Online booking and data protection: what a business should know

When customers book online, your business collects personal data: names, phone numbers, emails and appointments. This guide explains who is responsible for it, what ubooq does for you and what remains up to you.

This guide is for information only and is not legal advice. Check your obligations with a lawyer or with your data protection authority, especially if you process health data. In Croatia, that is the Personal Data Protection Agency (azop.hr).

Who is responsible for what

• Your business is the controller. You decide which data you ask for, what you use it for and how long you keep it. Customers turn to you when they want to see, correct or erase their data.
• ubooq is the processor. We process the data only on your behalf and only for bookings, under the data processing agreement, which is part of the terms of service. We don't sell it or use it for advertising.

If a customer contacts us with a question about their data, we pass the request on to you without delay.

What data the booking page asks for

An online booking asks for a name, a phone number and an email, and the customer can add a note. The appointment's details are stored with it: the service, the staff member, the time and any later changes. We ask for nothing else.

• The waiting list asks for a name and an email. The phone number is optional.
• The booking page uses no cookies or tracking tools, and IP addresses are not stored.
• The system's logs contain no names, phone numbers or email addresses.

What customers agree to

Before booking, the customer ticks the box "I agree that my details are used for this booking and for messages about my appointment." Next to the box there is always a link to the privacy notice (see below).

The waiting list has its own, separate consent: the data is used only for waiting-list notices and is deleted at the latest 30 days after the entry ends.

A booking is not consent to promotional messages. A newsletter or offers need separate consent, so ubooq sends no bulk messages. From the admin you can call or email a customer, one at a time.

The privacy notice

Customers must know who processes their data and why. In Settings → Details you have two options:

1. Your own privacy policy. Enter a link to it, and the booking form will lead there. This is the right choice if you also use customers' data for something other than bookings.
2. The default notice. If you don't enter a link, the form shows a notice that we put together from your details: name, legal entity, address, email and phone.

The default notice speaks in your business's name and describes only what the booking page does: which data it asks for, why and on what basis, who else processes it, how long it is kept and which rights customers have. It mentions the waiting list and Google review requests only while they are on. The View the default notice link in the same settings opens it.

If you use the default notice:

• enter your Legal entity, e.g. "Ana Horvat, sole trader, VAT ID …", so that customers know who the controller is;
• check that the name, address, email and phone are correct, because you are responsible for them.

More in the Customers' personal data article.

Who in your team sees the data

• The owner sees everything, edits customer records, writes the internal note and exports the customer list.
• The front desk also edits customer records and writes the internal note, but can't delete personal data or export the list.
• Staff members see the name, contact details and appointment history, but can't change anything. They don't see the internal note.

When a staff member leaves, click Disable access on their page. Front desk access is disabled on the Staff page, in the Front desk section. Appointments and history stay, and the person can no longer sign in.

Health data

Physiotherapy, massage and similar businesses easily come across health data, and stricter rules apply to it. ubooq is not meant for such data:

• don't enter diagnoses, findings or similar details in notes, unless it is necessary and you have a legal basis for it;
• consider whether the service itself, e.g. a therapy, already reveals something about a customer's health, and whether you have a suitable basis for that;
• keep medical records outside the booking system.

When a customer asks for something

Request	Where you handle it
Access to their data or a copy of it	the customer's record; the list of all customers in Customers → Export (CSV)
Correction	editing the customer's record
Erasure	Delete personal data on the customer's record
Leaving the waiting list	the customer, through the link in the email, or you, with Remove on the Waiting list page
No more review requests	the customer, through the link in every request

Requests must be answered without undue delay, and at the latest within one month.

Erasure permanently removes the name, contact details and notes. The appointment history stays without them, so analytics stay correct. The customer's waiting-list entries are deleted too. Erasure can't be undone, and if the customer has upcoming appointments, cancel them first.

How long data is kept

• Customer records and appointments are kept until you delete them. There is no automatic deletion: you, as the controller, decide how long you need the data. The default notice puts it this way: the data is kept while it is needed for appointments and until the customer asks for it to be erased, unless the law requires keeping it longer.
• Waiting-list entries are deleted 30 days after they end.
• The codes from the email that confirm bookings are deleted a day after they expire.
• Backups are kept for 14 days, so deleted data disappears from them at the latest 14 days after it was deleted.

When you stop using ubooq

Export your customers' data in Customers → Export (CSV) before the contract ends. Owners get an email about the end date at once and again 7 days before it. After the contract ends, we delete your business's data within 30 days, and it disappears from the backups within the following 14 days.

Security

• All traffic goes over HTTPS, and the servers are in the European Union. Which services also process data (e.g. for sending emails), and where, is listed in the data processing agreement.
• Each business's data is kept apart in the database so that no other business can reach it.
• The permissions of owners, the front desk and staff are checked on the server, on every action.
• Passwords are stored only as an argon2id hash, never in readable form.
• We tell you about a personal data breach at the latest 48 hours after we learn of it.

In short

• ubooq processes your customers' data only on your behalf, and the data processing agreement is part of the terms of service.
• A privacy notice always stands next to the booking form: yours or the default one. For the default one, enter your legal entity.
• Don't enter health data in notes.
• Handle customers' requests on their record, within one month.
• Send promotional messages only with separate consent.