Privacy Policy

Who this covers

Three kinds of people touch Hoptide:

• Business owners and their crew, who create an account and run routes and appointments.
• Customers of those businesses, whose addresses a business adds and who receive a private link.
• Visitors to hoptide.co, including anyone who fills in the "We'll set it up" form.

What we collect

• Account details: your name, email address, business name and a hashed password. Optionally a passkey or two-factor secret if you turn those on.
• Customer records a business uploads: name, service address, and optionally phone, email and notes such as a gate code. The business decides what to add. We hold it on the business's behalf.
• Service activity: routes, stops, appointments, when each was started, completed, delayed or skipped, and the reason given.
• Customer page activity: when a private link was first opened, the alert preferences chosen on that page, and any email address a customer adds there (used only after they confirm it).
• Messages we send: a log of each email sent, to whom, when, and about which visit, so a business can see what its customers received.
• "We'll set it up" requests: business name, contact name, phone, email and any customer list pasted into the form, plus the IP address the form came from.
• Phone calls to the number a business texts from: the caller's phone number, when the call came in, how long it lasted and whether it was put through to the business. When the business uses AI phone answering, an AI assistant answers and says so at the start, and we keep a short written summary of the call. Calls are not recorded.
• Visits to our public website pages, such as the home and pricing pages: which page was opened, the page that linked to it, the browser and device type, and an approximate location worked out from the IP address. This is not collected on a customer's private service page or inside the signed-in app.
• Technical data: server logs with IP address, browser and timestamps, kept briefly for security and debugging.

What we use it for

• Running the service: showing each customer their own status page and sending the alerts they chose.
• Account security: sign-in, password resets, email verification, two-factor and passkeys.
• Setting up a business that asked us to, using the list they sent.
• Support, and fixing problems when something breaks.

We do not sell personal data, and we do not use customer records for advertising. We only email a customer about the business that added them, and only for the alerts switched on for that customer.

Text messages

SMS messaging. When a business that uses Hoptide collects your mobile number and your consent, we process your number and message content on that business's behalf to send and receive service-related texts. Message records are used to deliver the service, show message history, honor opt-outs, and meet legal obligations.

Consent is given to one business at a time, either on your private page or directly with the business when you book, and the business records how and when. Before any update is sent you receive one confirmation text and must reply YES. Every text says how to stop them. Texts are sent through our texting provider, and we keep a record of who agreed, when, how, and for which business, and of every opt-out.

No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. We may share information with subcontractors that help provide the service, such as messaging and customer support providers. All other categories in this policy exclude text messaging originator opt-in data and consent; this information will not be shared with third parties.

Who else sees it

We use a small number of providers to run Hoptide. Each only processes data to provide their service to us:

• A hosting provider that runs our servers, database and queues in the United States
• An email provider that sends Hoptide's emails
• A phone and texting provider that sends and receives text messages, gives each business its phone number, carries calls to that number, records a voicemail when a caller chooses to leave one, and records calls put through to a business that records its calls, after telling the caller
• A voice AI provider that answers phone calls for businesses that turn on AI phone answering. It receives what the caller says, the caller's phone number, and the business and service facts it needs to answer. The call isn't recorded, and the provider keeps the written transcript for 30 days.
• A network security provider that protects our domain and website
• An AI provider that drafts answers to customer questions for businesses that turn on Hoptide Answers, and writes out voicemails and recorded calls. It receives the questions, recordings and facts it needs, and doesn't train its models on them.
• Mapping services that place a customer's street address on the map and work out driving times, so a route can be put in driving order. They receive only the address or map coordinates, never a name or contact detail.
• Paddle (payments, as merchant of record: your card details go to Paddle, not to us)
• A website analytics provider that counts visits to our public website pages. It sets no cookie, makes no recordings, and isn't used on a customer's private service page or inside the signed-in app.

A business that needs the names of these providers for its own records can ask us at hello@hoptide.co.

We will share data if the law requires it, or to protect someone's safety. Otherwise we don't.

Google Sheets

A business can connect a Google Sheet that holds its customer list. Here is exactly what Hoptide does with Google data when it does:

• Access: Hoptide asks Google only for permission to open the files you pick in Google's file picker, and for the email address of the Google account you sign in with. It cannot see any other file in your Google Drive.
• Use: Hoptide reads the names, property addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and notes in the columns you choose, and adds or updates your customers in Hoptide with them, when you import and every 30 minutes after. Hoptide never writes to, changes or deletes anything in your spreadsheet.
• Storage: the customer details become part of your customer list in Hoptide and follow the same retention rules as customers you add by hand. The sign-in tokens Google gives Hoptide are stored encrypted and are deleted when you disconnect Google Sheets or delete your account.
• Sharing: Google data is not sold, not used for advertising, not used to train AI models, and not shared with anyone except the service providers listed above, and only as needed to run the Hoptide features you use. For example, a customer's email address goes to our email provider when Hoptide emails them an update, and their street address goes to a mapping service to place it on the map.
• Disconnecting: you can disconnect at any time on the Google Sheets page under Customers. Hoptide then asks Google to cancel its access. You can also remove Hoptide in your Google account's security settings.

Hoptide's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

Cookies

We set a session cookie to keep you signed in, a security token cookie, and a cookie that remembers light or dark mode. Before launch, a cookie is set only for someone who enters the staff preview password. We do not use advertising cookies, and our website visit counting doesn't set a cookie.

How long we keep it

Account and customer records stay while the business account is active. After that:

• A customer a business deletes is hidden at once and removed within 30 days.
• A business that closes its account keeps its customers, visits, routes and messages for one year, so it can reopen with everything in place. We remind the owner a month and two weeks before the year ends, then delete it all.
• A business or account that is deleted is hidden at once and its data removed after 30 days, the window in which a mistaken deletion can be undone by emailing us.
• Text consent records (a phone number, which business it agreed with, when and how, any opt-out, and the times texts were sent) are kept for five years after the last text, sealed away from the app, because the texting rules allow a claim for that long. No names, addresses or message contents are in them.
• Voicemail and call recordings on a business's number are deleted 30 days after the call. The written version stays with the business's call history, like its messages.
• Email logs and server logs are kept for 90 days.

A business can download its customer list at any time, and we act on a verified deletion request from a business's customer within 45 days.

Your choices

• If you are a customer of a business: your private page lets you turn alerts off at any time. To have your record removed, ask the business, or write to us and we will pass the request on and confirm when it is done.
• If you are a business owner: you can edit or delete customers, regenerate a customer's link so the old one stops working, and delete your account from Settings.
• Anyone can ask what we hold about them, ask for a copy, or ask for it to be corrected or deleted. Email hello@hoptide.co. We answer within 30 days.

Children

Hoptide is for businesses and their adult customers. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 16.

Changes

If this policy changes in a way that matters, we email business owners before the change takes effect and update the date at the top of this page.