Privacy in a car is mostly made of small things done consistently. It is not a feature that gets switched on; it is the accumulated effect of an unbranded vehicle, a chauffeur who does not volunteer information, tinted rear glass where you have asked for it, and a habit of not asking questions that have nothing to do with getting you where you are going.
People ask this for widely different reasons — a commercially sensitive call that has to happen between meetings, a personal situation nobody else needs to know about, or simply a dislike of being observed. All of them deserve the same answer, so what follows describes what discretion covers, what you can influence, and where we have to be straightforward about limits.
What a chauffeur will not do
A chauffeur does not repeat what is said in the car, to us or to anybody else. They do not confirm to a third party that you were collected, where from, or where you went. They do not photograph a vehicle with a passenger in it, and a journey never becomes an anecdote afterwards. This holds for cars from our own fleet and from our vetted network alike.
Conversation is entirely on your terms. Some passengers want the driver to talk; most, particularly early in the morning or after a long day, do not. A good chauffeur reads which it is within the first minute and behaves accordingly, and if you would rather remove the guesswork, say when you book that you would prefer a quiet car and that instruction travels with the booking.
The parts people forget
Most privacy is lost at the edges of a journey rather than inside the car. A name held up on a board in a crowded arrivals hall. A collection at the main entrance of an office where everyone can see who is getting into what. A driver asking a receptionist to call up for you by name. None of these are dramatic, and all of them are avoidable if you mention them before the day.
So think about the journey as it looks from outside, and tell us what you would rather was not visible. Any of the following can be arranged as a matter of course, and none of it requires an explanation from you — we will simply do it and it will appear in the written confirmation so nobody is improvising on the morning.
- A name board showing initials, another name, or nothing at all
- Collection from a side entrance or a car park rather than the front
- No contact with reception, security or hotel staff on your behalf
- Privacy glass in the rear, where the vehicle allows it
- The chauffeur waiting out of sight until you message
- Confirmations sent to a single named person rather than a group
Where we have to be honest
A booking creates a record, and pretending otherwise would be the least private thing we could do. Dates, addresses, names and the written thread itself exist because they have to: a chauffeur needs to know where to go, and you need to be able to point at what was agreed. Those records are kept as they should be and are not used for anything beyond running your booking.
We should also be clear about what a chauffeur is not. This is a transport service, not a security service: our chauffeurs are professional drivers, they are not close protection and we make no claim in that direction. If your situation genuinely calls for security, engage people qualified to provide it, and we will work alongside them on the driving without pretending to do their job.
