Privacy notice

AI help and human support

AI help uses OpenAI to select relevant answers from our public help guide. When you send a question, your wording and a limited amount of recent support-chat context are sent for this purpose. The assistant does not read your account, private job conversations or uploads, and cannot make account or payment decisions. We remove obvious email addresses, long numbers and links before sending text, but this does not guarantee that all personal information is removed. Do not enter passwords, sign-in codes, card details, illegal material or sensitive personal details.

Chat text is held in the current page’s memory, not saved as a support conversation in our database or browser storage. Clear chat removes the displayed history; reloading the page also clears it. We request that OpenAI does not store responses for later API retrieval. This does not remove OpenAI’s separate service-security and abuse-monitoring retention. AI can select the wrong help topic; use human support where an answer does not fit.

Only if you submit the human-support form do we save its reply email, selected category, details, reference, date and any signed-in account link in a private support inbox. The full AI chat is not automatically included. An admin email alert contains a private inbox link rather than your submitted text. Support requests remain while needed; ordinary closed cases are due for manual retention review after 90 days, not automatic deletion. Necessary complaint, appeal, dispute, privacy-request and legal records may remain after account deletion and are reviewed separately. Contact the operator to exercise your rights over these records.

We use support information to answer your request and administer the platform relationship; security and abuse controls protect the service. Support forms use the same Cloudflare Turnstile security checks described below. Hashed connection-rate counters expire within 24 hours; the separate AI allowance counter contains only the month and number of attempted calls, without chat text or account identifiers, and expires shortly after that month ends. Using support does not enrol you in marketing.

Spam and automated-abuse protection

We use shared rate limits to protect sign-in codes, enquiries and account actions. Their counters contain keyed hashes rather than readable IP addresses, email addresses or account identifiers. Counters expire within 24 hours and are removed by subsequent requests or scheduled cleanup; removal may be delayed during an outage.

Cloudflare Turnstile checks browser and connection signals on sign-in, business-profile and enquiry forms to help distinguish genuine use from automated abuse. Our verification request sends the security token, not your form wording, contact details or payment information. Cloudflare receives technical information directly from your browser. This protection is for security, not advertising, and is not a guarantee that every bot is blocked. See Cloudflare’s privacy policy.

Optional device notifications

If you enable browser push notifications, we store an encrypted device subscription linked to your signed-in business account. Your browser’s push provider (such as Apple, Google, Mozilla or Microsoft) delivers a data-free wake-up; Ask Who Can then checks your current sign-in before displaying a generic enquiry alert. Customer names, contact details and job descriptions are not included in lock-screen alerts or push-provider payloads.

You can disable notifications for a device in account settings or your browser. Signing out, switching accounts, an expired sign-in or deleting your account stops that binding. Delivery processing removes invalid subscriptions. The intended retention is up to 30 days for push delivery troubleshooting records and up to 90 days for completed essential billing-email queue records. The configured maintenance jobs apply these periods; removal may be delayed during an outage.

Information we use

Account and contact details; service requests; locations and availability; offers, messages and reviews; business profile and verification information; reports and moderation records; consent records; security and technical logs; and subscription records. Avoid sending information that is not necessary for the service.

Private saved items and reply reminders

If you shortlist a reply or favourite a business, we store that choice and its date against your account so it is available on your other devices. These choices are private to you; they are not reviews, endorsements or bookings and do not notify the business. You can remove them from Shortlist & favourites. Saved entries remain until you remove them or the related account or record is deleted; inaccessible entries do not reveal hidden profile or message details.

Reply-by reminders are optional for each business reply and follow your account email and in-app notification settings. We record the reply version, deadline, opt-in and queue status to process one reminder for that version and avoid duplicates. A changed reply, a chosen business, closure or loss of access stops a pending reminder when checked. Turning a reminder off cannot recall an email already sent. Reminders contain a generic sign-in link, not the job or message text. Delivery may be delayed, so they should not be relied on to meet a deadline. Scheduled processing removes reminder preference records in batches after the deadline is more than 90 days old; outages can delay this. Ordinary saved choices and reminder preferences are removed when account deletion completes, subject to the deletion-review safeguards described below.

Why we use it

To provide accounts and matching, connect customers with businesses, operate messaging and notifications, prevent abuse, investigate reports, comply with law, improve matching and administer subscriptions. The purposes and legal bases for this processing are described below.

• Accounts, requested matching, messages and membership administration: taking steps at your request before a contract and performing our platform contract with you.
• Business staff contact details where the contract is with their employer: legitimate interests in administering that business relationship.
• Fraud prevention, access security, moderation, safeguarding reports and genuine complaints: legitimate interests in protecting users and operating a lawful service; legal obligation where a specific law requires action or retention.
• Required accounting, tax and regulatory records: compliance with applicable legal obligations.
• Optional browser notifications: your opt-in, which you can withdraw for each device. Service emails needed to run your account are separate from marketing.
• Optional matching-quality analysis: legitimate interests only after the separate assessment described below. Collection and adaptive ranking remain disabled.

Agreeing to the platform terms or acknowledging this notice is not blanket consent to marketing or unrelated processing. Do not include health records, criminal-record information or other sensitive details in an ordinary request. Where such information is received in a genuine safety report, access must be restricted and its additional legal processing condition assessed before further use.

Private message safety checks

Authorised administrators may block an exact email address from account access to address abuse or safety concerns. We record the address, a private reason and the administrator’s decision history. A block revokes sign-in access; it does not itself delete content or cancel payments. You can challenge a block or make a privacy request through the operator contact without signing in. These records must be reviewed and retained only for as long as justified by the safety, dispute and legal purposes described below.

New direct messages are checked on our server before delivery using fixed safety rules, not an external AI service. Suspected abuse may be held rather than shown to the recipient. The sender sees an on-screen notice when a message is held. These checks can make mistakes and do not detect every harmful message.

Authorised administrators can review held wording and its job context. We retain the message in the private conversation storage, a linked moderation reason and an audit of review decisions; the moderation report does not duplicate the message body. A flag is not a finding of wrongdoing or an automatic account suspension. Prohibited or safeguarding-restricted messages cannot be released through the message-review control.

New message email alerts use generic wording rather than quoting the message. This change cannot recall earlier emails or copies already received. Held messages and review records follow the message, safety and dispute-retention requirements below. Contact us through Account settings or the operator email if you believe a message was incorrectly held.

Photos submitted for profile pictures or request attachments are sent to OpenAI for automated content screening before sharing. We send the image itself, not your account name, email, request conversation or private storage link. Flagged, uncertain or unsuccessful checks and unsupported media are held for private administrator review. Videos, including their audio, are not automatically cleared by the photo screener. Automated screening can make mistakes and does not establish that content is lawful. You can contact support to challenge an upload decision. Admin email alerts contain a private review link, not the uploaded file or allegations.

AI-assisted processing

Request text and business service descriptions may be classified and summarised using automated tools. AI output is not treated as guaranteed fact and important account or safety decisions require human rules or review. The configured AI integration uses OpenAI to interpret request text and business service descriptions; information you include in those fields may therefore be sent to that provider. Keep names, contact details and sensitive information out of free-text descriptions unless necessary. Check and correct the interpretation before submitting. Ask Who Can does not automatically train a model or change its matching prompts from your feedback.

Finding out what brought you here

When a campaign link identifies its source, medium or campaign name, we may store those short labels with a submitted request. This helps us understand which campaigns produce useful enquiries. We do not need third-party advertising cookies for this basic attribution.

Basic website traffic reporting

Our hosting provider, Netlify, produces aggregate traffic reports from its server logs so we can understand which pages are reached and improve the website. Request data, including IP addresses, is processed to count visits and estimate countries and sources. We see aggregate reports, not a list of visitors’ IP addresses. Counts can include automated traffic and are not a count of identified people.

This reporting does not add analytics cookies or a tracking script to your device and does not replay your screen. It is separate from the optional signup measurements below: declining those measurements stops that feature, not ordinary hosting logs or these aggregate traffic reports. We use the reports for our legitimate interest in operating and improving the website. They are not shared with advertising platforms. See how Netlify Web Analytics works.

Optional signup progress measurements

With your consent, a separate first-party feature counts visits and steps such as starting business signup, requesting an email code, verifying email and saving a new profile. It stores a random browser-journey identifier lasting up to 24 hours, the consent version and time, fixed stage/error labels and a broad source such as Facebook or TikTok. It does not store typed form contents, email addresses, account identifiers, full page URLs, advertising click IDs or IP addresses in the analytics tables. Connection information is separately processed for the security rate limits described above.

Our authorised administrators see aggregate counts to improve signup. This first-party feature uses our existing hosting and database providers, Netlify and Turso, without sending its measurements to advertising platforms. The legal basis is consent, which you can withdraw using Privacy choices without losing service access. Withdrawal removes the current journey’s measurements after the server receives it. Scheduled maintenance removes detailed records after 30 days; outages may delay removal, and protected backups expire separately. The identifier is pseudonymous, not a guarantee of anonymity. See the cookie notice for storage and control details.

Optional matching feedback and controlled improvement

When enabled, we use a separate, minimised record of matching decisions and outcomes to evaluate relevance. It contains pseudonymous references, broad postcode areas, service categories, a limited set of service words, scores and events such as a response, decline, selection or reported completion. It does not copy names, contact details, full addresses, message contents, photographs, verification documents or payment information into the analytics dataset. Unrecognised wording is omitted rather than retained as free text.

Feedback is optional. No response is not treated as an incorrect match. Reports are kept in the private safety workflow; analytics record only that a report exists, not its contents or any finding about a person. This system does not train the underlying AI model, rewrite prompts or relax safety restrictions. A proposed ranking adjustment needs an administrator decision before it can affect matching.

When optional matching analytics are enabled, aggregate service trends can also select up to half of the homepage examples from a fixed, reviewed set of general questions. A topic needs at least 30 different customers across 14 different days within the last 90 days. Repeated requests from one customer count once per topic; opted-out, reported, edited or cancelled journeys are excluded. We do not publish submitted request text, personal details, individual histories or usage counts. The remaining examples stay varied; insufficient evidence uses the standard examples. This does not train the AI model or change business matching decisions.

Our proposed lawful basis for this limited service-quality analysis is legitimate interests, subject to a documented necessity and balancing assessment before it is enabled. You can object, restrict this use or request access/deletion in Account settings. An objection stops future analytics for your account and removes the associated analytics without stopping your ordinary requests or business account.

When collection and maintenance are enabled, the intended retention is up to 90 days for detailed analytics and up to seven days for queue payloads; successful processing clears queue payloads. Pseudonymous opt-out records are retained to honour your choice. Administrative approval records are retained separately for accountability. These records remain access-controlled personal data, not anonymous data.

Sharing

Businesses must supply their full legal name and a correspondence or registered-office address for display to matched customers. For sole traders this includes their full personal name. Companies and LLPs also display their trading address; for other business types, displaying a separate trading address is optional. Customers must arrange visits first. A correspondence address is not a promise that it is suitable for serving every kind of legal document.

For address-existence checks, our server sends the supplied postcode to Ideal Postcodes, which returns postal-address records. We compare the premises and road on our server; we do not send the business name, phone number or correspondence wording in that lookup. We keep an identity-bound result and any private admin-review reason. Unmatched or unavailable checks hold registration for review and alert administrators. A match does not prove ownership or occupation, and does not create a public verification badge. These security checks support accurate business profiles and fraud prevention, not marketing.

Entering a number in the optional customer phone field does not automatically share it with businesses. Where the phone-sharing option is enabled, a business must request it and you decide whether to approve that business for that request. We record the parties, decision and timestamps, plus a keyed fingerprint to prevent an approval from exposing a different number. The number itself stays in the request record and is not included in phone-sharing notification emails or analytics. You can stop future display; we cannot erase a copy already saved by a recipient. Numbers you voluntarily type in messages, descriptions or uploaded files can be seen by their authorised recipients, so keep contact details out of public request text.

Phone-sharing records follow the associated request’s retention and are removed when that request is deleted or either participating account completes account deletion. Withdrawing permission removes its number fingerprint and access. A backup may retain a historical copy under the backup retention and restoration process below.

Relevant request details are shared with businesses matched to your request and authorised to receive them. A request may reach multiple businesses; the number depends on eligibility and coverage. We use infrastructure, email, security, analytics, payment and professional-service providers. To calculate distance, we may send a postcode—but not the customer's name, contact details or request description—to Postcodes.io. We do not authorise businesses to use request data for unrelated marketing.

• Netlify hosts the website and server functions.
• Turso stores account, profile, request, conversation and operational records.
• Cloudflare R2 stores uploaded files privately. Public profile images and business information are shown where the product says they will be displayed; private evidence is not a public profile.
• Zoho/ZeptoMail handles account and transactional emails.
• Ideal Postcodes supplies postal-address data for the address-existence checks described above.
• Stripe handles hosted membership payments, payment methods, invoices and refunds. We retain references and membership status, not full card details. Stripe may have its own controller obligations for payment and regulatory processing.
• OpenAI provides AI interpretation and photo content screening. Cloudflare Turnstile provides the browser security check. Postcodes.io provides postcode coordinates. Browser push providers are described in the optional-notifications section.

Independent businesses receiving an enquiry are responsible for their own subsequent use of customer information. Our rules prohibit unrelated marketing. Infrastructure and suppliers may process information outside the UK. A European database location does not mean all processing takes place in the UK or Europe. Contact the operator for information about the providers and transfer arrangements relevant to your data.

Retention and security

Files are uploaded to private storage using short-lived upload links. We temporarily record the uploading account, file name, type, size and checksum to validate an upload and prevent abuse. Temporary copies are removed after processing; abandoned uploads are queued for cleanup. Access to saved files is checked before a short-lived download link is issued. Do not share private download links with other people.

We keep information only as long as necessary for the stated purpose, legal duties, fraud prevention and genuine disputes. There is no general automatic expiry for account and conversation records. Closing or expiring an enquiry stops new responses; it does not automatically erase the enquiry, messages or associated records. Account deletion disables the account and removes or anonymises ordinary identifying data, subject to necessary safety, dispute and legal records. A privacy request can ask us to review any information still retained. Copies already received by independent businesses and suppliers may need to be addressed separately. Private uploads are access controlled. Content screening is not antivirus scanning.

Scheduled maintenance is enabled for delivery records, security counters and abandoned uploads. Jobs run in small batches; failures or backlogs can delay removal. Optional matching analytics and SMS remain disabled.

Ordinary closed moderation cases are due for a human retention review after 90 days, not an automatic deletion at that point. Records still needed for an appeal, dispute or legal preservation must be kept until that need is reviewed. This review is manual, not an automated expiry process.

If related records are subject to an open or preserved case or a moderation hold, self-service deletion submits a private deletion-review request instead of erasing evidence. The screen explains that the account and membership have not been cancelled. You can ask the operator to review the records and manage membership renewal separately; this is not a blanket refusal of your deletion rights.

Encrypted database and file recovery copies are held separately from the live service. These are point-in-time copies, not continuous backups. Independent file backups and their removal are currently managed manually, without a fixed automatic expiry period. Backups may contain earlier records until safely replaced or removed. A restore must reapply subsequent deletion and access restrictions before returning data to use.

Your rights

Depending on the circumstances, you may request access, correction, deletion, restriction, portability or objection, and may complain to the UK Information Commissioner. Account settings allow notification control, account deletion and submission of a data-rights request. Identity may need to be verified before disclosure.

Use Account settings or the operator contact below. You do not have to accept marketing, use a particular form or close your account to exercise your rights. We aim to respond without undue delay and within the applicable statutory period, normally one calendar month. Where the law permits an extension or identity clarification, we explain the reason. You can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Children

The service is intended for adults arranging services. We do not knowingly create independent accounts for children. We take a precautionary approach because children may still access the service; an email code or age declaration does not verify age.

Optional service text alerts

SMS sending and purchases are currently disabled. The following describes how the optional service would use information if activated.

Text alerts are optional and separate from email, push and marketing preferences. We ask you to verify a UK mobile number you own and to choose whether to receive enquiry/reply alerts. We use Twilio to verify the number and deliver these messages; Twilio and mobile networks process the number and delivery information. This does not give a business permission to view a customer’s number.

Our SMS contact record encrypts the number separately from delivery records. We retain consent and verification times, a keyed number identifier to prevent abuse, and minimal delivery/allowance records. Alert text does not contain customer names, addresses, request details or messages. No card details or verification codes are stored in the SMS dataset.

You can withdraw text-alert consent and remove your SMS contact number in Account settings; pending alerts then stop. Messages already submitted to a network may still arrive. Account deletion removes the SMS contact and ordinary linked delivery records after the necessary billing checks. Minimal paid-subscription records remain subject to accounting and dispute-retention requirements. The configured retention for local delivery records is up to 400 days to support annual allowances and duplicate prevention, and one day for unverified contact attempts. This does not mean SMS collection or delivery is currently active.

Operator and contact

ZEROPARTS LTD · Company number 14048490 · Registered office C/O Cannons Accountants Unit 1a, Park Farm Road, Folkestone, England, CT19 5EY · Registered in England and Wales.

Contact: support@askwhocan.co.uk.