Home Tales

Privacy Policy

Last updated: 6 October 2026

This policy explains what personal data Home Tales collects, why we use it, who we share it with and the rights you have under UK data protection law (the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018).

1. Who we are

HOME TAILS LIMITED, trading as Home Tales ("Home Tales", "we", "us") is the controller of your personal data. We are registered in England and Wales under company number 15693601, with our registered office at 54 Greenacres, Downton, Salisbury, England, SP5 3NG. Our ICO registration number is ZC265975.

For any privacy question or request, email [email protected].

2. What we collect

Information you give us:

  • Account: email address, password (stored only as a secure hash), account type (host or sitter).
  • Identity and contact: preferred and full name, display name, date of birth, phone number, postal address, town and country, languages spoken.
  • Tax details (sitters who are paid through Home Tales): full name, home address, date of birth, and National Insurance number or other tax identification number. The law requires us to collect these to report sitters' earnings to HMRC. Tax numbers are stored encrypted.
  • Verification: whether your email, phone number and photo ID have been verified, and when. Photo ID is checked by Stripe Identity (see "Identity checks" below). From that check we keep only a reference to the check, its result (for example "verified" or "needs another attempt"), the reason Stripe gives if it could not verify you, and when it happened. We do not receive or store images of your ID document. To verify your phone number we text a one-time code to it; we keep only a secure hash of the code until it is used or expires (10 minutes), plus a record of when codes were sent, to which number and from which IP address, so we can limit misuse.
  • Profile: photos, an "about" section, gender, age range, and for sitters details such as your daily rate, whether you have a vehicle, your own pets and children, and the people who will sit with you (their name, gender, age range and occupation).
  • Homes and pets: listings, photos of your home, sit dates, home rules and facilities, and pet profiles including health, routine, personality and special needs.
  • Activity: applications, messages, sit updates and photos, reviews and ratings, forum posts and reactions, favourites, content reports, and course progress and test results.
  • Payments: membership plan, amounts paid, renewal status and tips sent or received.
  • Settings: your email and in-app notification preferences.

Information collected automatically:

  • Sign-in records: when you last signed in, sign-in attempts and one-time sign-in codes.
  • Which listings and sitters you add to or remove from your favourites.
  • When a course test is flagged as a possible automated or failed attempt: your IP address, browser details and the reason it was flagged.
  • Technical error logs, which may include details of the request that failed.

Information from others:

  • Reviews, messages and reports other members write about you.
  • From Stripe: whether a payment succeeded and, for sitters being paid, whether payouts are enabled.
  • From Stripe Identity: the result of your photo ID check, as described above.

We do not ask for special category data (such as health, religion or ethnicity) about you. Please do not include it in free-text fields or messages. The one exception is the facial comparison Stripe carries out during an identity check, explained below. We do not carry out background or criminal record checks.

Identity checks (Stripe Identity)

  • Why: for trust and safety. Hosts must verify their email and photo ID before publishing a house sit, and sitters before applying to one, so members know the person they are dealing with is who they say they are. You can choose not to verify, but you will not be able to publish or apply to house sits until you do.
  • What Stripe collects: images of your passport, driving licence or national ID card, taken live with your camera, and the details read from your document (such as your name, date of birth and document number). Stripe collects these directly; they are not sent to or stored by Home Tales.
  • No facial recognition: we do not ask for a selfie or compare your face with your document, so no biometric data is collected for the check.
  • What we keep: only the outcome described under "Verification" above.
  • Lawful basis: our legitimate interests in keeping members safe, since hosts and sitters let each other into their homes. We have weighed this against your privacy: the check covers only what is needed to confirm a document is genuine and yours, Stripe carries it out, and we keep only the outcome.
  • Stripe's role: Stripe processes this data on our behalf to perform the check, and is also a controller of it for its own legal and fraud-prevention purposes, as set out in Stripe's privacy policy.

3. How we use it and our lawful bases

  • To run your account and the platform (profiles, listings, applications, messaging, sit updates, reviews, forum, courses): contract.
  • To take membership payments and process guaranteed and discretionary tips: contract, and legal obligation for keeping financial records.
  • To report sitters' earnings to HMRC under the Platform Operators (Due Diligence and Reporting Requirements) Regulations 2023, check the details we report, and send sitters a copy: legal obligation.
  • To verify email, phone and photo ID, show verification badges, and limit who can see and contact members to verified people: legitimate interests in helping members trust each other and keeping spam, bots and scammers away from them.
  • To send service emails (sign-in codes, verification, password resets, new messages and notifications): contract. You can turn off non-essential notification emails in your settings.
  • To keep Home Tales safe (sign-in protection, detecting bots on course tests, handling reports, suspending accounts): legitimate interests in preventing fraud and abuse.
  • To improve Home Tales using records such as favourites and error logs: legitimate interests.
  • To comply with the law and respond to lawful requests: legal obligation.

We do not send marketing emails. If that changes, we will ask for your consent first where the law requires it, and every marketing email will include an unsubscribe link.

4. What other members see

Signed-in members can see your public profile: display name, photo, town and country, about section, pets, reviews, course results and verification status. Visitors who are not signed in see only a short preview of listings. Your email address, phone number, postal address and date of birth are not shown on your profile. Messages are visible to the members of that conversation.

5. Who we share it with

We use these service providers, who process data on our behalf under contract:

  • DigitalOcean hosts our database and stores uploaded images, in its London data centre.
  • Stripe processes membership and tip payments and handles sitter payout accounts. Stripe collects card, identity and bank details directly and is also a controller for its own legal and fraud prevention purposes.
  • Stripe Identity verifies photo ID: it collects images of your ID document directly and tells us only the result.
  • SendGrid (Twilio) sends our emails, so receives your email address and the email content.
  • Twilio sends the text messages we use to verify phone numbers, so receives your phone number and the message (your one-time code).
  • Mapbox provides maps and location search, and receives your IP address, the locations you search for and anonymous usage data.
  • Botpoison checks sign-ups and course tests for automated activity and receives technical data from your browser.
  • Google Fonts serves the site's fonts, so Google receives your IP address when pages load.

HMRC receives, once a year, the tax details and earnings of every sitter we paid in the previous calendar year, because the law requires it. HMRC may share this with the tax authority of the country you live in under international agreements.

We may also share data with professional advisers, with the police or regulators where the law requires or someone is at risk, and with a buyer if our business is sold. We never sell your personal data.

6. International transfers

Our database and images are stored in the UK. Some providers, including Stripe, SendGrid, Twilio, Mapbox and Google, may process data in the United States or elsewhere outside the UK. Where they do, we rely on UK adequacy regulations (including the UK–US data bridge where the provider is certified) or the UK International Data Transfer Addendum to standard contractual clauses. Contact us for details.

7. How long we keep it

  • Account, profile, listing and pet data: while your account is open, then deleted within 30 days.
  • Messages, reviews, profile comments, forum posts and course feedback: kept after you close your account, because they are part of other members' conversations and the community's record. Your name is replaced with "Former member". Email us if you want specific content removed.
  • Payment and tip records: 6 years after the end of the financial year they relate to, for tax and accounting law, then deleted.
  • Saved cards and payout accounts at Stripe: when you close your account we delete your saved cards and close your Stripe payout account (once any money owed to you has been paid out). Stripe keeps its own payment records as the law requires.
  • Technical error logs: 90 days.
  • Sitters' tax details and our reports to HMRC: 5 years after the end of the last calendar year you were paid in, as the reporting rules require, even if you close your account. If you were never paid, your tax details are deleted when you close your account.
  • Course test flags with IP address and browser details: 12 months.
  • Photo ID check results: while your account is open, then deleted within 30 days. Stripe keeps its own copy of the check, including your ID images, for up to seven years under its own Identity terms and legal obligations; we ask Stripe to delete it when you close your account, which Stripe says takes up to four days.
  • Phone verification codes: until used or expired (10 minutes). Records of codes sent: 90 days.
  • Content reports and suspension records: as long as needed to keep the platform safe, and reviewed at least yearly.

8. Security

We use encrypted connections, hash passwords and session tokens, require one-time codes to sign in on new devices, and limit who can access personal data. No system is completely secure; if a breach puts you at high risk we will tell you without undue delay.

9. Your rights

You have the right to:

  • get a copy of your personal data;
  • have inaccurate data corrected;
  • have your data deleted;
  • restrict or object to how we use it, including where we rely on legitimate interests;
  • receive data you gave us in a portable format;
  • withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on consent.

Email [email protected] to use any of these rights. We may ask you to confirm your identity. We will reply within one month, and do not usually charge a fee. We do not make decisions about you based solely on automated processing that have legal or similarly significant effects.

10. Cookies and browser storage

See our Cookie Policy for what we store in your browser and why.

11. Children

Home Tales is only for adults aged 18 and over. Sitters may tell us about children who will stay with them; please give only the details we ask for. If you think a child has created an account, contact us and we will delete it.

12. Information about other people

If you give us details of someone else, such as a partner who will sit with you or people in your photos, make sure they know and are happy for you to share them.

13. Complaints

Please contact us first so we can try to help. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK data protection regulator, at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.

14. Changes to this policy

We will update this page and the date above when this policy changes, and tell you by email about any significant change.