, de-identify or aggregate your personal data prior to processing. For example, we may do this for the purposes of conducting analytics, for example the use and disclosure of anonymised data to determine preferences and patterns and for business improvement. If in the future, we intend to process your personal data for a purpose other than that which it was collected, we will provide you with information on that purpose and any other relevant information. Where necessary, we will procure your consent for such additional processing.
Automated decision making and profiling We use automated decision making (including profiling) without human intervention, as provided in the purpose of processing provided above. We use various combinations of the personal data collected (as listed above) to be able to provide you with our services. We will not process personal data involving automated decision making unless necessary for the provision of our services or for performance of a contract. The following types of automated decision making and profiling will be conducted as it is necessary to provide you our services.
For Customers: Allocation of Vehicles, Route Determination, Pricing, Payment Fraud Detection, Of ers and Communications
For Drivers: Driver Performance, Driver Authentication
We use a combination of customer and driver personal data, such as:
customer data such as frequency and time of usage of our site/application/services, payment modes, pickup and destination area, derived pickup locations, vehicle category preference, device information, gender, age, historical driver preference, cancellation history, fraud probability score and/or interaction history with customer care; and
driver data such as rating history, earning profile, booking cancellation history, booking acceptance history, distance from user, home location preference, payment method preference, fuel type of the car, leasing car, car maintenance history, proximity to
customer, fraud probability score, and/or interaction history with customer care,
to allocate drivers’ vehicles to requesting customers, and to determine the route and pricing. We also use a combination of the above information to communicate to customers and drivers regarding our offers, discounts, incentives and promotions. We also use this personal data to determine your preferences for pickup and destination locations.
Performance and Reliability of Users
Based on user ratings and their work performance, including any complaints received by us, we may automate the allocation of drivers to customers and vice versa. As automated decision making and profiling is conducted based on the varying requirements and interest of our users, we may combine the various other personal data provided to optimize the decisions listed above or to develop our services further. Please review this policy periodically to learn about any changes in how we conduct automated decision making or profiling.
We may give your information to:
Any member of our group, which means our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company, and its subsidiaries, who support our processing of personal data under this policy. Our group entities include the data controllers identified in this Policy.
Selected third parties.
Our selected third parties may include:
Organisations who process your personal data on our behalf and in accordance with our instructions and the Data Protection Law. This includes in supporting the services we offer through the Site and/or the App in particular those providing website and data hosting services, providing fulfilment services, distributing any communications we send, supporting or updating marketing lists, facilitating feedback on our services and providing IT support services from time to time. These organisations (which may include third party suppliers, agents, sub-contractors and/or other companies in our group) will only use your information to the extent necessary to perform their support functions.
Advertisers and advertising networks that require the data to select and serve relevant adverts to you and others. We do not disclose information about identifiable individuals to our advertisers, but we will provide them with aggregate information about our users (for example, we may inform them that 500 men aged under 30 have clicked on their advertisement on any given day). We may also use such aggregate information to help advertisers reach the kind of audience they want to target. We may make use of the personal data we have collected from you to enable us to comply with our advertisers’ wishes by displaying their advertisement to that target audience and subject to the cookie section of this policy. We will not send any third-party advertisements without your consent.
Analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of our site and subject to the cookie section of this policy (this will not identify you as an individual).
Business partners who provide services to you via the Site or the App and with whom we have entered into agreements in relation to the processing of your personal data.
Parties necessary for the provision of services to you and with whom we have entered into agreements in relation to the provision of services. For example, if you have requested to use the service as a customer or a driver-partner, we will share only such personal information to facilitate and complete the service. We do not provide your contact details in such cases.
Payment processing providers who provide secure payment processing services.
Your payment card details are not shared with us by the provider.
We may also disclose your personal information to third parties:
Where we think certain carefully selected partners may be of interest to you. These companies may contact you by post, email, telephone or fax for marketing or promotional purposes.
In the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we will disclose your personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets subject to the terms of this privacy policy.
If we or substantially all of our assets are acquired by a third party, in which case personal data held by it about its customers will be one of the transferred assets.
If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of supply other agreements with you; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of our drivers or customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction and to prevent cybercrime.
You can find more details regarding transfer of your information here.
The data that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the European Economic Area (“EEA“) that may not be subject to equivalent Data Protection Law. Where your information is transferred outside the EEA, we will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is subject to appropriate safeguards, such as relying on a recognised legal adequacy or contractual mechanisms, and/or contracts with third parties that include data protection requirements as required under the Data Protection laws of the relevant jurisdictions.
We may transfer your personal information outside the EEA:
In order to store it.
In order to enable us to provide services to you and fulfil our contract with you. This includes delivery of services that you have purchased (for example, if you are registered for the service in a country in the EEA but are using the App to book a service outside the EEA), processing of payment details, and the provision of support
services.
where we are legally required to do so.
in order to facilitate the operation of our group of businesses, where it is in our legitimate interests and we have concluded these are not overridden by your rights.
We may transfer your personal information to the following countries outside the EEA such as India and Singapore. Please see here for more information.
The Website/App is intended for use only by persons who are at least 16 years of age. By using the Website/App, you confirm to us that you meet this requirement.
Payment details you provide will be encrypted using secure sockets layer (SSL) technology before they are submitted to us over the internet. Payments made on the Website/App are made through our payment gateway providers. You will be providing credit or debit card information directly to our payment gateway providers, which operate secure servers to process payment details, encrypting your credit/debit card information and authorising payment. Information which you supply to our payment service providers is not within our control and is subject to the respective providers’ own privacy policy and terms and conditions.
We take reasonable and appropriate precautions to protect Your Personal Data from unauthorized disclosure and to prevent possible security breaches. We are continuously implementing and updating administrative, technical and physical security measures to help protect Your information against unauthorized access, loss, destruction or alteration. If You know or have reason to believe that Your account credentials have been lost, stolen, altered, or otherwise compromised or in case of any actual or suspected unauthorized use of Your account, please contact Us using the contact information provided below.
All information you provide to us is stored on our secure servers. Any payment transactions will be encrypted using SSL technology. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of the Services, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.
Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to the services; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorized access.
Our Site may, from time to time, contain links to external sites. We are not responsible for the privacy policies or the content of such sites.
We retain personal data for (i) as long as you have an account with us in order to meet our contractual obligations to you, and (ii) for 10 years after that to identify any issues and resolve any legal proceedings with an exception to selfies that will be stored for 6 months.
We retain special categories of data for a period of:
Biometric Data (selfie image)- 6 months
Others- 1o years
We retain criminal conviction data for a period of 10 years.
We may retain information for any other legal or regulatory requirement. We may also retain aggregate information beyond this time for research purposes and to help us develop and improve our services. You cannot be identified from aggregate information retained or used for these purposes.
Information You have shared with Us (e.g. complaints, feedback etc.) maybe retained, even after your account is cancelled for our legitimate purposes.
Because of the way We maintain certain services, after You delete Your Personal Data, residual copies may take some time before they are deleted from our active servers and may remain in our backup systems.
The above mentioned data will be retained for the specified timeline unless otherwise specified in any other policy or in changes to this policy. Ola reserves the right to amend retention periods at any time.
Subject to applicable law, you have the right under certain circumstances:
to be provided with a copy of your personal data held by us. Such right of access can normally be exercised free of charge, however we reserve the right to charge an appropriate administrative fee, for instance where you request multiple copies of your personal data;
to request the rectification or erasure of your personal data held by us;
to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data (while we verify or investigate your concerns with this information, for example);
to object to the further processing of your personal data, including the right to object to marketing (as mentioned in the section ‘Our promotional updates and communications above).
to request that your provided personal data be moved to a third party.
You may opt out at any time from allowing further access by us to your location in your device settings. You can also stop all information collection by uninstalling the App. You may use the standard uninstall processes as may be available for your mobile device.
Your right to withdraw consent:
Where the processing of your personal information by us is based on consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent without detriment at any time by
contacting us on the details provided below. You can also change your marketing preferences at any time as described in the section ‘Our promotional updates and communications’ above. Please note that withdrawing of consent has no impact on earlier processing of your personal data on such basis and does not prevent us from invoking another available legal basis for the processing of such personal data;
Right to lodge a complaint:
If your request or concern is not satisfactorily resolved by us, you may approach your local data protection authority. The ‘Information Commissioner’s Office’ is the supervisory authority in the UK and can provide further information about your rights and our obligations in relation to your personal data, as well as deal with any complaints that you have about our processing of your personal data. You can submit a complaint to the ICO here.
Customers may use the self-serve function on the Website/App in order to exercise the above rights. Drivers may exercise these rights by contacting us at dpo@olaride.uk. We may reach out to you to verify your identity or fulfil any other verification requirements before processing a request.
Any changes we make to our privacy policy in future will be posted on this page and, in relation to substantive changes, will be notified to you by email. To the extent permitted under applicable law, by using our services after such notice, you acknowledge and accept our updates to this policy. We encourage you to periodically review this policy for the latest information on our privacy practices. This policy was last updated on 3rd December, 2021.
Questions, comments, and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcomed and should be addressed to:
Data Protection Officer: Lilian Pang Address:
Ola UK Private Limited -Unit 06- 104, 131 Finsbury Pavement, Islington, London, United Kingdom, EC2A 1NT.