Privacy policy

Who we are

London Heroes Services Limited (company number 17217746, registered office Suite Ra01, 195-197 Wood Street, London E17 3NU) is the data controller for personal information processed through londonheroes.co.uk and its connected services. We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (registration reference ZC201883) and process personal data under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

Questions or requests: privacy@londonheroes.co.uk (or hello@londonheroes.co.uk). You can also write to the registered office above.

What we collect, why, and our lawful basis

Account data — name, username, email address, mobile number, account type, password (stored only as a salted scrypt hash, never readable by anyone), and your address if you add one. Used to create and operate your account, verify your contact details by one-time codes, and secure sign-in (performance of a contract).

Terms acceptance records — the version of these terms you accepted and when. Kept as evidence of the agreement (legitimate interests; legal obligation).

Job requests, bookings and messages — your name, contact details, postcode, address, job descriptions, quotes, scheduling details, in-platform messages between you and your Hero, and the job's event timeline. Used to arrange, deliver and evidence the work (performance of a contract).

Payment and transaction data — payments are processed by Stripe; we never see or store your card number. We hold transaction records: what was paid, when, for which job, the platform fee, refunds and payouts. Heroes' payout and bank details are collected directly by Stripe under its own privacy terms (performance of a contract; legal obligation for financial record-keeping).

Reviews and dispute evidence — reviews you write after completed jobs, responses, and any evidence submitted in a dispute. Used to operate the verified-review system and resolve disputes fairly (performance of a contract; legitimate interests).

Identity and business verification (KYC/KYB) — for Heroes, landlords and letting/estate agents applying to use the platform: your legal name, date of birth, identity document type and number, photographs of your identity document, a selfie, and a photograph of you holding your document, together with the business details you give us — your trading name, your role or position in the business, your VAT number where you have one, and, if you operate through a company, its Companies House number and Person with Significant Control declaration. Used solely to verify your identity and business before you can trade or list on the platform (steps prior to a contract; legitimate interests in operating a safe marketplace; legal obligation where regulated-trade checks apply).

Agent compliance data — for letting/estate agents only: the government-approved redress scheme you belong to and your membership number, and the Client Money Protection (CMP) scheme you belong to and your membership number, or your declaration that you don't hold client money. Used to verify your compliance with the legal requirements for letting/estate agents in England (legitimate interests in operating a compliant marketplace; steps prior to a contract).

Hero Agreements — for approved Heroes, the personalised contractor agreement generated from your verified details, together with the signature record (who signed, when, and from which network address). Kept as evidence of the contract (performance of a contract; legal obligation).

Automated document reading — software reads your document images to extract the name, date of birth and document number and compares them with what you typed. This produces a match report that assists our review team; it never makes the decision. A human reviews and decides every application, and you can contest any outcome by replying to the decision email (UK GDPR Article 22 safeguards).

Profile photos — held privately until a member of our team approves them. We keep a record of every profile-photo submission and the decision on it (approved or rejected, who decided, when, and any reason) so that a decision can be reviewed or a dispute answered; the photo itself is removed from that record after 24 months, and only an approved photo is ever shown on your public profile (performance of a contract; legitimate interests; legal obligation).

Security records — sign-ins, failed attempts, verification events and account changes, together with the IP address, approximate country, and device/browser the request came from, and the username or email that was attempted (recorded even when it doesn't match an account — this is what lets us tell a genuine mistake apart from someone trying stolen or guessed credentials). We never record your password or any part of it. Kept to protect your account, detect abuse, and investigate misuse (security — legitimate interests; legal obligation).

Job photographs — photos of the work taken before, during and after a job, uploaded as evidence of what was done. They are encrypted at rest and visible only to the people on the job and our team; a photo of completed work (never of people or personal spaces without consent) appears on a Hero's public profile only if the Hero chooses to showcase it and the job is complete and paid (performance of a contract; legitimate interests).

Support conversations and tickets — messages you exchange with our assistant or support team through live chat, support tickets, the contact form or email, together with your contact details, any satisfaction rating you give, and transcripts you request. Used to answer your questions, resolve problems and keep a record of what was agreed (performance of a contract; legitimate interests).

Notifications and emails — records of what we sent you about your account, jobs and applications (performance of a contract).

Analytics — only with your consent (see the Cookie policy). Used to understand how the site is used and to improve it and our marketing (consent).

Address autocomplete — when you type an address into a booking or account form, the text you type — together with your postcode — is sent to Google Places (Google Ireland Limited) to suggest matching addresses, so you can pick yours rather than type it all out. This is a functional aid to a form you chose to complete; it sets no cookies, and we store only the address you finally select — never anything else from Google (performance of a contract; steps prior to a contract).

We practise data minimisation: we don't collect what we don't need, and the Household Emergency Card is stored only on your own device — we never receive it.

Identity documents: storage, security and deletion

Identity document and selfie images are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM; the decryption key is held separately from the database and images are decrypted only when a member of our review team views them to decide your application.

Images are deleted automatically 30 days after a decision on your application. The outcome (approved or rejected), the dates, and the review reason are retained as your verification record.

Identity images are never used for any purpose other than verification, are never shared for marketing, and never appear anywhere on the platform.

Who processes your data for us

Vercel Inc. hosts the website and delivers pages from its edge network. Hetzner Online GmbH hosts our application servers and database in the EU. Stripe Payments Europe Ltd processes payments, payouts and payment-related identity checks. Google Workspace processes our transactional and account email. Twilio Inc. delivers the one-time codes we text to your mobile. Functional Software Inc. (Sentry) processes error reports so we can fix faults, configured without personal identifiers. Postcodes.io (Open Data) resolves postcodes to areas; only the postcode you type is sent. Anthropic PBC processes the text of messages you send to the London Heroes® Assistant in live chat, solely to generate the assistant's reply — it is not used to train AI models, and a human support agent takes over whenever you ask. If you consent to analytics cookies, Google Ireland Ltd (Google Analytics) processes usage data as described in the Cookie policy. Google Ireland Ltd (Google Places) receives the address text you type into an address field, together with your postcode, to return matching address suggestions; we store only the address line you finally pick, and it sets no cookies. We list any new processor here before it handles personal data.

Where a processor is outside the UK, transfers rely on UK adequacy regulations or the International Data Transfer Agreement / EU Standard Contractual Clauses with the UK Addendum.

How long we keep things

Account data: for the life of your account and up to 12 months after closure, unless a longer period is required by law. Identity images: 30 days after the verification decision (see above). Verification outcomes and Hero Agreements: 6 years after the relationship ends, reflecting limitation periods. Financial and transaction records: 6 years, as tax law requires. Job records, reviews and dispute files: 6 years. Enquiries that don't become jobs: 12 months. Support conversations and tickets: 24 months after the ticket closes. Job photographs: with the job record, 6 years, except showcased photos which a Hero can remove at any time. Profile-photo submissions: the moderation record for 24 months, with the photo itself removed on that schedule. Security records: 24 months. Email records: 12 months.

Your rights

You have the right to access your data, correct it, delete it, receive a portable copy, restrict or object to processing, and withdraw consent where consent is the basis (including analytics consent, which you can withdraw at any time from the cookie settings link in the footer). Identity-verification data can be deleted on request once any legal retention need has passed.

Two of these you can exercise yourself, immediately, from your account page: "Download a copy of my data" gives you everything we hold about you as a file, and "Close my account" retires your account and signs you out everywhere. For anything else, email privacy@londonheroes.co.uk (or hello@londonheroes.co.uk) — we respond within one calendar month.

One thing to be clear about when you close an account or ask us to delete your data: we remove your personal details, but we keep the record of completed jobs, payments, reviews and any dispute. We're allowed to, and in places required to — the law lets us hold on to information needed to meet a legal obligation or to defend a legal claim, which is what lets us answer a dispute, a refund request, a chargeback or a tax enquiry after you've gone. Those records are kept for the periods listed above and no longer. Your personal details are removed automatically 12 months after closure.

You can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk or 0303 123 1113 at any time; we'd appreciate the chance to put things right first.

Cookies

Essential storage only by default; analytics only with your opt-in consent. See the separate Cookie policy for the full picture and your choices, which you can change at any time from the cookie settings link in the footer.