1.Controller and contact
The controller is Property Vault, Leeds, UK, which runs this website and the Homes pilot at propertyvault.world/homes. For any request, write to hello@propertyvault.world; to complain about how we handle your personal data, use our data protection complaints form. Our company number, ICO registration and data protection officer will appear here the day they exist.
2.What we collect and why
| Data | Used for | Lawful basis |
|---|---|---|
| Account | Name, email and sign-in details, to hold and secure your Vault. Owner accounts are launching; today an owner opens their record with the link their professional sent. If you enrol a passkey we store its public key and a credential id, never a biometric; owner passkeys are launching. | Contract |
| Vault | Natural keys (for a home, a UPRN or stated reason), timeline events and Vault Score inputs. | Contract; legitimate interests |
| Documents | Uploaded files: hashed on upload, receipt issued, originals kept, corrections as new versions. | Contract |
| Access logs | Which link and scope was used, when, what was opened, the kind of device (for example "mobile") and a keyed hash of the connection's IP address (the address itself is never stored). Kept 24 months. Usage counts (link, document, kind of device, day) are kept 13 months. Staff sign-in sessions record the same keyed hash and kind of device. | Legitimate interests (showing the owner and the issuer that the record was used, and security) |
| Website forms | What you send through a contact, demo, register-interest, pilot, newsletter or data protection complaint form, stored in our enquiries inbox to reply to you. See Website forms below. | Consent; legitimate interests |
Documents may name others, such as a certifying electrician; you confirm you may share them. Cookies: see our Cookie Policy. We never sell personal data or profile the contents of a Vault.
Website forms
When you send a form on this site, it goes to our enquiries inbox, which only Property Vault's administrators can open. Nothing is emailed automatically.
- What we store: which form you used and the page it was on; your name and email; your organisation and role where the form asks; your message and the other answers you chose (the Homes pilot form asks for your postcode and, optionally, your home's UPRN; the complaints form also stores the reference number we give you); that you ticked the privacy box; the time; a shortened description of your browser; and a salted hash of your IP address.
- Why: to reply, to arrange what you asked for and, for the newsletter only, to email you new articles. The browser description and IP hash are used only to stop spam and abuse, such as limiting how many forms one connection can send in ten minutes.
- Your IP address: never stored as it is. We combine it with a secret key and keep only the SHA-256 hash of the two. Without that key the hash cannot be turned back into the address, and we use it only to count sends from one connection.
- How long: 24 months from the day you sent it, then deleted. If the enquiry becomes a relationship (you open a Vault, join the pilot or your Organisation signs up), what that needs moves to your account and is kept on the account terms above. Data protection complaints are kept for the same 24 months. Newsletter sign-ups are kept until you unsubscribe: email hello@propertyvault.world and we delete it.
Lawful basis: your consent (the box you tick) and our legitimate interest in answering enquiries. To see or delete an enquiry, write to hello@propertyvault.world.
Emails to hello@propertyvault.world
Emails you send to hello@propertyvault.world are stored in our admin system, which only Property Vault's administrators can open. We keep the message, its attachments and your address to reply to you, and delete them 24 months after they arrive. Lawful basis: our legitimate interest in answering you.
3.The XRP Ledger, GDPR and the right to erasure
Documents, natural keys, scores and personal data are held off-ledger. Integrity anchoring runs as a rehearsal on the XRPL testnet: Merkle roots of keyed commitments are written to the test network, which can be reset, and listed on the public anchor page; mainnet anchoring is on the roadmap, subject to approvals. Mainnet follows the data protection impact assessment. The ledger receives one thing: a daily Merkle root of keyed commitments, a hash of hashes written as a single memo from Property Vault's anchoring account, together with the number of records in that day's batch. It will prove a seal existed that day and cannot be reversed into a document, name or address. Nothing reachable from the ledger identifies a property or a person.
Non-identifying pointer tokens and professional registration credentials follow on the XRPL testnet only after a data protection impact assessment against the European Data Protection Board's 2025 blockchain guidelines. It is not yet complete; until it is, nothing but the Merkle root and its record count will be written. Its summary will appear on our Security page.
4.Sharing and lookups
There is no public lookup by address, registration or serial. Access exists only through a scope granted for the record: time-limited, role-limited read access; owner, agent-buyer, insurer-surveyor and solicitor scopes are live in pilot. Today the professional who issued a record creates and withdraws these links; owner accounts, where you grant access yourself, are launching. Scope tokens are 160-bit, stored hashed, expire and work only in the browser that first opened them. Opens are logged. Your professional can show you the log and withdraw a link on request; seeing the log and revoking access yourself, from your record or your account, are launching. The professional who created your Vault keeps read access to the events it issued; you can withdraw it from “Who has access” (owner accounts - launching). Uploading your own evidence to your Vault is launching too. Once the Vault API is switched on (launching), organisations you share with may receive notifications that something changed - identifiers only, never your name or address.
These service providers handle personal data for us today:
- Hostman (Hostman Ltd, Cyprus): our server, database and stored documents, in a data centre in Germany. Hostman does not publish a data processing agreement; until we have one, its terms of service apply.
- Microsoft: storage for our backups, in a Microsoft 365 (SharePoint) library belonging to Paddick Engineering, our founder's firm. Our nightly and monthly backups have been encrypted on our server before they are sent since 9 October 2026, and neither Microsoft nor Paddick Engineering can read them. Two older archives from before then, made when the platform moved to its current database, are not encrypted and are being removed. Microsoft's data protection addendum applies; the data location of that library will be stated here once confirmed.
- ntfy.sh (ntfy LLC, USA): sends operations alerts to our administrators' phones. Alerts never contain names, email addresses, IP addresses, share links or documents. ntfy.sh publishes no data processing terms, which is why nothing personal is put in an alert.
- GoDaddy: our domain name and its DNS records. It receives none of your personal data from us.
We do not use an email service provider yet: the platform itself sends no emails. Integrity anchoring to the XRPL testnet writes only the daily hash and record count described above, never personal data. Planned features (outbound email, owner accounts, reading documents with AI, area, register and vehicle look-ups, reports and the Vault API) are built but switched off; each will be added to this notice, with any new provider, before it is switched on.
We share personal data with authorities where the law requires, and never with an insurer, lender or agent without your scope. We monitor our service for faults and attacks; alerts never contain your personal details.
5.Your rights under UK GDPR
Under UK GDPR you may access, correct, erase or restrict your personal data, object to processing, withdraw consent and receive it in a portable form. You can download all the documents in your record at any time, free; a full export with seals and the event history is launching. We answer within one month.
If you are unhappy with how we handle your personal data, you can complain to us first using our data protection complaints form or by emailing hello@propertyvault.world with "Data protection complaint" in the subject. We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days and tell you the outcome without undue delay. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.
We keep account data while your account is open, then only as long as the law and open disputes require. A Verified History belongs to the asset: on transfer it stays with the asset; your account data does not. Periods we already enforce: website enquiries, complaints and emails to hello@propertyvault.world, 24 months (see section 2); access logs, 24 months; usage counts, 13 months; signed-in sessions, deleted 30 days after they end; records of outgoing emails, 30 days. Retention periods for Vault and account data are under counsel's review and will be stated here when settled.
Our server is in Germany, which the UK recognises as giving adequate protection. Encrypted backups are stored with Microsoft (see providers; the location will be stated once confirmed). Our alert service ntfy.sh is in the USA; our alerts carry no personal data. The XRP Ledger is public and global, so nothing written to it identifies you.
6.Changes
Each version is numbered and dated, and this page changes before the processing it describes does. Earlier versions on request. Counsel is reviewing this policy.