You can travel with GVB using a personal OV-chipkaart, an anonymous OV-chipkaart, a paper OV-chipkaart, a barcode, a debit or credit card. Depending on the GVB travel product chosen, you will need one of these cards or a barcode. If you request an OV-chipkaart or purchase a paper OV-chipkaart, GVB won't process any of your personal data.
Debit or credit card
Products or profiles granting you a discount can be combined with a Debit or Credit card.
Personal OV-chipkaart
The personal OV-chipkaart is a named card with a passport photo. You will need one of these for personal travel products such as a GVB annual season ticket, GVB Flex or an age-related discount. You can apply for a personal OV-chipkaart from Trans Link Systems B.V. (“Translink”). When submitting your application, you will share your personal data with Translink to enable Translink to create your personal OV-chipkaart for you and send it. Translink is responsible for processing your personal data for this. Further information about use of your personal data by Translink: www.ov-chipkaart.nl/en/privacy
Anonymous OV-chipkaart
Non-personal travel products may be loaded onto an anonymous OV-chipkaart. An anonymous OV-chipkaart can be purchased from GVB Tickets & Info, a GVB ticket machine, GVB service points and GVB stickists, or apply to Translink for one.
A paper OV-chipkaart that you can use for limited duration or a particular journey can be purchased from a GVB ticket machine, on the bus or tram, from GVB service points such as Primera or from GVB stockists. Travel products cannot be loaded onto a paper OV-chipkaart.
To purchase a GVB travel product or credit, GVB processes your personal data. Read more about this below.
Why does GVB use your personal data?
We use your personal data for:
Entering into and executing the agreement for the personal travel product with the card holder (who, in most cases, is also the contract holder). For example, so that you can collect the travel product you've purchased from a GVB ticket machine, or to collect invoices (by means of direct debit) for annual season tickets and GVB Flex products. If the contract holder is someone other than the card holder, we will also use the contract holder's personal data to carry out the financial part of the purchase of travel products. We process this in our customer administration.
To supply, extend, amend, withdraw, top up, terminate or block (in the event of unlawful use) your travel product or to collect (overdue) payments of travel products.
To carry out debtors' checks for sales support and maintain contacts with debtors for reminders.
Performing a credit check. GVB does this to check whether the financial risks are acceptable for both parties. In case of a negative result of the credit check, you will not be able to complete the order and you will be asked to choose a different travel product or payment method if this is possible. GVB does not store the results of the credit check and has no insight into these results.
A ticket and contract holder who does not wish to provide any personal data to us may not purchase a personal travel product.
Customer administration does not form part of the OV-chipkaart system or OVpay system (in which the transaction data that is obtained when people check in and out using the OV-chipkaart is processed) and is technically and physically separated from this. In order to protect the privacy of our travellers, this data is only linked in certain cases by authorised employees. One example of this is if this is necessary for customer service purposes or in the case of fraud (or suspected fraud) involving an OV-chipkaart.
Use of your data for topping up credit on your OV-chipkaart at a ticket machine is necessary for settling the top-up transaction so that the credit can be loaded onto your OV-chipkaart.
Which personal data is processed by GVB?
In the case of a personal travel product, GVB processes data about the card holder, namely:
Contact details
Date of birth (for certain travel products)
Payment details
Debtor details
Travel product information
Card details of your OV-chipkaart.
You provide this data to us yourself. If the contract holder is someone other than the card holder, the contract holder's contact details, debtor details and payment details will be processed too.
For the GVB Flex product and GVB annual season tickets, you must issue a separate one-off digital direct debit authorisation to enable the company commissioned by GVB who collects the payments amount from your bank account every month. Contact details and the IBAN number are processed for this purpose.
To top up credit at a ticket machine, GVB only processes the card data for your OV-chipkaart. The credit is thereby loaded onto the OV-chipkaart to enable you to travel with it. If you choose to top up credit onto your OV-chipkaart automatically, we will not process any personal data for the top-up. Translink is responsible for automatic top-ups. For further information, see www.ov-chipkaart.nl
If your employer takes out a travel product on your nehalf, GVB will receive your business contact details, staff number, product details and details about your OV-chipkaart, so that you can collect the travel product from the ticket machine. We will also process the contact and bank details of the employer, who is the contract holder in that case.
Basis for processing
The basis for processing your personal data in order to purchase a GVB travel product or credit is entering into and executing an agreement with the card holder and – if applicable – the contract holder.
Period of retention
GVB retains your personal data for 7 years in connection with the purchase of GVB travel products on the grounds of the administration obligation for companies as laid down in Article 2:10 of the Dutch Civil Code and Article 52 of the General Tax Act.
Who do we share your data with?
If, after sending out reminders, GVB is unable to collect any payments for outstanding invoices for annual season tickets and GVB Flex products, GVB may call in debt collection agencies and bailiffs to collect the outstanding debt on behalf of GVB.
Furthermore, in the context of purchasing travel products and credit, we share product information with Translink so that you can load the purchased travel products or credit onto your OV-chipkaart. Further information about processing your personal data in the context of the OV-chipkaart system can be found further down the privacy declaration under “public transport chip card system” further information. In order to carry out a credit check, we provide your data to a third party who carries out the credit check on behalf of GVB. This data is not stored in the third party's database. GVB also checks whether you still have an outstanding payment with GVB. These checks enables us to limit the financial risks for both parties.
We also share your personal data with processors who process personal data by order of or on behalf of GVB. These processors are cloud and hosting parties, IT service providers and a processor for carrying out digital direct debit authorisation.