Privacy notice

Last updated: 28 September 2026. This notice covers the BuildHarbour prototype and early access service in England.

Who is responsible and how to reach us

BuildHarbour is responsible for the personal information described here. For privacy requests or questions, email help@buildharbour.co.uk.

Information we use

Account details: email address, account ID, name, whether you are a homeowner, tradesperson or worker; for workers and tradespeople, your trade, service area and optional profile photo; and for tradespeople, photos of your work. Our authentication provider handles your password; we do not display it.
Jobs and quotes: descriptions, category, town, postcode area, budget, photos, quoted prices and written responses.
Conversations and support: messages between people involved in a quote, whether you have opened a conversation, and information you send to our support email.
Work board: posts about looking for work or hiring workers, the name of the person posting, and messages exchanged by workers and tradespeople who contact each other through a post.
Reviews: rating, comment, reviewer and the job it relates to. Other signed-in users may see reviews on a tradesperson's profile.
Payments when a paid feature is available: the selected feature, its amount, checkout session reference and payment status. Stripe handles card details; BuildHarbour does not receive your full card number.
Technical information needed to run the service, such as login state and requests handled by our hosting and database providers.

Please avoid putting sensitive information or a full home address into an open job description or its photos. Ask permission before uploading photos of other people or their property to a tradesperson profile. Photos uploaded through the early access app are resized before storage, which removes the original image metadata.

Why we use it

We use account, job, quote, review, work post, message and any payment information to provide the service you request: signing in, posting and finding jobs or workers, sending quotes, holding conversations and processing an optional feature you choose to buy. Our lawful basis for this is taking steps to provide, and providing, the service under our agreement with you. We also use necessary technical and support information to operate the service, answer requests, investigate reports, prevent misuse and address problems. Our lawful basis for these activities is our legitimate interest in running a reliable and secure service. If a legal obligation requires us to keep or disclose information, that obligation is our lawful basis for doing so.

Who can see information

Signed-in tradespeople can see open job listings; depending on which features are enabled, full details and photos may be available only after a job is unlocked. The homeowner can see the quotes they receive, including the tradesperson's displayed name, trade, service area, profile photo and work photos. The tradesperson can view and remove their own profile photos. Reviews of a tradesperson may be visible to other signed-in users. The homeowner and the tradesperson involved in a quote can see its conversation. Avoid sharing information about someone else unless you have a reason to do so.

Signed-in workers and tradespeople can see work board posts, including the author's displayed name, trade and area. Tradespeople can see a worker's profile photo while that worker has an open looking-for-work post or when they are in a work conversation together. Workers in a work conversation can see the tradesperson's profile and work photos. Workers can replace or remove their photo. A work board conversation is visible to the person who posted and the person who contacted them. Work posts can be closed when they are no longer current. Do not include personal contact details or information about someone else in a post unless you want other signed-in users to see it.

We use Supabase for authentication, database and photo storage, a website hosting provider to serve the site, Stripe for any enabled payment feature, and IONOS for our support mailbox. These providers process information to deliver their services to us. We do not sell your personal information. Providers may process information outside the UK; ask us at the email above for details of the relevant locations and transfer safeguards before sharing information if this concerns you.

Browser storage

The early access app uses browser storage to keep you signed in and remember the type of job and town you entered while posting. We do not currently add advertising or analytics trackers to these pages. If we add optional tracking, we will explain it and request any consent that is required.

How long we keep information

Account information, jobs, quotes, reviews, work posts, photos and conversations are kept while the account is active and as needed to run those features. If you ask us to close your account, we review the associated information and remove what is no longer needed; records relevant to an unresolved complaint, payment or legal obligation may need to be kept longer. Payment records, if any, are kept for the period required for accounting, disputes or law. Support and safety-report emails are kept while we handle the request and any related follow-up. Contact us to ask about the period applicable to your information.

Your choices and rights

You can email us to request access to, correction of, or deletion of your information, or to ask us to restrict its use. Depending on the circumstances, you may also request a copy of your information or object to processing based on our legitimate interests. You have the right to object to processing based on legitimate interests; tell us at the contact address above. These rights can have legal limits, and we will explain any limit that applies to your request.

You can also complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office. We would welcome the opportunity to address your concern first.

Changes to this notice

We will update this page when the service changes in a way that affects how information is used. The date at the top shows when it was last updated. For conduct reports see Safety and reviews; for service rules see Early access terms.