Privacy Policy

Renthropic (“Renthropic”, “we”, “us”, “our”) operates renthropic.com and the related services that let members list a home while they are away and find mid-term stays in homes belonging to other members (the “Platform”).

We are based in Australia and our services are offered in Australia. We handle personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs).

This policy explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and what you can ask us to do with it. It applies to everyone who uses the Platform — guests, hosts, applicants and visitors who never create an account.

We only collect information we actually need to run the Platform. In practice that falls into a handful of groups.

Information you give us

• Account details — your name, email address, and a password (which we store only as a salted hash, never as readable text).
• Profile details — your phone number, a short bio, a profile photo, the suburb you are in, and any social profile links you choose to add. Most of this is optional; you control whether your phone number is visible to other members.
• Listing details — for hosts, the address and description of your property, its photos, availability, house rules and pricing.
• Booking and enquiry details — the dates you are travelling, how many guests, and the messages you exchange with other members through the Platform.
• Membership and invitation details — when you apply to join or request an invitation, the answers you give us and who referred or vouched for you.
• Reviews and ratings you write about other members, and the ones they write about you.
• What you send us directly — the contents of contact forms, support emails and any estimate or waitlist form you fill in (typically an email address plus the suburb and dates you were asking about).

Information we collect automatically

• Device and connection data — IP address, browser and device type, operating system, and referring page.
• Usage data — the pages you view, the links you click, searches you run and how long you stay. We use this to understand which parts of the Platform work and which do not.
• Cookies and similar technologies — see Cookies and analytics below.
• Acceptance records — when you accept our terms we record the version, the time, and the IP address it came from, so both of us have a record of what was agreed.

Information from third parties

If you find us through our community group or another member vouches for you, we may receive your name and the fact of the referral. We do not buy personal information from data brokers.

Sensitive information

We do not ask for sensitive information as defined by the Privacy Act — health information, racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, or criminal record. Please do not send it to us in messages or profile text. If you do, we may delete it.

Children

The Platform is not intended for anyone under 18 and we do not knowingly collect information from children. If you believe a child has given us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

We use personal information to:

• create and administer your account and verify who you are;
• publish your listing and show your profile to the members you are dealing with;
• match guests with homes, handle enquiries, bookings and cancellations, and pass the details each side needs to the other;
• let members message each other and deliver notifications about bookings, messages and account activity;
• run the trust and safety side of a members-only network — reviewing applications, checking invitations, investigating reports, and detecting fraud or misuse;
• answer your support questions and keep a record of what we told you;
• improve the Platform — understanding which features get used, fixing what breaks, and testing changes;
• send you service messages (account, security and booking emails), and — only if you have asked for them — updates about the launch and the community. Every marketing email has an unsubscribe link; service messages are part of having an account and cannot be switched off while you have one;
• meet our legal obligations and enforce our terms.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with third parties for their own marketing.

Other members

The Platform only works if members can see who they are dealing with. Your name, profile photo, bio, suburb, reviews and any social links you added are visible to other members. Hosts and guests with a confirmed booking see the further details they need — a property address, a contact number where you have chosen to show it. Anything you write in a review or a message is visible to the person it is about or addressed to.

Treat your profile and your messages as things another person will read, because they are.

Service providers

We use a small number of providers to run the Platform, and they only get what they need to do their job:

• Amazon Web Services — hosting, our database, and storage of uploaded photos.
• Google Analytics (Google) and Microsoft Clarity (Microsoft) — website analytics and aggregated usage insight.
• Meta Pixel and Conversions API (Meta) — measuring which of our ads and posts bring people here, and showing our ads to people who have visited. When you ask us to email you an estimate, we also send Meta a one-way encrypted (hashed) form of your email address so it can match that action to an ad. Meta cannot read your address from the hashed value, and we never send your address in a readable form.
• Google Maps and Places (Google) — address lookup and maps on listing and search pages.
• Email delivery providers — sending account, booking and notification emails.

Everyone else

We may disclose personal information where we are required or permitted by law: to courts, regulators or law enforcement in response to a valid request; where it is necessary to investigate suspected fraud or a serious threat to someone's safety; to our professional advisers; and to a buyer or successor if the business is sold or reorganised, in which case this policy continues to apply to the information transferred.

Overseas disclosure

Some of the providers above are based overseas or store data outside Australia, including in the United States. Where personal information is disclosed overseas we take reasonable steps to ensure it is handled consistently with the Australian Privacy Principles.

We use cookies and similar technologies for two things: keeping you signed in and remembering your preferences, and understanding how the Platform is used.

• Essential cookies keep your session alive, keep forms working and protect against abuse. The Platform will not work properly without them.
• Analytics cookies come from Google Analytics 4 and Microsoft Clarity. Clarity also records aggregated interaction data such as clicks and scrolling so we can see where pages confuse people.
• Advertising cookies come from the Meta Pixel. They record the pages you view here so we can measure our advertising and show ads to people who have already visited.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, and you can opt out of Google Analytics with Google's browser add-on. You can control how Meta uses your activity for ads in your Meta ad preferences. Blocking essential cookies will break sign-in.

We do not currently respond to browser “Do Not Track” signals, as there is no agreed standard for how they should be handled.

Your information is held in managed cloud infrastructure with access restricted to the people who need it. Passwords are stored only as salted hashes. Traffic between your browser and the Platform is encrypted in transit, uploaded files are held in access-controlled storage, and access to production systems is limited and authenticated.

No system is perfectly secure and we cannot guarantee absolute security. If a data breach occurs that is likely to result in serious harm, we will notify affected individuals and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as required by the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme.

We keep personal information for as long as you have an account, and afterwards only for as long as we have a reason to:

• Booking and transaction records — kept after your account closes where we need them for tax, accounting, dispute or other legal reasons.
• Messages and reviews — reviews you wrote about other members may remain visible after your account closes, shown without your profile details.
• Trust and safety records — kept where needed to prevent someone who was removed from simply signing up again.
• Analytics data — kept in aggregated or de-identified form, which is no longer personal information.

When we no longer need personal information for any purpose set out in this policy, we destroy or de-identify it.

Under the Australian Privacy Principles you can ask us to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you;
• Correct anything inaccurate, out of date or incomplete — most of it you can edit yourself in your profile;
• Delete your account and the personal information we are not required to keep;
• Stop marketing emails, either with the unsubscribe link or by asking us;
• Deal with us anonymously where it is lawful and practical to do so — though we cannot provide a members-only network to an anonymous member.

Email hello@renthropic.com and we will respond within a reasonable period, normally 30 days. We may need to verify who you are first. If we refuse a request we will tell you why in writing.

If you think we have mishandled your personal information, tell us first at hello@renthropic.com. We will acknowledge your complaint and aim to resolve it within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au or on 1300 363 992.

We may update this policy as the Platform changes. The effective date at the top always tells you which version you are reading. If a change materially affects how we handle your personal information, we will let you know by email or a notice on the Platform before it takes effect. Continuing to use the Platform after that means you accept the updated policy.

For anything to do with privacy — questions, access requests, corrections, complaints — email hello@renthropic.com. You can also reach us through the contact form at the bottom of any page, or find us in our community group.