VIN PIN Privacy Policy Last updated: November 7, 2026
1. Who operates VIN PIN
VIN PIN is a vehicle inventory, location and dealership workflow service operated by Ryan Thacker trading as VIN PIN. VIN PIN is currently a business brand, not a separately registered company.
Website: https://vinpin.app Support and privacy contact: ryant227@gmail.com
This policy describes the VIN PIN mobile app and its shared website/server. Your dealership or workspace administrator creates staff accounts, assigns roles, configures dealership areas and manages operational use of the service. Ask your administrator about your dealership's own staff notices and policies.
2. Account and operational information
For the current username/password service, administrators provide a staff display name, username, role and initial password. We store an account identifier, access status, appearance preference and authentication/security records. Passwords are stored as salted password hashes. The current password account form does not request an email address. An email address may be held if already supplied with an account or provided in support correspondence.
The service stores vehicle stock numbers, descriptions, colors, vehicle record identifiers, NFC pairing identifiers and available physical tag identifiers. It also stores configured lot/site boundaries and inventory website settings. Programming a tag writes an app pairing identifier and its vehicle/key purpose; the tag is associated with the vehicle record on the server.
Staff activity records include vehicle and key-tag reads, times, staff names and account identifiers, reported needs and notes, area confirmations and reasons, resolutions, and service, detail, test-drive and deposit status events. Inventory audits include schedules, assigned staff-role teams, frozen vehicle rosters, scan confirmations and archive/restore exclusions. Administrative records document account and inventory changes. Deposit is a vehicle status; VIN PIN does not collect a payment through that feature.
Please avoid putting unnecessary customer or sensitive personal information in free-text operational notes or support messages.
Issue reports can include a receiving department, an explanatory note and up to three photos selected by the reporting staff member. Selected photos are uploaded to the workspace's server and linked to that vehicle's report or approved task, along with the uploader's account identifier. The photo upload window does not request access to the entire photo library. Photos are resized and re-encoded before upload, removing embedded location and text metadata. Avoid including unnecessary faces, customer documents or other sensitive information in photos. Report photos are available through authenticated access to staff authorized to view the associated report or task, rather than a public image link.
3. Location and NFC scans
The mobile app requests location access while it is in use. Scanning a vehicle tag automatically attempts to capture the phone's location and records the scan time, signed-in staff member, GPS result and, when available, latitude, longitude, estimated accuracy and location-fix time. This represents the phone's position at the scan, used as the vehicle's last observed position. An uncertain location may require an area confirmation and explanation.
A key-tag scan records a lookup and opens the vehicle without updating its saved GPS position. Opening a vehicle profile or reporting a need from that profile also does not update the saved vehicle position.
While the mobile lot map is open and the app is active, it can follow the viewer's foreground location. That observation stops when the map is closed or the app becomes inactive. The current app does not request background location access or continuously track a vehicle after a scan. Website maps may use browser location permission to center the map.
You can change location permission in your device or browser settings. If location is denied or unavailable, the app records that outcome; it does not invent coordinates. Reliable inventory-audit confirmation requires qualifying fresh GPS, with an area review when needed. Existing saved locations are not removed by turning off permission.
4. Why information is used and who can see it
Information is used to sign staff in, apply account permissions, find vehicles, coordinate inventory and work, report vehicle needs, verify inventory audits, attribute actions and investigate operational or technical problems.
Active authorized staff can view their workspace's vehicles, saved locations and operational history. Roles control which changes and actions they can perform. Administrators manage staff access and can view administrative records. Each hosted workspace uses its own inventory database. Within a workspace, assigning a different staff role does not create a separate private inventory database. The service operator can access hosted records when administering, maintaining or supporting the service. These operational records are not a public listing.
VIN PIN includes no advertisements, advertising SDK integration, in-app payment processing or automated SMS or email notification service.
Optional vehicle-return alerts are personal, one-time requests associated with the requesting staff account and vehicle. We store the request, its baseline, triggering event, alert history/read state, a randomly generated phone-installation identifier, phone platform and notification-delivery token. Only the requesting account can view or manage its return requests and alerts. A test drive marked complete or a qualifying later vehicle-tag GPS parking scan can trigger an alert; the feature does not add background location tracking.
Alerts remain in the account's Tasks page independently of push delivery. If phone notifications are enabled, the service sends the stock number, return event text and routing identifiers for the recipient account/workspace/vehicle to Expo's push service and Apple's or Google's notification service. The push payload contains no GPS coordinates, account password or sign-in credential. The phone's operating system may display alert text on the lock screen according to your notification/privacy settings. Push delivery is best effort, and the service stores delivery tickets, statuses and retries; provider acceptance does not prove that the phone received or displayed the alert.
Department reports and assigned work also use account-specific task notifications. These push messages include the stock number, request type and routing identifiers; issue photos and the explanatory note are viewed inside the authenticated workspace and are not included in these push payloads.
You can cancel an active request in the vehicle profile and disable phone notifications in device settings. Signing out removes that phone's registration from the current workspace when connected; no new request is sent to all staff. Notifications already passed to a platform provider may arrive later. Requests, in-app alert history and device-registration records currently have no automatic scheduled expiry; pending delivery retries stop after 24 hours. Contact the workspace administrator or VIN PIN about access, retention or deletion.
5. Hosting, maps, updates and other services
Render hosts the website/server and PostgreSQL database. The current hosted service and database are configured in Render's Ohio region in the United States. Network requests and hosting operations can generate technical information, such as IP addresses and service logs. The server also uses IP addresses for temporary request-rate limits. A hosting region is not a promise that every provider's support, logs or other processing stays in that region. Render's applicable privacy and processing information is available at:
https://render.com/privacy
https://render.com/dpa
iPhone releases with Apple Maps use Apple's MapKit framework to obtain map imagery and display VIN PIN's saved vehicle positions and lot boundaries. Map requests identify the viewed geographic area. Apple processes requests under its own Maps privacy practices; VIN PIN does not attach staff names or VIN PIN account identifiers to those map requests. Information is available at:
https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-maps/
Esri/ArcGIS supplies aerial images for the website and versions that do not use MapKit. Image requests send map bounds that can identify the viewed geographic area, including the viewer's foreground location or a vehicle's saved location. Depending on the version, requests are made by the device or through the VIN PIN server. Esri receives normal network-request information, such as the requesting device's or server's IP address. VIN PIN does not attach the staff account name or account identifier to those imagery requests. Esri's provider statements are available at:
https://www.esri.com/en-us/privacy/privacy-statements/privacy-statement
https://www.esri.com/en-us/privacy/privacy-statements/privacy-supplement
Expo EAS provides app builds and compatible downloaded app updates. The installed update software sends a persistent randomly generated app-installation identifier (EAS Client ID), operating-system/runtime/update information and normal network-request information to Expo's update service. Following a fatal update error, it can send a truncated previous error message with an update request. This identifier is generated by the software; it is not a vehicle tag identifier. Expo describes its own collection and use, including update usage and service improvement, at:
https://expo.dev/privacy
https://docs.expo.dev/eas/observe/reference/client-id/
Expo also routes optional phone notifications through Apple Push Notification service on iPhone and Firebase Cloud Messaging on Android. The push providers receive the notification content and delivery/routing information described above under their own privacy practices. Provider information is available at:
https://expo.dev/privacy
https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/
https://policies.google.com/privacy
The temporary support mailbox uses Gmail. If you email us, your sender address, message and any attachments are processed by that email service and reviewed to handle your request. Google's policy is available at:
https://policies.google.com/privacy
An administrator can configure an external dealership inventory website. The dealer-listing button opens that site in your browser with a vehicle stock search. The destination site and browser have their own privacy practices. App-store or TestFlight distribution is also governed by the applicable platform provider's practices.
6. Device storage and security
The phone stores its active connection token in the operating system's secure credential storage. It also keeps a local workspace cache and queued changes so pending actions can synchronize when a connection is available. These cached operational records are separate from the secure token storage. Connected actions are sent to the configured shared server using HTTPS.
The website uses an essential sign-in cookie. Appearance preferences may be stored locally and in the staff account. The current VIN PIN website source does not include advertising or third-party analytics scripts.
Signing out clears the shared connection and cache/queue on that device after pending work has been handled. Any separately created device-pilot/demo records remain separate and are not automatically uploaded to a shared workspace. Disabling an account prevents future authorized server access; it does not remotely erase records already cached on a phone or delete server history.
7. Retention and archiving
The current system has no automatic scheduled expiry for staff accounts, vehicle scans, saved locations, issue/work history, inventory audits or other operational records. They remain stored unless deliberately removed or changed through a separate administrative process. Recent-history display limits do not mean older database records have been deleted.
Photos attached to saved issue reports follow the retention of their operational records. Unattached photo drafts expire after 24 hours and are removed during a later photo-session cleanup. Photo-upload links expire after 15 minutes and stop working if the originating sign-in is revoked or the account's access changes.
Archiving a vehicle removes it from active inventory and retires its tag pairings, while retaining historical records. Disabling a staff account and resetting a password are access controls, not deletion of personal information. Provider-held logs, update information, email and backups follow the applicable provider arrangements; this policy does not promise immediate erasure from every provider or backup when an active record is changed.
8. Access, correction and deletion requests
Contact ryant227@gmail.com for questions or requests concerning access, correction or deletion of information associated with you. Identify the workspace and account concerned; do not send your password. Requests are reviewed manually, with identity verification and coordination with the workspace administrator where necessary to identify the relevant records and their operational context.
The current app does not include a self-service account-deletion function. Deleting a staff account is different from disabling it and requires handling associated names/identifiers in operational history, linked records, device caches and applicable backups. A request is not completed merely by disabling access. The response to a request will explain the outcome and any applicable limits, including any identified legal requirement to retain particular data. No automatic erasure or fixed completion deadline is promised by the current software. Any applicable legal obligations still apply.
9. Changes and contact
If the service's data practices change, this policy will need to be updated with the practices then in effect. Contact Ryan Thacker, trading as VIN PIN, at ryant227@gmail.com for privacy or support questions. Your workspace administrator handles account provisioning, access roles and password resets.