Privacy policy
HomeKeepr keeps records about your homes. This policy says what is stored, what it is used for, who else is involved, and how to get a copy of it all or delete it.
1. Who we are
HomeKeepr is a home upkeep app, with a website at homekeepr.app, a web app at app.homekeepr.app, and mobile apps for iOS and Android. Anybody can sign up, and HomeKeepr is free to use.
2. The short version
- HomeKeepr stores what you put into it: your homes, what is in them, what has been done and what it cost.
- Nothing about you is sold, rented or traded, and your records are never handed to an advertiser.
- A few outside services are involved, and section 6 says which kinds and what each gets.
- Your records stay yours: export a home whenever you like, delete your account yourself in the app.
3. What HomeKeepr stores
Your account
Your email address, your name and phone number if you give them, an optional profile photo, and your password as a hash, never the password itself. Turn on two-step verification and the authenticator secret is kept encrypted, the recovery codes as hashes.
Your homes and what you keep about them
Every home you add, with whatever you fill in: name, address, time zone, and facts like the year it was built, its size or what you paid. Then what you keep about it: assets and appliances with model and serial numbers, warranties and prices; reminders, schedules and the upkeep history of what was done and when; service records with who did the work, the notes and the cost; household accounts and bills, which can include account numbers, providers, amounts and, for a mortgage, the lender and rate; providers and tradespeople you enter; projects, costs, parts, electrical panels and circuits; and the seller disclosure sheet if you fill one in.
Files you upload, and the label scanner
Photos, receipts, manuals and other documents you attach, with their names, types and sizes and which account uploaded them. Point the camera at an appliance label and the mobile app reads it on the device itself for the model and serial number: the picture is analysed on your phone, never uploaded for that, and only the text you keep is stored. Save the photo to the asset as well and it is kept like any other file.
Sharing, preferences and feedback
Who has access to each home and in what role, and the email addresses of people you invite, so an invitation can be sent and matched when accepted. Your notification settings and the palette and layout you pick. With notifications allowed on a mobile app, a push token for that device and a record of which reminders have been sent, so the same one is not sent twice. Feedback you send from the app, with the page, the build and a link to your account.
4. What it is used for
- To run the app: to show your homes and keep your records.
- To tell you when something is due, by push, email or text message.
- To send the emails the app must send: verification, password resets, sign-in links, invitations, sign-in address changes, the digest and deletion confirmations.
- To let the people you invited see what their role allows, and to produce the reports and exports you ask for.
- To suggest parts and products when you ask, and to understand how features are used, in aggregate.
- To keep the service secure and working, and to fix faults.
Your information is not used to build a profile of you or for any purpose unrelated to running HomeKeepr.
5. Where it is kept, and the files you upload
HomeKeepr runs on servers in the United States operated for HomeKeepr. The database and your uploaded files are kept on that infrastructure, not on a third-party storage service. Where it is hosted may change as the service grows, and this policy will be updated if the country changes.
An uploaded file gets a long random name and a link containing it. The link is effectively impossible to guess, but it is itself the key: anybody you give it to can open the file without signing in, so treat a file link like the file.
A photo attached from a mobile app is re-encoded before upload, which strips the EXIF metadata the camera wrote, including any location. One uploaded from a browser is stored as supplied, so it can still carry that metadata.
6. Other companies involved
HomeKeepr uses as few outside services as it can. These are the kinds involved and what each gets.
- An email delivery provider. Sends what HomeKeepr sends you: verification, sign-in links, invitations and digests. It sees the address and the message.
- Google's Firebase, on the phone. Delivers push notifications to the mobile apps, receiving the device's push token and the notification text, which names the task and usually the asset or home. It also reports crashes: an identifier for your account, the build, the screen and technical detail of the fault, never the contents of your homes.
- A text message provider. Where you turn text message reminders on, the company that carries them receives your phone number and the message.
- Retailers behind product links. When you ask for a part or product, the server sends the search words, taken from what you typed or an item's name, to the retailers and affiliate networks that answer. Your account is not sent with them.
- A product analytics service. Where analytics is on, it receives events about which features were used: screens opened, actions taken and where people give up, never the contents of your homes. It is read in aggregate, to decide what to build and fix rather than to watch anyone, and uses no advertising identifiers. Analytics and crash reports can be switched off in the app's settings.
- A fonts service. The marketing site may load its typeface from a fonts service, which would see the address and browser of anybody visiting it. The app does not.
Each gets only what it needs, for that job only. Anything goes to anyone else only where the law requires it, or where it is genuinely necessary to protect the service or somebody's safety.
7. Shopping links, advertising and commission
Some product and part suggestions are affiliate links, so HomeKeepr may earn a commission if you buy through one. That costs you nothing and does not change what is suggested. Following one takes you to a retailer's own site, under their privacy policy, where they usually record that the visit came from HomeKeepr. Search words are cached on the server for a while so the same search is not repeated.
HomeKeepr may also show advertising or sponsored suggestions in parts of the app, marked as what they are. They are not targeted using the contents of your homes, your assets, your bills or your documents unless you have agreed to it. Where the law where you live gives a right to refuse targeted advertising, or the sale or sharing of personal information for it, use the control in your settings where one is offered, or email hello@houseminder.app. Either way it is honoured.
8. Reminders, calendar feeds and sharing
With them switched on, HomeKeepr sends a digest of what is due and notifications for individual reminders, by push, email or text message. They name the task and usually the asset and the home, so the content shows in an inbox or on a lock screen. Text messages go only to a number you gave and only if you turn them on, and your carrier's standard rates may apply. Any of it can be turned off in your notification settings, per home as well as overall.
A home's calendar feed can be subscribed to from a calendar app. Its link contains a secret token and is the only credential: anybody with it can read that home's schedule without signing in. Subscribe from Google, Apple or Microsoft and their servers will fetch and hold the schedule, under their terms rather than these. A feed link can be rotated or revoked in the app at any time.
Inviting somebody to a home gives them access according to the role you choose, and some roles can be kept from seeing costs. An owner can change or remove access at any time. Two of these are other people's information rather than yours: an invitation gives HomeKeepr their email address, so invite only people who expect to hear from you, and a contractor's or provider's name, phone number or address is stored when you enter it, which you should do only where it is fair and lawful.
9. Sessions, cookies and logs
Signing in on the web gives your browser a token, kept in that browser's local storage; the mobile apps keep theirs in the device's secure store, the keychain on iOS and the keystore on Android. HomeKeepr uses no cookies and carries no third-party advertising trackers. Browsers can send a Do Not Track signal, there is no common standard for honouring it, and HomeKeepr does not track people across other sites in the first place.
The server writes one line per request so faults can be found and abuse stopped: the time, what was asked for, whether it worked, how long it took, the network address it came from and the browser or app that made it. Request contents are not logged and tokens are stripped out. A browser error may be reported with the page and the build. These logs rotate away and are not kept in the database.
Those who operate the service have administrative access to the servers, the database and the backups, and an administrator screen lists accounts by email and name and shows feedback. Nobody else has access, and your records are read for nothing beyond running the service, fixing a fault you reported or keeping it secure.
10. How long it is kept, and deleting your account
Your records are kept for as long as your account exists. Delete a record and it goes. Backups are taken regularly, and before any change to the database structure, so a failure can be undone; they are kept for a limited period, older ones deleted as newer ones are taken, so something you deleted can survive in a backup for a while after it has gone from the live service.
You can export any home from the web app at any time: the inventory, the maintenance history and the bills as CSV files, or the whole home as one JSON file. Reports can be saved or printed the same way.
You can delete your account yourself, from your profile: a button, not an email to support. You prove it is you with your authenticator app, your password or a code sent to your email address, and are shown exactly what will happen first. Your name, phone number, avatar, password, authenticator secret and preferences all go, and your email address is replaced with a meaningless one. A stripped record remains so shared homes can still tell who did what, but it no longer identifies you and cannot be signed in to.
A home you alone own, with no other members, is destroyed with the account, records and files together. A home you share survives and you are simply removed from it. If you are the only owner of a home others are members of, deletion is refused until you hand it to another owner or remove them, so nobody loses a home they rely on without warning.
11. Your privacy rights
Whichever state or country you are in, these rights are honoured: to see what is held about you, to correct it, to delete it, to get a copy of it, and not to be treated differently for asking.
Most of it you can do yourself: your profile shows and edits what is held about you, export gives the copy, deletion is a button. Anything else goes to hello@houseminder.app. Your identity is verified before a request is acted on, requests are answered within the time the law allows, and a refusal is explained and can be appealed by replying.
12. Security
Traffic between you and HomeKeepr is encrypted with TLS. Two-step verification with an authenticator app is available and worth turning on, with recovery codes if you lose the phone, and one control signs out every device at once. Access to a home is checked on every request, so a role that cannot see something cannot fetch it, and sign-ins and other sensitive requests are rate limited.
No service can promise perfect security, and this one does not. If something goes wrong that affects your information, you will be told.
13. Children
HomeKeepr is not directed at children under 13 and is not meant to be used by them. If you believe a child has given us information, write to hello@houseminder.app and it will be removed.
14. Changes to this policy
This policy will change as the product does. The date at the top says when it last changed, and a change that matters is announced in the app or by email before it takes effect.
15. Contact
Questions, corrections and requests all go to hello@houseminder.app.