Privacy Policy
BusCompare NI Website: https://buscompareni.co.uk Last updated: 13 June 2026
This policy explains how we handle your personal data. BusCompare NI is a coach and minibus hire comparison and booking service for Northern Ireland. We take your privacy seriously and only use your information to compare prices, arrange your booking, and meet our legal obligations. We are a booking broker — see our Terms and Conditions for what that means.
1. Who we are and how to contact us
1.1 This policy applies to the website at https://buscompareni.co.uk (the “Website”) and the comparison and booking service we provide (the “Service”).
1.2 The “data controller” responsible for your personal data is Data Control Manager, trading as “BusCompare NI” (“we”, “us” or “our”), a company registered in Northern Ireland
1.3 If you have any questions about this policy or about how we use your data, contact us at info@buscompareni.co.uk or by post at the address above.
1.4 This policy should be read together with our Terms and Conditions and our Cookie information in section 10.
2. The personal data we collect
2.1 Information you give us when you request a quote. When you submit an enquiry, we collect your name, email address and phone number, and the details of your journey: pickup address and postcode, destination, date of hire, return date, pickup and return times, trip type (return or one-way), the number of passengers, and any additional notes or special requests you choose to add.
2.2 Booking and billing information. If you accept a price, we collect the billing details you provide to complete the booking, which may include a billing name, company name (if any), billing address and postcode, country, and a contact phone number and email.
2.3 Payment information. When you pay by card, your card details are entered directly on the secure payment page of our payment provider, Stripe. We do not receive or store your full card number. We receive confirmation that payment has been made, the amount, a payment reference and the method used. If you pay by bank transfer, we receive the payment into our account in the ordinary way.
2.4 Correspondence. If you contact us by email or otherwise, we keep a record of that correspondence.
2.5 Technical and usage information. Like most websites, our Website and the systems we use may automatically collect limited technical information such as your IP address, browser type and pages visited, and may set cookies or similar technologies (see section 10). To check the status of your quote you can enter your reference and surname, which creates a short-lived secure sign-in cookie so you can view that quote. This information may also include device identifiers, security logs and records of activity on the Website where necessary to maintain the security and integrity of our systems.
2.6 Special requests (including possible health information). If, in your additional notes, you tell us about accessibility or medical needs (for example wheelchair access or a mobility requirement), that information may count as “special category” data. We use it only to arrange transport that suits your needs, and we treat it as described in section 4.
3. Where your data comes from
3.1 Most of the data we hold comes directly from you, when you complete the enquiry form, provide billing details, make a payment, or contact us.
3.2 We may also receive limited information from our payment provider (confirmation of payment) and from the independent Operators we work with (for example confirmation that they can fulfil a booking).
4. How we use your data, and our legal bases
4.1 Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and, where it applies, the EU GDPR, we must have a lawful basis for using your personal data. The table below sets out what we do, the data involved, and our lawful basis.
| What we do | Data used | Our lawful basis |
| Handle your enquiry and obtain prices for you | Name, contact details, journey details | Taking steps at your request before entering a contract, and performing our contract with you (Art 6(1)(b)) |
| Arrange and manage your booking, take payment, and send your invoice and booking confirmation | Contact, billing and payment information | Performance of our contract with you (Art 6(1)(b)) |
| Share the journey details needed to get a price and to fulfil a confirmed booking with the relevant Operator, Journey details and, once booked, the details the Operator needs | Performance of our contract (Art 6(1)(b)) and our legitimate interest in running a comparison and booking service (Art 6(1)(f)) |
| Keep financial and tax records | Booking, invoice and payment records | Compliance with a legal obligation (Art 6(1)(c)) |
| Protect the Website and prevent fraud and spam | Technical information | Our legitimate interest in keeping our Service secure (Art 6(1)(f)) |
| Respond to your questions and complaints | Contact details and correspondence | Performance of our contract and our legitimate interest in providing good customer service (Art 6(1)(b) and (f)) |
| Send you booking confirmations, payment confirmations, service updates, itinerary changes, operator communications and other messages necessary to administer your booking. |
| Send you marketing (only if you have asked us to or opted in) | Name and email | Your consent (Art 6(1)(a)), which you can withdraw at any time |
4.2 Special category data. Where your special requests include health or accessibility information (section 2.6), we rely on your explicit consent, which you give by choosing to include that information so that we can arrange suitable transport (Art 9(2)(a)). You do not have to provide it, but without it we and the Operator may be unable to meet a particular need. We share it with an Operator only so far as is necessary to arrange your transport.
4.3 Automated decision-making. We do not make decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects about you based solely on automated processing.
4.4 Fraud prevention and chargeback disputes. We may retain and process booking records, payment confirmations, communications, IP addresses, device information and other relevant data where reasonably necessary to investigate suspected fraud, prevent abuse of the Service, respond to payment disputes or chargebacks, and protect our legal rights. The lawful basis for this processing is our legitimate interests in preventing fraud and protecting our business (Article 6(1)(f)).
5. Who we share your data with
5.1 Operators. We share the relevant journey details with one or more independent coach or minibus Operators so they can prepare a price, and, once you book, the details needed to carry out your journey. Operators are independent businesses and act as their own data controllers for the data we pass to them.
5.1a Operator accounts and documents. Operators we work with can sign in to a secure operator portal. For Operators we hold business contact details, the prices and messages they send us, and compliance documents they upload, namely public liability insurance, motor insurance (or a combined policy) and their operator’s licence. These documents may contain personal data such as named individuals. We use them solely to verify that an Operator is eligible to carry out work, we store them securely with access restricted to our team and the Operator who uploaded them, and we keep them for the duration of our working relationship and up to 6 years after the end of the business relationship to meet our legal and insurance obligations. The lawful basis is our legitimate interest in working only with properly insured and licensed Operators, and compliance with our legal obligations. We share only the information reasonably necessary for an Operator to provide a quotation or fulfil a confirmed booking.
5.2 Our payment provider. We use Stripe to take card payments securely. Stripe processes your payment data as described in its own privacy policy.
5.3 Our suppliers. We use trusted service providers who process data on our behalf as “processors”, under contracts that require them to protect it, including our website host and our email provider.
We may also use website and analytics tools, e.g. SEO or analytics tools.
5.4 Professional advisers and authorities. We may share data with our accountant or legal advisers where necessary, and with public authorities, regulators or law enforcement where we are required to by law.
5.5 We do not sell your personal data, and we do not allow others to use it for their own marketing.
5.6 Business transfers. If we sell, transfer or restructure all or part of our business, customer information may form part of the transferred assets. Any successor business will be required to use your personal data in accordance with this Privacy Policy and applicable data protection law.
6. Sending data outside the UK
6.1 We aim to keep your personal data within the UK and the European Economic Area (EEA).
6.2 Some of our suppliers (for example our payment provider) may process data in countries outside the UK and EEA. Where that happens, we make sure an appropriate safeguard is in place, such as UK “adequacy” regulations, an EU adequacy decision, or Standard Contractual Clauses / the UK International Data Transfer Agreement, so that your data continues to be protected.
7. How long we keep your data
7.1 We keep your personal data only for as long as we need it for the purposes set out in this policy.
7.2 As a guide:
- Enquiries that do not become bookings: kept for up to 12 months, then deleted or anonymised.
- Bookings, invoices and payment records: kept for at least 6 years after the end of the relevant financial year, to meet tax and accounting requirements, then deleted.
- General correspondence: kept for as long as needed to deal with the matter and a reasonable period afterwards.
7.3 When we no longer need your data, we securely delete or anonymise it.
8. How we protect your data
8.1 We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to keep your personal data secure, including access controls, secure connections (HTTPS) on the Website, and taking card payments through a PCI-compliant payment provider so that card details do not pass through or get stored on our own systems.
8.2 No system can be guaranteed to be completely secure, but we take reasonable steps to protect your information and to respond appropriately to any personal data breach, including notifying the relevant regulator and affected individuals where we are required to do so.
9. Children
9.1 The Service is intended for adults aged 18 or over, and a booking must be made by an adult (see our Terms and Conditions). We do not knowingly collect personal data about children directly. Where a journey is for a group that includes children, we only process the booker’s information, not personal data about the individual children, unless you choose to include it in your notes.
10. Cookies and similar technologies
10.1 Our Website uses cookies and similar technologies. Some are strictly necessary to run the Website and provide the Service — for example, a short-lived secure cookie that lets you view the status of your quote after you enter your reference and surname. These do not require your consent.
10.2 We (or our plugins and analytics tools) may also use non-essential cookies, for example to understand how the Website is used. Where the law requires it, we will ask for your consent before setting non-essential cookies, and you can change your choice at any time.
10.3 You can control cookies through your browser settings. Blocking some cookies may affect how the Website works.
11. Your rights
11.1 Under data protection law you have the following rights, which you can exercise free of charge in most cases:
- Access — to be told whether we hold your data and to receive a copy of it.
- Rectification — to have inaccurate or incomplete data corrected.
- Erasure — to have your data deleted in certain circumstances (the “right to be forgotten”).
- Restriction — to ask us to limit how we use your data in certain circumstances.
- Portability — to receive certain data in a portable format, or have it transferred to another controller, where applicable.
- Objection — to object to processing based on our legitimate interests, and to object to direct marketing at any time.
- Withdraw consent — where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time without affecting processing already carried out.
11.2 To exercise any of these rights, contact us at info@buscompareni.co.uk. We may need to confirm your identity. We will respond within one month, although we may extend this for complex requests and will tell you if we do.
12. How to complain
12.1 If you have a concern about how we handle your data, please contact us first at info@buscompareni.co.uk so we can try to put it right.
12.2 You also have the right to complain to a data protection regulator. In the UK, this is the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) — https://ico.org.uk, helpline 0303 123 1113. If you reside in the Republic of Ireland, you may instead contact the Data Protection Commission (DPC) — https://www.dataprotection.ie.
13. Changes to this policy
13.1 We may update this policy from time to time. The version in force is the one published on the Website. Where changes are material, we will take reasonable steps to bring them to your attention.
14. Contact us
Email: info@buscompareni.co.uk
