VAT Sentinel

Privacy

Privacy

Plain-English summary. This describes how the VAT Sentinel plugin handles data on your store. It is general information, not legal advice; document your own policy in your store’s privacy notice.

What data the plugin handles

  • The customer’s VAT number, country code, and validation result.
  • If you configure it, your own business VAT number, sent to VIES as the requester so VIES can return an official consultation reference.

Where it goes

To validate a number, the plugin sends the VAT number and country code (and, if configured, your requester VAT number) to the European Commission’s official VIES service. The number and result are stored in your own WordPress database as part of your order and tax records. A periodic status request to VIES carries no personal data.

Who controls the data

You, the store owner, are the data controller for this data. The plugin author does not receive your customers’ data. The free version sends no usage statistics or telemetry of any kind.

Retention

A VAT number can be personal data (for example for a sole trader). The lawful basis for keeping it is typically your legal obligation to retain VAT evidence, commonly for several years depending on your country. Because the validation log is kept as tax evidence, records are not deleted automatically when the plugin is uninstalled. Document your own retention period in your store privacy notice.

Erasure requests

To act on a data-subject erasure request you can remove the relevant records from your database (Pro includes a guided tool). Note that your legal obligation to retain VAT evidence may justify keeping a record despite an erasure request.

This website

This marketing website uses privacy-friendly, cookieless analytics derived from server logs. It does not set advertising or tracking cookies.

The European Commission’s VIES service

VIES is operated by the European Commission as a separate data controller. Its terms and privacy information are published by the Commission.

Contact for privacy questions is on the support page.