Check a VIN

Privacy policy

Last updated 22 October 2026.

Who is responsible

AutoBimer is operated by autobimer, United States texas. Email: [email protected].

What we collect

  • VIN searches. The VIN you search, the time and a one-way salted hash of your IP address. We use this to run the service, prevent abuse and see which VINs are in demand. We do not store your IP address in readable form.
  • Contact and correction forms. What you write, the email address you give and a hashed IP address. Used only to answer and to act on your message.
  • Visits to vehicle pages. When you view a vehicle page in a regular browser, we record which page, the date, your IP address, the country it belongs to, your browser and device type, the website you came from, how long the page was open in the foreground, and whether you pressed the "Delete" button. We use this to see which pages are useful, to handle removal requests and to prevent abuse (legal basis: our legitimate interests, GDPR Art. 6(1)(f)). The country is looked up in a database on our own server, so your IP address is not sent to anyone for this. No cookies are used for it.
  • Server logs. Our hosting provider records standard request logs (IP address, time, page, browser) for security and operations.

Cookies and storage

Public pages set no cookies. If you switch between the light and dark theme, your choice is stored in your browser's local storage on your device only. The administration area uses one strictly necessary session cookie for signed-in staff.

There is no advertising, no third-party analytics and no cross-site tracking. The visit records described above are kept on our own server and are not shared.

Third parties

  • Vehicle photos. Auction photos are loaded from the image hosts supplied by the auction data provider. Those hosts receive your IP address when your browser loads the photo. We ask browsers not to send the page address with these requests.
  • Data providers. When a VIN is looked up for the first time, the VIN (and nothing about you) is sent to NHTSA vPIC and to the auction data provider.

IP-to-country data: IP Geolocation by DB-IP (CC BY 4.0).

How long we keep it

Vehicle-page visit records and Delete-button records are kept for 90 days. Search records are kept for 12 months, contact and correction messages for 12 months after the matter is closed, and rate-limiting counters for 48 hours.

Your rights

If you are in the EU, the UK or another jurisdiction with similar laws, you can ask for access to, correction or deletion of personal data we hold about you, object to its use, and complain to your data protection authority. Contact us through the contact page.