Privacy Policy
Last updated: 8 October 2026
This policy explains, in plain words, what personal data Empire After Services collects, why, who sees it, how long we keep it and what you can do about it. It follows the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
1. Who is responsible for your data
EMPIREO SIA, a limited liability company (SIA) registered in Latvia, registration number 50203644261, Tērbatas iela 14-3, Riga, LV-1011, Latvia, is the controller of the personal data described here. In this policy it is “we”, “us” and “Empire After Services”.
For anything about your data, write to support@empireafterservice.com. We have not appointed a data protection officer because the law does not require one for us; the same address reaches the person who handles privacy.
2. What this policy covers
This policy covers the website, the Empire After Services apps (student and provider), and the services behind them: finding a home, airport pickup and rides, messages, the Terra assistant, and the tools providers use to list homes and offer rides.
You must be 18 or over to have an account. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone younger; if you think we have, tell us and we will delete it.
3. The data we collect
Data you give us. Your name, email address and phone number; your university and move-in date; the places you ask us to take you; what you write in messages and to Terra; and, if you are a provider, your identity documents, property details, photos, vehicle papers and payment details. Some features read a document or a photo with software to save you typing (for example the make and plate on a car photo); a person at Empire can check the result.
Data from using the service. Which pages you open, your device type and IP address, and the time of each request. If you allow it, your phone's location is used to suggest your pick-up point or the homes nearest you; it is not kept after the request. During a ride the driver's phone position is shown to you, and the route and distance are measured so the fare can be worked out. Drivers share their position only while they have a ride board open or a ride under way.
Nearby students and chats (optional, off until you switch it on). If you turn on “Show me in Community” we store your position rounded to a square of about one kilometre — never your exact location — and show other students who have also switched it on only a distance band such as “about 2 km”, never a map pin of you. You must confirm you are 18 or over. The rough position expires after 7 days without use and is deleted when you switch it off. People you add as friends, and the drivers and homeowners in your private list, are kept as links between accounts; the person you add is not told that you added them to a private list. You can block or report anyone.
Data about you from others. If you sign in with Google, Apple or Facebook we receive your name and email address from them. If you came to Europe through Empire Overseas Education and sign in with that account, we receive the details needed to recognise you. A provider you contact tells us whether they accepted your request.
We do not ask for special categories of data (such as health, religion or ethnicity) and ask you not to put them in messages. Your nationality is used only where it is needed to show you the right information.
Booking on a partner's website. Some homes are booked on the provider's own website. When you go to a partner's site to book, we record that you went from us, and the partner may tell us whether you booked, so we can be paid our referral fee. The record holds the home, the time, the page you came from and a short random reference added to the link. If you are signed in, it is linked to your account and we may ask you whether you booked; answering is up to you.
4. Why we use it, on what legal basis, and for how long
The table below lists each purpose separately, because each has its own legal basis under Article 6 of the GDPR and its own retention period. Where the basis is consent you can withdraw it at any time, as easily as you gave it; withdrawing does not affect what we did before.
| Purpose | Data | Legal basis | How long |
|---|---|---|---|
| Run your account: sign-in, security, password reset | Name, email, password (stored only as a hash), sign-in provider, device and IP address | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)); our legitimate interest in keeping accounts secure (Art. 6(1)(f)) | While the account exists |
| Find a home and send a booking request | Your name, contact details, university, move-in date, messages to the provider | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) | While the account exists, then booking records for the period tax and accounting law requires |
| Rides and airport pickup | Pick-up and drop-off places, your phone number, the driver assigned, and the route and distance measured during the trip | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) | As long as needed for the receipt and for any dispute about the trip, then deleted or anonymised |
| Messages between you, providers and drivers | The messages you send | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)); our legitimate interest in resolving disputes and preventing fraud (Art. 6(1)(f)) | While the account exists |
| Terra, our AI assistant | What you type to Terra and the answers it gives | Your consent (Art. 6(1)(a)), asked before first use | While the account exists, or until you withdraw consent |
| Nearby students and chats (optional) | A rough location (see section 3), the friends you add, the chats you have | Your consent (Art. 6(1)(a)), asked separately for each | Rough location: 7 days from your last use, or deleted the moment you switch it off |
| Providers: identity and ownership checks, listings, getting paid | Identity and property documents, photos, listing details, bank or payment-link details, vehicle papers for drivers | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)); legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c)) where the law requires a record | While the provider account exists, then as the law requires |
| Referral fees from partners you book with on their own website | That you went from us to a partner's booking page: the home, the time, the page you came from, a random reference added to the link, a coded browser-session id and, if you are signed in, your account and your answer to “Did you book it?”. The partner receives the reference, the date, the home and whether it became a booking — never your name or contact details | Our legitimate interest in being paid the referral fee for the bookings we bring (Art. 6(1)(f)) | With the referral-fee records, for the period accounting and tax law requires |
| Notifications about your bookings, rides and messages | Your email address and, if you allow push notifications, a device token | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) | While the account exists; the token is deleted when you sign out of that device |
| Analytics and advertising measurement | Pages visited, device and browser, approximate location from the IP address | Your consent (Art. 6(1)(a)) — nothing is switched on until you accept | As set out on the Cookie Policy page |
| Fraud prevention, safety and defending legal claims | Account, booking and ride records | Our legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)) | As long as a claim could still be made |
| Accounting and tax | Records of the fee a provider pays us | Legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c)) | For the period Latvian accounting and tax law requires |
5. Who receives your data
We do not sell your personal data and we do not use it for advertising other companies' products.
Providers and drivers. When you send a request or book a ride, the provider or driver sees what they need to answer it: your name, your message and, for a ride, your pick-up place and phone number. You choose to send that request.
Other students — only what section 3 says, and only if you switched nearby students on.
Our staff, who can read booking messages and documents where this is needed to verify providers, handle a complaint or keep people safe. Access is limited to people whose job needs it.
Service providers who process data for us under written contracts, and only on our instructions: web and database hosting, email and push-notification delivery, card payment processing (Stripe, for the fee a provider pays us — we never see a card number), error monitoring, and the analytics and advertising tools you agree to on the Cookie Policy page. Terra runs on an AI service operated within the Empire group; what you type to it is not sent to a public chatbot provider and is not used to train a model for others.
Authorities, where the law requires it, or to protect someone's safety or our legal rights.
Partners whose homes you book on their own website. From us they receive only the short reference on the link, with the date, the home and whether it became a booking — never your name, email or anything else that identifies you. What you give them when you book is between you and them, under their own privacy policy.
6. Transfers outside the European Economic Area
Some of our service providers store or access data outside the EEA — our database is hosted in Singapore, and members of our team who support the service work from India and the United Arab Emirates. Neither has an adequacy decision from the European Commission for this use, so we rely on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses together with additional safeguards: encryption in transit and at rest, access limited by role, and a written assessment of the risk of each transfer.
You can ask us for a copy of the safeguards for a particular transfer by writing to support@empireafterservice.com.
7. How we protect your data
Data is encrypted in transit (TLS) and at rest. Passwords are stored only as salted hashes. Identity documents and payment details are available only to the staff who verify providers or handle payments. Staff sign in with two-factor authentication. We test our own systems and fix what we find. If a breach is likely to put your rights at risk, we will tell the supervisory authority within 72 hours and tell you without undue delay where the law requires it.
8. Your rights
You have the right to: be told what we hold about you and get a copy (access); have wrong data corrected (rectification); have your data deleted (erasure); limit how we use it (restriction); receive the data you gave us in a common, machine-readable format and have it passed to someone else (portability); and object to processing based on our legitimate interests, or to direct marketing at any time (objection). Where we rely on consent, you may withdraw it at any time.
To use a right, write to support@empireafterservice.com from the address on your account; we may ask you to confirm who you are. We answer within one month, and tell you if we need longer because the request is complex. It is free unless a request is clearly baseless or excessive.
To delete your account yourself, use Delete account in the app's Profile, or follow the steps on the Data Deletion page. We remove or anonymise your personal data within 30 days, keeping only what the law makes us keep (for example accounting records) and what we need to defend a claim.
No decision about you with legal or similarly significant effect is made only by software. Terra and the other AI features suggest; a person or you decide. Terra never requests a home, cancels a booking or changes anything on your account unless you confirm it.
9. Complaints
If you think we have handled your data unlawfully, please tell us first so we can put it right. You also have the right to complain to a supervisory authority — in the EU country where you live, work or where you think the problem happened. Our lead authority is the Datu valsts inspekcija (the Data State Inspectorate of Latvia), https://www.dvi.gov.lv.
10. Cookies
We set strictly necessary cookies (to keep you signed in and protect forms) without asking. Everything else — analytics and advertising measurement — stays off until you accept it in the banner, and you can change your answer at any time. The Cookie Policy lists every cookie, who sets it and for how long.
11. Changes to this policy
When we change this policy in a way that matters to you — a new purpose, a new kind of data, a new recipient — we tell you in the app or by email before it applies, and ask for your consent again where consent is the basis. The date at the top shows when it last changed.
12. Contact
EMPIREO SIA Tērbatas iela 14-3, Riga, LV-1011, Latvia Email: support@empireafterservice.com Website: empireafterservice.com
See also our Terms of Service, Cookie Policy, Data Deletion and Legal notice.