Privacy Policy
This policy explains what information Rentbench collects, how we use it, and the choices you have. If you have questions, email privacy@rentbench.fyi.
1. Information we collect
Rent submissions. Postcode; street name (optional); rent and whether it is monthly or weekly; the month the tenancy started; new tenancy or renewal; whole property or room; bedrooms and bathrooms; property type; whether property is furnished; whether bills are included; whether room is en suite; floor area (optional). You provide this when you submit.
Verification documents. Documents showing the rent, if you choose to send them. Stored encrypted — see Section 6. Documents and photos you upload may include personal information we don’t ask for, such as your name, your landlord’s name, or the location where a photo was taken. We don’t use it, and it’s deleted along with the document.
Tribunal decisions. Rent, date, property address and details from First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) decisions, published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence. These name the parties involved.
Technical data. We store a hash of your IP address to prevent automated spam and abuse. We delete it within 7 days. When you load a page, Plausible also receives your IP address and browser details to count the visit.
Because tribunal data is publicly available, and contacting each person individually is not practically possible, we rely on the law’s exemption for disproportionate effort. If you were party to a tribunal case listed here, Section 5 explains how to request removal.
2. How we use your information
| Purpose | Data used | Shared with | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Publishing rents and area averages, to help people understand what homes rent for | Rent submissions | Published on the site, without your name or contact details (Section 4) | Legitimate interests |
| Publishing tribunal outcomes and averages, for the same reason | Tribunal decisions | Nebius (AI provider) | Legitimate interests |
| Checking a submission and issuing a Verified badge, to show which rents are backed by a document | Verification documents | Google or Anthropic (AI providers), if checked automatically | Legitimate interests |
| Keeping documents that failed review, to prevent abuse | Verification documents that failed review | No one | Legitimate interests |
| Preventing automated spam and abuse | Technical data | No one | Legitimate interests |
| Counting visits to improve the site | Pages visited, referrer, browser and device type, and approximate location from your IP address | Plausible | Legitimate interests |
A Verified badge may be issued automatically, without a person reviewing the document.
3. Who we share information with
Service providers. Neon (database hosting), Cloudflare (document storage and hosting), Vercel (hosting), Google Workspace (email), Plausible (usage statistics), and postcodes.io (postcode lookup).
AI providers. Nebius, Google, and Anthropic. We use Nebius to extract the rent, date, and address out of tribunal decisions. We may use Google or Anthropic to verify documents and issue Verified badges. None of these providers use your information to train their models. Where a provider is based outside the UK or EU, transfers are covered by the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses.
Maps. Map tiles load directly from OpenFreeMap in your browser, so OpenFreeMap can see your IP address and which tiles you request. We have no data-sharing arrangement with them.
We will share information if the law requires it.
4. The limits of anonymity
We round every submitted rent into a band rather than publishing the exact figure, and we use the rounded figure when we calculate area averages. We never publish your full postcode or individual floor area. Publishing your street is your choice.
These steps reduce, but do not remove, the chance someone could work out a listing is yours. The more unique your rent details are, the easier it is for someone to guess that a listing is yours.
Tribunal decisions are not anonymised: they include the full address and exact rent, because they are publicly available on the gov.uk website.
5. Your rights and choices
When you submit, we generate a management link for you to take down or manage your listing.
Right to object. You can object to how we use your information. If you submitted a rent, you can take your listing down at any time using your management link. If you are named in a tribunal decision listed here, or have lost your link, email us at privacy@rentbench.fyi.
You can ask us to change or delete a submission, or a tribunal decision that names you.
Under UK data protection law, you can ask to see, correct, delete, or limit use of your data, and object to how we use it. To request removal of a document, email us at privacy@rentbench.fyi. The law gives us one month to respond, and up to two months more if a request is complex or you send several.
To complain, email privacy@rentbench.fyi (we acknowledge complaints within 30 days) or contact the ICO at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint.
6. Other information
How long we keep information
A listing stays published until you take it down. Taking it down hides it from public view, and an attached document is not deleted. To request permanent deletion of a listing or document, email us at privacy@rentbench.fyi.
An unreviewed document is deleted after 14 days. A document behind a Verified badge is kept until the badge is removed or the listing is deleted. A document that fails review is kept for up to 12 months to help us detect repeat abuse of the verification process. Your IP address data is deleted within 7 days.
If you email us, we keep your message and email address for up to 6 years.
Verification documents
Documents are encrypted in your browser before upload and stored in the European Union. Access is limited to authorised staff and the automated verification process we may use, as described in Section 3. We do not use documents for any purpose other than verification, and we only share them with parties listed in Section 3.
Cookies
We do not use cookies. The map remembers your last view in your browser’s storage only; this never reaches us.
Analytics
We use Plausible Analytics, a privacy-focused analytics service, to see how many people visit and which pages they read. It does not use cookies and does not track you across other sites or build a profile of you. We do not use any other analytics or tracking. See Plausible’s own data policy for how it handles data.
Where your information is stored
In the United Kingdom and the European Union, except tribunal data we send, and verification documents we may send, to AI providers outside the UK or EU, as described in Section 3. Emails are stored by Google Workspace, which may keep them outside the UK or EU.
Changes to this policy
We will update this page before we change how we use your information. Any new use will apply only to information you provide after the change.
Contact
Email privacy@rentbench.fyi for rights requests, removals, and complaints.