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Privacy Policy

Last updated: [REQUIRED BEFORE PUBLICATION: date of approval]

1. Who we are

Guvy (https://guvy.co.uk) is operated by Reece Adamson, a sole trader based in the United Kingdom, trading as "Guvy". Guvy is not a limited company. For the purposes of UK data protection law (UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018), the operator is the controller of the personal information described in this policy.

Contact: info@guvy.co.uk. Postal address: 22 Tees Close, Peterlee, County Durham, SR8 1HN.

ICO registration number: [REQUIRED BEFORE PUBLICATION: ICO data protection fee registration number, or confirm exemption].

2. What Guvy does

Guvy is an online platform that connects customers who need work done with independent tradespeople. Guvy does not carry out any trade work itself. Tradespeople are not employees or agents of Guvy.

3. Information we collect

Information you give us

  • Account details: your name (or business name for tradespeople), email address, password (stored only in encrypted/hashed form by our authentication provider) and whether you are a customer or a tradesperson.
  • Mobile number: a UK mobile number, required when you register and editable in your profile.
  • Job details (customers): job title, description, trade category, urgency, postcode and any photos you upload.
  • Tradesperson profile: trade categories, service radius, base postcode, same-day availability, profile description and an optional profile picture or company logo.
  • Quotes and responses: messages and quotes tradespeople send in response to jobs, and which quote a customer accepts.
  • Job completion and reviews (customers): when you mark a booked job complete, and any star rating and review text you leave for the tradesperson, including edits.
  • Review reports: if you report a review, your reason for reporting it.
  • Private messages: the content of messages exchanged between customers and tradespeople on Guvy.

Information created when you use Guvy

  • In-app notifications (for example, new messages, new quotes and accepted quotes) and whether you have read them.
  • Dates and times when accounts, jobs, quotes and messages are created.
  • Technical information processed by our hosting and authentication providers to deliver the service and keep it secure, such as IP address and browser details.

Approximate location: when you enter a postcode, we look it up to obtain approximate map coordinates so jobs can be matched to nearby tradespeople.

4. How we use your information and our lawful bases

  • To provide the service (create your account, publish jobs, show profiles, send quotes, deliver messages and notifications, and share phone numbers after a quote is accepted) — necessary to perform our agreement with you.
  • To keep Guvy safe (preventing misuse, investigating complaints, enforcing our Terms & Conditions) — our legitimate interests.
  • To meet legal obligations where they apply.

We do not sell your personal information. We do not use it for advertising. Guvy does not currently send marketing emails.

5. Who can see your information

  • Job listings: signed-in users can see job details, but only the postcode district (for example "SR8"). The full postcode and precise location are shown only to the customer and, once a quote is accepted, the selected tradesperson. Distances shown to other tradespeople are approximate.
  • Job photos: visible to the customer who posted the job, to signed-in tradespeople while the job is open, and only to the booked tradesperson once it is booked. After a job is completed or cancelled, only the customer (and the operator as administrator) can view them.
  • Tradesperson profiles: business name, trades, service area, availability, description and profile picture are shown publicly in the tradesperson directory. Only the postcode district (for example "SR8") and an approximate location are public; the full base postcode is private.
  • Messages: visible only to the customer and tradesperson in that conversation, and to the operator as administrator where necessary to run and protect the service.
  • Reviews: published star ratings, review text and dates are shown publicly on the tradesperson's profile, labelled "Verified customer" — your name and contact details are not shown. Reviews hidden by moderation are visible only to you and the operator. Reports you make are visible only to you and the operator.
  • Mobile numbers: never shown publicly. See section 6.
  • The operator (administrator): can access account and platform data to operate the service, handle support and investigate misuse.

6. Phone number sharing when a quote is accepted or a trade is booked

Your mobile number is kept private. When a customer accepts a tradesperson's quote, or books an interested tradesperson directly without a quote, the customer's mobile number and the selected tradesperson's mobile number are automatically made visible to each other on that job and its conversation, so you can arrange the work. This happens automatically on acceptance — there is no separate opt-in. Customers are told this before they confirm acceptance.

Mobile numbers are not shown to tradespeople whose quotes were not accepted, or to any other user.

Once a number has been seen by the other party, Guvy cannot control how that person uses or stores it.

7. Service providers we use

  • Lovable / Lovable Cloud — website hosting, database, authentication (including account emails such as confirmation and password reset), and file storage for job photos and profile pictures. Our database, account records and stored files are held in a data centre in Ireland (European Union), which the UK recognises as providing adequate protection for personal data. Web pages are delivered through a global content delivery network, so technical request data such as your IP address may be processed outside the UK. [REQUIRED BEFORE PUBLICATION: confirm the hosting provider's data processing agreement and the safeguards used for any transfers outside the UK and EU]
  • postcodes.io — a public UK postcode lookup service. The postcode you enter is sent to it to obtain approximate coordinates.

The website's fonts are stored on and served from Guvy's own website, so loading a page does not contact Google or any other font service.

Guvy does not currently take payments, so no payment provider receives your information.

8. Cookies and similar technologies

Guvy does not use analytics, advertising or tracking cookies. To keep you signed in, your login session is stored in your browser's local storage. This is strictly necessary for the service to work. If we ever add analytics or advertising tools, we will update this policy first and ask for your consent before any non-essential cookies or tracking are used.

9. How we protect your information

  • Connections to the site are encrypted (HTTPS).
  • Database access rules restrict each user to the information they are allowed to see; mobile numbers are stored separately and released only to the matched party on an accepted quote.
  • Job photos and profile pictures are stored in private storage and shown via time-limited links.

No system is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee the security of information sent over the internet.

10. How long we keep information

Account, job, quote and message data is kept while your account is open. Guvy does not delete information automatically on a timer; deletion is carried out by us after a request. Users cannot delete individual messages.

When you request account deletion from your profile, the request is recorded and the operator is notified. We check that the request came from you, then:

  • Within 30 days of approving the request we close your account: your name, email address, mobile number, profile picture or logo, trade profile details, trade categories and notifications are deleted or anonymised, any open jobs and pending quotes are withdrawn, and you can no longer sign in.
  • Within 90 days of closure we remove the job descriptions, postcodes, locations and photos you posted, the text of your quotes, the text of any reviews you wrote (the star rating stays, as an anonymous "Verified customer" rating), and the messages you sent. Other people's messages in the same conversations stay in their accounts, shown alongside "message removed".

We may keep specific information for longer only where needed to meet a legal obligation, prevent fraud, or deal with an active dispute; we record the reason and remove the information once it no longer applies. We keep a minimal record of each deletion request (an internal account reference, dates and the actions taken) as evidence that we handled it.

Our hosting provider takes automatic daily backups of the database, kept for about 14 days. Deleted information may remain in those backups until they expire, roughly 14 days after deletion; backups are not used to restore individual accounts. Files such as photos are not included in these backups and are removed when deleted.

11. Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

  • access a copy of your personal information;
  • have inaccurate information corrected (you can edit most details in your profile);
  • have your information deleted in certain circumstances;
  • restrict or object to certain processing;
  • data portability in certain circumstances.

You can request account deletion from your profile settings, or make any request by contacting info@guvy.co.uk. We will respond within one month. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk, 0303 123 1113).

12. Children

Guvy is intended for adults. You must be 18 or over to register as a customer or tradesperson.

13. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. The "Last updated" date shows when it last changed. Significant changes will be highlighted on the website.