Privacy policy

About this notice

This notice explains what we do with personal data when you use ProveRent. The controller is ProveRent Ltd. For anything about privacy or your rights, email privacy@proverent.com.

The information we collect

Depending on how you use the service, we collect:

• Account data — name, email address, role, and account settings. Your password is held by our sign-in provider, never by us.
• Profile data — display name, photo, the areas you are looking to rent in, and your renting status.
• Reviews and content — ratings, review text, responses, helpful votes, and reports you submit.
• Verification documents — tenancy agreements, rent statements or letting confirmations you upload to verify a tenancy.
• Company data — for agencies, the registered company number and details we check against the Companies House register.
• Payment data — subscription status and billing records. Card details are handled by our payment provider and never reach our servers.
• Report sharing data — when a ProveRent Report link was created and replaced, and each time it is opened: by which account if the reader is signed in, with a hashed IP address and their browser type.
• Communications — messages you send us and our replies.
• Technical data — your IP address and browser type, which we keep only in hashed form except where noted above, and the profiles and Reports you view, used to keep the service secure and to count views.

Where we get it from

Most data comes from you directly. Some is collected automatically as you use the site, and some comes from third parties: our payment provider, the Companies House register for agency checks, and other users when they review you or report your content.

How we use it, and our lawful basis

We only use personal data where the law allows. In summary:

• To provide your account, publish your reviews, and generate your Report — performance of our contract with you.
• To verify tenancies and company ownership — our legitimate interest in keeping the register trustworthy.
• To detect and prevent fake reviews, spam, and fraud — our legitimate interest in protecting the platform and its users.
• To moderate content and handle reports and complaints — our legitimate interest in a lawful, safe service, and compliance with our legal obligations.
• To take payment and keep accounting records — performance of our contract, and legal obligation.
• To respond to your messages and provide support — our legitimate interest in helping users.
• To send service emails you have asked for or need, such as a new review about you — performance of our contract, or your consent for marketing.
• To count views of a profile and show them to its owner — our legitimate interest in running the service.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have considered whether our interest is overridden by your rights, and you can object at any time (see "Your rights").

What is published, and what never is

Reviews are public — that is the point of the service. When you post one we publish your first name and initial, your profile photo if you have added one, your rating, your review text, and the verification badge. We never publish your email address, your password, your uploaded documents, your full home address, or your tenancy dates. Tenant profiles show the town and postcode district only, never the street or house.

Special category data

We do not ask for special category data — information about health, race, religion, sexual orientation, political opinions, or trade union membership — and reviews should never include it. If it appears in content, we remove it under our content standards.

Who we share it with

We do not sell personal data and we do not share it for anyone else's marketing. We share it with:

• service providers who run parts of the platform for us — hosting, email delivery, payment processing, and error monitoring — all bound by contract to act only on our instructions
• professional advisers such as lawyers and accountants, where they need it
• law enforcement, regulators, or courts where we are legally required to disclose, or to establish or defend legal claims
• a buyer or successor, if the business is reorganised or sold, subject to this notice continuing to apply

Sending data outside the UK

Our providers are mainly in the UK and the European Economic Area. Where data is transferred elsewhere, we rely on UK adequacy regulations or on the International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum, together with additional safeguards where needed. You can ask us for details of the safeguards that apply.

How long we keep it

• Verification documents — kept with your account. We do not yet delete them on a schedule; email privacy@proverent.com and we will delete yours.
• Reviews — for as long as they remain published, because others rely on the record.
• Account data — while your account is open. When you close it we remove your name and photo, and delete your saved profiles, search preferences, enquiries and tenancies straight away. Reviews you published stay, shown as from a removed user.
• Your Report — readable by its reference until you issue a new one. To have it taken down, email privacy@proverent.com.
• Moderation records — kept, so we can show decisions were made consistently.
• Billing records — 6 years, as tax law requires.
• Support messages — kept, so we can refer back to them.
• Profile views — kept, and shown to a profile's owner with your role and your name, unless you turn your name off in Settings.

Keeping it secure

We encrypt data in transit and at rest, and restrict access to staff who need it. No system is perfectly secure, but we will tell you and the ICO within 72 hours where a breach is likely to affect your rights.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you can ask us to:

• give you a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• correct anything inaccurate or incomplete
• delete your data, where we have no overriding reason to keep it
• restrict how we use it while a concern is resolved
• send your data to you or another provider in a portable format
• stop using it where we rely on legitimate interests, including for direct marketing, which we will always stop on request
• withdraw a consent you gave us, without affecting what we did beforehand

Email privacy@proverent.com to exercise any of these. We respond within one month and it is free. Deleting your account does not automatically delete reviews you wrote about others, as they form part of a public record — tell us if you want a specific review reconsidered, and we will weigh your rights against the interests of the people relying on it.

Automated decisions and profiling

Search results are ranked automatically. Nothing is removed or suspended by automation — a person makes every moderation decision, and you can ask for it to be reviewed. We do not make decisions with legal or similarly significant effects by automated means.

Marketing

We send product and marketing emails only if you have opted in, and you can unsubscribe from any of them in one click or in your notification settings. Service messages — a new review about you, a security alert, a billing notice — are part of the service and are not marketing.

Cookies

We use essential cookies to keep you signed in and to secure signing in, and one that remembers your light or dark mode choice if you make one. Our payment provider, Stripe, sets its own cookies on the payment screens. We do not use analytics, advertising or cross-site tracking cookies. See the cookie policy for the detail and how to control them.

Children

ProveRent is for adults and we do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18. If you believe a child has given us personal data, contact us and we will delete it.

Changes to this notice

We update this notice when the service or the law changes. The date at the top always shows the current version, and we will tell you by email or in the product before any significant change takes effect.

How to complain

Please come to us first at privacy@proverent.com — we would rather put things right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk, by phone on 0303 123 1113, or at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.