Privacy Policy

Last updated: September 2, 2026

This Privacy Policy is effective as of June 2, 2025, and will remain in effect except with respect to any changes in its provisions in the future.

1. Introduction

Hot Housekeepers Houston (“we,” “our,” “us”) is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you use our website and booking platform (the “Platform”). It applies to clients, to housekeepers, and to visitors. Please read it carefully. If you do not agree with it, please do not use the Platform.

2. Information We Collect

From everyone

  • Account data: name, email address, and phone number, collected when you create an account. Sign-in is handled by our authentication provider, Clerk, which stores your login credentials; we never see your password.
  • Support and contact messages: anything you send us through the contact form, a support thread, or email.
  • Usage data: IP address, browser type and version, operating system, pages visited, and similar technical data, collected automatically when you visit.

From clients

  • Booking details: the service address, ZIP code, parking or access instructions, the style and length of service, the date and time, whether pets or other people will be present, and any boundaries or notes you add.
  • Identity verification result: whether you have passed the 18+ ID check, when, and the first and last name printed on the ID you verified with. We show that name to your housekeeper on a confirmed booking so she can match it to the person who answers the door. See Section 4 for what our verification provider collects.
  • Messages and reviews you send or post through a booking.
  • Reports you make about a housekeeper or a message.

From housekeepers

  • Application data: name, stage name, bio, contact details, service areas, styles and rates offered, and availability.
  • Vetting photos: a headshot and a full-body photo, stored privately and visible only to our review team.
  • Public profile photos, which are watermarked and have location and device metadata removed before they are shown publicly. Faces are masked unless you opt in.
  • Background check consent and results, obtained through Checkr, Inc., a consumer reporting agency. See Section 4.
  • Payout account status from Stripe. Stripe collects your bank, tax, and identity details directly for the account it holds in your name; we see only whether payouts are enabled.
  • Booking activity, messages, reviews received, and reports made by or about you.

What we do not collect

We do not store payment card numbers. All payments are processed by Stripe. We do not receive or store images of identity documents or selfies, and we do not collect precise device location.

3. How We Use Information

  • To provide and manage the Platform, including matching clients with housekeepers who cover their area.
  • To verify identity and age, and to run and act on housekeeper background checks.
  • To process payments, refunds, and payouts.
  • To send transactional email about your account, applications, bookings, and payments.
  • To keep clients and housekeepers safe: reviewing reports, investigating disputes, and enforcing our Terms and Code of Conduct.
  • To send promotional email, only if you have subscribed, and with an unsubscribe link in every message.
  • To improve the Platform and understand how it is used.
  • To comply with legal obligations, and to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not use it for targeted advertising.

4. How Information Is Shared

Between clients and housekeepers

A housekeeper sees a booking request with the general area, the style, length, date, and household context (pets, other people present, notes) before she decides. Your full name, service address, and phone number are shared with her only once the booking is confirmed. Housekeepers agree, under the Housekeeper Policies, to keep this information confidential and to use it solely for the booking.

A client sees a housekeeper’s public profile: stage name, photos, styles, rates, service areas, and published reviews. A housekeeper’s legal name, contact details, and home location are never shown to clients.

Identity verification (Stripe Identity)

Before a housekeeper can accept a client’s first booking, the client verifies their identity through Stripe. Stripe asks you to photograph a government-issued ID and to take a selfie, and compares the two using facial biometric technology. Stripe collects and stores the document images, the selfie, and the biometric data derived from them under Stripe’s Privacy Policy and retains them according to its own schedule. We receive only a pass or fail result, the date, Stripe’s session identifier, and the first and last name printed on the document — never the document number, date of birth, address, or any image. By starting verification you consent to Stripe capturing and processing this information for the purpose of verifying your identity and age. If you do not wish to be verified in this way, you cannot book through the Platform.

Background checks (Checkr)

With your written consent given at application, we order a criminal background check from Checkr, Inc. Checkr collects identifying information from you directly and returns a report to us. The report is treated as sensitive, is visible only to our admin team, and is used solely to decide eligibility. If we decline an application based in whole or in part on the report, we send an adverse-action notice explaining how to obtain a copy of the report and dispute it with Checkr, as required by the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Service providers

We share information with the providers who run parts of the Platform on our behalf, each of which processes it only for that purpose:

  • Stripe — payments, refunds, identity verification, and housekeeper payouts.
  • Clerk — account creation and sign-in.
  • Checkr — housekeeper background checks.
  • Resend — sending our email.
  • Vercel — hosting, and storage of photos.
  • Neon — our database.
  • Google Analytics — website usage analytics (see Section 7).
  • Map tile providers (CARTO and OpenStreetMap contributors) — when a housekeeper views the service-area map in her dashboard, her browser requests map images from these providers, which receive her IP address.

We may disclose information where we believe it is necessary to comply with law, a subpoena, or a court order; to enforce our Terms; to investigate a report or a safety concern; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of any person. Where a client or housekeeper is the subject of a police report arising from a booking, we may share booking records with law enforcement.

Business transfers

In the event of a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction, subject to this Policy.

Messages between clients and housekeepers

Messages you send through a booking are stored on our platform and are not private between the two of you alone. Our staff can read a conversation when:

  • either person reports it,
  • it is part of a dispute, refund, or safety concern we are investigating, or
  • our systems flag it for review — for example, when a message appears to contain a phone number, email address, or payment handle.

We do this to keep both clients and housekeepers safe and to resolve problems fairly. We do not read conversations routinely or for marketing.

Conversations stay readable after a booking finishes so they are available if a problem comes up later. A conversation stops accepting new messages seven days after the job, but the history is retained.

5. Security

We use encrypted connections (TLS), a hosted database with access limited to the people who need it, security headers, and unguessable storage keys for photos. Card numbers, ID images, and login passwords are held by Stripe and Clerk, not by us. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

If a breach of security affects your personal information in a way that requires notice under applicable law, we will notify you without unreasonable delay, by email or by a notice on the Platform, and tell you what happened and what we are doing about it.

6. Data Retention

We keep your information for as long as your account is active and for as long afterwards as we need it to:

  • keep records of bookings, payments, refunds, and payouts for tax, accounting, and payment-dispute purposes;
  • resolve disputes, investigate reports, and defend legal claims, which is why booking messages and reports are kept after a booking ends;
  • comply with legal obligations, including record-keeping duties under the Fair Credit Reporting Act for background checks.

When you ask us to delete your account, we remove or anonymize the information we are not required to keep and retain the rest only for as long as those obligations last. Vetting photos of housekeepers who are not approved are deleted after the decision.

7. Cookies and Analytics

We use cookies and similar technologies for:

  • Essential functions: signing you in (Clerk session cookies) and keeping your place in the booking flow. These cannot be disabled without breaking the Platform.
  • Preferences: remembering your light or dark theme, stored in your browser.
  • Analytics: Google Analytics 4, which sets cookies to distinguish visitors and reports aggregated information about pages visited, time on site, and device and browser type. Google Analytics 4 does not log or store IP addresses. Google’s use of this data is described in Google’s Privacy Policy. You can opt out with the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on or by disabling cookies in your browser.

We do not use advertising cookies and we do not respond differently to “Do Not Track” signals, because we do not track you across other sites.

8. Third-Party Services

The Platform links to and relies on third-party services named in this Policy. Their handling of your information is governed by their own privacy policies, which we encourage you to read.

9. Your Rights and Choices

You may, at any time:

  • Access the personal information we hold about you.
  • Correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete. Most account and profile details can be edited from your dashboard.
  • Delete your account and personal information, subject to the retention obligations in Section 6.
  • Receive a copy of the information you gave us in a portable format.
  • Opt out of promotional email using the link in any message. Transactional email about your bookings and account continues while you have an account.

To exercise any of these rights, email support@hothousekeepershouston.com from the address on your account. We will verify that the request comes from you before acting on it, and respond within 45 days. If we decline a request, we will tell you why, and you may appeal by replying to our response. Texas residents may also contact the Texas Attorney General if they are dissatisfied with the outcome of an appeal.

10. Children

The Platform is for adults only. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If we learn that we have, we delete it and close the account.

11. Confidentiality

We understand the sensitive nature of our service. We do not share client booking information with anyone other than the assigned housekeeper, the providers named above, and where the law or a safety concern requires it. Housekeepers agree, under the Housekeeper Policies, to keep client information confidential and to use it only for the booking. We do not arrive in marked vehicles.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Policy. We will post the new version here with a new “last updated” date and, for material changes, notify you by email or a notice on the Platform before they take effect.

13. Contact Us

For any privacy question or request, contact us at support@hothousekeepershouston.com.