Privacy Policy

1. Categories of Information We Collect

We collect various types of information to facilitate the peer-to-peer rental services and to ensure a secure and efficient experience on our Platform. These categories include:

A. Information You Directly Provide to Us:

• Account Registration Details: When you register for a Neighbrr account, we collect essential information such as your name, email address, telephone number, and residential address. This information is crucial for establishing and managing your account and for connecting you with other neighbours.
• Google Sign-In: If you choose to register or log in using your Google account, we receive your name and email address from Google solely for the purpose of creating and authenticating your Neighbrr account. We do not receive or store your Google password. This data is used only to pre-fill your account details during onboarding and to identify you on subsequent logins.
• Payment and Transaction Information: For processing rental payments and any associated fees, we collect necessary financial details. It is important to note that sensitive payment information, including bank account and identity data, is handled securely by our regulated payment provider, and we do not directly store this information on our own servers.
• Listing Information: When you offer items for rent on Neighbrr, you provide us with detailed descriptions, photographs, and availability information about these items. This content is essential for other users to assess the suitability of the items for their needs.
• Identity Verification Data: In certain circumstances, particularly for higher-value rentals or to enhance the security of the Platform, we may request you to provide copies of your identification documents (such as a passport or national ID card) for identity verification purposes. This process helps to build trust and prevent fraudulent activities within the Neighbrr community.
• Communications and Interactions: Any messages, reviews, or other forms of communication you exchange with other users through the Neighbrr Platform, as well as any correspondence you have with our support team, may be collected and stored to facilitate the rental process, address inquiries, and improve our services.
• Referrals and Invitations: If you invite other people to Neighbrr using your personal invitation link, or if you join Neighbrr by following an invitation link from an existing member, we record the connection between the two accounts and the dates on which the invited person registers and first becomes active on the Platform. We use this to credit referrals to the correct member and to calculate your Community Karma score, a visible and non-monetary indicator of your participation in the Neighbrr community. We also keep aggregate, non-identifying counts of how invitation links perform overall (for example, how many were shared, opened, or led to a registration).
• Membership Information (if applicable): If Neighbrr offers a paid membership tier, we will collect and process information related to your membership subscription and payment history.

B. Information Collected Automatically Through Your Use of the Platform:

• Location Data: To facilitate connections with neighbours in your vicinity and to offer location-based services, we may collect your approximate location based on your IP address or, with your explicit consent, more precise location data from your mobile device.
• Device and Technical Information: When you access Neighbrr, we automatically collect certain information about your device, including your browser type, operating system, mobile network information, device identifiers, and IP address. This data helps us to optimize the Platform for different devices and to diagnose technical issues.
• Usage Data and Analytics: We monitor and analyse your interactions with the Neighbrr Platform, including the pages you visit, the searches you conduct, the features you utilize, and the dates and times of your activity. This information helps us to understand how users engage with our services, identify areas for improvement, and personalize your experience.
• Cookies and Similar Technologies: Neighbrr uses strictly necessary cookies to maintain your authenticated session (sessionid), to protect against cross-site request forgery (csrftoken), and, only if you follow an invitation link from an existing member, to remember who invited you so that the referral can be credited when you sign up (neighbrr_ref). We do not currently use analytics, advertising, or tracking cookies. For full details, see our Cookie Policy. You can manage cookies through your browser settings, though disabling the essential cookies listed above will prevent you from logging in.
• Security and Authentication Logs: We keep short-lived server logs of sign-in activity on the Platform. For every sign-in attempt we record the date, time, and the IP address the request originated from; for failed sign-in attempts we additionally record the email address that was entered. We rely on this to detect and investigate unauthorised access attempts, including brute-force and credential-stuffing attacks, on the basis of our legitimate interest in keeping accounts and the Platform secure (GDPR Article 6(1)(f)). These logs are held on our EU-based hosting infrastructure and are automatically deleted after 90 days.

2. How We Utilize Your Information

The information we collect is used for a variety of purposes aimed at providing and improving the Neighbrr Platform, including:

• Facilitating Peer-to-Peer Rentals: Your information is essential for enabling you to list items for rent, browse listings, communicate with other users, arrange rentals, and process payments.
• User Account Management: We use your registration details to create and manage your Neighbrr account, verify your identity, and provide you with access to the features of the Platform.
• Ensuring Trust and Safety: Your information is used to verify user identities, detect and prevent fraudulent activities, enforce our Terms and Conditions, and promote a safe and trustworthy environment for all users. This may include conducting ID checks and monitoring platform activity.
• Improving and Personalizing Our Services: We analyse user behaviour and feedback to understand how our Platform is used, identify areas for enhancement, develop new features, and personalize your experience by suggesting relevant listings or tailoring content to your preferences.
• Running Community Features: We use the referral and invitation information described above to credit referrals to the correct member and to calculate Community Karma scores and milestone badges. Community Karma is a visible community-standing indicator. It has no monetary value, cannot be exchanged for cash, and cannot be transferred between accounts. You may be able to use Community Karma to obtain rewards from partner organisations we work with; where you do, we process your redemption as described in our Karma Rewards Terms and share only what a partner needs to validate your redemption (see section 3).
• Protecting Account and Platform Security: We monitor sign-in activity and other platform activity to detect and investigate unauthorised access, brute-force and credential-stuffing attacks, fraud, and abuse, and to enforce our Terms and Conditions.
• Communication and Support: We use your contact information to communicate with you about your rentals, account updates, security alerts, and to respond to your inquiries and provide customer support.
• Generating Anonymized and Aggregated Data: We may aggregate and anonymize your data with that of other users to generate statistical information for various purposes, including service improvement, research, and reporting. This aggregated data does not identify individual users.
• Complying with Legal and Regulatory Obligations: We may process your personal data to comply with applicable Belgian laws, EU regulations (such as GDPR), legal proceedings, and requests from governmental authorities. This may include retaining data for tax or audit purposes.
• Payment Processing: Your payment information is used to process rental fees and payouts through our regulated payment provider.

3. Sharing and Disclosure of Your Information

We may share your personal data with certain categories of recipients in the following circumstances:

• With Other Users:
  • Your public profile information, including your name and general neighbourhood, may be visible to other Neighbrr users to facilitate connections and rentals.
  • Your exact address and telephone number are only shared with another user after a rental booking has been confirmed between you, as necessary to facilitate the exchange of the rented item.
• With Third-Party Service Providers: We engage trusted service providers, primarily based within Belgium and the European Economic Area (EEA), to perform various functions on our behalf, including:
  • Payment Processing: Our payment provider handles all payment processing activities securely. For details on how our payment provider processes your data, please refer to their privacy policy, which will be made readily accessible to you.
  • Cloud Hosting and Data Storage: Our servers are located within the EU to ensure compliance with data protection regulations.
  • Customer Support: We utilize third-party tools to manage and respond to user support requests.
  • Analytics and Performance Monitoring: We may use analytics providers to help us understand how users interact with our Platform. These providers are contractually obligated to protect your data and use it only for the purposes we specify.
• With Karma Rewards Partners: If you redeem Community Karma for a reward offered by a partner organisation, we share the redemption code, the reward it relates to, and its status with that partner so they can validate and honour it. We do not share your name, contact details, or account information with the partner for this purpose. See our Karma Rewards Terms.
• For Legal and Compliance Purposes: We may disclose your personal data to Belgian legal authorities, government agencies, or other third parties when we believe it is necessary to:
  • Comply with applicable laws, regulations, legal processes, or governmental requests.
  • Enforce our Terms and Conditions.
  • Detect, prevent, and address fraud, security breaches, or technical issues.
  • Protect the rights, property, or safety of Neighbrr, our users, or others.
• Business Transfers: In the event of a merger, acquisition, reorganization, sale of assets, or other business transaction involving Neighbrr, your information may be transferred to the acquiring entity or other third party as part of the transaction, in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

4. Your Rights Regarding Your Personal Data (GDPR)

Under Belgian and European Union law, you have several important rights concerning your personal data that we collect and process:

• Right to Access: You have the right to request access to the personal data we hold about you and to receive a copy of this information.
• Right to Rectification: You have the right to request that any inaccurate or incomplete personal data we hold about you be corrected or updated.
• Right to Erasure ("Right to be Forgotten"): In certain circumstances, you have the right to request the deletion of your personal data from our records, subject to legal retention obligations and other legitimate grounds for retention.
• Right to Restriction of Processing: You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data in specific situations, such as when you contest the accuracy of the data or object to the processing.
• Right to Object to Processing: You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data for certain purposes, including direct marketing and processing based on our legitimate interests.
• Right to Data Portability: You have the right to receive the personal data you have provided to us in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format and to transmit this data to another controller.
• Right to Withdraw Consent: If we are processing your personal data based on your consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. The withdrawal of your consent will not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.
• Right to Lodge a Complaint with a Supervisory Authority: You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Belgian Data Protection Authority (Autorité de protection des données / Gegevensbeschermingsautoriteit) or any other competent supervisory authority in the EU if you believe that our processing of your personal data infringes applicable data protection laws.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us via email at privacy@neighbrr.com. We will respond to your request in accordance with applicable data protection laws. We may need to verify your identity before fulfilling your request.

5. Data Retention Practices

We retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, as outlined in this Privacy Policy, and in accordance with legal and regulatory requirements. Our data retention periods include:

• Account Data: We retain your account information for as long as your Neighbrr account remains active. If you choose to delete your account, we will typically retain your data for a period thereafter as necessary for fraud prevention, dispute resolution, and compliance with legal obligations.
• Financial Records: In compliance with Belgian tax law, we are required to retain financial records, including transaction details, for a period of 10 years.
• Fraud Prevention: Even after account deletion, we may retain certain limited information for a period of one year to assist in the prevention and detection of fraudulent activities on the Platform.
• Security and Authentication Logs: Server logs of sign-in activity, including IP addresses and, for failed sign-in attempts, the email address entered, are automatically deleted after 90 days.
• Other Data: Other categories of personal data are typically retained for a period necessary to fulfil the specific purpose for which they were collected, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law.

6. Security Measures Implemented

We are committed to protecting the security of your personal data and have implemented reasonable technical and organizational measures designed to safeguard your information from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. These measures include:

• Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Encryption: All data transmitted between your browser or mobile application and our servers is protected using SSL encryption.
• Regular Security Audits: We conduct regular security assessments and audits of our systems and processes to identify and address potential vulnerabilities.
• Access Control and Authorization: Access to your personal data is restricted to authorized personnel who have a legitimate business need to access it. We implement strict access control mechanisms and authentication protocols.
• Data Storage within the EEA: All personal data collected by Neighbrr is stored on secure servers located within the European Economic Area (EEA), ensuring compliance with European data protection standards.

While we strive to implement robust security measures, please be aware that no method of data transmission over the internet or electronic storage is completely secure. Therefore, we cannot guarantee the absolute security of your personal data.

7. Policy Regarding Children's Privacy

Our Services are not intended for use by individuals under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 18. If we become aware that we have collected personal data from a child under 18 without verifiable parental consent, we will take steps to delete such information from our records as quickly as possible. If you are a parent or guardian and believe that your child has provided us with personal data, please contact us immediately at privacy@neighbrr.com

8. Updates to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our data processing practices, legal requirements, or the features of our Platform. When we make material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will provide you with notice, such as by posting the updated policy on our website or through in-app notifications, and we may also notify you via email where appropriate. The "Last Updated" date at the top of this Privacy Policy indicates when the most recent revisions were made. Your continued use of the Neighbrr Platform after the effective date of any changes constitutes your acceptance of the updated Privacy Policy. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically to stay informed about how we are protecting your information.

9. How to Contact Us

If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or our data processing practices, please do not hesitate to contact our Data Protection Officer at the following address: