Last updated: 28 October 2026
Contents
- Privacy Policy
- Cookie Policy
Privacy Policy
Introduction
Your privacy is important to us.
This privacy policy has been created to explain how and why we collect and use information about our users, and how we manage your privacy protection. Cars.ie is a car search website that lists cars for sale by registered motor dealers only. Cars.ie is a trading name of Done Deal Ltd, part of Distilled. Done Deal Ltd, trading as Cars.ie, is the controller of your personal data. We recommend that you read this statement in full, so that you understand how we will use your personal data. You can also read about specific issues by clicking on one of the topics below.
Table of Contents
- What personal data do we collect?
- Legal basis for processing.
- How do we use your personal data?
- How do we share your information?
- Your rights and choices.
- Other important information.
What personal data do we collect?
Cars.ie collects personal data to operate our business and to provide you with the product and services that we offer. You provide some of this data to us directly, for example when you open an account with us, contact a dealer on the site, or send a query to our support team. Other data is collected when you interact with our products, by using cookies and other technologies.
When using our site, you have choices about what data we collect, and when you are asked to provide personal data you may decline. If you decline to provide data that is necessary to provide you with a particular product or feature, you may not be able to use this product or feature.
We collect personal data in the following ways:
Through information you provide to us.
When you register with us as a user, including by signing in with Google or Apple, you provide us with some personal data such as your name and email address, which we will store in order to create your account. We will also store information relating to any further use of our service, when you contact a dealer through our platform, the contents of the messages you send to them and any other information that you may upload to the site. Finally, we may also collect information from any correspondence that you have with us.
Through your use of our services.
When you use our services, we collect information about what types of services you use and how you use them. For example, which parts of our website you visit, and which car ads you view. The information that we collect while you use our services can be grouped into the following categories:
Information about your device and internet connection
Using technical logs and other tools, we register information about the device you use, such as the device manufacturer, operating systems and browser version. We also collect information about the connection to our services, such as IP address, network ID, cookies and unique ID files. This information can help us to adapt the way content is displayed to you, based on your device and user profile.
Information about how our services are used
We also register information about how you use our services. For example, which pages of the site you visit, the searches that you have performed, the times and dates that you visited our site, how long a page is displayed on your screen, how you navigate around the page, which websites you have visited before visiting our site, and what functions you have carried out on a page, such as revealing a dealer's phone number or tapping to call or WhatsApp a dealer.
Cookies and other locally stored content
When you use our services, cookies and other data are stored locally on your device. These cookies provide us with information that we can then read. You can find more information about cookies, how and why we use them, and how to manage them in our Cookie Policy.
Information about user location
We register your geographical location based on your IP address and mobile network code.
Messages
We collect information about when you send messages to dealers on our site, or submit an enquiry through our platform. This includes:
- Dealer Enquiries: when you contact a dealer about an ad, whether or not you are logged in, we collect your name, phone number, email address and the content of your message so the dealer can respond to you.
- Finance Enquiries: when you submit an initial enquiry to be contacted about vehicle finance (name, phone number and email address), before completing a full Finance Application.
- Free History Check: when you request a vehicle history check, we collect the contact details you provide to deliver your results and so the dealer can respond to you.
Car Finance Enquiry and Application
When you express interest in vehicle finance, you will first submit a short form Finance Enquiry with your name, phone number and email address. If you proceed further, you may complete a full Finance Application, which will also collect more detail that is needed to process your application which is submitted to the finance provider. See Data Retention section below for how long each type of data is retained.
Legal Basis for Processing
We process your Personal Data in order to ensure the necessary performance of your contract with us. In certain circumstances, we may also process your Personal Data for the purposes of our legitimate interests, such as to inform you of changes to our services, to provide you with information about other services we offer or in order to comply with any legal obligations to which we are subject.
We may also rely upon your consent as a relevant legal basis for processing your Personal Data. In the event you wish to withdraw your consent to the collection and processing of your Personal Data in this manner, please follow the link below:
- Consent Choices (in the Cars.ie website footer)
| Purpose | Data | Legal basis |
| Passing your enquiry to a dealer and confirming it to you | Name, phone, email, message, ad reference | Taking steps at your request before entering a contract (GDPR Art. 6(1)(b)) |
| Call tracking for dealer lead management | Calling number, call date, time and duration, missed calls | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) |
| Recording Call, WhatsApp and enquiry events for dealer reporting | Ad, dealer, contact method, time | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) |
| Operating and securing the site, preventing spam, fraud and abuse | Device, connection and usage data; enquiry data | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)); legal obligation where applicable (Art. 6(1)(c)) |
| Analytics, experiments, heatmaps, session recordings, surveys and measuring our own advertising campaigns | Usage data, cookie identifiers, survey responses | Consent via our cookie banner (Art. 6(1)(a)) |
| Customer support | Contact details and correspondence | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) |
| Service messages, such as enquiry confirmations and security notices | Email address | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) / legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) |
| Marketing from Cars.ie | Email address, preferences | Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)) |
| User research participation | Contact details, responses | Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)) |
| Complying with the law and responding to lawful requests | Any relevant data | Legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c)) |
| Account, saved ads, saved searches and alerts | Account details, preferences | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) |
| Finance enquiry and application | Contact details and application data | Taking steps at your request before entering a contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) |
How We Use Your Personal Data
We use the data that we collect to provide you with the products and services that we offer. This allows us to improve the products that we offer you and to personalise your experience on our site. We may also use the data to communicate with you, to inform you about your account and to provide you with security updates. Where you have consented for us to do so, we may also use your data to contact you in relation to updates about our own products and products provided by third parties.
Your data will be used by us to authenticate your account and to enable you to contact dealers on our site.
Contacting dealers
When you contact a dealer through our site, we will use the personal data that you have provided as part of this contact to connect you to the dealer. The dealer will receive a copy of any data that you have entered as part of your message to them.
We use a third-party Telecoms service provider called Iovox to supply our Dealers with unique phone numbers for the purposes of lead management. By using this number, the Dealer can monitor the volume of calls that their business receives from Cars.ie and follow up with customers who have called their business.
While a call report sent to the dealer includes several pieces of data such as date, start time, end time, number called, and so on, there is actually very little Personal data as defined by the GDPR that is included. Personal data for a phone record would include the number of the calling party and in some cases, the caller's name. These are provided for the purposes of the Dealer being able to manage their customer calls and call their customer back.
If you choose to contact a dealer using the Car Dealer telephone number on Cars.ie, we may also keep a record of call activity, including missed calls. We will use this information to ensure that you get the benefit of Cars.ie's service. We will keep that record, via our service provider, for two years.
Our third party service provider, Iovox, is the Data Processor (the third party processes the data for the strict purpose of providing the service) and we are the data controller (the third party acts in accordance with the service we have instructed them to provide).
Importantly, due to the fact that Iovox is a telecoms service provider, they are held to stringent guidelines. Consistent with Appendix 2 of the Standard Contractual Clauses, technical and organisational security measures have been implemented in accordance with Clauses 4(d) and 5(c) of GDPR.
Legal basis under data protection law: Legitimate interests
Communications
We will contact you via email and messages posted on our website. These messages will communicate about service related issues and security updates. Where you have consented for us to do so, we will also contact you with promotional marketing materials from us and from our partners. You can update your marketing preferences at any time within your account. Please note that it will not be possible to opt out of receiving service messages from us. This includes messages relating to security and legal notices.
We, and carefully selected third parties, may issue marketing materials to dealers that are listed on our platform for the purposes of advertising our services and the services of selected third party services.
Advertising and retargeting
Cars.ie does not show display banner advertising and does not use retargeting cookies. Where you have consented to advertising cookies, we use Google Ads conversion tracking, through Google Analytics, to measure whether our own Google Search advertising campaigns lead to visits and enquiries on Cars.ie. Please see our Cookie Policy for more details.
Research and Developing Our Services
We use data that we collect through your use of our site and through public feedback, to conduct research and develop our services based on our findings. This allows us to provide you with a better experience when using our site.
User Research Participation
We use the data that you provide us in order to contact and schedule your participation in our research. The purpose of this research is to continuously improve the products and services we offer. The data we collect from you will only be accessible by a small number of our internal research team and will be destroyed 6 months after collection. If selected, none of your personal details will be linked to any of your responses in the research.
Customer Support
We use the data that you provide to us, including your communications, to investigate and respond to service issues and complaints.
Insights
We use your data to generate statistics about our site that do not identify you using third-party assets such as cookies. Please see our Cookie Policy for more details. These statistics provide us information about how our site is used, the number of ads viewed and enquiries made, and the demographic distribution of visitors to our site.
On various pages of our website, we record visitor behaviour and serve polls/surveys via Hotjar. Visitor behaviour is recorded anonymously through click heat maps for each page Hotjar is implemented on and also through recordings of visitors interacting with the site. For visitor recordings, all personally identifiable information is suppressed, including searches. Hotjar also enables us to serve surveys and polls. These surveys are optional and in most cases, we don't ask for or receive any personally identifiable information. Where we ask for an email address/phone number, the user needs to consent before the survey is submitted.
We also use Microsoft Clarity on various pages of our website to understand how visitors use the site. Visitor behaviour is recorded anonymously through click heat maps and recordings of visitors interacting with the site. For visitor recordings, all personally identifiable information and text entered into forms is masked, including searches. Microsoft Clarity is only used where you have consented to analytics cookies through our cookie banner. You can read more about how Microsoft processes this data in the Microsoft Privacy Statement.
We also use a third party called Wootric to measure customer satisfaction for Cars.ie. Site visitors are asked how likely they are to recommend the site to a friend and given the option to submit a comment on their experience with the site. There is no personally identifiable information stored.
Sharing your data with our other websites
Cars.ie, DoneDeal, Adverts.ie and Daft.ie are all operated by Distilled, and Cars.ie uses the same Distilled systems as DoneDeal to process listings and dealer enquiries. Where an account is banned or suspended for breaching our Terms of Use, for fraudulent behaviour, or for attempting to harm dealers or other visitors, we may share relevant account data with our other websites so that the same activity can be identified and prevented across our network.
Security Monitoring and Investigations
We will use your data when necessary to investigate and identify possible fraudulent behaviour on the site and possible attempts to harm dealers or other visitors to the site. We will also use your data to investigate violations of our Terms of Use or this Privacy Policy. Because Cars.ie, DoneDeal, Adverts.ie and Daft.ie are operated by Distilled, if you are found to be in breach of these rules on one of our sites, we may take this into account and share relevant data across our other sites. Where an account is under investigation for suspicious activity or has outstanding complaints/queries from dealers or other users regarding account activity, we may refuse a request to delete data relating to that account until the investigation is complete, in order to preserve evidence and protect other users.
Car Finance Application
When you submit a finance application through Cars.ie, we store this data in order to submit the application to the finance provider. The personally identifiable data is deleted 14 days after your application has been submitted. We may occasionally use this data to contact you on the progress of your application within the 14 day window.
How we Share Your Information
We do not sell your personal data. If you have consented on signup or on the appropriate email form, we may provide any of the information we collect to carefully screened third parties to contact you regarding products or services that we think may be of interest to you. If Cars.ie enters into a joint venture with or is sold to or merged with another business entity, your information may be disclosed to our new business partners or owners.
Our Services
Our service allows you to contact the dealers listed on our site. If you send a message to a dealer, your message and contact details will be shared with that dealer. From that point the dealer is responsible for how it uses your details, as an independent controller. If you choose to call a dealer, your call goes directly to the dealer. If you choose to contact a dealer through WhatsApp, you will be taken to WhatsApp and your conversation will take place on WhatsApp, which is governed by WhatsApp's own privacy policy. Cars.ie does not collect the content of your calls or WhatsApp messages.
Service Providers
We engage other service providers to help us to provide our service to you. For example, site hosting and security (Cloudflare), customer support (Zendesk), call tracking (Iovox), cookie consent management (Didomi), email delivery, analytics and surveys (Google, Hotjar, Microsoft Clarity, Wootric, Convert), spam protection (Google reCAPTCHA), advertising measurement (Google Ads) and search and SEO specialists. These service providers will have access to your information as much as is reasonably necessary for them to perform these tasks on our behalf. They are obligated not to disclose or use your data for any other purpose. Some of our service providers are based outside the European Economic Area (EEA), particularly in the United States. Where your data is transferred outside the EEA, we protect it by relying on an adequacy decision, such as the EU-US Data Privacy Framework for certified companies, or on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses.
Legal Disclosures
When required to by law, we may disclose information about you. This may be as a result of a subpoena or other legal process. Your personal information will also be shared if we believe that the disclosure is necessary to:
- Be used by government enforcement agencies to investigate, prevent or take action against any suspected or actual illegal activities.
- Enforce the agreements that we have with you.
- Investigate and defend Cars.ie against any allegations made by third parties.
- Protect the integrity and security of our services.
- Exercise the rights and safety of Cars.ie, our employees and other users of our service.
Change of Ownership
If Cars.ie enters into a joint venture with or is sold to or merged with another business entity, your information may be disclosed to our new business partners or owners in preparation for, or as a result of, any of these events. Any other entity which buys Cars.ie or any part of our business, will have the right to continue to use your data in the way described by this privacy policy, unless you consent otherwise.
Your Rights and Choices
The General Data Protection Regulation offers you a number of rights in relation to your data. This includes the right to access a copy of your data, a right to receive a copy of your data that can be transferred to another organisation, a right to data deletion, a right to withdraw your consent to data processing, a right to restrict the processing of your data, a right to object to processing based on our legitimate interests and to direct marketing at any time, and information on any automated decision making processes. We do not make decisions about you based solely on automated processing that have legal or similarly significant effects.
Data Retention
The amount of time that we retain data for, depends on the type of data being retained, and how that is used. In some cases, there will be a legal requirement for us to hold data for a specified amount of time. In other cases, we will not retain the data for any longer than necessary for the purpose that it was collected and processed. Cars.ie follows the same Distilled data retention schedule that applies across DoneDeal, Adverts.ie and Daft.ie.
When you register an account with us, we will retain the information that you provide to us for as long as you hold this account. Once an account has been closed, we will continue to retain this data for a period of seven years. This timeframe is in line with the Irish statutory limitation periods. If you don't actively close your account with us, it automatically becomes inactive after 3 months of you not accessing it. After this, the data you have provided us will be retained for seven years. All other data provided, which is not personally identifiable, will be retained for possible future use.
If you have provided data to us without registering an account, such as an enquiry to a dealer, this data will be retained for 7 years after your last date of activity with us. If you have provided information to us for the purpose of a full finance application, this personally identifiable data is retained for 14 days.
If you had an account on the previous Cars.ie website, which operated before 28 October 2026, that data has not been transferred to the new Cars.ie service. It is retained only to meet our legal obligations for up to 24 months after the previous service closed on 28 October 2026 (that is, until 28 October 2028), after which it will be deleted. You can request a copy or the deletion of this data using our data request feature.
Right to Access Your Personal Data
Non-registered and registered users of the site can request we provide them with a copy of the personally identifiable information we hold by using our data request feature (https://mydata.distilledsch.ie/data/request/?platform=carsie) or by emailing dpo@distilled.ie. You do not need an account to make a request. We may ask you to verify your identity, and we will respond within one month. We may extend this by up to two further months for complex requests, and we will tell you if we do.
Right to Control Your Personal Data
Registered users of our site can update their information by using our data request feature or contacting our Customer Support Team directly. You can also edit and make changes to the personal information by logging into your account and editing it directly from there. You can change your marketing and contact preferences at any time in your account dashboard by opting out of receiving these communications. You may ask us to make any necessary changes to ensure that such information is accurate and kept up-to-date.
Right to Data Deletion
Non-registered and registered users of our site can request we delete any personally identifiable information we hold by using our data request feature. In some instances we may be unable to delete your data if we are required to retain it to comply with our legal obligations (including requests from law enforcement agencies).
Right to Data Portability
Registered users of our site have the right to data portability. This means that you can request that a copy of your data is made available in a structured, commonly used and machine readable form that can be transferred to you or to another organisation. You may request a portable copy of your data by using our data request feature.
Other Important Information
Special Category Personal Data
Cars.ie does not collect any special categories of personal data. However, if you enter this information into any free text section of our site, such as an enquiry message to a dealer, this information will be held and processed in the same manner as all other data that you have provided to us.
Children
Cars.ie is intended for adults. Use of Cars.ie by anyone under 18 is subject to the consent of their parent or guardian, as set out in our Terms of Use. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children without that consent. If you believe a child has given us personal data, please contact us and we will delete it.
Security
The security of your data is important to us. We perform regular monitoring of our systems to identify possible vulnerabilities and attacks. However, we cannot warrant the security of any information that you send to us. No guarantee is given that the data will not be accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by breach of any of our physical, technical, or managerial safeguards.
Direct marketing
We will only send you marketing information where you have opted in to receive these communications. You can change your marketing preferences at any time, by logging into your account and changing this on your account dashboard. You can also opt out of receiving marketing at any time using the unsubscribe link that can be found at the end of each email that we send.
Changes to this Statement
This statement will be updated when necessary to reflect product or other changes. When this statement is updated, the "last updated" date will be revised at the top of this statement. We encourage you to review our Privacy Policy regularly so that you can stay informed about our use of your data.
Contact information
If you have any questions in relation to this Policy, please email our Data Protection Officer at dpo@distilled.ie. You can also write to:
Data Protection Officer
Distilled
Latin Hall
Golden Lane
Dublin 8.
If this does not resolve your complaint/question, you have the right to contact your local Data Protection Commissioner. In Ireland, they can be contacted via their website here.
Cookie Policy
What are cookies and how are they used?
A cookie is a small amount of data that is sent to your device's web browser by a website and is stored on your *device's hard drive. Cookies may allow a website to "remember" your actions or preferences over a period of time, or they may contain data related to the function or delivery of the website. Each website can send its own cookies to your web browser. Your browser will have the option to prevent websites using cookies (your browser's help screen will tell you how to do this), but please note that this may reduce the functionality of our website and other websites.
Cars.ie (the website) uses cookies to keep our platform working as you expect it to, to analyse traffic, to prevent non-genuine users and/or malicious software from engaging in abusive activities on our platform, and to enable performance and product improvements.
*PCs, tablets, mobile phones and any other internet accessible hardware.
Types of Cookies:
First-Party Cookies
First-party cookies are directly stored by the website (or domain) you visit. These cookies allow website owners to collect analytics data, remember language settings, and perform other useful functions that provide a good user experience.
Third-Party Cookies
Third-party cookies are created by domains that are not the website (or domain) that you are visiting, hence the name third-party. They are typically used for cross-site tracking, retargeting and personalised advertising. Cars.ie does not use third-party cookies for retargeting or personalised advertising. With your consent, we use Google Ads conversion cookies to measure our own advertising campaigns.
Cookie Categories:
Strictly Necessary Cookies
These cookies are essential in order to enable you to navigate the website and use its features, such as accessing secure areas of the platform. Without these cookies, services you have asked for, like sending an enquiry to a dealer, cannot be provided.
To prevent non-genuine users and/or malicious software from engaging in abusive activities on our platform, reCAPTCHA and the cookies it requires to function are classified as strictly necessary to ensure the overall safety of our marketplace.
For the privacy of our users, we only use Google Analytics to process obscured and/or non-personally identifiable data to track and understand aggregated usage metrics on our platform, such as number of visitors and unique visits. With these privacy safeguards, Google Analytics and the cookies it requires to function are classified as strictly necessary. However, we will only use Google Analytics to track your activity on our site where you have given your consent through our cookie banner. You can change your choice at any time using Consent Choices in the website footer.
Analytics Cookies
These cookies collect information about how visitors use our website, for instance; which pages users visit most often, which links they click on, if they get error messages from certain pages, etc.
These cookies do not collect information that can personally identify a user. Any information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. Their sole purpose is to help improve website functions.
Functional Cookies
These cookies allow us to remember some of the choices you make and provide an enhanced, more personalised experience (e.g. remembering your recent searches).
These cookies can also be used to remember changes you have made to text size, fonts and other parts of web pages that you can customise.
They may also be used to provide services you have asked for such as watching a video. The information these cookies collect may be anonymised and cannot track your browsing activity on other websites.
Advertising Cookies for advertising and retargeting
Cars.ie does not display third-party advertising and does not use retargeting cookies. With your consent, we use Google Ads conversion cookies to measure the performance of our own Google Search advertising campaigns, for example whether someone who clicked one of our ads went on to view a car or contact a dealer. These cookies are only set if you consent to advertising cookies through our cookie banner, and you can withdraw your consent at any time using Consent Choices in the website footer. If our use of advertising cookies changes, we will update this Cookie Policy and ask for your consent before any new cookies are used.
You can find more information about the cookies we use and the vendors we work with in the table below:
| Vendor | Cookie | Type | Category | Purpose |
| Cars.ie | cars.recentSearches (local storage) | First Party | Functional | Remembers your recent searches on this device so you can return to them |
| Didomi | didomi_token | First Party | Strictly Necessary | Cars.ie Cookie Consent - to store cookie preferences |
| Google reCAPTCHA | _GRECAPTCHA, _grecaptcha (local storage) | Third Party | Strictly Necessary | Used to detect and prevent non-genuine users and automated abuse of our forms |
| Google Analytics | _ga | Third Party | Strictly Necessary | Google Analytics cookie that captures anonymised data to understand how users engage with the site. Activity tracking only with consent |
| Google Analytics | _ga_WZS4C47G31 | Third Party | Strictly Necessary | Google Analytics cookie that captures anonymised data to understand how users engage with the site. Activity tracking only with consent |
| Google Ads | _gcl_au | First Party | Advertising | Used by Google Ads to measure whether visits from our own Google Search advertising campaigns lead to enquiries on Cars.ie. Set only with your consent |
| Google Ads | _gcl_ls (local storage) | First Party | Advertising | Used by Google Ads, alongside _gcl_au, to measure conversions from our own Google Search advertising campaigns. Set only with your consent |
| Hotjar | _hjSessionUser_* | Third Party | Analytics | Hotjar cookie used to capture user behaviour |
| Hotjar | _hjSession_* | Third Party | Analytics | Hotjar cookie used to capture user behaviour within a session |
| Microsoft Clarity | _clck | First Party | Analytics | Microsoft Clarity cookie that stores a unique user ID so that visits by the same user can be recognised |
| Microsoft Clarity | _clsk | First Party | Analytics | Microsoft Clarity cookie that connects multiple page views by a user into a single session recording |
| Microsoft Clarity | CLID | Third Party | Analytics | Microsoft Clarity cookie that identifies the first time Clarity saw this user on any site using Clarity |
| Microsoft Clarity | MUID | Third Party | Analytics | Microsoft cookie used to identify unique web browsers visiting Microsoft sites |
| Microsoft Clarity | ANONCHK | Third Party | Analytics | Microsoft cookie that indicates whether MUID is transferred to ANID |
| Convert | _conv_v | Third Party | Analytics | Used to determine a user's inclusion in an experiment |
| Convert | _conv_s | Third Party | Analytics | Used to determine a user's inclusion in an experiment during a session |
| Wootric | NPS_*_last_seen | Third Party | Analytics | This Wootric cookie is used so that Wootric knows when they first saw the user on this device after their SDK was enabled |
| Wootric | NPS_*_surveyed | Third Party | Analytics | This Wootric cookie is a flag that indicates if a user has taken a survey on Cars.ie already and prevents them from being oversampled |
| Wootric | NPS_*_throttle | Third Party | Analytics | This is a Wootric cookie that mirrors the resurvey throttle based on last response or decline date |
| Zendesk | _help_center_session | Third Party | Functional | Zendesk session cookie which is needed to allow the Cars.ie help centre to function |
| Zendesk | _zendesk_session | Third Party | Functional | Zendesk cookie that allows us to remember relevant information when users return to the Customer Support centre |
| Zendesk | _zendesk_shared_session | Third Party | Functional | Zendesk cookie that holds session information for sharing across Zendesk applications |
From time to time, there may be changes to these third-party cookies such as name changes, etc. We will endeavour to keep the table updated and encourage you to review the Privacy Policies of each of the third parties listed above.
This Cookie Policy forms part of our overall Privacy Policy.