Introduction

Please read this privacy policy carefully. It contains important information on who we are; how and why we collect, store, use and share your personal information; your rights in relation to your personal information; and how to contact us or the relevant authority if you have a complaint.

Who We Are

This website is operated by First Gear Car Rentals ("First Gear", "we", "us", "our"), a vehicle rental company based in and operating in Barbados. We collect, use and are responsible for certain personal information about you. When we do so, we are the data controller of that information and are responsible for it under the Data Protection Act, 2019 (Barbados).

If you are contacting us from outside Barbados (for example, as a visiting customer from the European Union or United Kingdom), we will also handle your information consistently with the data-protection standards that apply to you where relevant.

Our website

This privacy policy relates to your use of our website https://firstgearrentals.com and the booking services we provide through it.

Our website may link to websites owned and operated by trusted third parties (for example, our payment provider). These third-party websites gather information about you in accordance with their own privacy policies. For privacy information relating to those websites, please consult their policies directly.

This website is intended for customers of legal driving and rental age. It is not intended for use by children, and we do not knowingly collect or use personal information relating to children.

Personal information we collect

To take a booking and provide a rental, we collect and process information such as:

• Identity and contact details — your name, email address and telephone number.
• Driver and licensing details — your driver's licence information (and, where required, supporting identification) so we can verify eligibility to rent and drive a vehicle.
• Booking details — the vehicle selected, rental dates, pickup and drop-off arrangements, add-ons (such as insurance options, additional driver, child seats) and related preferences.
• Payment information — payment is processed by our third-party payment provider; we receive confirmation of payment and deposit status but do not store full card details on our own systems.
• Communications — messages you send us and our correspondence with you, including booking confirmations, reminders and updates sent by email and WhatsApp.
• Technical information — limited information collected automatically when you use the site (see "Cookies and similar technologies" below).

Our legal basis for processing your personal information

When we use your personal information we rely on a lawful basis for doing so. Depending on the information and the purpose, these may include:

• Contract — where using your information is necessary to provide a rental you have booked, or to take steps you have asked for before entering into a rental agreement (for example, providing a quote or holding a reservation).
• Consent — where you have given us clear consent to process your information for a specific purpose, such as certain marketing.
• Legal obligation — where we must use your information to comply with the law.
• Legitimate interests — where using your information is necessary for our legitimate interests or those of a third party, provided your rights do not override those interests (for example, preventing fraud, securing deposits, and improving our service).

Sharing your personal information with service providers

We do not sell your personal information. We do, however, share it with trusted service providers who help us operate our booking and rental service, and who process it only on our instructions and under appropriate confidentiality and data-protection obligations. These include:

• Booqable — rental catalogue, availability, quotes and order management.
• Fygaro — payment processing and deposit handling.
• Resend — sending booking-related and transactional emails.
• Meta Platforms (WhatsApp Business Platform) — sending booking notifications and reminders via WhatsApp.
• Supabase — secure database, authentication and file storage.
• Vercel — website hosting.
• Sentry — error monitoring (configured to scrub personal information before it is recorded).

We may also disclose your information where we are required to do so by law, or to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights.

Marketing

We may send you information about our vehicles, offers and news that may interest you. Where we have your consent or it is in our legitimate interests to do so, we may contact you by email, telephone, text message (SMS) or WhatsApp.

If you have agreed to be contacted this way, you can opt out at any time by:

• contacting us at [email protected] or
• using the "unsubscribe" link in our emails.

It may take 24-48 business hours for your request to take effect.

Your rights

Under the Data Protection Act, 2019 (Barbados), you have a number of important rights, generally free of charge. In summary, these include the right to:

• be informed about how we use your personal information (which this policy is intended to address);
• access the personal information we hold about you;
• have us correct any mistakes in your information;
• have your personal information erased in certain circumstances;
• receive certain information you have provided to us in a portable format, and have it transferred to another party in certain circumstances;
• object to processing of your information for direct marketing at any time;
• object to decisions made by automated means that significantly affect you;
• otherwise object to, or restrict, our processing of your information in certain circumstances; and
• seek a remedy where your data-protection rights have been breached.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please:

• email, call or write to us using the contact details below;
• give us enough information to identify you (for example, your name and booking reference); and
• let us know which information your request relates to.

We may ask for proof of identity before acting on a request, to protect your information.

Keeping your personal information secure

We have appropriate security measures in place to help prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed in an unauthorised way. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need for it, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We also have procedures to deal with any suspected data-security breach, and we will notify you and any applicable authority where we are legally required to do so.

Cookies and similar technologies

A cookie is a small text file placed on your device (computer, smartphone or other device) when you use our website. Cookies help our website work, work more efficiently, and remember certain information about your visit — either for the duration of your visit (a "session" cookie) or for repeat visits (a "persistent" cookie).

We use:

• Strictly necessary cookies — essential for the website to function, including signing you in, keeping your booking session active and accessing secure areas. Without these, the requested services cannot be provided.
• Performance cookies (where used) — to understand how visitors use the site (for example, which pages are visited most often and where errors occur), so we can improve it.

We do not use cookies to serve third-party advertising or to track you across other websites.

How to make a complaint

We hope we can resolve any query or concern you raise about our use of your information, so please contact us first.

The Data Protection Act, 2019 (Barbados) also gives you the right to lodge a complaint with the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner of Barbados. Their contact details are available at https://www.gov.bb/Departments/data-protection-commissioner

Cookie policy by First Gear Car Rentals, 2026

Changes to this privacy policy

This privacy policy was published on 01 April 2026. We may update it from time to time; where appropriate, we will notify you of significant changes.

How to contact us

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you, please contact First Gear Car Rentals at our email address or via our phone number.