Privacy

Last updated 4 October 2026

Patina is a place to keep your car repairs together: cars, parts, costs, receipts and photos. This page says what we store about you, why, and what you can do about it.

Who is responsible

Patina decides how your data is used (the "controller"). Contact: hello@patinaservice.com.

What we store

• Your email address, to sign you in. There is no password: we email you a single-use link that works for 15 minutes. We keep only a hash of the link, never the link itself.
• What you enter: cars (make, model, year, engine, plate, VIN if you add it, prices, dates), expenses (descriptions, part numbers, amounts, notes), uploaded receipts and car photos.
• Settings: your VAT rate and the shops you add.

We do not use advertising, tracking pixels or analytics, and we do not sell data.

Why we use it

To provide the service you asked for: to sign you in, show your cars and costs, and keep your files. The legal basis is the contract between you and us (GDPR Art. 6(1)(b)). If you add service reminders, we email your address a summary when a job is due; you can switch this off on any car page. Short-lived server logs (such as IP address and time of a request) are kept for security and fixing errors, on the basis of our legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)).

Who can see it

• Only you see your cars, prices, receipts and photos. Files are not public; they are only served to the signed-in account that owns them.
• One thing is shared, anonymously: when you mark a part as bought, its type, number and brand are saved against the car's make, model and engine so the next person can see what fitted. No prices, plates, VINs, names or accounts are attached.
• Service providers that process data for us: our hosting and file storage provider, and our email provider that delivers sign-in links. They may only use the data to provide that service.
• Wikimedia: to find a stock photo we ask Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons for a picture of the car's make, model and year. Nothing else about you or your car is sent.
• The shop links on the part search open other websites. What you do there is between you and that shop.

Cookies

Only the ones the site needs: a session cookie that keeps you signed in and a security token against forged requests. No consent banner is needed because there are no tracking cookies. Fonts are hosted by us, so your browser does not contact Google.

How long we keep it

Until you delete it. Deleting a car removes its expenses, part votes, receipts and photo. To delete your whole account and everything in it, email us and we will do it. Backups, if any, are overwritten on their normal cycle.

Your rights

You can ask us for a copy of your data, to correct it, to delete it, or to restrict how we use it, and you can object to its use. Email us and we will answer within one month. If you think we handle your data wrongly, you can complain to the data protection authority.

Where the data is

We aim to keep it in the European Economic Area. If a provider moves data outside it, they must use a lawful transfer mechanism such as the EU Standard Contractual Clauses.

Changes

If we change this page in a way that matters, we will say so on the site or by email before it applies.