Privacy Policy - PlateToVIN

1. Scope of This Policy

This Policy applies to information we process when you visit platetovin.com, use our free public tools (plate lookup & recall check, VIN validator, vehicle preview pages, the free car image library and state plate-lookup guides), sign up for an account, or integrate with our API. It does not cover the privacy practices of third-party sites or services that may interact with PlateToVIN.

2. Information We Collect

Category	Details
Account information	Name, business e-mail address, hashed password, PayPal Customer ID.
Security logs	IP address used at login and other authentication metadata.
API usage data	Licence plate, state, VIN, decoded VIN fields, timestamp, and API key used.
Free tool submissions	Licence plates, states and VINs you submit through our free tools, together with your IP address (and, for some tools, a browser cookie) used to enforce daily free-use limits.
OCR images	Photos submitted to the plate OCR API are processed in memory to produce the result and are never stored. We retain only the OCR result metadata (e.g. the read serial, confidences and a request ID).
Vehicle preview activity	VINs viewed on our public vehicle preview pages, with the decoded year/make/model and view counts. See Section 5 — these appear publicly.
Image request metadata	For vehicle image requests: the requesting IP address, referring domain (used for authentication) and request parameters.
Device & analytics data	Browser type, operating system, referrer URL, and cookies set by Google Analytics, Google Ads and Intercom (our support chat).

We do not intentionally collect information directly about individual vehicle owners beyond the plate and VIN data required for the lookup.

3. How We Use Information

Provide and maintain the Service (account creation, authentication, API responses, free tool results).
Security, fraud prevention and fair use — IP-log analysis, abuse monitoring, and per-IP daily limits on free lookups.
Licence enforcement — we may use automated systems that analyse image request metadata, usage patterns and publicly available web content to detect suspected use of our vehicle images without a valid licence, and may use contact information to request proof of licence (see the Terms of Service, Section 2.3).
Billing and account management through PayPal.
Compliance and audit under the U.S. Driver Privacy Protection Act (DPPA) and other applicable laws.
Analytics and product improvement using aggregated, statistical reports.
Research and industry insights — we may publish anonymised, aggregate statistics such as "most-queried vehicle models" that cannot reasonably be linked back to any specific Customer or visitor.

We do not sell personal information.

4. Cookies and Tracking Technologies

We use the following cookies and similar technologies:

Essential cookies — session and CSRF cookies required for the site to function, and a lookup-tracking cookie used alongside your IP address to enforce daily limits on free lookups.
Google Analytics & Google Ads — first-party cookies that record page views, events and ad-conversion data. You can opt out of Analytics with the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on.
Intercom — our support chat widget sets cookies to keep your conversation history together.

5. Free Tools & Public Pages

Anonymous lookups. You can use our free tools without an account. When you submit a plate and state (or a VIN), we process it to identify the vehicle — including passing it to the third-party vehicle-data and government sources listed in Section 6 — and we record your IP address (and a browser cookie) solely to enforce daily free-use limits and prevent abuse.

Vehicle preview pages are public. When a vehicle is looked up through our free tools, its report opens on a public page at a VIN-based address (for example platetovin.com/preview/…). We store the VIN, its decoded year/make/model and view counts; these pages are indexable by search engines, may appear in our sitemap, and recently viewed vehicles are listed on other preview pages. VINs identify vehicles, not people, and preview pages never show who looked a vehicle up. If you'd rather a particular preview page not be listed, contact us (Section 13).

The VIN validator runs in your browser. VINs typed into the validator are checked locally on your device and are not sent to our servers unless you choose to open the full vehicle report.

Free car images. The free image library serves small, watermarked previews; requests are logged (IP, referring page, parameters) for rate limiting and licence enforcement.

6. Sharing and Disclosure

Recipient	Purpose
Vehicle-data providers	Plates and states you submit are passed to third-party vehicle-data sources to resolve the vehicle and its VIN.
NHTSA (U.S. government)	The decoded year, make and model are sent to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's public API to retrieve safety recall campaigns.
PayPal, Inc.	Payment processing (we receive only the PayPal Customer ID and related metadata).
Content delivery network	Vehicle images are delivered through a CDN, which processes the requesting IP address and referring domain to serve and authenticate image requests.
Google & Intercom	Analytics, advertising measurement and support chat, as described in Section 4.
U.S. hosting provider(s)	Infrastructure that stores and processes all Service data.
Law-enforcement or regulators	Where required to comply with applicable law, court order, or DPPA-related request.

Vehicle history report links on our preview pages lead to third-party sites (e.g. EpicVIN); the VIN is included in the link you choose to follow, and those sites' own privacy policies apply. We do not otherwise share, rent or sell personal information.

7. Data Retention

We retain account records, API logs, and lookup data indefinitely for security auditing, historical analytics, and DPPA compliance, unless you instruct us to delete your account data (see Section 10). Vehicle preview records (VIN, year/make/model, view counts) are retained indefinitely as public pages. Free-tool rate-limit records (IP address and cookie ID) are kept only as long as needed to enforce daily limits and monitor abuse. OCR images are never stored.

8. Security Measures

Hashing and salting of passwords in line with industry standards.
TLS 1.2+ encryption in transit.
Internal access-control policies.
Continuous monitoring and logging of authentication IPs and API usage.

9. International Transfers

All data is stored and processed on servers located in the United States. By using the Service, you consent to this transfer and storage.

10. Your Choices and Rights

Because PlateToVIN serves U.S. businesses, specific statutory data-subject rights (e.g., GDPR or CCPA) do not apply in most cases. Nevertheless, you may email [email protected] to:

Access a copy of your account information.
Correct inaccurate account details.
Delete your account and associated lookup history (subject to legal retention obligations).
Request de-listing of a specific public vehicle preview page.

11. Children's Privacy

The Service is intended solely for users age 18+. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18. If you believe a minor has provided us with personal information, contact us immediately.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. Material changes take effect upon posting the revised Policy on our site. Continued use of the Service after changes become effective constitutes acceptance.

13. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Policy or our data-handling practices, please email [email protected].