How Hous uses your information

Hous is a trading name of Daisy Maid South East Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 08561914), registered office Station Garage, Hop Pocket Lane, Paddock Wood, Tonbridge, England, TN12 6DQ. We are the controller of the information in this notice.

Hous is for adults. We don't knowingly collect information about anyone under 18.

To ask about your information, email help@hous.london (customers and anyone else) or work@hous.london (cleaners and applicants), call 020 3983 2455, or write to us at the address above.

• Customers. We use your details to book and run your cleans and take payment for your cleaner. Your cleaner sees your name, address, phone number, access notes and your answer about health and safety in your home. Your card is handled by Stripe.
• People who asked for a quote. We'll email and may call you about your quote. You can stop this at any time.
• Cleaners and applicants. We check your references, ID, address and right to work, including with GOV.UK. Vouchsafe, a certified identity checking service, checks your ID and address with a short selfie video, or you can post us your original documents and we check them with you on a video call. We report your earnings to HMRC. Problems customers report are checked by our office, and three confirmed problems stop new customers being offered to you.
• Everyone. We don't sell your information. You can ask for a copy of it, ask us to correct or delete it, and complain to us or to the Information Commission.
• Our website. We count visits without cookies. Session recordings and advertising only happen if you say yes in our cookie banner.

What we collect. Your name, email, phone number and address; details of your home (bedrooms, bathrooms, the rooms, pets, parking and anything else you tell us); how to get in (access notes, key or alarm codes); your answer about anything in your home that could affect a cleaner's health or safety; your plan and cleans; any guidance for your cleaner and what matters most to you for a clean; ratings, reports and any photos you send with them; which link or advert brought you to Hous; and payment records. Stripe collects your card details. We never see your full card number.

Health details. Please only include health details in your access notes or safety answer if a cleaner needs them to stay safe.

Why we use it, and our legal basis.

What your cleaner sees, and when. Before a cleaner says yes to your cleans, they see your full postcode, the home's size, any pets, the cleans and times you want, any extras, any guidance you've given for your cleaner and your safety answer, but not your name, your street and house number, or how to get in. Once you're introduced, we give your cleaner your name, address, phone number and the earliest date you'd like to start, so they can contact you to arrange your first clean, and they see your access notes and keep your current safety answer. Your cleaner works for themselves, so they're responsible for how they use your details. Their agreement with Hous says they use them only for your cleans and keep them private.

If you don't give us information. We need your contact details, address and a card to book cleans. Without your safety answer we can't offer your cleans to a cleaner.

• What we collect. Your name, email, your card (through Stripe), your share of each clean and whether it was paid.
• What the person who booked sees. Your name, whether you've joined, and when their card is covering your share. Never why, and never your card details.
• What you see. The cleans, your cleaner's name and your own payments. Never the access notes, the safety answer, the guidance for the cleaner or the other people paying.
• Your cleaner doesn't see who pays.
• Why we use it, and our legal basis.
  • Taking your share and sending your receipts is to run the split you joined: contract.
  • Telling the person who booked whether you've joined and when their card covers your share is in our legitimate interest, and theirs: they pay what isn't paid, so they need to know when that happens.
• How you joined. The person who booked sent you a link, or gave us your first name and email address so we could email you the invite. We use that address only to send the invite, and any time they press Send again, at most 3 times. If you don't join, we delete it when the link runs out or the person who booked cancels the invite, whichever is sooner. We keep only a scrambled code made from it, which doesn't show your address, while the cleans it was about continue, so you never get more than 3 emails about them. If you ask us not to email you about it again, we keep that code for as long as we send invites, so your request lasts. Our legal basis is legitimate interests: passing on the invite of someone you live with, about a cost they pay.
• How long. As for customers (section 12): payments 6 years, your account while it's open.

If you ask for a quote, we keep your details and the quote so you can come back to it. We'll email you your quote, and our team will call you about your booking. Unless you tell us not to, we'll also follow up by email and WhatsApp, and send the odd seasonal email. You can say no to those when you ask for your quote, by pressing No emails or WhatsApps, thanks, or later by unsubscribing from any email, replying STOP to a WhatsApp message or telling us. If you'd rather we didn't call, tell the person who calls you or email help@hous.london, and we'll stop. Your quote email still comes.

• Legal basis: steps you asked us to take before booking (the quote itself), and our legitimate interest in following up an enquiry you made (the calls, emails and WhatsApp messages about it). The emails and WhatsApp messages are sent under the rule that lets a business contact someone about a service they asked about, as long as they can say no when they give their details and each time after.
• How long: 12 months from your last contact with us. After that we delete it, and keep only a note that you asked us not to contact you, if you did.

Your right to object to marketing. You can tell us at any time to stop emailing or calling you about Hous, and we will. You don't need to give a reason.

What we collect when you apply. Your name, email, phone, address, date of birth, an emergency contact, how you heard about Hous, which link or advert brought you to Hous, your experience, your confirmation that you're looking for self-employed work, whether you have any unspent criminal convictions or cautions, apart from driving offences (if you say you do, your application ends there and we don't keep your answer; we never ask about spent ones), which days and how many hours a week you'd like to work, how far you'll travel, two referees, proof of address and your ID, through Vouchsafe or by post, your National Insurance number, notes from your interview, and, if you choose to tell us, your gender.

Your right to work. If you have a share code, we check it with GOV.UK's right to work service, using your share code and date of birth, and keep a copy of the result. If the check says the code doesn't give a right to work, or your details don't match, you can't carry on with that code: email work@hous.london and a person will look at it. If you have a British or Irish passport, Vouchsafe checks it as part of your application (below).

Your ID and address. Vouchsafe (Vouchsafe Limited, London), a certified identity checking service, checks your ID and address inside your application. It sends you a code by email, asks you to record a short selfie video and take a photo of your passport or photo ID, and checks the video matches the photo. You show your address in one of the ways it offers, such as a photo of a recent bank statement, bill or payslip. If you have a British or Irish passport, the same check covers your right to work, and Vouchsafe checks your details with Cifas, a fraud prevention agency. Vouchsafe makes these checks for us, and acts for itself only for the fraud prevention part, under its own privacy notice at vouchsafe.id/privacy. We keep the whole result Vouchsafe sends us and its report, which includes the photos of your documents and images from your selfie video. If a check doesn't go through, a person at Hous looks at it, and you can ask us to.

Fraud prevention. If Cifas or Vouchsafe find a fraud or money laundering risk, they may keep a record of it for up to six years, and other organisations may see it. That can affect whether they work with you. Ask us at work@hous.london if you'd like to know more.

If you don't use Vouchsafe. If you can't use Vouchsafe, or you'd rather not, you can post us your original documents instead: a British or Irish passport, or a UK, Irish, Channel Islands or Isle of Man birth or adoption certificate, or a registration or naturalisation certificate, together with an official document showing your National Insurance number. Send them by Special Delivery to Hous, Station Garage, Hop Pocket Lane, Paddock Wood, Tonbridge, England, TN12 6DQ. A named member of our team checks them with you on a live WhatsApp video call, from Hous's own WhatsApp Business account, and if your document has no photo, takes a photo of you on the call. We don't record the call. We keep complete copies of the documents, the photo and a dated record of the check, and post your originals back to you by Special Delivery at our cost.

When you're cleaning with Hous. Your cleans, the hours you mark, your earnings and payouts, your travel time limit and the stations near you, your time away, and what customers and our office record about your cleans.

WhatsApp messages. Once you're set up, if you turn them on, we send your work messages to your mobile on WhatsApp too: new work and cover near you, changes your customers ask for, your cleans tomorrow, reminders to mark a clean complete, and a message on payday. Our legal basis is our legitimate interest in reaching you quickly about your work. You can turn them off in You, or reply STOP, and it never changes the work we offer you. If you're applying, we'll also send you WhatsApp messages about your application, unless you tell us not to. You can say no when you give us your mobile number, by pressing No WhatsApps, thanks, or later by replying STOP.

Emails about your application. While your application is open, we email you about it: that we've received it, what comes next, your references and ID, our decision, and reminders to finish it. They're part of handling the application you made, not marketing, so they don't have an unsubscribe. To stop them, withdraw your application with the I no longer want to apply link in any of them, or email work@hous.london. Withdrawing stops our emails and WhatsApp messages about your application. Replying STOP to a WhatsApp message stops only the WhatsApp messages.

Why we use it, and our legal basis.

What you have to give us. We can't approve you without your right to work check, ID, proof of address and references. Once we report to HMRC, we can't pay you without your National Insurance number, date of birth and address.

What customers see. Before you're introduced, customers don't see your name. Once you are, your customer sees your name and phone number, and your cleans together. Hous doesn't show customers a photo of you.

Reports about you. A customer's report may include an allegation, for example that something went missing, which can mean information about a possible crime. Our office looks at every report before it counts, and we keep allegations only as long as we need to deal with them and defend any claim. We have a written policy for this kind of information.

Where your information comes from. Mostly from you. We also get it from your customers (their reports and ratings), your referees, GOV.UK (right to work), Vouchsafe and Cifas (ID, address and right to work), Stripe (identity checks for payments), the cleaner who referred you, if one did, and Daisy Maid, if you cleaned with them.

Daisy Maid cleaners joining Hous. Hous and Daisy Maid are the same company. If you clean with Daisy Maid and join Hous, we tell you first, then use what you gave Daisy Maid to set up your Hous account, so you don't have to give it again. That means your contact details, date of birth, National Insurance number, emergency contact, the work you told us about, your references and what your referees said, your ID and proof of address documents, and your right to work record: your share code if you have one, the documents you showed us, and what your last check read and found, with its photo. Your bank details, any DBS check and our notes about you don't come across. We rely on the checks Daisy Maid made and don't repeat them when you join, so the GOV.UK and Vouchsafe checks above apply to you only when your right to work needs checking again or you're asked to prove your ID. Our legal basis is the same as for an application: steps before our agreement, and a legal obligation.

If we invite you to apply. We keep your name and email, which you, a Hous cleaner or Daisy Maid gave us, to send you the invitation, for 12 months unless you apply. Our legal basis is our legitimate interest in finding cleaners, and you can ask us to stop at any time.

Your emergency contact. If you give us an emergency contact, we keep their name and phone number with your record and use them only in an emergency. Please tell them you've given us their details.

Who we share your information with, how long we keep it, your rights and how to complain are in sections 10 to 14.

If someone gives your name as a referee, we email you to ask about them. We keep your name, email, phone and your answers for one year after the person you're a referee for last cleaned with Hous, or for 12 months if their application doesn't go ahead. We use them to decide on that application, and keep them afterwards to show the check was made. The person who named you gave us your details. Our legal basis is a legal obligation to check the people we introduce. You have the rights in section 13 and can complain as section 14 says.

• If you refer someone. We give you a personal link. Your first name is shown to anyone who opens it. Opening a link records nothing about the person who opens it. We show you their first name and tell you when they join Hous and when your bonus is on its way, and nothing else about them. If they ask us to stop telling you, you'll see only that you referred a friend, and your bonus still pays.
• If you were referred. When you apply from a link, we record who referred you, with your agreement. We show them your first name and tell them only that you've joined Hous and, later, that their bonus is due.
• Legal basis: contract for the referrer's bonus; your consent for telling the referrer that you've joined; legitimate interests for checking that a referral is genuine.
• If you were referred, you can ask us to stop telling the person who referred you at any time, by emailing work@hous.london. Their bonus isn't affected.

If you email help@hous.london or work@hous.london, or call us, we keep your message or a note of the call and link it to your record if you have one. Calls to and from 020 3983 2455 are recorded, so we have an accurate record of what was agreed, can look into complaints and can train our team. We keep recordings for 12 months, emails for 2 years, or with your record if that ends sooner, and call notes with your record. Our legal basis is legitimate interests in answering you, keeping an accurate record and running the service. If you'd rather not be recorded, email us instead. If you reply to one of our WhatsApp messages, nobody reads it: our system checks only whether you've asked us to stop, sends one automatic answer and doesn't keep what you wrote.

• Counting visits. We count visits with Vercel Web Analytics, which uses no cookies and doesn't identify you. Rejecting cookies turns it off, or you can switch it off on its own in Cookie settings.
• Session recordings (only if you say yes). On our information pages and the booking steps before the card page, Hotjar records how pages are used: scrolls, clicks and movements, the pages visited, your type of device and browser, and your country. What you type is never recorded, and the words on the screen are hidden. Hotjar doesn't keep your IP address. Hotjar keeps recordings for 365 days and then deletes them; it doesn't let us choose a shorter time. There are no recordings on the card page, My Hous, the cleaner application or any page for cleaners. The reason we use them is your consent, which you can withdraw at any time in Cookie settings.
• Advertising (only if you say yes). On our website's information pages, including the pages about cleaning with Hous but never inside the application, Meta's pixel lets us show Hous adverts to visitors on Facebook and Instagram. If you type your contact details into a form on those pages, the pixel may also send them to Meta in a coded (hashed) form, so Meta can match your visit to an account. On our information and booking pages, Google's advertising tag tells Google when someone who came from a Google advert makes a booking request or taps our phone number; Google receives that from your browser and sets its own cookies. If you came from a Google, Facebook or Instagram advert, we keep the advert's click reference for 90 days, so we can see which adverts lead to booking requests and applications. If it was a Facebook or Instagram advert and you make a booking request, or start or send an application to clean, our server tells Meta. All of this only with your yes.

We keep a record of what you chose in the cookie banner, and when, for 6 years. Our cookie policy at hous.london/cookies lists every cookie.

We don't sell your information. We share it only as this notice says.

Companies that work for us (they act on our instructions under a contract):

• Supabase, which hosts our database and files, stored in London;
• Vercel, which runs our website and counts visits (based in the US);
• Resend, which sends our emails (based in the US);
• Microsoft, which runs our help@ and work@ mailboxes;
• Vouchsafe (Vouchsafe Limited, London), which checks applicants' ID, address and, for British and Irish passports, right to work;
• WhatsApp (WhatsApp LLC, USA, part of Meta), whose app carries our WhatsApp messages to you, and whose WhatsApp Business app, on a phone Hous owns, we use for applicants' video calls. WhatsApp also uses some information about how its app is used for its own purposes, under its own privacy policy;
• Meta (Meta Platforms, Inc., USA), which runs the WhatsApp Business Platform that sends our WhatsApp messages. It acts on our instructions, deletes the messages within 30 days and doesn't use them for advertising;
• Vonage, which runs our phone line and keeps call recordings;
• Hotjar (run by Content Square Ltd, London), for session recordings, only if you say yes. It stores recordings in Ireland. Hotjar says it may also use what it records to develop and improve its own tools.

Organisations that decide for themselves how they use what we share:

• Stripe takes card payments, pays cleaners and checks cleaners' identity for payments. Stripe uses some information for its own purposes, such as preventing fraud, under its own privacy policy at stripe.com/privacy.
• Google (Google LLC, USA) receives, from your browser through its advertising tag, information about your visit to our information and booking pages and whether you made a booking request or tapped our phone number, only with your yes. It uses this to measure its adverts, under its own privacy policy.
• Meta (Meta Platforms, Inc., 1 Meta Way, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA, which runs Facebook and Instagram). If you say yes to advertising, Meta's pixel on our information pages collects information about your visit, including any email address, phone number or name you type into a form there, which it sends in a coded (hashed) form. With the same yes, our server tells Meta when you make a booking request, or start or send an application to clean, sending your contact details, name, town, your postcode without its last two letters and an account reference in a coded (hashed) form, with the advert's click reference and your browser's details. Hous and Meta are joint controllers for collecting this information and sending it to Meta: Hous is responsible for telling you about it and asking for your yes, and Meta answers requests about the information it holds. When Meta uses the coded details to match and measure our adverts, it acts on our instructions and then deletes them. Anything else Meta does with the information is Meta's own responsibility, under its own privacy policy. You can ask either of us about it.
• The cleaner or customer you're introduced to (section 2).
• Cifas, a fraud prevention agency, which Vouchsafe checks British and Irish passport holders' details with, and which keeps records of fraud it finds under its own fair processing notice at cifas.org.uk/fpn.
• GOV.UK and the Home Office, for right to work checks.
• HMRC, for platform reporting.
• TfL (Transport for London) and postcodes.io, which get postcodes only, never names, to work out journey times and check postcodes.
• The police, a court or a regulator, where the law requires it or to prevent crime.
• Our professional advisers, such as lawyers and accountants, and anyone who buys the Hous business, under a duty of confidence.

Outside the UK. Some of these companies handle information outside the UK, and each transfer is protected:

• Microsoft, Google, Vercel, Stripe and Resend may handle it in the US, under the UK's data bridge with the US (the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework) and the UK's addendum to the EU standard contractual clauses;
• Meta and WhatsApp handle it in the US, and Supabase's support teams may reach it from outside the UK, under the UK's addendum to the EU standard contractual clauses;
• Hotjar stores recordings in Ireland, which the UK recognises as protecting information properly, and its support teams outside the UK work under standard contractual clauses with the UK's addendum;
• Vonage may handle calls and recordings outside the UK, under the UK's approved contract terms.

Email us for a copy of the safeguards.

Some things happen by a rule, without a person deciding each time:

• Offers of work. A clean is offered to cleaners who can take work and whose travel time limit covers the home, the closest 20 by public transport first.
• Right to work at application. A share code is checked with GOV.UK when you enter it, and the application accepts it when the check lets it through, or when GOV.UK can't be reached. If the check says the code doesn't give a right to work, or your details don't match, the application doesn't accept that code, and you can email work@hous.london for a person to look at it. Where a result needs a closer look, a person in our office decides.
• Card holds. If a card can't be held by 18:00 the day before a clean, that clean is called off, and later cleans wait until the card works. A plan ends if the card hasn't worked within 28 days.
• Dormant accounts are closed after 24 months unused, with a warning first.

Stopping new customers for a cleaner is never automatic: each problem is confirmed by a person in our office, and new customers stop only when our office confirms the third.

If a rule affects you, you can ask us to explain it, tell us your side, and ask a person to look at it again. Email help@hous.london or work@hous.london.

We keep information only as long as we need it, and then delete it or make it anonymous.

Backups clear within 7 days. Stripe keeps its own records under its own policy. If you close your account, we delete your access notes and other home details straight away, and your sign-in and saved card once nothing is still being charged or refunded. We keep your name and contact details only alongside the records the law or a possible claim needs.

You can ask us:

• for a copy of the information we hold about you;
• to correct anything that's wrong;
• to delete it, where we don't need to keep it by law or for a claim;
• to limit how we use it, for example while something is checked or while you need it kept for a claim;
• to give it to you, or to someone else, in a form a computer can read, for information you gave us so we could provide our service to you, or because you agreed to it;
• to explain a decision made automatically, and have a person look at it again (section 11).

Where we use your information because you agreed, you can change your mind at any time. That doesn't affect what we did before.

Your right to object. Where we use your information for our legitimate interests, you can object, and we'll stop unless we have a strong reason to carry on. You can always object to marketing, and we'll stop.

To use any of these rights, email help@hous.london or work@hous.london. It's free. We'll reply within one month, or tell you if we need longer. We may ask you to confirm who you are first.

If you're unhappy with how we've handled your information, please tell us first. You can email help@hous.london or work@hous.london, or write to us. We'll acknowledge your complaint within 30 days, look into it and tell you what we find.

You can also complain to the Information Commission (formerly the Information Commissioner's Office, ICO) at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113, whether or not you've complained to us first.

We'll update this notice when how we use information changes, and tell you about any important change before it applies.