Last updated: September 2026
If you submit a service request (with or without an account): your name, email, phone number, city/region/country, a description of the work, and, if you attach one, a photo of the job. If AI photo captioning is configured, that photo is also sent to Anthropic’s API to generate a short description shown to matched pros — see “AI processing” below.
If you create a homeowner or contractor account: the above, plus a password (stored as a bcrypt hash — we never store or can recover your plaintext password) and, for contractors, business details (business name, category, licensing jurisdiction) you provide at signup or in settings.
Messages, reviews, and disputes you send through the platform between a homeowner and a contractor are stored so both sides can see the thread history.
Payment information is never stored on SpokeHub’s own servers. Contractor wallet top-ups and payouts run through Stripe; SpokeHub stores only the resulting transaction record (amount, date, status), never card numbers or bank details.
Automatically, from normal use: a signed HTTP-only session cookie (so you stay logged in) and standard server request logs. SpokeHub does not run third-party analytics or advertising trackers today.
In the terms California’s CCPA/CPRA uses: the categories above are identifiers (name, email, phone), commercial/transaction information (wallet top-ups, payouts, invoices), and, only if you attach one, a photo (which may be treated as sensitive personal information depending on its content). Sources are: directly from you (submitting a request or creating an account), automatically from your use of the site (session cookie, server logs), and from a matched counterparty (message/thread content, when you’re on the other side of a match).
To operate the marketplace: matching your request to relevant contractors, showing both sides the resulting thread, processing payments and payouts, and enforcing the dispute/guarantee process you initiate. To communicate with you about your own requests, matches, and account. To maintain security — rate limiting, audit logging of admin actions, and fraud/abuse prevention.
SpokeHub’s “AI Coworker” features — draft reply suggestions, category suggestions, job photo captions, and generated quotes — send the relevant text or photo to Anthropic’s Claude API when a real API key is configured for this deployment. When no key is configured, these features fall back to a rules-based system that never leaves this server. Anthropic processes that data under its own API terms and does not use it to train models by default; SpokeHub does not send more than the specific content needed for the specific feature (e.g., a message thread for a draft-reply suggestion, not your full account history).
Automated decisions: matching a submitted request to contractors uses a deterministic, rules-based algorithm (category, location, price, and quote-count matching) — not a scored or machine-learning decision, and it doesn’t deny you service or make a legal or similarly significant determination about you the way a credit or hiring algorithm would; it routes your request to contractors you then choose among yourself. The AI Coworker features above (draft replies, quotes, captions) are suggestions a human reviews and sends, never an automated decision made about you.
Matched contractors see the details of a request you submit to them (name, contact info, job description, photo) — that disclosure is the point of the marketplace. Service providers that process data on our behalf under their own data-processing terms, only when actually configured for a given deployment: Stripe (payments), Anthropic (AI features, see above), and, if enabled, SendGrid or Twilio (email/SMS delivery) and a background-check or financing partner a contractor opts into. SpokeHub does not sell or share personal information — as those terms are defined under the CCPA/CPRA — to data brokers or advertisers, and does not run third-party analytics or advertising trackers. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal, we treat it as an opt-out-of-sale/sharing request; since nothing is sold or shared today, this has no practical effect, but we honor it as a standing preference regardless.
International transfer: Stripe, Anthropic, and (when configured) SendGrid/Twilio are based outside Canada and, depending on the deployment’s own location, may be outside the EU/UK/EEA — meaning your data may be processed in the United States or another country different from your own. Where that crosses an EU/UK/EEA or Canadian border, it’s covered by standard contractual safeguards (e.g., Standard Contractual Clauses) or an applicable adequacy decision with each processor, per that processor’s own published data-processing terms (linked from each provider’s own security/legal pages) rather than a bespoke agreement this notice can restate.
If you’re in the EU, UK, or EEA, the legal basis for each use above is: contract necessity for matching a submitted request to contractors, processing payments, and operating your account (we can’t provide the service without this data); legitimate interest for security, fraud prevention, rate limiting, and audit logging (balanced against your rights — this is limited to what’s needed to keep the platform safe, per SECURITY.md); and consent for the optional AI Coworker features described above, which you can decline by not using them. Providing your contact and job-description details is required to be matched to a contractor at all; nothing else on this page is a precondition of using the site generally. No Data Protection Officer is currently designated for this deployment — a real deployment with material EU/UK processing volume should revisit whether GDPR Article 37 requires appointing one.
Account and request data is retained for as long as your account is active, and for a limited period after account closure to resolve any open dispute, guarantee claim, or legal obligation, after which it is deleted or anonymized. Message/thread history tied to a completed match is retained the same way as the account it belongs to. This deployment takes automatic hourly local backups (retained on a rolling basis, oldest pruned first) so the service can be restored after an incident — see the project’s SECURITY.md for the technical detail. Backups are not a substitute for the deletion request process below; a deletion request is honored in the live database, and backup snapshots age out on their normal retention schedule.
You can review and correct most of your own information directly in your account settings or dashboard. Depending on your location, you may also have the right to request restriction of processing, portability of your data in a structured format, or to object to processing based on legitimate interest; California residents specifically have the right to know, delete, correct, and — since SpokeHub doesn’t sell or share personal information or use sensitive personal information for any secondary purpose (a job-site photo, for example, is used only to fulfill the request it was attached to) — there is currently nothing to opt out of or limit under those specific CCPA rights; exercising any right here will never result in different treatment or service (right of non-discrimination). Where a legal basis is consent (the optional AI features), you can withdraw that consent at any time by simply not using those features. Honest limitation: this build does not yet have a self-service “delete my account” button, and currently offers only one contact channel (email) for rights requests rather than the two independent channels — including a toll-free number — that a real deployment meeting CCPA’s applicability thresholds would need to provide. To request access to, correction of, restriction of, portability of, or deletion of your data, contact [PLACEHOLDER: privacy@your-real-domain.example] and we will action the request manually. If you’re in the EU/UK/EEA and unsatisfied with our response, you have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection supervisory authority. If you’re in Canada and unsatisfied, you may complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC).
The individual accountable for privacy compliance at this deployment is the security/privacy owner role defined in this project’s internal policies (Information Security Policy, POL-1 §2.1) — reachable at the contact address above. PIPEDA remains the current federal private-sector privacy law in Canada as of this policy’s last-updated date; a legislative reform effort is in progress but had not become law as of that date, so this section will be revisited if and when that changes.
SpokeHub is not directed to, and does not knowingly collect information from, anyone under 16. If you believe a minor has provided us information, contact us at the address above and we will remove it.
If this policy changes materially, the “Last updated” date above will change and, where required, we’ll notify account holders directly.
Questions about this policy: [PLACEHOLDER: privacy@your-real-domain.example].