Privacy Policy

How AutoHound handles information used by collision repair shops to manage repairs and communicate with their customers.

Last updated September 1, 2026

AutoHound, LLC builds software that collision repair shops use to manage repairs and communicate with their customers.

Who this policy covers

This policy covers three groups, and our role is different for each:

If a repair shop is fixing your vehicle

The shop decides what information to collect about you and why, and uses AutoHound to do that work. We handle that information on the shop’s behalf and on its instructions; we do not decide how it is used and we do not use it for our own purposes. Separately from the shop’s own retention choices, AutoHound applies its own retention limit to ordinary records. We may delete those records once they are more than 7 years old, subject to the shorter and longer retention rules below. Start with Information the shop records about you.

If you use AutoHound at work

If your shop gave you a login, we hold information about your account directly. See If you use AutoHound at work.

If you try the demo

If you create a demo shop to try AutoHound for yourself, we hold the details you gave us and a record of how you used the demo, and we use them to follow up with you about AutoHound. See If you try the demo.

Information the shop records about you

When you do business with a repair shop that uses AutoHound, the shop records what it needs to perform your repair: your name, phone number, email, mailing address, vehicle details (including VIN and license plate), insurance claim references, repair photos, payment records, any authorization or delivery form you sign, and messages you exchange with the shop.

How it is used

This information is used solely to manage your repair and keep you informed about it, including status updates, pickup notifications, and replies to your questions. It is not used for advertising.

Public booking requests

Some repair shops that use AutoHound publish a public booking page where anyone may propose a vehicle drop-off day. When you submit a request, you provide your name, a phone number and/or email address, a vehicle description, an optional note, and the proposed day.

This information is shared only with the specific repair shop whose booking page you used so it can respond to your request. It is not sold, shared with any other party, or used for marketing.

You receive one confirmation of your submission. The confirmation is sent by text message only if you explicitly checked the SMS consent box. Otherwise, it is sent by email if you provided an email address. This is a one-time transactional message, not a subscription.

If the shop declines the request or does not act on it, the request and its personal information are automatically deleted within approximately 60 days after the proposed drop-off day has passed. If the shop accepts the request, the information becomes part of that shop’s customer records and is governed by the rest of this policy.

If you checked the SMS consent box, a record of that consent, including the date, time, and the phone number that consented, is retained even after the request itself is deleted. This record is retained as legal evidence of consent to receive text messages. Text messaging is additionally governed by that shop’s SMS Terms & Conditions.

Text messaging

With your consent, the shop may send you SMS text messages about your vehicle repair (status updates, pickup notifications, appointment reminders). Consent is recorded before messaging begins. You can opt out at any time by replying STOP, and re-subscribe by replying START if you previously opted in. See our SMS Terms & Conditions page for full details.

Message frequency varies with the status of your repair. Typically, a few messages are sent over the course of a repair order. Message and data rates may apply.

No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. Text messaging originator opt-in data and consent will not be shared with any third parties.

Sharing

We use a small number of vetted service providers to operate AutoHound, including hosting and data storage, payment processing, text-message delivery, email delivery, error monitoring, and address lookup. Each may process information only as needed to provide that service to us, under contract, and may not use it for its own purposes. A current list of these providers is available to shops on request.

Information is also shared, where applicable to your repair, with your insurance carrier. It is never sold, and it is never shared for cross-context behavioral advertising.

Accounting integrations

A repair shop may connect its own accounting software, such as Intuit QuickBooks Online, to AutoHound. When a shop enables such a connection, invoice, payment, and customer records are transmitted to that provider at the shop’s direction, and the provider’s own privacy policy governs the data it receives. AutoHound stores only the encrypted credentials needed to maintain the connection, transmits no data for advertising purposes, and the shop can disconnect the integration at any time from its settings. QuickBooks and Intuit are registered trademarks of Intuit Inc.

Address autocomplete

When shop staff type a street address into AutoHound, the partial address text may be sent to Google’s Places service to suggest completions. Only the address text being typed is transmitted. Names, phone numbers, and other customer information are never transmitted, and Google’s privacy policy governs its handling of that text. Shops operate without this feature when it is not configured.

If you use AutoHound at work

When your shop creates your account, we hold your name, work email, and role, along with the security material that protects the account: a hashed password, your two-factor settings and, if you enroll in SMS two-factor, a phone number, and a hashed PIN if your shop uses shared devices. We record sign-ins and keep a log of actions taken in the shop’s account, so your shop can answer "who changed this."

We use this only to operate the service, secure it, and support you. We do not sell it, and we do not use it for advertising. If you created a demo shop yourself rather than being given a login by a shop, see If you try the demo instead.

Your shop administers your account, including that activity log, which is the shop’s business record. If you want to see or correct information we hold about you directly, contact us using the details below. Support access can also include signing in as you; see Keeping information secure. The start of any such session is recorded in your shop’s activity log.

If you try the demo

We offer a self-guided demo at demo.autohound.io. It creates a temporary sample shop, filled with fictional vehicles and repairs, that is deleted after 7 days. The demo is for sample data only: please do not enter real customer or employee information into it. Your use of it is also governed by our Demo Environment Acceptable Use Policy.

To create a demo we ask for your name, email address, shop name, and, if you choose to give it, a phone number. We also record the network address and browser the request came from, which we use to prevent abuse of the demo.

We use these details to send you the private link to your demo, to support you while you try it, and to contact you about AutoHound afterwards. That contact is our own sales follow-up about our own product. Your details are not sold, and they are not shared with anyone else for their own marketing. You can tell us to stop contacting you, and ask us to delete what we hold about you, at any time by emailing [email protected].

While a demo is active we also record how it is used: whether the private link was opened, how many times and on how many days it was visited, how far through the guided tour you went and whether you dismissed it, and counts of the actions taken inside the sample shop. We keep that record with your contact details in our own sales records, so we can tell whether the demo was useful and what would be worth discussing if we speak. It describes activity in a sample shop, not any real repair.

The demo shop and its contents are deleted 7 days after it is created, and the record of the signup request itself is deleted after about 30 days. Your contact details and the summary of how the demo was used are kept in our sales records until you ask us to delete them.

Keeping information secure

Each shop’s data is isolated at the database layer, connections are encrypted in transit, passwords are hashed, and two-factor authentication is available. Technicians are not shown financial fields. Our Security page describes this in more detail.

A limited number of authorized AutoHound staff can access shop accounts to provide support and investigate problems. That can include signing in as one of the shop’s users in order to see what that person sees and reproduce an issue they have reported. We record the start of every such session in the shop’s activity log. We use this access only to operate, secure, and support the service.

Backups are taken daily, stored offsite in encrypted form, and kept for 30 days. A record removed from the live system may remain in a backup for up to 30 days after its removal.

Retention, correction, and deletion

Repair records are retained by the shop as its business records, for as long as the shop needs them for warranty, tax, insurance, and liability purposes.

AutoHound also applies its own outside limit. Once a record is more than 7 years old, we may delete it at any time and without notice. We reserve that right rather than promise it. Nothing obliges us to keep a record for the full 7 years or to delete it when the record reaches that age.

Some information is cleared automatically much sooner:

• Sign-in sessions are cleared within days after they expire.
• In-app notifications are cleared after about 90 days.
• Routine activity-log entries are cleared after about a year.
• Messages shop staff send each other inside AutoHound are cleared after about two years.
• Photos attached to a repair order the shop voids are cleared after about 30 days.
• Invitations to join a shop that are never accepted are cleared about 90 days after they expire.
• Estimate files sent to a shop that never match a vehicle it works on are cleared after about six months, or after about 30 days for a file that could not be read.

While your shop’s account is open, we keep some records for longer than 7 years, and some indefinitely, because they can be evidence in a later dispute. These records include:

• Proof that a customer agreed to be contacted, and any later opt-out.
• Payment and estimate records.
• Signed authorization and delivery forms.
• Records showing that documents or photos were deleted or altered.
• Significant activity-log entries, such as changes to money, access, documents, or consent.

On a shop’s instruction, we can permanently remove personal details, including name, phone, email, and address, from a customer record while retaining the repair and payment history the shop is required to keep. Once removed, that personal information cannot be restored.

To review, correct, or request deletion of information about your repair, contact the repair shop performing your work. The shop decides what it must retain. You can also reach us at the details below and we will route your request.

If a shop stops using AutoHound, the shop is responsible for exporting its records before its access ends. After access ends, we are not obliged to keep, restore, or provide those records. We remove the shop’s records from our active systems within 90 days after access ends. Copies in our encrypted backups expire within 30 days after that. Beyond that point, we keep only what the law requires us to retain.

Your privacy rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, or receive a copy of your personal information, and to opt out of its sale or use for targeted advertising. We do not sell personal information, and we do not use it for targeted advertising. We do not profile repair customers or shop staff. If you try the demo, we do record how you used it and use that in our own sales follow-up, as described under If you try the demo.

We apply the same process to everyone who asks, wherever they live:

• About a repair: contact the shop that performed the work, or contact us and we will route the request to them.
• About your AutoHound login: contact us directly.
• About a demo you created: contact us directly.

We will acknowledge a request within 45 days. If we decline it, you may appeal by emailing [email protected] with "Privacy appeal" in the subject line; we will respond to an appeal within 60 days. Residents who disagree with the outcome of an appeal may submit a complaint to their state’s attorney general or privacy regulator, such as the Texas Attorney General.

Changes to this policy

We will update this page when our practices change and revise the "last updated" date above. If a change materially affects how information about you is handled, we will notify shops through the application.

Contact

AutoHound, LLC · 5900 Balcones Drive, Suite 100, Austin, TX 78731 · [email protected] · (888) 477-0652