Privacy Policy

Who we are

VouchMe runs vouchme.pro and the VouchMe app for iPhone. In this policy, “we” and “us” mean VouchMe.

VouchMe is a public reputation network for individual professionals. People find a professional, Vouch after working together, and keep trusted professionals in My People. This policy explains what that involves for your information. It works together with our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines.

Questions about privacy go to info@vouche.pro.

What’s public

Some of VouchMe is meant to be seen. Anyone can view the following, without an account, and share it with a link:

Professional profiles

Name, photo (if the professional adds one), profile link (like vouchme.pro/maria), profession, current role and employer, earlier jobs, city, how far the professional travels to customers (if set), years of experience, specialties, languages, the About text, and verification badges such as Identity verified or Employment verified. A badge shows that a check happened, never the evidence behind it.

Work photos

Up to 12 photos a professional adds to the profile, with any captions. Each time, the professional confirms that everyone in the photos agreed to be shown on the profile. Before a photo is published, we remove the location data phones store in photos, along with the other hidden details a photo file can carry.

Vouches

The star rating and any detailed ratings, whether the author would work with the professional again, the written note, what the interaction was and when (like “Leased a car · Aug 2026”), the business and role at the time, and its badge when it has one: Phone verified, when the mobile number its author confirmed is the one the professional sent the Vouch request to, or Verified transaction, when a business confirmed the sale. The author is shown as first name and last initial, from the name on the author’s account.

Replies

A professional can answer a Vouch with one public reply. It appears under the Vouch with the professional’s name, the date, and “Edited” if it was changed after it went up.

Business experiences

When you also rate the business on the same visit, that rating and note appear on the business’s page, with the same first name and last initial.

Reputation summaries

Averages and counts calculated from published Vouches, like “4.9 · 187 Vouches.”

Public pages can be indexed by search engines and shown as link previews when someone shares them. Vouches that are held for review, under review or removed aren’t public and don’t count toward a rating, and the same goes for replies held for review or removed and for photos a moderator removed.

What stays private

Everything else is private. Here’s what we keep and who can see it:

Phone number

Vouch authors and professionals confirm a mobile number with a text code. The number is kept with your account by our sign-in provider so you can sign in with it again. It’s never shown on VouchMe.

Email address and name from sign-in

If you sign in with Apple or Google, they share your name and email address with us. Apple lets you hide your email behind a relay address. If you sign in with email, we keep the address you enter and email it a sign-in code. Your email is never shown publicly.

Your name

The first and last name on your account: the one you type in Account or when you create a professional profile, or the one Apple, Google or your first Vouch gave us. Vouches you write always show it as your first name and last initial, like “Maria G.”, never in full. Changing it doesn’t change Vouches already posted. We note when a name changed, without the name, to limit how often it can change.

Contact messages

When you use Contact on a profile, your name (the one on your account, when you’re signed in), the phone number or email you enter, and your message go only to that professional.

Sending a Contact message once

So a message you send again after a dropped connection reaches the professional only once, we keep a short record of each message: which professional it went to, when, random IDs for the message, and a keyed hash of your account, name, contact details and words, never the words themselves. It’s used for 10 minutes. After that it’s deleted the next time anyone sends a Contact message, or the next time our moderation tools are opened.

My People

Who you follow is private. A professional’s own dashboard shows how many people follow, but never who. Follower counts are never public.

Notifications and devices

Your in-app notifications and which kinds you chose to get. If you allow notifications on iPhone, we also keep that device’s push token so we can deliver them.

Private notes

Private notes a professional keeps about a Vouch are visible only to that professional and are deleted with the professional’s account, or with the Vouch when its author deletes it. The customer who wrote the Vouch never sees them, and neither does anyone else on VouchMe.

Vouch requests

When a professional asks a customer for a Vouch, the professional enters the customer’s first name (visible only to that professional) and a mobile number or email. We store the number or email only as a keyed hash, used to match the Vouch to the request. The number itself isn’t stored, and VouchMe doesn’t text the customer: the professional sends the link.

Verification evidence

Work email addresses, deal numbers, VINs and references from verification providers. We use them to verify, and they are never shown.

Dashboard statistics

For each professional, daily counts of profile views, search appearances, clicks and Contact taps, shown only on that professional’s dashboard. These are counts, not a record of who looked.

Reports

What was reported (a Vouch, a reply, a photo or a profile), why, and any details you add. Seen by VouchMe moderators, not by the person reported.

Abuse prevention

To limit sign-in codes, messages and requests to our AI service provider, we record short-lived events keyed by a keyed hash of your network address, phone number, email address or account, never the address or number itself. They’re deleted after two days.

Service logs

Our hosting and sign-in providers keep standard records of requests and sign-ins, such as IP address, device and browser type, and time, for security and troubleshooting, for a limited time.

Messages to us

If you email VouchMe, we keep the conversation so we can help you and follow up.

Business pages and claiming

A business page describes a place, not a person. Here’s what changes when someone manages one, and what stays private.

What a business page shows

The business’s name, address, phone, website and hours, photos and an About written by its owners, customers’ ratings of the business, the pros who work there, and whether the page is claimed, since when and how it was verified. A business’s replies to ratings are signed with the business’s name and the replier’s job title, never a person’s name.

Pages professionals add

When a professional adds a current job at a business that isn’t on VouchMe yet, a public page for that business appears right away, marked Unclaimed, with the name, city and any street or ZIP the professional gave. Our team reviews these pages after they appear. A job saved with “I work for myself” adds no page.

Who added a business page

We keep a private record of who added each of those pages: the account, the job it came from, what was typed, when, and a keyed hash of the network it came from, never the address itself. We use it to limit how many pages one account or network can add, to prevent abuse, and to help our team review the page. It’s never shown publicly or to the business. The network hash is cleared after two days. When the account is deleted, the record no longer names it.

Claiming a page

Someone who claims a page tells us a name, a job title and a role at the business, and uploads a business document (a license, utility bill, lease or tax permit) and a photo of an ID for our team to review. For now, that’s the only way to verify a claim. We may add other ways, and we’ll update this policy when we do.

ID and business documents

Kept in private storage that only VouchMe moderators can open, each time through a link that works for one minute. They’re never shown to the business, its owners or the public. Both files are deleted once our team decides the claim, or when the claimant withdraws it. Uploads for a claim that’s never sent are kept 7 days after the claim’s last step (Finish later keeps them 7 days from that tap), then deleted the next time the claimant opens the claim or Account, or our moderation tools are opened. An upload can be removed before the claim is sent. We keep only which kind of document it was, when the decision was made and who made it.

People with access to a page

Owners and managers of the same page see each other’s names and job titles. When someone accepts an invite to a page, the primary owner sees the name given and part of that account’s sign-in (like r•••@example.com) before confirming. Someone asking for access shares a name, a role and an optional note with the page’s owners. The person asking never sees the owners’ names.

What owners never see

Customers’ phone numbers or emails, pros’ private notes, who reported a rating, and who viewed the page. Business page statistics (page views and appearances in search, per day) are counts only, shown to the page’s own owners and managers.

A pro’s job

A business that manages its page can confirm a pro’s job there. The pro’s profile then shows Employment verified and that the business confirmed it. A business can also mark a pro as no longer there. Our team reviews every mark before it changes anything on the page, and the pro stays listed until we decide. If we accept it, the pro is told and can dispute it, and is listed again until we decide the dispute. Neither changes the pro’s job history or Vouches.

Notices to owners and claimants

Claim decisions, access requests and changes to who can manage a page appear in your notifications in the app, and as push notifications on iPhone if you allow them. We don’t send them by email. Account has a switch, News about my business pages, for the push notifications.

How we use information

• To run VouchMe: sign-in, profiles and Vouches, search, My People, Contact, Vouch requests and notifications.
• To verify only what we say we verified: a phone number, whether it’s the number a Vouch request was sent to, employment or a sale a business confirmed. Each is a separate fact.
• To keep it honest and safe: holding Vouches that contain private details, reviewing reports and disputes, limiting spam and abuse, and enforcing our Terms.
• To show each professional private statistics on the professional’s own dashboard.
• To contact you about your account, safety, or changes to our Terms or this policy. We don’t send marketing email.

We don’t use your information for advertising, and we don’t sell it, rent it or share it for targeted advertising. Search ranking and ratings are never influenced by payment.

Location

For searches like “near me,” our hosting provider estimates an approximate area from your internet (IP) address, and we match it to the nearest U.S. city or town. We don’t store it.

VouchMe asks for your device’s location only when you tap “Use my current location” in the place picker, and only if you allow it. The spot is rounded to about 11 meters (36 feet), used to name the nearest town and to measure distances, and kept only in the place cookie on your device, until you choose another place. It never goes into a web address or a link, and it’s never added to a profile.

If you choose a place or a distance (5, 10, 25 or 50 miles), it’s saved in a cookie on your device for a year. A professional’s city or town is part of the public profile, chosen when the profile is created and changed under Where customers find you.

A professional who goes to customers can also say how far (up to 5, 10, 25 or 50 miles). That distance is public too: search then also lists the professional for places within it, and says so with the place searched, like “Serves Roseville” or “Serves 95678”, never an address. It’s measured from the business’s exact location on VouchMe when there is one, or else from the center of the professional’s city or ZIP code.

Place names and locations: U.S. Census Bureau and GeoNames (CC BY 4.0).

Cookies and device storage

We use a few cookies and a little browser storage, all to make VouchMe work:

• Sign-in cookies keep you signed in.
• My People without an account is saved in a cookie on your device. When you sign in, it moves to your account.
• A reports cookie remembers what you’ve already reported.
• Your chosen place and distance (the vm_place and vm_radius cookies): when you pick a place or a distance for “near me,” they’re saved on your device for a year, so your searches start there. They hold only the place and the number of miles.
• Your recent places are kept in your browser’s storage on your device, so the place picker can show them again. They’re never sent to us.
• Your recent searches are kept in your browser’s storage on your device, so Discover can show them again. They’re never sent to us.
• The map’s anonymous id: when you open the map in search results, the map from Mapbox keeps a random id in your browser’s storage and sends it with the map’s usage events (see Mapbox under “Who we share it with”). VouchMe never links it to you or your account, and the map makes a new one after a day.
• A Vouch in progress is kept on your device, so Save and exit keeps your place: the answers for 30 days, your name and number only until you close the tab. Both are deleted once the Vouch is posted, and one started while signed in is deleted when you sign out.
• A professional profile in progress (your answers in Claim your profile) is kept on your device for 30 days, so you can pick up where you left off; the phone number and work email only until you close the tab. It’s deleted when the profile is published or when you sign out.
• A private note not saved yet is kept on your device, for your account only, so a dropped connection doesn’t lose it. It’s deleted once the note is saved, when you discard it, or when you sign out.
• Other things you’ve typed but not sent (a reply, a Vouch request, profile edits, and what you type on Add your business, Request access or a claim) are kept in your browser’s session storage, so a refresh or a trip to sign-in doesn’t lose them. They’re cleared when you close the tab or once they’re sent. A reply, a Vouch request, Add your business and Request access are also cleared when you sign out, and the business forms after a day.

There are no advertising cookies, third-party trackers or analytics SDKs on VouchMe.

Who we share it with

We use a small number of service providers. They process information for us, under contract, to run VouchMe:

Supabase

Our database, sign-in and file storage.

Vercel

Hosting. Also estimates an approximate location from your IP address for “near me.”

Mapbox

Draws the map pictures in the place picker, in search when nobody is within the distance you chose, and on business pages, including when one is claimed. For each picture it receives the center and the distance shown: a place (rounded to about 1 km for a current location), or a business’s public address. When you open the map in search results, Mapbox also receives requests for the map of the area shown (for a current location, centered on a spot rounded to about 1 km) and the map’s own usage events: that a map loaded and, once a day, that the map was used, with the anonymous id described under “Cookies and device storage.” VouchMe draws the pins, the faces and the names of people and businesses on that map itself, and never sends Mapbox your name, your account or who you looked at. We never store anything from Mapbox.

An AI service provider

Reads the words typed into search or into What you do (emails, phone numbers and links are taken out first) to suggest a closer search or profession from VouchMe’s own lists. It’s asked only when our own search or list comes up short, and nothing else goes with the words: it never receives your name, your account or where you are. Our contract doesn’t let it sell the words, use them for anything but its work for VouchMe, or train its models on them. We keep its answer for 90 days, filed under a keyed hash of the words, never the words themselves, so the same words get an answer at once next time. Results still come only from VouchMe: it never ranks professionals and never writes anything on a profile or in a Vouch.

Twilio, or the text-message provider connected to our sign-in service

Sends the text codes that confirm phone numbers.

The email provider connected to our sign-in service

Sends the sign-in codes you ask for by email.

Apple and Google

Confirm who you are when you choose Sign in with Apple or Google, under their own privacy policies.

Apple Push Notification service

Delivers the notifications you’ve allowed on your iPhone.

Supabase Storage

Keeps ID photos and business documents for claims in private storage until our team decides, and business page photos in public storage.

Beyond those providers, information is shared only in these ways:

• With everyone, for the public content described above.
• With the U.S. Census Bureau’s geocoder, which finds where a business is on the map: for a page a professional adds, and for a page our team checks, it receives the address on the page (street, city, state and ZIP code). It never receives anything about a person, such as a name, an account or a phone number, and we keep only the location it finds.
• With a professional, for the Contact messages you send to that professional, and the first names entered in the professional’s own Vouch requests.
• With VouchMe moderators, who see only what’s needed to review a report, a dispute or a new business page, and a claim’s documents until the claim is decided.
• With a business page’s owners, for the name, role and note in an access request, and the name and part of the sign-in of someone accepting an invite. Never a customer’s contact details.
• For legal reasons, when we believe in good faith that the law requires it, or to protect someone’s safety or the rights of VouchMe and its users.
• If VouchMe changes hands, in a merger or acquisition, this policy keeps applying to your information.

How long we keep it

• Your account and profile: until you delete your account.
• Vouches on a professional’s profile: deleted with that profile, along with its replies, private notes and photos. Ratings of a business from the same visits stay on the business’s page, without the professional’s name.
• Photos of work: until the professional removes them or deletes the account. A photo a moderator removes leaves the profile at once; its file is deleted the next time the professional changes the profile’s photos, or with the account.
• Vouches you wrote for someone else: they stay published after you delete your account, no longer linked to it, because they’re part of that professional’s record. You can delete one anytime under Account, except one we removed, or while a moderator has it, or its business rating, hidden for a closer look. Its words, your name and the link to your account are deleted at once; its star rating, what it was for and when, and the job it was about stay with the professional’s record, never shown. A private record that your account deleted it, seen only by our team, is used until 30 days after the Vouch was posted, so the limit of one Vouch for a professional, and one rating of a business, every 30 days still applies. If someone reported the Vouch or its business rating, the record is kept until our moderators close the report. It’s then deleted the next time anyone deletes a Vouch or our moderation tools are opened.
• Contact messages: kept for the professional who received them until that profile is deleted, even if the sender’s account is deleted.
• The send-once record of a Contact message: used for 10 minutes, then deleted the next time anyone sends a Contact message or our moderation tools are opened.
• Abuse-prevention events: two days. The one-time codes the iPhone app uses to finish signing in: minutes.
• Answers from our AI service provider: 90 days after they’re saved, then deleted the next time an answer is saved or our moderation tools are opened.
• ID photos and business documents from a claim: deleted when our team decides the claim, or when the claimant withdraws it. Uploads for a claim that’s never sent: kept 7 days after the claim’s last step (Finish later keeps them 7 days from that tap), then deleted the next time the claimant opens the claim or Account, or our moderation tools are opened. All of a person’s claim files: when the account is deleted.
• The record of who added a business page: the network hash, two days. The rest is kept with the page, so our team can review it. When the account that added it is deleted, the record no longer names it.
• A business page’s history of changes: kept, so a page that was claimed by the wrong person can be put back.
• Reports and moderation records: as long as needed to keep VouchMe safe and to keep a record of decisions.

Deleted information can remain in encrypted backups for a limited time until those backups roll off.

Your choices and rights

• Delete your account anytime in the app, under Account. That deletes your account, My People, notifications and devices. For a professional, it also deletes the profile, its career history, its photos, the Vouches on it with their replies and private notes, Vouch requests, Contact messages and statistics. It also deletes your claim documents and ends your access to any business page; replies you wrote for a business stay as the business’s, signed with a job title and never your name.
• Edit your profile from your dashboard, including whether you accept Contact messages.
• Choose your notifications in Account, or turn them all off anytime in your iPhone’s Settings.
• Remove a photo of your work anytime from Edit profile. If you’re in someone’s photo and didn’t agree to it, open the photo on that profile and choose Report this photo, or email info@vouche.pro.
• Professionals can’t edit or delete Vouches, but can reply to one in public, report one that breaks our Community Guidelines, and block someone who keeps sending Contact messages.

You can also ask us to access, correct, delete or send you a copy of your information by emailing info@vouche.pro. We’ll confirm it’s you, then reply within 30 days, or sooner if the law where you live requires it.

Depending on where you live, including the EU, the UK, California and other US states, you may also have the right to object to or restrict some uses, to withdraw consent, and to complain to your data protection authority. We won’t treat you differently for using any of these rights.

Where the law asks for a legal basis, we rely on: providing the service you asked for (your account, profile, Vouches and messages); our legitimate interest in running a public, trustworthy reputation network (publishing Vouches, moderation, abuse prevention and dashboard statistics); your consent (push notifications, which you can turn off); and legal obligations.

Security

All traffic to VouchMe is encrypted. Verification evidence and abuse-prevention records sit in a separate part of the database that apps and the public can’t query, and every change to reputation data goes through our servers, which check who is making it. Contacts used for matching and rate limits are stored only as keyed hashes, and so are the sender’s details in a Contact message’s send-once record.

No system is perfectly secure. If you find a security problem, please tell us at info@vouche.pro.

Age requirements

VouchMe isn’t for children. You must be at least 16 to use VouchMe, and at least 18 to create a professional profile. We don’t knowingly collect information from anyone younger. If you believe we have, email info@vouche.pro and we’ll delete it.

Where data is processed

Our service providers may store and process information in the United States and in other countries. When personal information moves across borders, we rely on safeguards the law recognizes, such as standard contractual clauses.

Changes to this policy

When we change this policy, we’ll update the date at the top. If a change is significant, we’ll tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect.

Contact us

Email info@vouche.pro with privacy questions and requests, or anything else. Answers to common questions are on Support.

VouchMe is responsible for the information described in this policy.