SaferCar Mobile Application Privacy Policy

Overview

This privacy policy explains our policies regarding the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information when using the SaferCar mobile application (SaferCar app). The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) created the SaferCar app to provide consumers with safety information about motor vehicles, car seats, tires and other related equipment. The app provides users with the ability to search, browse, and save their products (motor vehicles, car seats, tires, and other equipment) to a user dashboard in their mobile devices. The app will automatically check for new safety information related to a user’s saved products and notify the user of the availability of such information.

This privacy policy does not apply to any other NHTSA products, areas, or website, nor does it cover practices of other areas within the U.S. Department of Transportation. 

Information Collected

The SaferCar app keeps in the device information related to the products for which you seek the safety information for. For a motor vehicle, this includes year, make, model and vehicle identification number (VIN). For a tire, this includes the tire brand, line and size. For a car seat, this includes the brand and model. For any other equipment, the brand name and model.

The SaferCar app does not collect any contact information or other information about you, track your location, keep track of vehicles, products or equipment you removed, or access any other applications on your mobile device.

Uses of Information 

The SaferCar app uses the information in the device to conduct a query of NHTSA’s safety recall lookup system to determine if a safety recall exists for any of the products you submitted to the app. If a safety recall is identified, the SaferCar app will notify you about the safety recall, if you enabled the notification function.   

NHTSA does not use the information for any other purpose. The information is used only to query NHTSA’s safety recall lookup system.

Information Sharing 

NHTSA does not share any of the information entered by the user in the SaferCar app with a third party.

Application Security

The SaferCar app uses security safeguards including but not limited to: Secure Socket Layer (SSL), encryption and firewall protections to secure the transmissions from your mobile device. NHTSA recommends that you properly secure access to your mobile device to prevent unauthorized access to your device.  

How to Access or Correct Your Information

The SaferCar app provides you with the ability to search, browse, and save your products (vehicles, car seats, tires, and other equipment) to a user dashboard accessed through your mobile device. When a user saves a product to their dashboard, the app will check for new safety information related to their saved products and notify them of the availability of such information. The SaferCar app provides you with the ability to correct or delete the information you enter into the app.

Analytics Tools 

NHTSA uses Google Analytics on the SaferCar app to analyze its performance, and to improve the app in future releases. The information analyzed is:

  • Number of times the app has been used
  • Total time spent using the app
  • Device Operating systems (Android or iOS)
  • Device model
  • Where the app was used (city, country, continent, etc.) based on the IP location when the app was used. The app does not use GPS, nor tracks people’s locations as they move.
  • The first and last time the app was used
  • The SaferCar app version to know if the user is running the latest version

Privacy Policy Contact Information

If you have questions, comments or concerns about this policy, please contact our Privacy Officer at NHTSA.Privacy@dot.gov.