Handback privacy policy

Last updated: 3 November 2026. This is a draft for legal review before release.

Handback helps you record the condition of a hire car. We built it so that your photos never leave your iPhone unless you choose to share them.

What stays on your iPhone

• Photos, video and motion data from your walk-arounds.
• Your location at the start and end of each walk-around.
• Your rentals, dispute letters and any charge letters you paste in.

These are stored encrypted by iOS. They're included in your iPhone's iCloud backup if you have backups turned on, and deleted 12 months after the return date unless a dispute is still open. You can delete a rental and its records at any time.

What we receive

When your phone is online, Handback sends our server:

• the record's fingerprint (a hash), its digital signature, and an ID for the record;
• the public part of your iPhone's signing key. It doesn't contain your name, but it's the same for every record from your phone, so we treat it as personal data;
• an Apple App Attest check that the app is genuine;
• whether the record is a pickup or return, when the phone says it was made, how much of the car was covered, how long it took, and the app version.

Our hosting provider also sees your phone's IP address when it connects.

We use this:

• to timestamp your record, so it can't have been made later. Our legal basis is providing the service you asked for (contract);
• to let anyone check a record's times with its code (contract);
• to count completed walk-arounds (legitimate interests: understanding whether the app works).

We don't receive photos, video, location, your name or your rental details. We don't sell data or use it for advertising.

How long we keep it

• On your iPhone: a rental, its records and its disputes are deleted 12 months after the return date, unless a dispute is still open (up to 24 months).
• On our server: receipts are deleted 6 years after we receive them, the usual period in which a claim can be brought in the UK.

Who we share it with

• Hosting: Fly.io hosts our server in London. Fly.io is a US company, so some support access may be from the US, under the UK–US data bridge.
• Apple: handles in-app purchases and App Attest.
• What you share: anything you share, such as an evidence pack or a dispute letter, goes where you send it.
• Verify page: anyone with a verification code can see that record's fingerprint, its times and whether its signature is valid, but never its photos.

Your rights

Under UK and EU GDPR you can ask what we hold about your phone, ask us to correct or delete it, and object to our counting. If we delete a record's receipt, its verify page stops working. Contact privacy@handback.tech. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk).

Who we are

Handback is run by Jasper Sion, 13 Moor Oaks Road, Sheffield S10 1BX, United Kingdom. Email privacy@handback.tech.