Privacy policy

01Who we are

Before You Pay ("we", "us", "our") is operated under the name Phillips Group and is available at beforeyoupay.uk. For the purposes of UK GDPR, we are the data controller for personal information we process in operating this service, including information obtained from other sources.

Contact: our contact form.

02What we collect and why

Email and message records

We log emails sent by the service, contact form messages and dashboard feedback. Where inbound email routing is enabled for one of our addresses, we also log incoming emails and forward them to our team's inbox. Email routing needs separate setup; it is not active for every address by default.

The log records the kind of communication, subject, date and delivery status, such as sent, delivered, failed or bounced. It also keeps a partly hidden email address and a one-way scrambled version used to match the address to other records. Where we can make the connection, the entry is linked to the relevant business, report, customer view, application, customer confirmation, contact message or data request. These records can still be personal information.

The communication log does not store email bodies. The messages themselves are kept separately in conversations or our inbox so we can read and answer them. Email providers also process message content to deliver it.

We keep communication log entries for 24 months. Our lawful basis is legitimate interests in checking delivery, recording what was sent and when, and handling complaints or disputes. We also use the log when answering requests for personal information, which supports our legal obligations under data protection law.

Conversations with us

Messages sent through our contact form and dashboard, including dashboard feedback and data enquiries, and our replies are kept in one conversation per email address. We keep the email address, any name given, message text, subject, dates and any report ID you provide so we can handle your enquiry. Emails sent to our addresses are handled in our email inbox.

You read and reply on our site using a private link emailed to you. Opening it in a new browser needs a six-digit code sent to your email address. The link works for 90 days unless revoked, and a browser session lasts 24 hours. We store scrambled copies of the conversation access tokens. Conversation notification emails tell you there is a message and give you a link; they do not contain your message or our reply.

We use these records in our legitimate interests in answering enquiries and keeping a reliable record of our exchanges. Where a conversation concerns your data rights, we also use it to meet our data protection obligations. Conversations are scheduled for deletion 24 months after the last message. Separate communication logs and data request records have their own retention periods below.

Business history and shared details

We record changes to a business record's main details, including the old and new values, date and source. This covers names, company number, trade, contact details, address, town, areas covered, directors, owner name, company status, claim and verification state, and trade registrations. Sources include the business's dashboard, applications, our team, public record updates, reports and maintenance work.

We also keep business contact and identity details we have seen, with the dates first and last seen. These include phone numbers, email addresses, website domains, VAT and company numbers, directors, addresses and names. They come from public records and sources, including Companies House and business websites, the business itself, and report or quote information. For sole traders, directors and owners, these details can be personal information.

Shared details can suggest a possible connection between businesses. We use selected details, such as a phone number, email address, website domain, VAT number, the same Companies House officer or an address shared by a small number of businesses, to flag possible connections for a person to review. A shared detail does not by itself establish that the same people run both businesses. This process does not automatically merge records, and these internal connection records are not published.

We rely on legitimate interests in keeping business records accurate and helping prevent fraud, including attempts to hide a business history by changing names or contact details. We use information already held for the service, restrict access to our team and consider the interests and rights of the people concerned. You can ask for a correction or object to this use through our contact form.

We keep the business history, contact and identity details, and internal connection records while the relevant business records exist. If a business record is deleted, for example because it is a duplicate, its history and associated details are deleted with it. A business data export includes its history and details, subject to the rights and limits described below.

Quote price guidance

When a paid report reads a quote, the AI that reads it also extracts the job type, total, VAT, deposit, main line items and any stated job size. We store these facts separately, with the town or city, region, trade and month, but without a link to the report, the business or the customer, and without the exact date. We use them to build price guides and calculators.

We ask the AI to leave out names, addresses and contact details, and we filter email addresses and phone numbers from the text it returns. We describe this as removing identifying details, not as a guarantee that the result is anonymous. A combination of place, month, job description and price could still identify someone, particularly where there are few quotes. For that reason we will not publish a price guide for a group of fewer than ten quotes. That is a publication check, not proof of anonymity.

We rely on legitimate interests in producing useful price guidance. We keep these price records for up to five years and review them each year. They are held in a private database that only our systems can read. This does not change the deletion periods for original quotes or reports below, and you can ask us about this use or object to it by contacting us.

Profile view counts

When a business profile opens, or someone arrives through a business’s share link or QR code, we count it so the business can see how often its profile is viewed. We record the profile, the time and a general source (for example a search engine, our directory, a report or the share link). We do not set a cookie for this. To count a repeat visit within 30 minutes only once, we keep a coded version of your IP address that changes every day, so it cannot be used to follow you from one day to the next. Visits from the business itself, and from automated tools, are not counted.

We rely on legitimate interests in showing businesses honest figures about their profile. These counts are not used to rank businesses or sold to anyone. We delete them after 25 months.

Check my quote

Our free Check my quote tool helps you check a quote, and helps us build price guides. If you paste a quote, it is read in your browser to fill in the form, and the pasted text itself is not sent to us. When you ask for your result we keep: the job, the town or city of the work, your answers to the checklist, the total, VAT, the deposit, when the rest is due, the priced lines from the quote and the month. We remove names, phone numbers, email addresses and postcodes from the priced lines. We do not keep your name, address, email address or IP address, and we do not tell the business that you checked its quote.

If you enter the business’s details (its name, phone number, email address, website or company number), we use them for our directory of businesses, separately from the prices, so they are never linked to your quote. A business we cannot match to our records or Companies House is kept hidden and is not published.

We rely on legitimate interests in helping people check quotes, producing price guides and keeping our directory accurate. We keep the price records for up to five years and review them each year.

We also count how the tool is used, without a cookie: when a Check my quote page opens, when the first step is answered, when a result is shown (and whether a deposit was added), and when someone goes on to research a trader or pay for a report in the same browser tab. We record the job, a general source (for example a search engine or a button on a business profile) and the time, with the same daily-changing coded IP address used for profile view counts, so a repeat within 30 minutes is counted once. Nothing you type is part of these counts. We delete them after 25 months.

03What we do not collect

• When you run a report, the only thing we ask about you is your email address.
• Business information can come from public records, published sources, the business itself and customers. Some information relates to individuals, including sole traders and directors.
• We currently use Google Analytics to understand website use. Email marketing and advertising through Google Ads, Meta and other social platforms are planned, as explained below. We do not sell your personal information.

Customer views

Customer views record a customer's own opinion of a job. A person at Before You Pay checks evidence of a genuine connection and whether the submission follows our rules before we tell the business. We do not decide who is right about the work. Once the reply window has ended, eligible views and business replies are published automatically through scheduled processing.

What we collect and why

We collect the customer's email address, job type, month, town or city, opinion and reported work status. The customer also provides the business's name, phone number and email address as they have them. We compare these with our records to help identify the correct business, and use an email address to give the business notice and a fair opportunity to reply. Differences flag the submission for a person to check; they do not automatically reject it. Business contact details supplied this way are not displayed publicly.

Customers can upload up to three invoices, payment records or quotes, and optionally give a contact preference and a private note. Documents can contain names, addresses and financial details. Cover unrelated transactions, full account numbers and other information not needed for the check, without misleading changes.

We email a verification code and store hashes of codes, session tokens, email and network identifiers, with security flags. Hashing transforms identifiers; it does not make all retained information anonymous. Some flags compare the customer's network with business sign-in records. A person considers the flags and checks the connection and evidence. Publication timing and deletion are automated. We may introduce AI-assisted document reading or other automated assistance for parts of the customer-view process. Before doing so, we will explain what information is used, for which purposes, which providers receive it and any changes to human oversight or your choices. This is separate from the automated analysis already used to prepare reports.

We use this information in our legitimate interests in checking genuine connections, preventing false or misleading submissions, giving businesses a fair chance to respond and maintaining a reliable information service. These interests must be balanced against the rights and interests of the people concerned. You can object through our contact form.

What the business and the public see

The business sees the job, month, town or city, opinion, customer-reported work status and types of evidence checked. We also tell it whether the customer is open to discussion or has asked for no further contact, where a preference was provided. The customer's contact preference is not displayed publicly. We do not provide the customer's email or evidence files through the business display or public profile. An authorised reviewer may pass the private note to the business after checking it. The business, or somebody familiar with the job, may recognise the customer from the details. We cannot promise anonymity.

Published entries show the customer's opinion, job details and reported work status, the checks actually completed, the business response, attributed resolution statements and submission/update dates. A statement that discussions are happening comes from the business and is labelled as its statement, not confirmation by both sides. Summary counts are shown without an average or score. Contact preferences, evidence, challenge notes and documents are not published. The customer's preference is shared privately with the business; the business's contact preference stays private to Before You Pay.

We collect business replies, contact preferences, discussion and resolution statements, and any challenge reason, note and supporting files. We retain notice records and the delivery status reported by Resend. A known bounced notice blocks publication while we seek another way to tell the business. The customer may be emailed for alternative business contact details. A new notice restarts the reply window. See our customer views terms for the 14-day window and claim-check pauses.

If a business says it is in talks, the customer must first have said they were open to discussion. The statement is removed when we ask about resolution, either after the business marks it resolved or at a 30-day check-in. At that check-in, Resend emails both sides: the customer receives an answer link and the business is asked to answer in its dashboard. We retain the discussion start, check-in and resolution-request dates and the answers with the view. A business-only resolved statement can carry a “No response from customer” label after the customer has been asked and 14 days have passed without an answer. It does not mean the customer agrees.

Views concerning sole traders can contain personal information about the trader as well as the customer. Neither payment nor business disagreement decides whether a view is shown.

How long we retain customer-view information

Deletion runs on a schedule. Backup copies and provider logs have separate retention arrangements. Withdrawing a view stops its public display but does not immediately erase every associated record. You can request access, correction, erasure or object to continued use under the rights described below.

Providers and changes to your view

Cloudflare hosts customer views, Supabase stores records and private evidence, and Resend sends codes, business notices and customer messages and supplies notice-delivery information.

To request a change or withdrawal, use our contact form with the email address submitted with the view. There is no customer self-service editing or withdrawal tool. We may need to confirm the request comes from you. The business can update its own reply after publication or report a problem, but disagreement alone does not remove the customer's view.

04Tradespeople: identity documents

If you apply to claim or join as a tradesperson, we ask you to complete an identity check on Stripe's own page and to upload proof of address (a recent utility bill or bank statement), as well as your insurance certificate and trade registrations. The identity check is more sensitive than the other documents, so we handle it more strictly. If we cannot offer the Stripe check, we may instead ask for a photo of your passport or photo driving licence, which we handle as set out in the last two points below.

The identity check with Stripe

• What happens: on a page run by Stripe, you photograph a passport, photo driving licence or ID card and take a live selfie. Stripe checks the document and compares the selfie with the photo on it, then tells us whether the check passed.
• Biometric data: comparing your face with your document photo creates biometric data, which is special category data under UK GDPR. Stripe asks for your explicit consent on its page before it starts, and you can decline. If you would rather not use the check, contact us through the contact form and we will consider another way to confirm who you are.
• Who handles the images: Stripe collects and handles the document photos, the selfie and the face comparison under its own privacy policy. We never receive or see them.
• What we receive and keep: whether the check passed, the name and document type Stripe read, the document's expiry date, the date of the check and Stripe's reference for it. We do not receive or keep the document photo, the selfie, the document number, your date of birth or your nationality.
• What Stripe keeps: Stripe keeps the details and images from the check for up to three years by default, then deletes them. We do not ask Stripe to delete them when we decide your application. We keep Stripe's reference so that, if we need to investigate fraud, impersonation or a dispute about a claim, we can ask Stripe for the record. You can ask us to have Stripe delete your check at any time through the contact form.
• Why: to check that the person applying is the person named on the application. Our legal basis is legitimate interests (preventing fraud and keeping the information on our profiles reliable). For the face comparison, it is your explicit consent, given on Stripe's page.

Proof of address and other documents

• Why: to check that the person applying is the person named on the application, and that the business is real. Our legal basis is legitimate interests (preventing fraud and keeping the information on our profiles reliable).
• Who sees it: authorised reviewers at Phillips Group. Our hosting and storage providers also process the files to operate the service. It is never shown on your profile, to homeowners or to any other business.
• How it is stored: in a private, access-controlled store. We use it for the identity check. Our hosting and storage providers process it to provide the service. We may disclose information where required by law.
• When it is deleted: proof of address files (and photo ID, if we asked for one) are deleted once we have looked at them and recorded that we have seen them. If an application is rejected, the files are deleted. After deleting the file, we retain the limited check details described below, including relevant names and address details. We do not keep a copy of the file as the verification record.
• Your choices: you can cover your ID number and anything else we do not need. You can ask us to delete your files, or your application, at any time through the contact form.

Free accounts and the record of an identity check

Free claimed accounts and paid members undergo the relevant company-director or sole-trader checks, photo ID and proof-of-address checks, approved by a person. A free claim needs no card. Payment information for membership is handled separately through Stripe.

After the files are deleted, we retain these verification details:

• Identity check: the result, name, document type and expiry date from Stripe's check, the date, and Stripe's reference. For a photo ID we asked for instead: document type, name and expiry date.
• Proof of address: document type, name, address, postcode and document date.
• Check record: that the document was checked, when and by whom.

The retained verification record does not include document numbers, the document or selfie photos, date of birth, nationality, account numbers or a copy of the file. Those details may be present in an original file before its deletion.

We retain these limited details while the account exists and for six years after closure to establish who held the account and to handle relevant account or identity disputes. This is our retention period, not a claim that every identity record must legally be kept for six years. The purposes are administering the account and its agreement, and our legitimate interests in preventing fraud and impersonation and handling disputes about claims or customer views. Where the account agreement is with an individual, contract applies to information necessary to administer it; where it is with a company, we rely on legitimate interests for relevant individuals' information. You may exercise the rights explained below.

05How long we keep it

06Who processes it

We use these services to run Before You Pay. They process relevant information to provide their services; some also have their own legal responsibilities and privacy terms.

07Cookies and marketing plans

We use Google Analytics to understand how people use the site, such as which pages are visited and where people leave a report part way through. It sets cookies to do this. Stripe sets cookies needed to take payment securely, and hCaptcha sets cookies on the contact form to stop spam.

An essential cookie remembers access to your private conversation in the browser for 24 hours. It helps protect your messages and is separate from analytics cookies.

We currently use Google Analytics for site-use measurement, rather than advertising cookies or social advertising pixels. You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings; the site works without analytics cookies.

Future email marketing and advertising

We plan to promote Before You Pay through email, Google Ads, Meta and other social media platforms. Those activities are not described here as already active. Before using personal information for a new marketing purpose, we will explain the information involved, how it will be used and which organisations receive it, and provide the choices required for that use.

Where consent is required for marketing emails, advertising cookies, pixels or similar technologies, we will ask before using them. Marketing emails will identify us and include a way to opt out. Sharing information to buy a report, claim a profile or submit a customer view does not by itself give permission for unrelated marketing. Reading this policy is not consent to future marketing or a new use of AI.

08Your rights under UK GDPR

Depending on the circumstances and lawful basis, your rights include:

• Access: ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• Rectification: ask us to correct inaccurate personal data
• Erasure: ask us to delete your personal data (subject to legal retention obligations)
• Restriction: ask us to limit how we use your data in certain circumstances
• Portability: receive your data in a structured, machine-readable format
• Objection: object to processing based on legitimate interests

To ask for a copy of your personal information or use another data right, contact us through our contact form, choosing "Your data". Businesses can also choose "Request my data" under Account and activity in the dashboard, including with a free or paused account. This sends us a message for our team to review; it does not prepare or send an export automatically. You do not have to use a particular form or wording to make a request. Where processing relies on consent, you can withdraw it without affecting earlier lawful processing.

Checking who is asking

We confirm identity proportionately before disclosing personal information. Signing in to a business dashboard or confirming access to a conversation helps us check who is asking. Control of an email address may not establish your connection to a business; we may also check an address we hold for it or its own website domain. If you have used another address or believe something is missing, tell us.

If we cannot establish your connection to the business, we need a manual check. We may ask for photo ID and something linking you to it, or check a Companies House director match. We ask only for information proportionate to the check and delete any ID file after checking it. We record how the check was completed.

Our response and your download

We respond without undue delay and normally within one calendar month of receiving your request. If we reasonably need information to confirm your identity, the response period runs from receiving that information. If the law allows more time, we will explain the reason and the applicable timeframe.

A person reviews each prepared export before it is sent. We remove or limit other people's information where needed to protect their rights. We may withhold specific information where a legal exemption applies, for example if disclosure would be likely to prejudice the prevention or detection of fraud. That requires a decision about the information concerned, not a blanket refusal because it is used for fraud prevention.

Once approved, your export is offered inside your private conversation on our site, with a download link that works for seven days. It provides a readable copy and a machine-readable file. The notification email does not contain the export or message text. Export files are scheduled for deletion 30 days after sending or closing the request. We keep the request and review record for 24 months after closure.

You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk if you think we have not handled your data lawfully.

09Security

Uploaded photos and documents

Our upload forms resize photos in your browser and save a new image before sending it to us. This removes the original photo's location and camera metadata. It does not remove details visible in the image. PDF uploads are not changed by this process.

For documents held for account and customer-view checks, our team can cover unrelated details in photos, such as bank details, card numbers, National Insurance numbers or other people's contact details. When saved, the covered image replaces the original stored image. This is a reviewer tool, not a guarantee that every sensitive detail is found or every document is redacted.

The photo text reader runs in the reviewer's browser using open-source software; document images are not sent to a separate text-reading provider for this check. PDF text is read on our server to suggest details that may need covering. The tool cannot yet save a redacted PDF. We may need to ask for a covered copy or remove the file. You can cover unrelated information before uploading, as long as you leave the information needed for the check visible.

All data is sent over HTTPS. Private evidence is kept in access-controlled storage. Public portfolio photos are treated differently from private evidence. Deletion schedules depend on the purpose and record type. We never store card details; Stripe's PCI-compliant systems handle them.

10Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The current version is always at beforeyoupay.uk/privacy. We will not reduce your rights under this policy without clear notice.