This policy covers the Motorfile app and this website. It was last updated on 3 September 2026.

Everything you put into Motorfile is written to storage inside the app on your own device. That means your vehicles, their history, the photographs of your V5C and insurance, your receipts and running costs, and any notes.

We cannot see any of it. There is no server holding a copy, no account to sign into, and no way for us to recover it if you delete the app.

So that a lost phone does not mean a lost logbook, the app keeps a backup in your own iCloud, and it is on unless you turn it off. It is a single file, motorfile-backup.json, in iCloud Drive under Motorfile — your Apple account, not ours, and we have no way to read it. It holds your vehicles, fill‑ups and records. Since version 1.0.2 it holds your photographs and documents too. Before that it did not, and they could not survive a new phone — which is the reason it changed. They go into the same single file, in your iCloud, readable only by you.

Two things follow, and we would rather say them plainly than have you find out. Deleting the app does not delete that file, because it is in your iCloud rather than in the app. Neither does Erase everything inside the app, which clears this phone — every vehicle, document and photo — and deliberately leaves the copy you might need to restore from. To remove it, open Files, go to iCloud Drive → Motorfile and delete it, or switch the backup off in the app under You → Backup first.

From version 1.0.1 you can do it without leaving the app. When you tap Erase everything, turn on Also delete the copy in my iCloud and that file is deleted with the rest, and the backup is switched off so nothing quietly saves another. Leave it off and the copy stays where it is, exactly as before.

To read a car’s official record, the number plate has to reach the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency. It does that by way of a small lookup service we run, which exists to hold the government API credentials so that they are not sitting inside a downloadable app.

For a vehicle lookup, what that service receives is a number plate, and nothing else. No name, no email address, no account, no device identifier that we can tie back to a person. It forwards the plate to the DVSA, passes the answer back, and does not keep the record.

We count lookups per device so that the free tier and the paid tiers can differ, and so that a single device cannot exhaust a shared government quota. That counter is a number against an anonymous device token. It is not a profile, and it cannot be turned into one.

A number plate identifies a vehicle. Under UK data protection law it can amount to personal data in the hands of someone who can connect it to a keeper. We cannot, and we hold nothing that would let us. Our lawful basis for handling it is legitimate interest: you asked for the record, and it cannot be fetched without sending the plate.

The second thing is the update check. At most once a day, the app asks Apple’s public App Store directory what the current version of Motorfile is, so it can tell you when a fix you are missing has been published. That request carries the app’s own numbered identifier and nothing else — the same number for every copy ever installed. No account, no device token, no vehicle, and nothing about you. It goes to Apple, not to us, and we never see it. If it fails, or you are offline, the app says nothing at all.

The third thing is fuel prices, and only if you ask for them. To show what petrol or diesel costs near you, the app needs to know roughly where “near you” is. It asks for a postcode — never the phone’s location, and there is no location permission anywhere in Motorfile.

That postcode is turned into a map point by postcodes.io, a free public lookup, and that request goes from your phone straight to them: it does not pass through us and we never see your postcode. Our own service then receives the map point, and nothing else — no postcode, no plate, no account. It uses it to pick the petrol stations within a few miles and returns their published prices.

The prices come from Fuel Finder, the government’s statutory open data scheme for road fuel. Your postcode is kept on your phone so you are not asked twice, and you can change or delete it at any time under You. Deleting it removes it; nothing is held anywhere else.

No cookies, no analytics, no tag managers, no embedded video, no fonts fetched from a third party. The typefaces are served from this site’s own files, which is why there is no cookie banner to dismiss: there is nothing to consent to.

Two pages here reach out, and only when you press the button. The free MOT check sends the number plate you typed to our own lookup service, which is the same service the app uses and keeps no record of it. The fuel price page sends the postcode you typed to postcodes.io — a free public lookup, and a third party — to turn it into a map point, and then sends only that point to our service. We never receive the postcode. Nothing on either page runs until you ask it to, and neither stores anything about you.

The web server keeps ordinary access logs for a short period, to keep the site running and to spot abuse. They hold the page requested, the time, and a truncated IP address. They are not used to build any profile of you.

If you subscribe or buy a one-off check, the payment is taken by Apple through the App Store. We never see your card details, your billing address or your Apple account. Apple tells the app only whether a purchase is active. Apple’s own privacy policy covers what they do with that transaction.

UK GDPR gives you the right to see, correct, export and erase personal data an organisation holds about you. In practice we hold none, so there is nothing for us to show you and nothing for us to delete.

Erasing it is therefore in your hands, and it takes two steps rather than one. Erase everything in the app, or deleting the app, removes what is on the phone. The backup in your own iCloud survives both, by design, and is deleted in Files under iCloud Drive → Motorfile, or, from version 1.0.1, by turning on Also delete the copy in my iCloud before you confirm the erase. We cannot do either for you, because we cannot reach either.

Motorfile is not intended for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect anything from them, or, for that matter, from anyone.

If we ever change how any of this works, this page changes with it and the date at the top moves. Material changes will be called out in the app before they take effect, not slipped in quietly.

If you think we have this wrong, write to support@motorfileapp.com. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk.