Privacy Policy

Whether you enroll online or in person at the school, we record:

• Contact information — your name, email address, and phone number.
• Address information — street address, city, state, and ZIP code.
• Date of birth — for your training record, for DMV paperwork, and so we know whether the protections described under Students under 18 apply to you.
• Permit or license details — credential type, issuing state, permit or license number, and expiration date.
• Physical description from your permit — sex, height, eye color, and any vision restriction. New York State requires these on the roster we submit for the 5-hour pre-licensing course.
• Referral source — how you heard about us. This question is optional and you may skip it.
• Medical condition notes — only if you choose to share them, so instructors can plan lessons safely.

Payment details. Card payments are handled by Authorize.net on its own secure hosted page. Neither our website nor our staff system collects or stores your card number. For payments by cash, check, or Zelle, we record only that the payment was made and the amount.

If you enroll in CDL / Class A training, federal and state requirements oblige us to collect the last four digits of your Social Security number to complete your training record and the required DMV and clearinghouse paperwork.

• It is collected by staff in person or by phone during intake — never through the website's enrollment or checkout form.
• It is stored only in our internal staff system, encrypted, and reachable only by authorized staff.
• We collect the last four digits only. We never ask for or store your full Social Security number.
• It is deleted automatically by our system once you complete your course or your record is marked inactive, whichever comes first. The deletion is recorded in our audit log.

If you are not a CDL / Class A student, we never ask you for a Social Security number at all. No one should ever be asked to enter one into this website. If a page or an email appears to ask you for one, do not provide it — call the school directly at (718) 466-7717.

When you enroll online, our system records alongside your enrollment:

• the date and time you accepted the terms of service and this privacy policy;
• the internet (IP) address the submission came from;
• the browser and device description your browser sent;
• the version numbers of each policy in effect when you accepted them.

This exists so there is a reliable record of what you agreed to and when — the electronic equivalent of a dated signature. We do not use it to build a profile of you, to track you across other websites, or for advertising, and we do not sell it.

We use Netlify Analytics to count visits to our website. It works from our hosting provider's server logs — it sets no cookies and runs no code in your browser, so there is nothing for you to opt out of and no tracking that follows you elsewhere. It counts unique visitors by IP address and tells us which pages are viewed. It cannot identify you.

We use no advertising pixels or tracking services of any kind.

We use what you provide to:

• process your enrollment and set up your student record;
• schedule lessons, courses, and road test appointments;
• complete the DMV paperwork your training requires, including the 5-hour pre-licensing course roster;
• contact you about your enrollment, scheduling, and payments;
• plan lessons safely, where you have shared medical notes;
• meet the recordkeeping obligations New York State DMV regulations impose on driving schools;
• understand how customers find us, where you have chosen to tell us.

We do not sell your information, and we do not use it for third-party advertising.

Some students ask us to help set up an online DMV account. Where we do, we use only the information needed for that purpose and we do not keep your DMV account password.

Access to student records is limited by role:

• Owners and administrators can see full student records.
• Office employees can see student records and schedules needed for day-to-day operations.
• Instructors can see the students assigned to them and the information needed to teach and record a lesson — name, contact details, lesson history, and any medical notes relevant to safe instruction. Instructors access this from their phones through a secure sign-in. Student information is not stored on their devices, and staff are not permitted to copy, screenshot, or forward it.
• Our system developer can access records as needed to maintain and support the system.

Every person with access has an individual account. Accounts are never shared, and access is removed when someone leaves.

We share information outside the school only where needed to provide the service you asked for — for example, the DMV for road test scheduling and course rosters, or our payment processor for a payment you initiate.

We use your email address and phone number to communicate about your enrollment — confirmations, scheduling, and payment questions. Our system also sends automated enrollment and scheduling emails.

These are messages about your own training, not marketing. If we introduce promotional messages or text messaging, we will ask your permission first and update this policy before sending you anything.

Students under 18 routinely enroll in driver education with us. New York's Child Data Protection Act gives them specific protections, and this section explains how we apply it.

What we collect. We record the same enrollment information for a student under 18 as for any other student, because it is what we need to enroll you, schedule your training, complete the DMV paperwork the law requires of us — including the 5-hour course roster — and keep the records New York State requires driving schools to keep. Where a question is optional, you may skip it, and skipping it will not affect your enrollment, your price, or the service you receive.

We do not advertise to you. We do not use the personal data of students under 18 for advertising, targeted advertising, or profiling. No advertising or tracking technology operates anywhere on our website.

We do not sell your data. We never sell the personal data of a student under 18, to anyone, for any purpose.

Your parent or guardian. If you are under 18, your parent or guardian enrolls you alongside you and is our contact for payments and refunds. Either of you may ask us what information we hold, ask us to correct it, or ask a question about this policy.

When you turn 18. When our records show you have turned 18, we will let you know that the additional protections in this section no longer apply to you.

Children under 13. This website is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from them. If we learn we have, we will delete it.

Your permit or license number, your Social Security digits, and any medical or vision information you share are treated as protected private information under New York's SHIELD Act. The safeguards we maintain include:

• Encryption in transit. Everything you submit travels over an encrypted HTTPS connection.
• Encryption at rest. Records are stored in a managed database that encrypts stored data.
• Role-based access. Each staff member has an individual account and sees only what their role requires.
• Multi-factor authentication is required on accounts with access to student records.
• Card data never touches our systems. Card payments complete on a hosted page operated by our payment processor; we receive only a confirmation and the last four digits of the card.
• Masked display. Permit and license numbers are masked on confirmation screens and receipts.
• Filtered error reporting. Our error-monitoring system automatically strips sensitive fields — including permit and license numbers, dates of birth, and medical notes — before any diagnostic report is recorded.
• Audit logging. Significant actions are recorded, so we can tell who accessed or changed a record.
• Secure storage of paper records. Paper files are kept at the school and shredded when no longer needed.
• Staff training. Staff are trained on these practices when they join and at least once a year after that.

No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, but we review these measures as our systems change and work to keep them appropriate to what you have entrusted to us.

Different information is kept for different periods.

The effect is that we can always confirm you trained with us and what you completed, without holding your permit number or medical details longer than we need to.

Disposal. When information is no longer needed, we dispose of it so it cannot be read or reconstructed — electronic records are deleted from our systems, and paper records are shredded.

These providers process information only to provide their service to us and are not permitted to use it for their own purposes.

We expect to retire the legacy scheduling system by December 2026, after which student records will be held only in our own system.

If we discover that private information about you has been accessed or acquired without authorization, we will notify you in the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay, and in no event later than 30 days after we discover the breach, unless a law enforcement agency determines that notice would impede an investigation.

We will also notify the New York State Attorney General, the Department of State, the Division of State Police, and the Department of Financial Services, as New York law requires.

Our notice will describe what happened, what information was involved, and what you can do in response.

You may contact us at any time to:

• ask what information we hold about you, or request a copy;
• correct information that is wrong or out of date;
• ask us to delete information we are not required to keep for DMV, tax, or accounting purposes;
• ask a question about anything in this policy before you enroll.

Some records we cannot delete on request, because New York DMV regulations require driving schools to retain them, and because our security audit log is kept as a tamper-resistant record of who accessed what. We will tell you which is which when you ask.

Reach us at (718) 466-7717 or privacy@elegantdrivingschool.com. We may need to verify your identity before releasing or changing records.

We may update this policy as our systems and legal obligations change. Each version carries a version number and effective date, shown at the top of this page, and we record the version you accepted with your enrollment.

If you have difficulty reading this policy or using our enrollment form, see our Accessibility Statement for how to report a barrier and how to enroll by phone or in person.

If you have any questions about this page, contact Elegant Driving School Inc. at (718) 466-7717 or privacy@elegantdrivingschool.com, or visit us at 850 Longwood Avenue, Bronx, NY 10459.