Privacy Policy

Last updated: November 14, 2026

The short version.

We never ask where you are going or why you are booking. There is no field for it, so we have no record of it.
We do not sell your personal information or share it for advertising. We use Google Analytics on our public marketing pages only; it does not run in the signed-in app or the mobile app.
A sitter sees your address, phone number and brief only after you confirm a booking with that sitter.
We hold as little about children as we can: a nickname, birth month and year, and the care notes you write.
You can export or delete your data at any time.

1. Who we are

SwingSitters is operated by [LEGAL ENTITY NAME], [MAILING ADDRESS] ("SwingSitters", "we", "us"). We are responsible for the personal information described in this policy. It covers swingsitters.com, the web app and the mobile app (shown on Android as "Sitters"). Questions and requests: support@swingsitters.com.

2. What we deliberately do not collect

We treat the simple fact that someone uses SwingSitters as private. We have designed the Service so that the following are never requested, stored or inferred:

the reason or occasion for a booking, where you are going, or who you are with;
your relationship structure, sexual orientation, or anything about your social or private life;
children's full names or photographs;
advertising identifiers, cross-site tracking data, or data bought from data brokers; and
your device's precise location. Search works from the city and ZIP code you give us.

You can sign in with Google or with an email address and a password. If you choose Google, we receive your email address, whether Google has verified it, and your basic profile (name and picture); we use only the email address. We do not get access to your contacts, calendar or anything else in your Google account, and we never post or send anything on your behalf.

3. What we collect

Category	What it includes	Where it comes from
Account	Email address, role (parent or sitter), display name, phone number, notification preference. Your password is handled by our sign-in provider; we never see or store it.	You
Parent household	Home address, notes about the home, pets, whether there are cameras and where, your confirmation that hazards are secured, and an emergency contact's name, phone number and relationship to you.	You
Children	A nickname, birth month and year, and care notes you choose to write, which may include allergies and medical needs.	The parent
Sitter profile	Name, date of birth, ZIP code, photo, biography, experience, age groups, skills, languages, rates, availability, and whether you have a car, are comfortable with pets and are a non-smoker.	You
Sitter screening	The outcome of identity verification; the outcome and date of your background check and the name of the provider; your references' names and contact details and our notes of what they said; your CPR and first-aid certificate and its expiry date; interview notes; your signed Sitter Agreement.	You, your references, our screening and identity providers
Bookings	Dates and times, the children included, the pre-job brief, check-in and check-out times, messages in the booking thread, reviews, tips and incident reports.	You and the other party
Payments	Amounts, dates, refunds and payout status. Card numbers and sitters' bank details are collected and held by our payment processor, not by us.	You, our payment processor
Waitlist and contact	Email address, ZIP code or city, whether you are a parent or sitter, whether you asked for updates, a partner code if you entered one, whether you would host a shared sit, and anything you write to us.	You
Technical	IP address, browser or device type, and server logs of requests, used for security, rate limiting and fixing faults. One essential sign-in cookie (see section 8).	Your device

4. Sensitive information

Some of what we hold is sensitive under various state laws: government-issued ID used for identity verification, sitters' background check results, account sign-in details, and health information about children that a parent includes in care notes. We collect and use sensitive information only to provide the Service you asked for: verifying identity, screening sitters, and giving your confirmed sitter what they need to look after your children. We do not use it to infer characteristics about you, to advertise, or for any unrelated purpose.

Identity verification is carried out by a specialist provider. You submit your ID, and any selfie, to that provider, which may use biometric technology to compare them under its own privacy terms and with your consent. We receive the result.

5. How we use information

To run the Service: create accounts, show sitter profiles, match availability, send requests, produce quotes, confirm bookings and release details to the confirmed sitter.
To screen sitters and decide on applications.
To take payments, pay sitters, and handle refunds, overtime, tips and disputes.
To send service messages about your account and bookings. With discreet notifications on, which is the default, subject lines and previews do not include the brand name or booking details.
To keep people and the Service secure: investigate incidents and reported messages, prevent fraud and abuse, and enforce our terms. Booking messages are checked automatically for a small set of patterns (contact details sent before a booking is confirmed, requests to move a booking or payment off the Service, and sexual content). A match only places the message in front of a member of our team; it does not block the message and is not used for anything else.
To meet legal obligations, such as tax and accounting record-keeping.
To understand how the Service is doing, using aggregate figures from our own database (for example, the number of bookings in a city). We do not build marketing profiles.

We do not use your information for automated decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects. Sitter applications are decided by a person. Three things happen automatically and are then reviewed by a person: an account is paused when a report of sexual conduct or a child-safety concern is filed against it; a sitter's profile is hidden from search when a vetting step passes its expiry date; and new bookings are paused for a parent whose overtime balance has been unpaid for more than 72 hours.

We do not sell personal information. We do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising. We have no advertising partners. We disclose information only as follows.

The other party to a booking

Before a booking is confirmed, a sitter sees the parent's display name, city and ZIP code, rating, whether the parent's identity is verified, the requested times, and the children's nicknames and ages. A parent sees the sitter's first name, last initial, photo, profile, rates, reviews and passed vetting badges.
After the parent pays and the booking is confirmed, that sitter also receives the street address, home notes, pets and camera information, the parent's phone number, the emergency contact and the brief. The parent receives the sitter's phone number.
Parents never see a sitter's background check report, ID, date of birth, references or home address.

Service providers

Companies that process information on our behalf, under contract, only to provide their service to us:

cloud hosting, database, file storage and network security;
sign-in and authentication;
payment processing, sitter payouts and identity verification;
transactional email delivery;
website analytics on our public marketing pages (Google Analytics, loaded through Google Tag Manager); and
a third-party background screening provider (a consumer reporting agency), for sitters who have given written authorisation.

References

When we contact a sitter's references, they learn that the sitter has applied to offer childcare through us.

Legal and safety disclosures

We may disclose information where we believe in good faith that it is necessary to comply with a law or valid legal process, to protect a child or any person from harm, or to report suspected child abuse or neglect to the appropriate authorities. We read legal demands carefully and push back on requests that are overbroad. In civil matters, including family-court and custody proceedings, we require valid legal process before disclosing account information, and we will tell the account holder before we respond unless the law forbids it or someone's safety would be put at risk. Bear in mind what we do not have: we hold no record of why you booked or where you went.

Business transfers

If SwingSitters is involved in a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, personal information may transfer to the successor, which must honour this policy. We will tell you before that happens and remind you of your right to delete your account.

7. Children

The Service is for adults. It is not directed to children, and nobody under 18 may create an account. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. The limited information we hold about children is supplied by their parent or guardian, is kept to a nickname, birth month and year and care notes, and is shown only to that parent, to a sitter with a confirmed booking for that child, and to our team when handling an incident. If you believe a child has given us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

8. Cookies and tracking

We set one essential cookie, ss_session, when you sign in. It keeps you signed in for up to 30 days and is not used for anything else. It is the only cookie the signed-in app uses.

Our public marketing pages (the pages you can read without signing in) use Google Analytics, loaded through Google Tag Manager, to measure visits: which pages are viewed, roughly where visitors come from, and what kind of device they use. Google sets its own analytics cookies for this and receives your IP address and the address of the page you are viewing. Analytics never load in the signed-in app at /app or in the mobile app, so your account, bookings, messages and children are never part of it, and we do not send Google your name, email address or account identifier. We do not use advertising cookies or advertising pixels.

If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, we do not load analytics at all. You can also block Google Analytics with your browser settings or Google’s opt-out add-on.

Our pages load fonts from Google Fonts. Your browser requests the font files directly from Google, which receives your IP address as part of that request.

9. How long we keep information

Information	Kept for
Account, household and children's entries	Until you delete them or delete your account.
Briefs and booking messages	Until account deletion, when they are deleted or anonymised, unless they relate to an incident.
Payment and payout records	Seven years after the transaction, for tax, accounting and dispute purposes.
Incident reports and related records	Seven years after the incident is closed, or longer where a legal claim or investigation requires it.
Sitter screening records	While the sitter is active, and for as long afterwards as consumer-reporting and employment-screening laws require; then deleted.
Uploaded documents (CPR certificate, profile photo)	Until replaced or until account deletion. If we decline a sitter application, the uploaded documents are deleted 90 days after the decision.
Waitlist entries	An address that is never confirmed is deleted after 30 days. A confirmed entry is kept until 30 days after you accept an invitation, or until we have told you that your area is open to everyone, or until you ask us to remove you (every waitlist email has a one-click link, and removal is immediate), and in any case no longer than 24 months.
Contact-form messages and support email	Up to 24 months after the conversation ends.
Server logs	Up to 90 days.
Record of administrative actions (who on our team did what, and when)	Seven years.
Strikes and block lists	Until account deletion. Your own block list is deleted with your account.
Record that an account was closed for a serious breach	Indefinitely, as a one-way hash of the email address and the reason.

When a retention period ends we delete the information or remove what identifies you. Delete your account explains what happens on deletion.

10. Security

We use encryption in transit, signed HttpOnly session cookies, access controls that limit staff access to those who need it, and staged release of household details as described above. Sign-in, payment and identity data are handled by specialist providers. No system can be made perfectly secure. If a breach affects your personal information, we will notify you as the law requires.

11. Your choices

Export. Download a copy of everything we hold about you from your account settings.
Correct. Edit your profile, household and children's entries at any time.
Delete. Delete your account in the app or on the web. See Delete your account.
Notifications. Discreet notifications are on by default; you can change this in your account settings. Service messages about active bookings cannot be switched off.

12. State privacy rights

Depending on where you live, you may have legal rights over your personal information. We extend the following to every user in the United States, whether or not your state's law requires it:

the right to know what personal information we hold about you and to receive a copy;
the right to correct inaccurate information;
the right to delete your information, subject to the exceptions in section 9;
the right to opt out of sale, of sharing for targeted advertising, and of profiling. We do none of these;
the right to limit the use of sensitive information. We already use it only to provide the Service; and
the right not to be treated worse for exercising any of these rights.

How to make a request. Use the export and delete tools in your account, or email support@swingsitters.com from the address on your account. We may ask for information to verify that the request comes from you. An authorised agent may make a request for you with your written permission. We respond within 45 days and will tell you if we need more time, as the law allows. If we decline a request, you may appeal by replying to our decision; we will answer an appeal within 60 days, and if you remain dissatisfied you may contact your state attorney general.

California

For California residents, under the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended: in the past 12 months we have collected the categories of personal information listed in section 3 (identifiers; customer records; characteristics such as age, for sitters; commercial information; internet activity limited to server logs; professional information, for sitters; and sensitive personal information as described in section 4) from the sources listed there, for the purposes in section 5, and have disclosed them for business purposes to the categories of recipients in section 6. We have not sold personal information or shared it for cross-context behavioural advertising, including that of anyone under 16. We do not use or disclose sensitive personal information for purposes beyond those the law permits without a right to limit. We do not offer financial incentives for personal information.

13. Consumer health data notice

This section is for residents of Washington, Nevada and other states with consumer health data laws, and supplements the rest of this policy.

What we collect. Health information that a parent chooses to include about a child in care notes or a brief, such as allergies, medication and medical needs. We do not ask for health information about parents or sitters, and we do not derive or infer health information about anyone.
Why. Only so that the sitter you have confirmed can look after that child, and so that we can handle an incident involving that child.
Who receives it. The sitter with a confirmed booking for that child; our hosting provider, as a processor; and the authorities, where required by law or needed to protect a child. No one else.
What we never do with it. We do not sell it. We do not use it for advertising. We do not use geofencing around health facilities or anywhere else.
Your rights. You may confirm whether we hold consumer health data about you or your child, access it, withdraw consent, and have it deleted, by editing or deleting the child's entry or by emailing support@swingsitters.com. You may appeal a refusal as described in section 12. Washington residents may also contact the Washington State Attorney General at atg.wa.gov.

14. Sitter applicants

If you apply to be a sitter, we run the screening described on About background checks. A background check is requested only after you have received a separate written disclosure and given written authorisation.

15. Where information is processed

SwingSitters is offered only in the United States, and information is processed in the United States and wherever our service providers operate. The Service is not intended for people outside the United States.

16. Changes to this policy

If we make a material change, we will tell you by email or in the app before it takes effect and update the date above. We will not start selling personal information, or collecting the things listed in section 2, without first asking for your consent.

17. Contact

[LEGAL ENTITY NAME]
[MAILING ADDRESS]
support@swingsitters.com