Privacy Notice

Last updated 26 July 2026 · Bristol pilot

Plain English, no tricks. Your house's data belongs to your house. We never sell it.

The short version. We collect your email so you can sign in, and the house information you choose to add (bills, chores, house rules, first names, and optional extras like your house address, photos and your birthday). You can use an email link or, where offered, Google sign-in. We use this information to run HausMate for your house and to make the product better. We do not sell it or use it for advertising, and you can delete your account and its data yourself, in the app, any time.

Who we are

HausMate is an early-stage product built in Bristol, UK, for people in shared homes. For any privacy question, email admin@myhausmate.com. We are the data controller for the information described here.

What we collect

Your email address, so we can send your one-tap sign-in link or identify your account when you choose Google sign-in.
Basic Google account identity data, where you choose Google sign-in. Google may provide your verified email and basic profile details to our sign-in provider. HausMate does not request your contacts, Drive or Calendar data, retain Google access or refresh tokens, or copy your Google name or photo into house records.
House data you add: house name, housemates' first names, bills and shares, the cleaning rota, the house agreement, shared supplies, house board posts and similar coordination items.
Optional house extras, if you add them: your house address (for your house's own info page), photos you attach to deposit checks or board posts, and move-in details. All optional, visible to your house only.
Chore photos, if you attach one: a photo you take when you finish a chore, so your house can see the turn was done. We keep it for 7 days and then delete it — after that your house record just says the turn was done, by you, on that day. It is never added to your deposit evidence, and only you can remove or replace your own photo.
Your own shopping list: the items you add to your personal list, and when you tick them off. This is stored on our servers so it survives a new phone, and it is yours alone — nobody else in your house can see it, including whoever set the house up. We can see it, and we use it to work out roughly how often you re-buy something so the app can stop you running out. You can delete any item at any time.
Optional birthday: you can add your date of birth in Settings if you want to. It is never required, and you can remove it there too.
Itemised receipts, only if your house turns it on: off by default. When a house switches it on, scanning a receipt also saves the shop name, the line items, their prices and the date, so the app can spot what your house re-buys and what it costs. Only the person who scanned a receipt can see it. The raw item names are deleted after about 90 days, leaving only the category, and your house can switch it back off in Settings.
Product analytics, only if you say yes: which screens are used and which features help, linked to your account so we can understand real usage. Off by default, asked for in the app, and you can switch it off again any time. If something breaks while this is on, we also capture a replay of that screen so we can fix it, with every piece of text and every image masked out.
Support messages, if you write to us: when you open a support thread in the app we store your message, our replies and the ticket status, linked to your account, so the conversation survives and you are not asked to repeat yourself. Delete your account and it goes with it.
Technical and error data: if something breaks, our error monitoring collects technical details about the failure (like device type and network information) so we can fix it.

We do not need your bank details, and we never hold or move your money.

How we use it

To run the coordination features for your house.
To sign you in by email link or, where you choose it, Google, and to send neutral, app-generated reminders (the reminder comes from HausMate, not from a housemate).
To understand what is working and improve the product during the pilot.

Legal basis (UK GDPR)

We rely on performance of a contract to provide the service you asked for, legitimate interests to keep the product secure and improve it, and consent for optional analytics, which you can withdraw.

Who processes it

We use trusted providers under data-processing agreements: Supabase (database, file storage and sign-in), Vercel (hosts the app; its request logs incidentally record your IP address as it serves each page), Resend (sends the sign-in links and house reminder emails), Sentry (error monitoring), PostHog (optional analytics, hosted in the EU, only after you say yes) and Microsoft Azure AI Document Intelligence (UK South) which reads a receipt photo to pull out the shop, the items and the prices when your house has receipt scanning switched on. Microsoft processes the photo for that single request and does not keep it or use it to train its models. Cosie answers on your own device, from your house's own records, and sends nothing anywhere to do it. There was a fallback that passed a question we could not answer to an outside AI provider (Groq, in the United States). It is switched off. If we ever turn it back on we will update this notice and tell your house before it happens, rather than after. If you choose Google sign-in, Google authenticates your Google account under its own privacy terms and sends the sign-in result to Supabase. We ask for no additional Google service permissions. Separately, the optional House address field uses Google Places to suggest addresses: what you type in that one field is sent to Google as you type it, so it can offer matches. Leave the field blank and nothing is sent. Our processors handle HausMate data only for the services we instruct them to provide.

Where your data goes

Some of it leaves the UK. Supabase stores the database in London (eu-west-2), Microsoft Azure AI Document Intelligence runs in UK South, and PostHog is hosted in the EU. Vercel, Sentry and Resend process data in the United States. For those three we rely on the UK Addendum to the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses, which each of them builds into its own data-processing terms and which takes effect when we sign up rather than needing a separate agreement. If you sign in with Google, or type in the optional House address field, Google handles that under its own terms and its own transfer safeguards. You can ask us which safeguard applies to any provider, and we will tell you.

Keeping it safe

Each house's data is isolated at the database level (row-level security), so one house cannot see another's. We collect as little as possible, do not hold or move your money, and use first names rather than full identities.

How long we keep it

We keep your house data while your house uses HausMate. If you ask us to delete your account or your house, we remove it. We may keep minimal records where the law requires. Raw item names from scanned receipts are deleted after about 90 days, whether or not you ask; the category they belonged to is kept so the app can still tell you what your house spends on food versus cleaning.

Your rights

You can access, correct, export, or delete your data, or object to a particular use. Deleting your account (and downloading your exit pack of house records) works right inside the app, in Settings, no email needed. For anything else, email admin@myhausmate.com and we will respond within one calendar month. You also have the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

Changes

As HausMate grows, we will update this notice and change the date above. For anything that is unclear, just email us. We would rather explain it than hide it.