Legal

1. What you are agreeing to

By creating an account you accept these Terms. If you do not accept them, do not create an account and do not use Carpool Plan. You must be at least 18 years old and hold parental authority or legal guardianship for any child you register. Children do not hold accounts and cannot sign in.

2. What Carpool Plan is — and what it is not

Carpool Plan is a coordination tool. It lets parents publish a request for a ride, publish an offer to drive, find each other, and record what they agreed. We do not carry anyone. We are not a transport company, not a taxi or ride-hailing service, and not a travel organiser. We do not own cars, employ drivers, instruct drivers, set routes or prices, supervise rides, or take custody of any child at any moment. Every driver is an independent private individual — another parent — acting on their own responsibility. The arrangement to carry a child is made between the two parents. We are not a party to it. We record it because a written record is useful to both of them, not because we join it.

3. Your account

You give accurate information and keep it current. You keep your sign-in credentials to yourself and tell us promptly if you believe someone else has used your account. You are responsible for everything done through your account. We may suspend or close an account that breaches these Terms, that puts a child at risk, or that we are required to act on by law.

4. Parental decision, and how it is recorded

No child is ever placed in a ride without their own parent approving that specific arrangement. Approval is an explicit act in the app, recorded with a timestamp. You decide whether a driver is acceptable for your child, and that decision is yours alone. We give you information to help — what the other parent has told us, how many rides they have completed, what child restraints they say they carry — and we tell you plainly which of it we have and have not checked. You may withdraw an approval at any time, and recurring approvals end on the schedule you set.

5. Availability of the service

We provide the app as it is and as it is available. We do not promise that a request will find a driver, that an offer will find a family, that a confirmed ride will take place, or that the app will be uninterrupted or error-free. Notifications, live tracking and location features depend on your device, your operating system and your network, and can be delayed or fail for reasons outside our control. Do not rely on the app as your only means of knowing where a child is — agree a fallback with the other parent, a phone number that will be answered.

6. Cost sharing only — no profit, ever

Carpool Plan is for private, non-commercial carpooling between families. A driver may accept a contribution towards the actual running costs of the ride — fuel, wear, tolls, parking — shared between the people travelling. A driver must not make a profit, must not advertise transport as a service, and must not use the app to run a business. This is not a preference: carrying passengers for profit is licensed transport under Swiss law, and it would change both the driver’s insurance position and the legal character of this app. Any account we believe is being used commercially will be closed.

7. Insurance is the driver’s, and it comes first

Every driver must hold valid third-party motor liability insurance for the car they drive, as Swiss law requires (Art. 63 SVG), and a licence valid for that car. Under Swiss law the holder of a car is strictly liable for damage caused by its operation (Art. 58 SVG), and compulsory motor insurance covers carried passengers. In an incident during a ride, the driver’s motor liability insurance is the primary recourse — not Carpool Plan, which holds no insurance covering your ride and is not a party to it. We do not verify insurance, licences or driving records.

8. Liability

We are responsible for operating the app itself with reasonable care: keeping your data as described in the Privacy Policy, recording approvals accurately, and delivering the features we describe. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not liable for anything that happens during, before or after a ride, including accidents, injury, death, delay, a child not being collected, or a child being collected by the wrong person; for the conduct, driving, honesty, identity, licence, insurance or fitness of any user; for the condition of any car or the presence, suitability or correct installation of any car seat; for any agreement, dispute, payment or falling-out between users; for indirect or consequential loss; or for failures of notification, location or tracking features. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits our liability for unlawful intent or gross negligence (Art. 100(1) CO), for death or personal injury caused by our own fault, or for anything else Swiss law does not permit to be excluded. Where liability cannot be excluded but may be limited, it is limited to the amount you have paid us in the twelve months before the event, or CHF 100 if that is greater.

9. Your responsibility towards us

If someone brings a claim against us because of something you did — a ride you drove, a child you carried, information you gave, or a term of this agreement you broke — you will cover our reasonable costs of dealing with it, except to the extent the claim arises from our own intent or gross negligence.

10. Reporting, and emergencies

In an emergency, call 112 first. Always. Do not report it in the app and wait. Once everyone is safe, report any incident during a ride to the other parent and to us through the app’s reporting tool, or at support@carpoolplan.com. We may suspend an account while we look into a report. We are not an investigative body and we cannot resolve disputes between parents; where a matter belongs with the police, insurers or a court, that is where it belongs.

11. Content you post

You keep ownership of what you write. You give us permission to store and display it as needed to run the service. Do not post anything unlawful, misleading or abusive, or that discloses another person’s information without their agreement — particularly another family’s child.

12. Changes to these Terms

We may revise these Terms. When we do, the version stamp changes and you will be asked to accept the new version before continuing to use the app. Material changes will be described in plain language, not buried.

13. Ending the agreement

You may close your account at any time from your profile. Deleting your account erases your personal information and de-identifies what other families need to keep — see the Privacy Policy. We may end this agreement where you breach it seriously, where an account presents a risk to a child, or where we stop offering the service.

14. Governing law and place of jurisdiction

These Terms are governed by Swiss law, excluding its conflict-of-law rules and the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. The ordinary place of jurisdiction is Vaud, Switzerland. If you are a consumer, this does not take away your right to bring proceedings where you live, or to be sued only there, where the law of your country gives you that right. If any provision is invalid, the rest continues to apply.

1. Who is responsible for your data

Carpoolplan decides why and how your personal data is processed, and is the controller under the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (revFADP) and, where it applies to you, the EU General Data Protection Regulation.

2. What we collect

About you: name, email address, phone number, home address and its coordinates, language, the password you set (stored only as a cryptographic hash, never in readable form), and your profile photo if you add one. About your children: first name, and the age information needed to judge which car seat or booster applies — children have no accounts, cannot sign in, and are never contacted by us. About your car: make, model, colour, registration plate, number of seats, and which child restraints it carries. About your activity: the requests and offers you post, the rides you are matched into, your approvals and cancellations and the reasons you give, messages to another parent, ratings, and reports you file. Location: pickup and drop-off addresses, and — only while a ride is running and only if you turn it on — your live position. Technical: device and push identifiers, sign-in timestamps, and error logs. How you use the app: which screens you open and which actions you take, and a recording of your screen while you use the app (a “session replay”). Because a replay captures whatever is on screen, it can include your children’s first names and ages, your home address and pickup addresses. We use this to find bugs and screens that confuse people. We do not use it to build a profile of you, and we do not sell it.

3. Why we process it, and on what legal basis

To create and run your account, to match requests with offers, to run rides, and to send ride, message and safety notifications: performance of our contract with you. To record consent, approvals and Driver Agreement acceptances: legal obligation, and our legitimate interest in being able to prove what was agreed. For live ride tracking: your explicit consent, given per ride and withdrawable at any time. To keep the platform safe — acting on reports, suspending accounts: our legitimate interest in protecting children, and legal obligation. We do not use your data for advertising, we do not profile you, and we do not make decisions about you by automated means alone.

4. Who sees what

We do not sell personal data. Ever, to anyone. Another parent sees your first name and last initial, your profile photo, your car and its child restraints, your completed-ride count, and — only once a ride is confirmed between you — the pickup and drop-off addresses and a contact number; before that, your exact home address is not shown. An activity provider sees which children are enrolled in their own activities, and nothing about your rides. Administrators can see account records and reports where needed to act on a safety report or a legal obligation, and those accesses are logged. Our service providers process data only on our instructions: hosting and database, application hosting, push notification delivery, email delivery, map and address lookup, and product analytics and session replay (Amplitude). Where they process data outside Switzerland and the EEA, transfers are covered by standard contractual clauses or an adequacy decision. Authorities, where the law requires it or where a child is at risk.

5. How long we keep it

Your account data: while your account exists. Consent, approval and Driver Agreement records: at least 7 years after the event, because their whole purpose is to show what was agreed and a dispute may surface long afterwards. Ride history: kept, but de-identified when an account is deleted, so the other family keeps a coherent record without keeping your identity. Live location: deleted shortly after the ride ends, and never used to build a history of your movements. Messages and reports: while the account exists, or as long as an open safety matter requires.

6. How we protect it

Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Access is restricted by row-level rules in the database, so one family cannot read another’s records — enforced by the database itself and not only by the app. Passwords are stored hashed. Administrative access is limited and logged. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach occurs that is likely to put your rights at high risk, we will inform you and the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner as the law requires.

7. Your rights

You may see what we hold about you and get a copy in a portable format; correct anything inaccurate, most of it directly in the app; delete your account and your personal data from Profile → Delete account, which erases you and de-identifies the shared history rather than destroying the other family’s record; object to processing based on our legitimate interests, and withdraw consent for live tracking at any time without affecting rides already run; restrict processing while a dispute about accuracy is resolved; and complain to a supervisory authority — in Switzerland the FDPIC, or in the EU your national authority. Write to support@carpoolplan.com and we will answer within 30 days, without charge and without asking you to justify the request.

8. Data about children, specifically

A child’s data is entered by their own parent, exercising parental authority, and is limited to what a safe ride actually needs: a first name so a driver knows who they are collecting, and enough age information to get the car seat right. We never contact a child, never let a child hold an account, never show a child’s data to anyone except their own parent and a driver approved for that specific ride, and never use a child’s data for anything beyond arranging and running that ride. Deleting your account deletes your children’s records with it.

9. Cookies and similar technologies

We use only what is necessary to keep you signed in and to remember your language. There are no advertising cookies, and we do not track you across other companies’ websites or apps. Inside our own app we do use one analytics provider, Amplitude, and because you are signed in, what it records is linked to your account — Section 2 describes what that includes, and Section 4 names Amplitude among our service providers. We use it to find bugs and screens that confuse people, never to advertise to you, and we never sell it.

10. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, the version stamp changes and you will be asked to accept the new version. If a change materially affects how your data is used, we will explain it in plain language first.

1. The principle

Carpool Plan introduces families to each other. It does not vouch for anyone. You are the person who decides whether another adult may drive your child. Nothing in this app replaces that judgement, and nothing in this app should be read as us having made it for you.

3. Before a first ride

Read what we check before you approve a driver for the first time. Meet the driver in person and see the car before your child rides in it. Check the child restraint yourself — under Swiss law a child under 12 years old and shorter than 150 cm must travel in a suitable car seat or booster (Art. 3a VRV), and rules differ in other countries. Confirm every passenger has a working seatbelt and the car is not carrying more people than it has belted seats. Agree what happens if plans change: a phone number that will be answered, and who calls whom. Tell your child who is collecting them, and that they should never leave with anyone else.

4. Every ride

Confirm pickup time and place in the app, so there is a record. Agree explicitly who brings the child home — the app asks this when a ride is arranged, because the failure it prevents is a child waiting outside in the dark while two adults each assume the other is coming. Be reachable for the whole ride. A driver must never drive after drinking, after taking drugs, or on medication that affects driving; must not hold a phone while driving; and must never carry a child they have not been matched with for that ride.

5. If something goes wrong

In an emergency, call 112. First, and immediately. Do not open the app, do not send a message, do not wait for anyone to respond — 112 works across Europe. Once everyone is safe, tell the other parent, and report it in the app or at support@carpoolplan.com. Report any incident, however minor: a scrape in a car park is still an incident, and a pattern is only visible if the small ones are reported too. Where an insurer or the police should be involved, involve them — we are not a substitute for either. We may suspend an account while we look into a report, and we will not tell you the outcome of a report about someone else, because that is their personal data.

6. Behaviour that ends an account

Immediately, and without notice: driving impaired or dangerously; carrying a child you were not approved to carry; any conduct towards a child that would concern a reasonable parent; giving false information about who you are, your licence, or your insurance; using the app to run a transport business for profit; sharing another family’s information or photographs without their agreement. Where we believe a child is at risk, we will contact the authorities.

7. What we ask of you

Keep your own details accurate — especially your car and its child restraints, because another parent is making a decision based on them. Tell us if something changes. Report what you see. The safety of this network is the sum of what its parents actually do, not what a policy says.

My licence and my car

• I hold a driving licence that is valid for the car I drive and the country I drive in, and I will stop offering rides immediately if it is suspended, withdrawn or expires.
• I hold valid third-party motor liability insurance for that car, as the law requires, and I understand my own insurance — not Carpool Plan — is what answers for damage caused during a ride.
• My car is roadworthy, legally registered, and has a working seatbelt for every person in it. I never carry more people than there are belted seats.

The children I carry

• I use the correct child restraint — car seat, booster seat, or seatbelt alone — for each child’s age, height and weight, according to the law where I am driving. In Switzerland that means a suitable restraint for any child under 12 years old and shorter than 150 cm.
• I only carry children I have been matched with through the app for that specific ride, and I never take a detour to carry anyone else without the parent’s agreement.
• I hand the child over to the person agreed — their parent, or the activity provider — and never to anyone else. If nobody is there, I stay with the child and call their parent.
• I confirm before setting off who brings the child home, and I do not assume.

How I drive

• I never drive after drinking alcohol, after taking drugs, or on medication that affects my ability to drive.
• I obey traffic law — speed limits, seatbelts, and the rules on using a phone while driving. I do not hold a phone while driving, including to use this app.
• I do not smoke or vape while carrying someone else’s child.
• If I am too tired, unwell or distracted to drive safely, I cancel. Cancelling is always the right call, and never one I will be penalised for.

Money

• I may accept a share of the actual running costs of the ride. I will not make a profit, will not treat this as a business, and understand that carrying passengers for profit is licensed transport under Swiss law and would breach these terms.

If something happens

• In an emergency I call 112 first, before anything else and before contacting anyone in the app.
• I report every incident during a ride — however minor — to the child’s parent and to Carpool Plan, on the same day.
• I tell Carpool Plan promptly if my licence, insurance or car changes in a way that affects any of the above.

What I understand

• I am an independent private individual. I am not employed, engaged, instructed or supervised by Carpool Plan, and I drive on my own responsibility.
• Carpool Plan may suspend or close my account if I breach this agreement, and will contact the authorities if it believes a child is at risk.
• This agreement is recorded with a timestamp and applies to every ride I offer, until it is replaced by a newer version I accept.