Privacy policy

Who we are

Passdesk is a software platform used by independent driving schools (each, a "school") to manage their learners, instructors, lessons, purchases, and progress records. Each school is the "data controller" for data it collects; Passdesk Ltd is the "data processor" operating the service on their behalf.

Passdesk Ltd is registered in England & Wales, company number 17193377, with registered office at 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9JQ. It is registered with the UK Information Commissioner's Office under registration number ZC142229. For data-protection questions email [email protected].

This policy describes what personal data we hold, why we hold it, the lawful basis under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, and the rights you have over it. Where a school or a learner is established in the EU or the EEA, the EU GDPR (Regulation (EU) 2016/679) applies to the same processing, and the rights and duties described here read across to it.

Data we collect

Account data — your name, email, phone number, address, password hash, role and the school you belong to. Supplied by you on signup or by a school administrator when they invite you.

Learner profile — date of birth, provisional licence number, theory and practical test dates, medical self-declarations, and emergency contact or guardian details where you are under 18. Used to schedule lessons, comply with DVSA rules, and run safeguarding procedures. The optional medical information is “special category” health data: we store it only with your explicit consent, encrypt it at rest, and share it only with your instructor(s) so they can keep you safe during lessons.

Instructor compliance — ADI / PDI badge number, badge expiry, DBS check date and certificate number, insurance policy number and expiry. Stored to prove DVSA compliance during inspections.

Lessons, progress and purchases — when lessons were booked and completed, ratings and notes on competencies, products you bought, amounts paid, and the status of each purchase.

Instructors' voice memos — an instructor can record a short voice memo about a lesson. It's saved with the lesson, and the learner can play it from their Progress page. If the school switches on transcription, Google Cloud turns the memo into text in its EU region and keeps no copy of the recording. The text is saved with the memo, is visible only to people who can already play it, and is deleted when the memo is. It's used to suggest skill marks for the instructor to check, and, where the school has lesson summaries on, Anthropic's AI model reads it to write the learner's summary and a short note for the instructor who teaches the next lesson.

Parents and supervising drivers — a learner or their school can link a parent, guardian or supervising driver to the learner's account. Once the link is active, that person can sign in and see the learner's lessons, progress and practice, and record the practice drives they supervise. We hold their name, contact details and the drives they log. They see only the learners they're linked to, and the learner or the school can remove the link at any time.

Practice routes — if you use the optional practice-routes feature, recording captures a GPS trail of the drive on your own device; nothing reaches our servers until you choose to save the route. Recording only runs when you start it, a visible banner shows while it's active, and you can stop it at any time. Saved routes are stored encrypted, are visible only to you unless you choose to share them with your school, and you can delete them whenever you like.

Invited instructors who aren’t yet users — when a learner invites their driving instructor to join them on Passdesk, and that instructor doesn’t already have an account, we keep their email address so we can tell them about Passdesk. We say so in the invitation email, and you can reply to it to be removed. We hold nothing else about you, we never buy or sell these addresses, and the record is deleted when the invitation is withdrawn or lapses — and in any case within 90 days — unless you go on to open an account.

Questions you ask the help assistant — if you use the Help button in the app, we keep the questions you type and the answers you were shown for 90 days, so we can see which questions our guides don't answer yet. Each question goes to Anthropic's AI model to find the answer in our guides, with any card number removed first. Your name, email address and phone number aren't sent with it.

Questions your school asks Passdesk — if your driving school switches on Ask Passdesk, its owners and staff can ask about the school's records or set up a booking, move or cancellation for them to confirm. To answer, the records a question needs go to Anthropic's AI model: that can include learners' names, lesson dates and times, amounts paid and owed, and notes the school's team or learners wrote. Phone numbers, email and home addresses, dates of birth, licence numbers, guardian details and health notes are never sent. Staff only get answers from records they can already see in Passdesk, and the chats are kept for 30 days. If someone uses the microphone, their own browser or phone turns the speech into text (Google in Chrome and Edge, Apple in Safari and on iPhone); Passdesk never receives the recording.

Technical data — the JWT session cookie / token issued when you sign in, the IP address your request comes from, and the user-agent of your browser. We do not keep our own application-level access log of your IP address; it appears only in our hosting provider's infrastructure request logs, covered under “How long we keep it” below. Where you give a specific consent — for example a parent or guardian confirming an under-18 account, or agreeing to store health information — we separately record the IP address at that moment as evidence of the consent and keep it with your account. No analytics or advertising cookies are used; the usage counts described under How we improve Passdesk work without them.

Why we use it

To operate the service you or your school asked us to provide — book and run driving lessons, record progress, process purchases, and keep the inspectors' paperwork up to date. The lawful basis is contract for anything necessary to deliver the service, legal obligation for records we must keep (tax, DVSA, DBS), and legitimate interests for security logging, fraud prevention and counting how Passdesk is used so we can improve it. For the optional health information in your learner profile — a “special category” of data — our additional condition for processing is your explicit consent (UK GDPR Article 9(2)(a)), which you give when you save it and can withdraw at any time by removing it.

We never sell your data or share it with advertisers.

Who we share it with

Within Passdesk, data is only visible to staff at your school, to a parent or supervising driver linked to a learner (for that learner only), and to Passdesk Ltd support acting on the school's instructions. To run the service we use a small set of vetted sub-processors — for database and application hosting, our CDN and file storage, card payments, transactional email, SMS, error monitoring, usage counts, maps, calendar sync, address lookup, business verification, the AI model behind product import, the in-app help assistant, Ask Passdesk where a school switches it on, optional lesson summaries and the note your next instructor sees, turning instructors' voice memos into text where a school switches it on, and a rate-limit cache — each bound by a data-processing agreement and receiving only the data its function needs. The current list is published on our security page. We also disclose data to regulators or law enforcement where we are legally required to do so.

Calendar sync (Google and Microsoft)

A school can optionally connect a Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook calendar so lessons booked in Passdesk appear there automatically. When a calendar is connected, Passdesk creates, updates, and removes calendar events for lessons managed through the platform. If the school also turns on busy-time blocking, Passdesk periodically reads upcoming events from the connected calendar and stores only each event's start time, end time, and title, so the scheduler can avoid double-booking. Wider calendar content — attendees, descriptions, attachments, or events outside the sync window — is never copied, analysed, or shared.

To operate the connection we store the connected account's email address and the security tokens (OAuth access and refresh tokens) the provider issues; tokens are never shown to school staff and are masked in our audit logs. Disconnecting the calendar from the settings page revokes Passdesk's access and deletes the stored tokens along with every synced event and busy-time record.

Passdesk's use and transfer to any other app of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. Calendar data is never used for advertising, never sold, and never read by a human except with your permission, for security purposes, or where the law requires it.

International transfers

Your data is stored and primarily processed in the UK. Some of our sub-processors are based in the United States — for example our payment, email, SMS, error-monitoring, maps and CDN providers. Where they process personal data outside the UK, those transfers are protected by appropriate UK GDPR safeguards: the UK International Data Transfer Agreement (IDTA), the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, or, where the provider is certified, the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework. We transfer only the minimum data each provider needs, and never to a provider without such safeguards in place. Voice memos a school has transcribed are turned into text in Google's EU region, which UK adequacy regulations cover.

If you are in the EU or the EEA, sending your data to us is a transfer to the UK, which is a third country under the EU GDPR. It is covered by the European Commission's adequacy decision for the UK (Implementing Decision (EU) 2021/1772), which the Commission renewed on 19 December 2025 and which runs to 27 December 2031. If that decision ever lapses, we fall back on the Standard Contractual Clauses in Commission Decision (EU) 2021/914 — module two where we act as your processor, module three where a sub-processor is involved.

If you're in the EU or EEA

Passdesk is available to schools and learners across the EU and EEA. Your data is held in the same place as everyone else's — the UK, in a London region, under the transfer basis set out above. Nothing about where you are changes what we collect or how long we keep it.

You have the same rights under the EU GDPR that this policy describes: access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability, and objection. Email [email protected] to exercise any of them.

You can also complain to the data-protection authority for the country you live or work in. In Ireland that is the Data Protection Commission; the European Data Protection Board lists every national authority. Where a school is your data controller, its own supervisory authority is named on that school's privacy page.

EU representative. Where Article 27 of the EU GDPR requires a representative in the Union, that appointment is being confirmed — email [email protected] in the meantime and we will handle your request directly.

Anonymised industry insights

Passdesk may use anonymised, aggregated data — never tied to a named learner, instructor, school, or licence number — to publish industry insights such as average lessons-to-test, regional pass-rate trends, theory category difficulty, and similar benchmarks. Properly anonymised data falls outside the scope of UK GDPR personal data (ICO Anonymisation Code of Practice).

Concretely, we strip every direct identifier (name, email, phone, postcode beyond the outward code, licence number, date of birth beyond age-at-test), aggregate to groups of at least 20 records before publication, and never re-identify. We may publish these in blog posts, white papers, sector reports, or share them with research partners on the same anonymised basis. You can opt out at any time: individuals can turn off research participation from their account settings, and if you'd prefer your school's records be excluded from these aggregates entirely, email [email protected] and we'll exclude you.

How we improve Passdesk

To see which parts of Passdesk get used and which don't, the app counts the pages people open and a few actions, such as opening Help or asking Ask Passdesk a question. We send these counts to PostHog, which stores them in the EU. Each one carries the page's address with record numbers and link codes taken out, whether you're on a phone or a computer, and your role (owner, staff, instructor, learner or parent).

For school owners and staff, the counts also carry an account number and the school's plan, so we can see how a school's team uses Passdesk over time. Learners, parents and solo learners are never given a number that lasts beyond the page they're on, so we can see what learners use without following any one person. We never send anything you type, your name, your email address or your location, we've told PostHog not to keep your IP address, and no cookies are set. Our lawful basis is legitimate interests: making Passdesk better for the schools and learners who use it.

You can switch this off under Privacy & data on your account page. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal, nothing is counted at all. Passdesk support staff are never counted, including while they help with an account.

Under-18 learners

Passdesk Solo accepts self-serve signups from learners aged 17 and over (the age at which a UK provisional driving licence becomes available). If a learner is under 18 at signup, we require a parent or guardian email and send a one-time confirmation link to that address before the trial starts. No card is asked for at signup, and confirming never charges anything. The under-18 account stays inactive until a parent or guardian visits the link and confirms. We record the confirmation timestamp, the IP address it was received from, and the policy version in force at the time as evidence of consent (UK GDPR Article 7).

Where a school invites an under-18 learner to a paid Passdesk school account, the school itself collects guardian contact details on the learner record and the school is the data controller for that consent. Either way, parents / guardians can ask us to delete their child's data at any time via the contact details below.

We do not knowingly accept self-serve signups from anyone under 17. If you believe a child under 17 has registered, contact us at the email below and we will delete the account.

Marketing emails

If you ask us to send you a guide or checklist from this site, we store your email address, the exact wording of the opt-in you agreed to, the date you agreed, and the page you came from. The lawful basis is your consent (UK GDPR Article 6(1)(a)), and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations apply to the emails themselves. The tick box is never pre-ticked.

We use double opt-in: we email you a confirmation link first, and nothing else is sent unless you click it. If you never confirm, we delete the address within 30 days. Once confirmed you get the thing you asked for plus a short series of emails about running a driving school — a few a month at most.

Every one of those emails has an unsubscribe link, and your mail app's own unsubscribe button works too. One click stops all marketing email from us; we keep a record of the address on a suppression list purely so we can honour that. Marketing consent is separate from the essential emails a Passdesk account gets (password resets, lesson reminders, billing notices) — unsubscribing here never stops those.

We do not sell or share this list, and we do not use it for advertising or profiling.

How long we keep it

Active account data is retained while your account is active. If you stop using the service, we flag your records for review after 3 years of inactivity; records with no legal retention requirement are then deleted. If you ask us to delete your account, or your driving school removes you, we erase your personal data after a 30-day grace period: your contact details, progress, messages, reviews, photos and future bookings. What you bought and the lessons you've already had stay in the school's records without your name, because the school needs them for its accounts, and announcements you sent as a member of a school's staff stay in its records without your name too. Payments you made to Passdesk directly are kept without your name for as long as HMRC rules require (up to 7 years), then deleted. Audit logs are retained for 2 years. Questions asked through the in-app help assistant are deleted after 90 days. Ask Passdesk chats are deleted after 30 days. Usage counts are deleted after 12 months. The IP address you connect from is not stored in an application-level access log; it appears only in our hosting provider's infrastructure request logs, retained under the provider's standard retention (currently up to 30 days).

Your rights

Under UK GDPR you have the right to: access the data we hold about you; correct inaccurate data; request erasure of data we no longer need; restrict processing; object to processing based on legitimate interests; and receive a portable copy of the data you provided to us.

You can export a copy of your data at any time from the My account page. For erasure, correction or any other subject-access request, email [email protected].

Cookies

We use one essential cookie for sign-in (the session JWT), and one preference cookie that remembers the appearance you pick (light, dark or match my device) so the choice carries between passdesk.co.uk and the app. No analytics, advertising or tracking cookies are set, and the usage counts in How we improve Passdesk store nothing on your device beyond remembering if you switch them off. Under the UK Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), cookies that are essential or that store a setting you asked for do not require opt-in consent; we still show a one-off banner the first time you visit so you know we set them.

Test centre finder

The test centre finder on our public test centres page turns the postcode you type into a location so we can sort centres by distance. That lookup happens in your browser against postcodes.io, a free service run by Ideal Postcodes using Ordnance Survey open data — so your postcode is sent to them, not to us. We do not store it, and you do not need an account to use the finder. If you choose "Use my location" instead, your browser asks your permission first and the coordinates never leave your device.

Complaints

If you think we have mishandled your data, please email [email protected] first. You also have the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, or, if you are in the EU or EEA, to the data-protection authority where you live or work — see If you're in the EU or EEA above.

Contact

For anything relating to the Passdesk platform itself, contact [email protected].

About references to the DVSA

Passdesk is an independent product and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA). Where the site describes features as "DVSA-aligned" or references the DVSA driving-test syllabus, theory categories, or test centres, those references describe the public information published by the agency that Passdesk's tools are built to mirror — not any endorsement or partnership.

Open data we use

To allow for driving time between pickups, Passdesk uses postcode locations from Ordnance Survey's Code-Point Open, under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026.
Contains Royal Mail data © Royal Mail copyright and database right 2026.
Contains National Statistics data © Crown copyright and database right 2026.