Privacy Policy

Upsticks(“we”, “us”, “our”) provides cost-of-living estimates for areas across the UK. We are the data controller for the personal data described in this policy. For any privacy question, or to exercise your rights, contact us at privacy@upsticks.io.

If you create an account

Accounts are handled by Clerk, our authentication provider (see “Who processes your data” below). When you sign up, we collect through Clerk:

• your email address, and any name you choose to provide;
• your password, which Clerk stores in hashed form (we never see it);
• sign-in and security information Clerk keeps to protect your account, such as sign-in times, IP address and device details.

Things you save

Once signed in, we store in our own database the items you choose to save:

• areas and wards you save;
• comparisons you pin;
• your budget profile (income, household size, tenure and bedrooms), which personalises the totals we show you.

You decide whether to enter any of this, and you can delete it at any time.

Data collected automatically

Like most websites, when you visit, we and our providers collect:

• basic technical data such as IP address, browser and device type, and the pages you view, through our hosting and analytics tools;
• cookies and similar technologies, described in our Cookie Policy.

Postcode search

When you search by postcode, that postcode is sent to postcodes.io to turn it into an area. We do not store the postcodes you search.

• To provide the account features you ask for (saving areas and comparisons, and your budget profile). Legal basis: performance of our agreement with you.
• To sign you in and keep your account secure. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in a secure service, and our agreement with you.
• To understand and improve how the site is used, through aggregate analytics. Legal basis: your consent, given through our cookie banner.
• To meet legal obligations where they apply. Legal basis: legal obligation.

We do not sell your personal data, and we do not currently send marketing emails. Clerk sends transactional emails needed to run your account, such as sign-in verification codes.

We use a small set of trusted providers to run the service. Each only handles your data to provide their service to us:

• Clerk: authentication, sign-in and account management.
• Neon: the database that stores your saved areas, comparisons and budget profile. Our database is hosted in a UK/EU region (London).
• Vercel: website hosting and delivery, including server logs.
• Google (Tag Manager): managing our analytics and measurement tags, which load only with your consent.
• postcodes.io: resolving a searched postcode to an area.

Some of these providers are based in, or store data in, the United States. Where your data is transferred outside the UK, we rely on the safeguards required by UK data protection law, such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, and adequacy decisions where they apply.

If you click a partner or affiliate link, you leave our site and the partner’s own privacy policy and cookies apply.

We keep your account data and the items you save for as long as your account is open. If you delete your account, we delete the records associated with it (your saved areas, comparisons and budget profile) as part of that deletion. Aggregate analytics that cannot identify you may be kept for longer, and some providers keep limited security logs for a short period.

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

• access the personal data we hold about you;
• have inaccurate data corrected;
• have your data deleted (the “right to erasure”);
• restrict or object to certain processing;
• receive your data in a portable format;
• withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on consent (for example, for analytics cookies).

To exercise any of these, email privacy@upsticks.io. You can also delete your account at any time, which removes the data you have saved. If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk.

We use cookies and similar technologies for essential functions and, with your consent, for analytics. See our Cookie Policy for the detail and how to change your choices.

Upsticks is intended for adults making decisions about moving home. It is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 16.

We may update this policy as the service changes. We will update the “last updated” date above, and for significant changes we will make the update clear on the site.

Questions about this policy or your data: privacy@upsticks.io.