Privacy policy

Effective 26 October 2026 · covers HouzWare, HouzWare Expand, HouzWare Plus and HouzWare Claims

This policy explains what each HouzWare app collects, why, how long it is kept, and who it reaches. We collect only what the app needs to do its job. We do not track you across other companies' apps or websites, we do not show advertising, and we do not use third-party analytics. No data from any of these apps is used for tracking as Apple defines it.

What each app collects

The four apps genuinely differ, so each is listed on its own. Every item below is linked to you and used only to run the app — never for tracking.

• HouzWare holds staff details, location and job content to run and document the work on site.
• Expand holds a trade partner's details and job content so they can accept and carry out work.
• Plus holds a homeowner's contact details and the content of their claim so they can follow, review and sign it.
• Claims holds an adjuster's contact details so they can review the loss and its documentation.

Identifiers and notifications

The account and device identifiers we hold are your sign-in id, your push-notification token, and an identifier unique to these apps. They are used to sign you in and deliver notifications — they do not follow you between other companies' apps and are never used for tracking. The notifications themselves carry nothing private: no names, addresses, amounts or message text — only enough to tell you something happened. The app fetches the detail when you open it.

Face ID or Touch ID, if you turn it on, happens entirely on your phone — we never receive or store anything about your face or fingerprint. The microphone permission, where present, is used only while you are recording and captures nothing on its own.

Location — what it is and is not

HouzWare (staff): your route while you are clocked in

While you are clocked in — or on your way to a job — HouzWare records your route and tells you when you arrive at or leave a job site, even with the phone locked. It stops when you clock out or cancel. If you turn on arrival and departure reminders, your phone also watches the job sites near you, even when HouzWare is closed, to remind you to clock in when you arrive and to clock out when you leave. Outside a shift or a trip, this stays on your phone. It is used to confirm you were on site and to time work. Your supervisors and managers can see where you are while you are clocked in or on your way — that is what it is for, and you should expect it; while you are on your way, the customer you are heading to can see it as well, until you arrive or cancel. Nobody is handed a history of where you have been.

Expand (trade partners): location only on photos you add

Expand records location only on a photo or video you choose to add. It does not record where you are the rest of the time, and nothing like the staff route above is collected.

Plus (homeowners): no location collected — but you may be shown the crew's

Plus collects no location of its own. While a technician is travelling to you, you may be shown their position on the way — that is the technician's location, shared with you so you know when help arrives, not anything taken from your phone.

Equipment: where a unit was put, not where you were

When staff put a piece of drying or cleaning equipment on a job, or take it off, using a phone or a scanner, we record where that happened. (A unit moved from a list at a desk records no position.) It is about the machine — it shows which loss a unit was working and supports the rental charged for it — and it is kept with the claim's records rather than with the staff route above. A unit also keeps its last known position, so it can be found.

The single positions, and which of them last

Besides the route, the app notes where you were at a few single moments, and they are not all kept the same way. Where you clocked in and out stays with that shift's record, with the arrival and departure facts — it is how the shift is confirmed. An arrival or departure photo keeps where it was taken, and whether that was at the job site. An equipment move made on a phone or scanner keeps where the unit was put, as above. Anything else we note about where a piece of work reached us from is kept for 90 days and then cleared, along with the route. The app adds no position to a job photo or video.

On your device

These apps are built to work without a signal, so some of your work is held on the phone itself until it can be sent:

• Work you capture with no connection — a photo, a clock-out, a reading, an expense and its receipt, a note, a message, an invoice attachment — is stored on your phone until it can reach us.
• Once it is delivered it is removed from the phone; delivered items are cleared after seven days, and only once nothing still waiting depends on them.
• Work the server cannot accept stays on your phone, visible to you, until you retry or discard it.
• Signing out of Expand, Plus or Claims discards anything still unsent for that app. The app warns you first — it is the one action that removes your own unsent work.
• Work held on the phone is tied to the server it was recorded against — it cannot be delivered to a different HouzWare estate, even by the same person.

Who your information reaches

A restoration job is worked by several parties at once, and some of what you add is shared with them so the work can get done:

• The restoration company's own staff working your job see your details and the job's content in HouzWare — that is how the work gets done.
• A homeowner's job photos and records are shared with the insurance carrier handling the claim and with the subcontractors working the loss.
• A subcontractor's photos and invoices are shared with the carrier.
• A technician's position, while clocked in or on the way, is visible to supervisors and managers — and while on the way, to the customer they are heading to, until arrival or cancel.
• What you add to a job — a photograph, a reading, a note — can be shown to the customer, to the insurance carrier handling the claim, and to the trade partners working the loss. Write it expecting to be read by them.
• While you have a job open in the HouzWare app, the app tells us you are viewing it about every 45 seconds, so other staff in your company who can open that job — its crew, supervisors and managers — can see you are there. You stop appearing as soon as you leave the job, or at the latest about a minute and a half after the last signal. It is never shown to homeowners, trade partners or adjusters, never leaves your company, and we keep no history of which jobs you have opened.

Everyone we pass your information to is required to protect it on the same terms we do, and to use it only for the work it was sent for.

We do not sell your information, and we never have. We do not share it for advertising.

How long we keep things

Some periods reflect insurance and payroll record-keeping requirements.

Keeping your information safe

Everything travels over encrypted connections (HTTPS); we use no home-grown cryptography. Your sign-in token is held in the iOS Keychain, readable only on this device and only after the phone has been unlocked at least once since it was restarted — which is also what lets queued work finish sending while the phone is in your pocket. It is never restored to another phone from a backup. Face ID, where a portal app's lock is turned on, never leaves your phone.

Children

These apps are for restoration work and are not intended for children. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 13.

Your choices

You can ask for a copy of your information or ask us to delete it — see Delete your account for what we can remove and what we must keep. You can turn off location and notification permissions at any time in your phone's settings; some features stop working without them.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy we will update it here and move the effective date at the top; significant changes will be made clear in the apps.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your information: portal.support@houzware.app.