Privacy Policy

1. Data controller

The data controller for RenterCheck (backgroundcheck.pl) is [LEGAL COMPANY NAME], [REGISTERED ADDRESS], NIP [NIP NUMBER] ("we", "us"). For any question about this policy or your data, contact privacy@backgroundcheck.pl.

2. What we collect

We collect only what the service needs to function:

• Account data: username, name, surname, email address, password (stored as a salted hash, never in plain text).
• PESEL (Polish national identification number): required to register and to look someone up. This is special-category-adjacent, high-sensitivity data under Polish law, and we treat it accordingly — see Section 5.
• Reviews and appeals you create or that are created about you, including their text and status history.
• Search history: which PESEL you looked up and when, linked to your account for billing and abuse-prevention purposes.
• Payment records: which provider (Stripe) processed a payment, the provider's transaction reference, amount, and status. We never see or store your card number — Stripe handles that directly.
• Technical data: session identifiers, IP address and timestamps in server logs, used for security and abuse prevention.

3. Why we process it, and on what legal basis

Under Article 6 RODO/GDPR, we rely on:

• Performance of a contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) — creating your account, running a PESEL lookup you paid for, publishing and moderating reviews.
• Legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)) — preventing fraud and abuse (e.g. rate-limiting lookups, blocking re-registration to evade a valid negative review), and keeping the service secure.
• Legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c)) — retaining payment records for tax and accounting purposes.
• Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)) — only where we explicitly ask for it (e.g. optional communications, if we ever introduce them).

4. Who we share data with

We do not sell personal data. We share the minimum necessary with:

• Stripe (payment processing) — receives what's needed to process a payment; see stripe.com/privacy.
• Other users, in limited form — a review you post is visible to the person it's about and, where relevant, to a user who has paid to look them up. We do not display your PESEL to other users; PESEL is used internally only for matching.
• Law enforcement or courts, where legally compelled.
• Hosting/infrastructure providers acting strictly as processors under a data processing agreement.

5. PESEL handling specifically

PESEL numbers are highly sensitive because they are static, hard to change, and widely used as an identity anchor in Poland. We limit how we store and use them:

• We store PESEL in two forms: the raw number (needed for account recovery and display in limited admin contexts) and a peppered HMAC-SHA256 hash ("blind index") used for matching during reviews and lookups without repeatedly exposing the raw value.
• When you delete your account (Settings → delete account), we erase your username, email, name, surname, password, and raw PESEL immediately. The hashed PESEL is deliberately retained — this is what stops someone from evading a valid negative review by deleting their account and re-registering under a new identity with the same PESEL. This is a specific, disclosed trade-off, not an oversight.
• We never display a raw PESEL to another regular user. Only administrators can view it, for support and fraud-review purposes, and every admin action is logged.

6. How long we keep data

We keep account and review data for as long as your account is active, and for as long afterwards as needed to resolve open appeals, comply with tax/accounting retention rules (typically 5 years for payment records under Polish law), or defend against a legal claim. Session cookies expire after 7 days of inactivity; server access logs are rotated after 90 days.

7. Your rights

Under RODO/GDPR you have the right to access, rectify, erase, restrict, or port your data, and to object to processing based on legitimate interest. In practice:

• Access & export: Settings → "Download my data" gives you a full export of your account, reviews, appeals, payment history, and search history as a JSON file.
• Erasure: Settings → delete account removes your identifying data as described in Section 5.
• Rectification or any other request: email privacy@backgroundcheck.pl. We'll respond within 30 days.
• You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Polish data protection authority (Urząd Ochrony Danych Osobowych, uodo.gov.pl).

8. Changes to this policy

If we make material changes, we'll update the effective date above and, for significant changes, notify you via the site before they take effect.