Privacy policy

Who we are

Tehidea Ltd runs Residents Circle and decides how your personal data is used. Registered in England and Wales, company number 05902165. Registered office: 86–90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE, United Kingdom.

Your organisers are the people or organisation running your community, usually the committee of your residents' association.

Privacy contact: [email protected]. ICO registration number: ZC259665.

What we collect

• Your account: your name, email address and password (stored as a hash).
• Your name: your given name, family name and the format you choose for your public name.
• Your home: the estate and home you join, and how and when your home was checked.
• Your profile: what you choose to add, such as a photo, bio, phone number, interests and skills.
• What you post: posts, comments, messages, issue reports, marketplace listings, votes and files you upload.
• Notices we send you: a record of each notice, and your notice preferences.
• Security records: a log of who changed what, sign-in sessions and sign-in records, failed code attempts, and the IP address and browser a request came from.
• Your place on a membership list: if your estate's association keeps one and you tick to join, your name and flat, the capacity you declare (for example leaseholder), the day you joined, and with your tick the name and capacity as you signed, your IP address and browser where your request carried them, and how you were signed in. We do not check the capacity. You can leave the list at any time. If the committee records you as a member instead, we hold your name, flat, the day they say you joined and whether the association has an email or a form.

Where it comes from. Mostly from you. Your organisers and neighbours add some, such as how your home was checked, decisions about your membership and disputes about who lives in a home. Organisers and your managing agent upload home records and documents that can mention your home, such as its address, its tenure or arrears listed by flat. Your browser sends its IP address and type when you use the app.

Visits, replays and cookies

Visit counts. We count visits to this website and the app on our own server, to improve them, without cookies. Lawful basis: legitimate interests in understanding how they are used. Stop website counts below; stop app counts in the app under Your account, Privacy, Visit counts ("Include my visits").

Replays. Only if you say yes, we record visits to this website to see where people get stuck. This rests on your consent, which you can withdraw at any time with Cookie settings at the foot of every page. Withdrawing consent does not affect what we recorded before.

Cookies. This website sets a cookie to remember your cookie choice. The app sets its own to keep you signed in.

Why we use it, and our lawful basis

• Your account and your public name

  We create and run your account, and show the public name you chose beside what you post. Lawful basis: contract. You asked for the account when you accepted the Terms of Service.

• Mail

  We send sign-in, security and account mail, and the notices you have left switched on. Lawful basis: contract.

• Your full name, for your organisers

  Your organisers see your full name. Lawful basis: legitimate interests. Your organisers need to know who is on the estate to approve members and settle disputes.

• Checking your home

  We check that you live in the home you claim. Lawful basis: legitimate interests. It stops a stranger claiming a home and reading your neighbours.

• Telling a home when someone joins it

  When someone new joins a home, we tell the people already there, and they can say the newcomer does not live there. Lawful basis: legitimate interests. The people living there are the only ones who know.

• Your association's membership list

  If you tick to join, your tick signs the list and agrees to it. Lawful basis: consent. You can leave the list at any time. Being on Residents Circle does not make you a member.

  When an entry ends, we keep it for 24 months as evidence of who was a member and when. Lawful basis: legitimate interests. The association may need to show who was on its list if it is questioned.

  If the committee records someone as a member without a tick of their own, the lawful basis is legitimate interests. The association needs a list of its members to speak for their homes and, if it seeks recognition, to show the landlord and the tribunal.

• A log of who did what

  We log who did what. Lawful basis: legitimate interests: security, and a record of your organisers' decisions.

• Reading service charge statements

  We read the service charge statements your organisers upload, to list their charges. Lawful basis: legitimate interests. Your organisers and neighbours need the charges as line items to understand and challenge them.

• Answering your enquiry

  We use your contact details and message to answer you. Lawful basis: legitimate interests.

• Reporting child sexual abuse

  If we find content that sexually exploits or abuses a child, we report it to the National Crime Agency and keep the records the law requires. Lawful basis: legal obligation.

You must give your name and email address to have an account; without them we cannot open one. Everything else on your profile is optional.

Who sees it

• Your community

  Other members of your community, including your managing agent's staff if they have accounts, see your public name and what you post. You control what else your profile shows.

• Your organisers

  Your organisers see your full name.

• Your association's Committee and Organisers

  They see the membership list: names, flats, the capacity each person declared and the day they joined. The list goes to the landlord and the tribunal only if the association seeks recognition. Your IP address and browser, where your request carried them, and your sign-in method, where recorded, stay with your tick as evidence it was you. They are not on the list, and the association can give them to the tribunal, not the landlord, if a signature is challenged.

• People waiting to join

  They see what your organisers choose to share with them.

• Our processors

  They handle data for us and for no other purpose: they host our servers, carry and protect traffic to our website and app, receive mail sent to us, and read the service charge statements your organisers upload. One exception: the provider that checks our contact form for bots also uses what it sees there to improve its bot detection, as its own controller.

• Police, courts and regulators

  We give personal data to the police, a court or a regulator when the law requires it, or when the law allows it and it is needed to prevent crime or protect someone from serious harm. We report child sexual abuse content to the National Crime Agency, as the law requires.

Where your data goes. Our servers are in the European Economic Area, which the UK treats as giving adequate protection. Some of our providers are in the United States and handle data there. Those transfers are covered by the UK's adequacy regulations for the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, or by the UK's approved addendum to the EU standard contractual clauses. Write to [email protected] for a copy of these safeguards.

How long we keep it

• Your account: while it is open. When you ask us to delete it, we delete it after a 30-day period in which you can change your mind.
• Your posts, comments, messages, issue reports and documents: they stay as a record your neighbours rely on, but without the link to your account. The words themselves are not changed. Your marketplace listings are deleted with your account.
• Your membership of a home, and its removal if your organisers remove you: while your account is open.
• Your place on a membership list: while you are on it. When you leave, move out or the committee ends it, we keep the ended entry for 24 months, then delete it. Deleting your account deletes your entries and the name you signed. A copy the association exported is outside our deletion; ask the association.
• The log of who did what: 400 days. Security entries: 800 days.
• Sign-in records (the email address, IP address and browser recorded for each sign-in and other account event): 800 days.
• Notices we sent you: 90 days.
• Visit counts (website and app): 2 years. Website replays: 90 days.
• Enquiries through our contact form: as long as we need to deal with them.

If we report content to the National Crime Agency as child sexual abuse, we keep the evidence the law requires for one year after the report, and the report's reference number for five years after it is issued.

Your rights

You have the right to see the data we hold about you, to have it corrected, to have it deleted, to restrict how we use it, to object to how we use it, and to take a copy with you. You can download your data and delete your account in the app. For anything else, write to [email protected].

If your committee recorded you as a member and you have no account, you have the same rights. Write to [email protected] with your name and flat. We or the committee will answer you, and delete the entry if you ask.

How to complain

You may complain to us at [email protected], and to the Information Commissioner's Office at any time: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint⁠ (opens in a new tab) or 0303 123 1113.

Us and your organisers

When your organisers run your community (approving members, posting notices, moderating), they and Tehidea Ltd decide together how your data is used. The law calls us joint controllers. We have agreed that:

• Tehidea Ltd is your contact point and answers your requests.
• You may still use your rights against either of us.
• Your organisers pass any request, or any suspected breach, to [email protected] promptly. A request about an exported list is the exception: the committee answers it.
• Your organisers use your data only to run the community.

The membership list works the same way while it is in the product. Once your association exports it, the association alone decides who receives it and how long it keeps it, and our deletion does not reach it. The committee answers requests about that copy. If one reaches us, we pass it to the committee and tell you.

Changes to this notice

The date at the top says when we last changed this notice.