Legal

Privacy Policy

Last updated: 1 October 2026

This notice explains how Driving Mastery collects, uses, stores, and shares personal data when you use our website, in accordance with the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018.

Data Controller

Driving Mastery ("we", "us", or "our") operates https://drivingmastery.co.uk. You can contact us at support@drivingmastery.co.uk.

Data We Collect

• Account details: your email address and the town or city you give when you create an account, and your name if you choose to add it on your Account page
• Your self-declared 16+ account eligibility confirmation and the date and time it was confirmed
• Learning activity, including module progress, quiz answers, mock-test results, road-sign practice, hazard perception clip attempts and the timing of your clicks within a clip, and study goals
• Messages you send to Theo, Theo's responses, and the learning context used to personalise those responses
• If you chat with Theo on our homepage without signing in: the messages you type and Theo's replies, linked to your browser session rather than to an account. If you are signed in, a chat there is part of your own conversation with Theo, described above
• Technical and security information needed to operate and protect the service
• Website usage and analytics information where you consent to optional analytics cookies
• Purchase information if you buy a paid plan, including a record of the plan and amount, your immediate-access consent (with its date and time), and payment references from our payment processor — we do not receive or store your full card details
• If you send an enquiry to a driving instructor listed on the site: the name, phone number, and postcode you enter on that instructor’s page, or give to an AI assistant you ask to send the enquiry for you, together with which instructor you contacted, when, and whether an assistant sent it. You do not need an account to send an enquiry; if you are signed in, we record that the enquiry came from your account

How We Use Your Data

• To create and maintain your account and save your learning progress
• To count how many learners we have in each town or city, so we know where to offer driving instructors on the site
• To provide modules, quizzes, mock tests, road-sign practice, hazard perception clip practice and scoring, and personalised study recommendations
• To provide Theo's AI-assisted learning support when you choose to use it
• To send a one-off welcome email when you create an account, explaining how to use the service
• To send study-reminder emails (such as streak reminders and "pick up where you left off" nudges) if you have opted in, using your real progress data such as your streak, category accuracy, and questions answered
• To take payment for paid plans, give you the access you purchased, send a purchase confirmation, and handle any refunds or payment queries
• To handle your enquiry and put you in touch with the driving instructor you chose, so that they can contact you about lessons, and to keep a record that we did so. Every enquiry comes to Driving Mastery. Where the instructor has given us an email address we also send it straight to them; where they have not, we hold it and pass your details on ourselves
• To secure, troubleshoot, and improve the service
• To measure website usage where you have consented to analytics
• To meet legal obligations and establish or defend legal claims where necessary

Lawful Bases

We process account and learning data because it is necessary to provide the service you request. Where you buy a paid plan, we process your purchase and payment information because it is necessary to perform our contract with you and to meet our legal and accounting obligations. We may rely on our legitimate interests to keep the service secure, diagnose faults, and improve core functionality, provided those interests do not override your rights. We rely on consent for optional analytics cookies, and you can withdraw that consent by changing your cookie choice.

Where you send an enquiry to an instructor, we process and share the details you give because you have asked us to put you in touch with that instructor. You choose whether to send it, and you choose which instructor it is for. Every enquiry is sent to Driving Mastery, and it is also emailed directly to the instructor where they have given us an address. If they have not, we hold your details until we pass them on to that instructor ourselves. If you change your mind, contact us and we will delete our record and will not pass your details on — but we cannot recall an email that has already been sent to an instructor.

The one-off welcome email is sent to every new account as part of providing the service and does not require separate consent. Study-reminder emails (streak reminders and win-back nudges) are sent only with your consent: a new account starts with them switched off, and you can opt in or out at any time from a toggle on the Account page. Every study-reminder email includes a one-click unsubscribe link that works without logging in, and you can withdraw consent at any time with no effect on your access to the service.

Cookies

Necessary cookies support functions such as authentication, security, and remembering your cookie preference. Optional analytics are disabled unless you accept them through the consent banner.

• Necessary cookies: required for core functionality
• Analytics cookies: used to measure website usage only with your consent

Sharing and Third-Party Services

We do not sell your personal data. We use service providers only where needed to operate the website:

• DigitalOcean for website hosting and infrastructure
• Stripe for secure payment processing when you buy a paid plan — Stripe handles your card details directly under its own terms and PCI-DSS obligations, and we do not see or store your full card number
• Brevo, which sends all of our email, including account, password-reset and purchase-confirmation emails, and study-reminder emails if you opt in. It also sends the enquiries you send to instructors.
• OpenAI to provide Theo's AI-assisted responses when you use Theo. Your messages and Theo's replies are sent to OpenAI, and your conversation is stored on OpenAI's systems so that Theo can remember what you have already discussed. OpenAI does not use this content to train its models. OpenAI is based in the United States, so this involves a transfer of your information outside the UK
• Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics for optional analytics where you consent
• OpenFreeMap to display the maps on our research pages and on our test centre pages. When a map loads, your browser requests map tiles from OpenFreeMap, which means your IP address is sent to them. No cookies are set and nothing about you is stored by us as a result. OpenFreeMap is an independent project served through Cloudflare's global network, so this may involve a transfer of your IP address outside the UK

These providers process information under their own security and data-protection obligations. We may also disclose information where required by law.

If you send an enquiry to a driving instructor listed on this site, the name, phone number and postcode you entered come to Driving Mastery, and we send them to that instructor so that they can contact you — by email at once where they have given us an address, and otherwise by us passing your details to them. Instructors are independent businesses and are not employed by Driving Mastery. Once your details reach an instructor, they decide how they hold and use them, and they are responsible for that as the controller of their own records. Driving Mastery does not arrange, supervise, or take payment for lessons. If you ask an AI assistant to send an enquiry for you, you give your details to that assistant first, and the company that provides it handles them under its own terms before they reach us. Both we and the instructor are told that the enquiry came through an assistant.

If you use Driving Mastery through an AI assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT, we record which of our tools the assistant used, the assistant's name, how many results it received, and the words of any search that found nothing, so that we can see what learners ask for that we do not yet have. Apart from the details in an enquiry you ask it to send, we do not receive your name, your account or your conversation from the assistant.

Data Retention

We keep account, learning-progress, and Theo conversation data while needed to provide your account and for a reasonable period afterwards where required for security, dispute resolution, or legal obligations. We keep a record of which study-reminder emails have been sent to a given account, used only to enforce sending limits (such as not sending more than one lifecycle email in any 72-hour period) and to honour opt-outs. We keep enquiries you send to instructors for up to 12 months, so that we can answer questions about an enquiry that was or was not received, and then delete them. Operational logs are kept only for as long as needed to secure and troubleshoot the service. Analytics retention is controlled through our analytics configuration. We delete or anonymise information when it is no longer needed.

Chats with Theo on our homepage when you are not signed in are kept for 30 days, so that we can see what learners ask for, and are then deleted from our systems and from OpenAI’s. If you are signed in, a chat there is part of your Theo conversation and is kept like the rest of it.

Security

We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your personal data from unauthorized access, disclosure, or loss.

Your Rights

• Access your personal data
• Correct inaccurate or incomplete data
• Request deletion of your data
• Restrict or object to certain processing
• Receive portable data where the right applies
• Withdraw consent at any time where processing is based on consent
• Lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)

To exercise a right, contact us using the email address below. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.

Children's Privacy

Driving Mastery is intended for learner drivers and people preparing to learn, aged 16 or over. Some users may be under 18. We do not request a full date of birth. New learner account users confirm they are 16 or over with a checkbox during signup, and existing learner account users who have not yet confirmed are shown a one-time confirmation prompt when they next use their account.

Most people learning to drive a car are 17 or over, and some will be under 18. If you send an enquiry to an instructor, your name, phone number and postcode are passed to that instructor so they can contact you about lessons. If you are under 18, we would encourage you to talk to a parent or guardian before arranging lessons with anyone.

We aim to minimise the information we collect from younger users and apply age-conscious privacy practices. Theo is provided for learning support only. Users should not submit private, sensitive, medical, financial, or unnecessary personal information to Theo or any feedback form.

If you are a parent or guardian and believe a child has provided personal data inappropriately, contact us so we can investigate and take appropriate action.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy periodically. We encourage you to review this page regularly for any changes.

For more details, contact support@drivingmastery.co.uk.