Privacy Policy

Which data Vodoro processes, why, and what your rights are.

Last updated: 2026-10-15

1. The essentials

  • We run Vodoro on our own servers in Germany. We do not sell data, show no advertising and use no third-party advertising or tracking services.
  • We process the data that ride sharing needs: your account, your rides and requests, your messages and ratings.
  • Other users only see what a ride requires. By default we do not show exact addresses.
  • For maps, address search, routing, push notifications, sign-in with Google, sending emails and the web app we use a few external services (sections 8, 14, 16 and 17).
  • You can delete your account in the app at any time (section 20).

2. Controller

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

Felix Kammerer – Vodoro Technologies
Owner: Felix Kammerer
Roth 5
91567 Herrieden
Germany
Email: info@vodoro.net

Further details are in our Impressum. We have not appointed a data protection officer because there is no legal obligation to do so. For questions about data protection, contact us at the email address above.

3. Scope

This privacy policy applies to the website vodoro.net, the web app at vodoro.net/app and the Vodoro apps for Android and iOS. Our website ai.vodoro.net (Vodoro AI) has its own privacy policy. Organisations that use a licensed group on Vodoro are themselves responsible for their own processing, for example of the reports they receive from us.

4. Hosting, infrastructure and security

We operate the website, the web app and the servers for the apps ourselves on our own hardware in Germany; we do not use an external hosting provider for this. Database backups are kept on the same infrastructure and are deleted automatically after seven days.

The connection between your device and our servers is encrypted with TLS. We store passwords only as a cryptographic hash. You can additionally enable two-factor authentication. Only people who need access to personal data to operate Vodoro have it.

5. Server log files

Each time the website, the web app or our interface (API) used by the apps is accessed, our server automatically processes: IP address, date and time, the requested address, HTTP status code and amount of data transferred, the previously visited page (referrer), and the identifier of your browser or app and operating system (user agent). To prevent abuse, we also briefly count how many requests come from an IP address.

The purpose is to deliver the content and to keep our systems stable and secure, for example to fend off attacks. The legal basis is Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR. Log entries are deleted after 14 days at the latest, unless an individual entry is needed to investigate a security incident.

6. Cookies and storage on your device

We do not use cookies or similar technologies for advertising or analytics. On your device we only store or read information that is strictly necessary for the functions you request (section 25 (2) no. 2 of the German Telecommunications Digital Services Data Protection Act, TDDDG):

  • Website: a cookie with the language you selected, a security cookie against cross-site request forgery (CSRF), and a session cookie where a session is needed, for example when submitting a form.
  • Web app: your browser's local storage holds your sign-in token and app settings so that you stay signed in.
  • Apps: your device holds your sign-in token in protected storage as well as your app settings.

The related processing of personal data is based on Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR (providing the functions) and Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR (security).

7. Audience measurement with Umami

Website

On vodoro.net we measure our audience with Umami, which we run ourselves on our own server (analytics.vodoro.net). Umami sets no cookies and does not store IP addresses. It records the page visited, the previously visited page, browser, operating system, device type, screen size, language and the country derived from the IP address. To count visits, Umami derives a pseudonymous identifier from the IP address, the browser identifier and a regularly changing secret value; the IP address itself is not stored. If you have enabled "Do Not Track" in your browser, no measurement takes place. No data is passed on to third parties.

Events in the app

In addition, our server reports certain events to this Umami instance: registration, account confirmation, sign-in and failed sign-in attempts, password changes, switching two-factor authentication on or off, and creating rides and groups. It stores the language, the identifier of the browser or app, for most account-related events your user ID and, at registration, the domain of your email address (such as "gmail.com"), but not the address itself. We evaluate this pseudonymous data statistically to improve Vodoro and to detect abuse.

In both cases the legal basis is Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR; our legitimate interest is improving and securing our service. We delete the data as soon as it is no longer needed for these purposes. You can object to this processing under Art. 21 GDPR (section 21).

8. Registration and user account

To register we need your first and last name, your email address and a password. To protect against automated sign-ups we use a captcha generated by our own server. After submitting the form you receive an email with a link to confirm your email address.

Optionally, you can add a profile picture, a description, a phone number, your home town and details of your vehicles (make, model, year, colour, licence plate and seats), and choose settings for language, notifications and visibility. We use your home town to suggest events near you. If you enable two-factor authentication, we store the secret key it needs and your recovery codes.

The legal basis is Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR. We keep this data until you delete your account (section 20).

Sign-in with Google

Instead of an email address and password you can register and sign in with your Google account. The provider is Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland ("Google"). After you confirm, Google sends us your name, your email address, whether it is verified, and a pseudonymous Google identifier. We store the link to your account and the time of your last sign-in. Google learns that you are signing in to Vodoro. The legal basis is Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR; for transfers to the USA see section 19. More information: policies.google.com/privacy.

9. Offering, finding and sharing rides

To match rides, we process:

  • for rides offered: origin and destination, departure time, route and stopovers, free seats, vehicle, price per kilometre or fixed price per passenger, description, information on luggage and pets, the visibility and, for regular rides, the weekdays;
  • for ride requests: pick-up and drop-off location, preferred times, number of people, your message, the status of the request, the calculated distance including the detour, and both the cost contribution shown when you made the request and the current one;
  • for ride searches and ride alerts: pick-up location and destination, time and number of people;
  • about the course of a ride: the status of a ride (for example started, finished or cancelled), the number of your cancellations, and the distances and CO₂ savings calculated from your rides.

The legal basis is Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR. We keep this data as long as your account exists; section 20 explains what happens when it is deleted.

What other users see

  • By default, we show others only the town of a ride's origin and destination (such as "91567 Herrieden"), not the exact address – not even after a request has been accepted. Drivers can voluntarily reveal the full address separately for the start and the destination. Revealing is switched off by default, can be withdrawn at any time and applies to everyone who can see the ride: depending on the setting all users, only the members of a group or only the participants of an event.
  • The map view of a ride shows the actual route, regardless of whether the address is shown as text. So only choose a start or destination whose location you are happy to share with everyone who can see the ride.
  • Only the driver sees the pick-up and drop-off locations of passengers; other passengers do not.
  • Ride searches appear with your name, the towns, the direction, the time and the number of people. If an address is shared only as a town, the map shows a circle of about 4 km instead that contains your location but is deliberately not centred on it.
  • For a ride, others see the driver's name and profile picture and the vehicle details including the licence plate, so that passengers can recognise the vehicle.

Voluntarily revealing the full address is based on your consent (Art. 6 (1) (a) GDPR). You can withdraw it at any time by changing the setting or deleting the ride.

10. Location, camera and photos

We only access your device's location when you explicitly use it, for example via "Current location" in the place search, and have granted the permission. The location is then determined once and stored only as the place you chose. There is no location tracking in the background or during a ride.

The app only accesses the camera and photos when you take or select a picture, for example for your profile picture, a message or a report.

You can revoke permissions at any time in your device settings. The access is strictly necessary for the function you request (section 25 (2) no. 2 TDDDG); further processing is based on Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR.

11. Your profile and what others see of it

Other users see your profile with your name, profile picture, description, the date you registered, the number of your rides and cancellations and – depending on your visibility settings – your ratings, your CO₂ balance and distances travelled, your achievements and your friends list. Friends also see the public groups and events you both belong to. We do not show your email address, phone number or home town to other users.

12. Messages, groups, events and feed

  • Chats: we store messages (text, images and reactions) and their read status on our server so that they can be delivered and shown to the participants. Transmission is encrypted; there is no end-to-end encryption. We only look at messages where this is necessary to handle a report (section 13), to fix technical faults or because of a legal obligation.
  • Groups and events: memberships, join requests and invitations, as well as posts, comments, reactions, polls and images in the feed, are visible to the members of the group or the participants of the event. Whoever manages a group or event sees its members and join requests.
  • Friendships: we store friend requests and friendships until one of the people involved ends them or deletes their account.

The legal basis is Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR.

13. Ratings, reports and safety

After a ride you can rate each other. We store the stars, the comment, the time and the person giving and receiving the rating, and calculate your average from them. You decide in your settings who can see your ratings.

If you report or block other users, we store the report (category, description, the ride or message concerned and any screenshots) or the block. For every account we keep a safety profile with the number of reports received and confirmed and a score calculated from them. Accounts with several reports are automatically flagged for review; restrictions or suspensions are always decided by a human. We do not tell reported users who reported them unless disclosure is required by law.

The legal bases are Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR for ratings as part of the platform, Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR for protecting users and enforcing our terms, and Art. 6 (1) (c) GDPR in conjunction with Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 on digital services. We keep reports until the review is completed and beyond that only as long as necessary to prevent repeated violations or to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

14. Notifications and emails

We inform you about requests, confirmations, messages, reminders and other events in the app, by push notification or by email – depending on your notification settings.

  • Push notifications: on Android we use Firebase Cloud Messaging by Google Ireland Limited, on iOS the Apple Push Notification service by Apple Distribution International Ltd., Hollyhill Industrial Estate, Hollyhill, Cork, Ireland. For this we store a device token. The content and token of a notification are delivered via Google's or Apple's servers. You can switch push notifications off at any time in the app or in your device settings.
  • Emails: we send you emails to confirm your email address, to reset your password, about changes to your email address and – if you have chosen so – notifications. We send them via mailbox.org, a service of Heinlein Hosting GmbH, Schwedter Straße 8/9A, 10119 Berlin, Germany. It processes and stores the content of the emails on our behalf on servers in Germany; we have concluded a data processing agreement with it under Art. 28 GDPR.
  • Promotional emails, for example about news or campaigns, are only sent if you have consented in the settings (Art. 6 (1) (a) GDPR). You can withdraw your consent there at any time.

The legal basis for notifications and service emails is Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR; for transfers to the USA see section 19.

15. Support chat with an AI assistant

In the app's support chat, an AI assistant answers your questions; the chat says so. We run the language model ourselves on our own server in Germany. Your messages are not sent to external AI providers and are not used to train a model. The conversation is stored like other chats; where needed, we read it to handle your request personally. The legal basis is Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR. Please do not enter special categories of personal data such as health data in the chat. The AI's answers may be incomplete or wrong.

16. Maps, address search and routing

  • Maps: the app or your browser loads map tiles directly from the servers of the OpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF), St John's Innovation Centre, Cowley Road, Cambridge, CB4 0WS, United Kingdom. The OSMF receives your IP address, the tiles requested and the identifier of your browser or app. An adequacy decision of the European Commission exists for the United Kingdom. More information: osmfoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_Policy.
  • Address search: when you enter a place, our server sends the search term to the Google Maps Platform (Places API) by Google Ireland Limited or, as a fallback, to the OSMF's Nominatim service. We cache the results without any reference to you to avoid repeated requests.
  • Routing: to calculate routes, distances and detours, our server sends the coordinates of the start, destination and stopovers to the Google Maps Platform (Routes API) or, as a fallback, to the routing server of FOSSGIS e.V. in Germany.
  • For address search and routing our server only transmits the places or coordinates, no information about you and not your IP address.
  • Navigation: the navigation link lets you open a route in Google Maps. You then leave Vodoro, and Google's terms apply.

The legal basis is Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR insofar as these services are needed to search for and match rides, and otherwise Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR; our legitimate interest is reliable map display and route calculation.

17. Web app: program components from Google

When it starts, the web app at vodoro.net/app loads the graphics engine (CanvasKit) and, where needed, additional fonts – for example for emojis – from servers of Google LLC (www.gstatic.com and fonts.gstatic.com). Your IP address and browser identifier are transmitted to Google in the process. The legal basis is Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR; our legitimate interest is a reliable and fast display of the web app. The Android and iOS apps are not affected.

18. Organisations, booking a demo and contact

Statistics for organisations with a group licence

For groups that belong to an organisation with a group licence – for example a company for its staff – we produce monthly and yearly statistics: the number of active and of all members, the number of rides and shared rides, kilometres driven, CO₂ emissions saved, frequently travelled routes, active places, a daily overview and the up to five most active drivers with their display name and number of rides. The group's managers see these statistics in the app and as a PDF report.

The legal basis is Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR. The legitimate interest of the organisation and our own is to measure the effect of the ride-sharing offer, to document CO₂ savings and to encourage ride sharing. Apart from the list of the most active drivers, the statistics only contain aggregated figures. You can object to being named in that list at any time (section 21). The statistics are kept as long as the group exists.

With organisations that take out a licence we also process contract data such as company name, contact person, address, email address, phone number and contract term (Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR), and we keep invoices and accounting records for the statutory periods (Art. 6 (1) (c) GDPR).

Booking a demo

On the "Book a demo" page you can book an appointment with us directly. The booking form comes from Nextcloud, the groupware we run ourselves on our server in Germany (cloud.vodoro.net), and is embedded in the page. It only loads when you open that page.

When you book, we process your name, your email address, the time you choose and anything else you enter in the form, in order to arrange and hold the call. The appointment is stored in our calendar. You receive a confirmation by email with the link to the video call and a link to cancel; we send these emails via mailbox.org (section 14).

The call takes place in Nextcloud Talk on the same server; you join in the browser without an account. To set up the audio and video connection, your browser contacts a so-called STUN server, which sees your IP address. We use the STUN server of Nextcloud GmbH, Stuttgart (stun.nextcloud.com). While you use the booking form, Nextcloud sets technically necessary cookies on cloud.vodoro.net (a session cookie and security cookies).

The legal basis is Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR, as the call is a pre-contractual measure taken at your request. We keep the appointment until the call has taken place and any follow-up questions are settled, and delete it afterwards unless statutory retention obligations apply.

Contact form and email

If you write to us via the contact form or by email, we process your name, your email address, the subject and your message in order to handle your request. Messages from the contact form reach us by email via mailbox.org (section 14). The legal basis is Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR where your request concerns an existing or possible contract, and otherwise Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR; our legitimate interest is answering your request. We delete the request once it has been dealt with and no statutory retention obligations apply.

19. Recipients and transfers to third countries

We do not sell personal data and do not pass it on for advertising purposes. Recipients of your data are:

  • other users to the extent described;
  • managers of groups and events and organisations with a group licence (section 18);
  • the services named above: Google (sign-in, address search, routing, push notifications on Android, program components of the web app), Apple (push notifications on iOS), the OpenStreetMap Foundation (maps and address search), FOSSGIS e.V. (routing), Heinlein Hosting GmbH (emails via mailbox.org) and Nextcloud GmbH (connection set-up for video calls);
  • authorities and courts where we are legally obliged to disclose data (Art. 6 (1) (c) GDPR).

Google and Apple may also process data in the USA. Google LLC is certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, for which an adequacy decision of the European Commission exists (Art. 45 GDPR; Google's entry). According to its own information, Apple bases transfers to third countries on the European Commission's standard contractual clauses (Art. 46 (2) (c) GDPR). An adequacy decision also exists for the United Kingdom, where the OpenStreetMap Foundation is based.

20. Retention and deleting your account

We only keep personal data for as long as it is needed for the purposes described or statutory retention obligations apply. You can delete your account in the app at any time. We then

  • delete your profile and profile picture, your messages, your vehicles, your device tokens, rides and requests in which nobody else took part, the ratings about you and your remaining account data;
  • transfer rides and ratings you gave in which other users took part to an anonymous placeholder ("Deleted account"), so that their ride history, ratings and statistics are preserved; there is no longer any link to you;
  • keep aggregated statistics. In group statistics that have already been produced, a display name listed there remains as long as those statistics are stored.

Deleted data remains in backups for up to seven days. Documents we are obliged to keep, such as invoices to organisations, are stored until the statutory periods of up to ten years have expired (section 147 of the German Fiscal Code, section 257 of the German Commercial Code).

21. Your rights

Under the GDPR you have the right of access (Art. 15), rectification (Art. 16), erasure (Art. 17), restriction of processing (Art. 18) and data portability (Art. 20). You can withdraw any consent you have given at any time with effect for the future (Art. 7 (3)). You can change or delete much of your information directly in the app; for anything else, an informal message to info@vodoro.net is enough. Exercising your rights is free of charge.

Right to object (Art. 21 GDPR)

Where we process data on the basis of Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR, you can object to the processing at any time on grounds relating to your particular situation. We will then no longer process the data unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds that override your interests, rights and freedoms, or the processing serves to establish, exercise or defend legal claims. You can object to processing for direct marketing at any time without giving reasons.

Right to lodge a complaint

You can lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority, in particular in the Member State of your residence, your place of work or the place of the alleged infringement (Art. 77 GDPR). The authority responsible for us is the Bavarian State Office for Data Protection Supervision (BayLDA), Promenade 18, 91522 Ansbach, Germany, www.lda.bayern.de.

22. Obligation to provide data and automated decisions

The information required for registration, rides and requests is necessary to use Vodoro; without it we cannot perform the contract. All other information is voluntary.

We do not make decisions based solely on automated processing, including profiling, within the meaning of Art. 22 GDPR. Suggestions of suitable rides and the automatic flagging of accounts reported several times for review have no legal or similarly significant effect on you.

23. Minimum age

Vodoro is intended for people aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly process data of children.

24. Changes to this privacy policy

We update this privacy policy when our processing or the legal situation changes. The version published here always applies.