Privacy Policy

Who we are

Arenta is operated as a personal/student project. For any privacy question, data request, or complaint, contact us at findarenta@proton.me. We are the data controller for the personal data described below.

What we collect

• Waitlist details: if you join the waitlist, your email address and the consent choices you tick in the form (contact about your place on the waitlist, and, optionally, general updates about Arenta). This is separate from having an account.
• Account details: email address, first and last name, date of birth, and a hashed password.
• Profile information: university (optional), course and year of study, bio, budget range, preferred areas, move-in date, interests, house size and bills preferences, lifestyle answers, dealbreakers, and what you're looking for (housemate, property, or both).
• Photos: profile photos and, if you list a property, photos of that property — only if you choose to upload them.
• Connections and messages: friend requests, group membership and invites, and the content of messages you send to friends or groups, including polls, votes on shared listings and viewings you create.
• Safety: who you've blocked, and any report you send us about a chat.
• Property listings and shortlists: details of any property you post, and which listings you've shortlisted.
• Basic technical data: sign-in timestamps, used only to apply rate limits and keep the service secure.

Why we use it

Account, profile, message and safety data is used only to run the service: showing you compatible people, letting you message friends and groups, and showing property listings. Waitlist details are used only to contact you about your place on the waitlist and, if you ticked that box, to send general updates. We don't use your data for advertising, and we don't sell it to third parties.

Our legal basis is performance of a contract with you (running the account you signed up for) for most account data, legitimate interest for security measures like sign-in rate limiting, and your consent for waitlist emails (each box you tick is a separate consent). You can withdraw that consent at any time by emailing us, and we'll stop contacting you and remove you from the waitlist.

Who else sees it

We use a small number of infrastructure providers to run the app. They process data on our behalf and don't use it for their own purposes:

• Neon — hosts our Postgres database (all the data listed above).
• Vercel Blob — stores uploaded profile and property photos in a private store; photos aren't publicly accessible without signing in.
• Tally — runs our waitlist form and holds the details people submit through it.
• An email provider — used only to send magic-link sign-in emails.
• Vercel Analytics and Speed Insights — cookieless, aggregate page-view and performance data (see Cookies below).

Other users can see the profile information, photos, and messages you choose to share according to the app's own visibility settings (for example, turning off "discoverable" in your Profile removes you from other users' People and Home pages).

How long we keep it

We keep your data for as long as your account is active. Waitlist details are kept until we've told you about the launch, or until you ask us to remove them. If you'd like your account or waitlist details deleted, email us at findarenta@proton.me and we'll remove them.

Your rights

Under UK/EU data protection law, you have the right to:

• Ask what personal data we hold about you, and get a copy of it
• Ask us to correct inaccurate data
• Ask us to delete your data
• Object to or restrict certain processing
• Complain to your local data protection authority (in the UK, the ICO)

To exercise any of these, email findarenta@proton.me.

Security

Passwords are stored hashed, never in plain text. Uploaded photos are stored in a private blob store and served only to signed-in users. We don't currently offer two-factor authentication or session revocation.

Cookies

We use essential cookies only: a session cookie to keep you signed in, and, while the site is in its pre-launch phase, a cookie that remembers that a tester has entered the site password. Your "Pause animations" choice is saved in your browser's local storage, not a cookie. We don't use advertising cookies.

We use Vercel Analytics and Speed Insights to see aggregate page views and performance. These are cookieless — they don't set a cookie or track you across sites — and the data isn't used for advertising.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, we'll update the date at the top of this page.