Privacy Policy

Last updated: 22 October 2026

This policy explains what personal data Pinglo collects, why, who can see it, how long we keep it and what you can do about it. It covers the Pinglo iPhone app, the web app at pingloapp.com/app and the pingloapp.com website.

Who we are

Pinglo is run by ASK FOR TASK LTD, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 14697408). Registered office: The Matilda House, St. Katharines Way, London, England, E1W 1LF. We are the controller of the personal data described here, which means we decide how and why it is used.

For anything about your data, email admin@askfortask.co.uk.

The short version

• Public posts never show real photos. A finder’s photo of an item stays private until a claimant proves the item is theirs.
• We don’t sell your data, show ads or track you across other companies’ apps and websites.
• Nearby alerts, and the location they need, are only on if you turn them on.
• You can delete your account in the app at any time, and we delete your data straight away (the exceptions are listed below).

What we collect in the app

• Account: your name, email address, how you sign in (Apple, Google or email and password), your Pinglo user ID, your app language, an optional profile photo, and your settings. If you use Sign in with Apple and hide your email, we get Apple’s relay address instead.
• Reports: what you enter when you post a lost or found item, such as its category, title, description, colour, material, brand, size, distinctive features, the place and area, when it was lost or found, and any reward you offer.
• Private details on your own report: details you add that only the owner would know, such as a mark or the last digits of a serial number, stay on your phone. They are not sent to us.
• Private found-item photo: if you are the finder, one optional photo of the item (see “Private photos and details” below).
• Private match detail: if you are the finder, an optional short note about the item that only its owner would know (see “Private photos and details” below).
• Claims and chats: the answers and description you give when you claim an item, the claim’s status, messages and photos you send in a claim chat, and return confirmations.
• Comments, safety notes and return stories: comments you add to reports, safety notes you post, and any return story you write.
• Communities: the communities you join and how you joined (for example with a code, a QR code or an invite), when you confirmed you are 18 or over if the community is at a university or halls of residence, the posts and safety notes you add, items you post as lost (what it is, its category and roughly when you lost it), notes you flag for a community’s admins, group chat messages and direct messages with other members. If you join a community with an email address it accepts, such as your university email, we send a one-time code to that address. The code works for 15 minutes. We keep only a scrambled form of the address and the code, and delete them within a day.
• Location: see “Location” below.
• Notifications: if you allow notifications, a device token that lets us send them to your phone, or, in a browser, the push subscription your browser gives us to deliver them; your notification settings; and a record of the nearby alerts we have sent you, so we can keep to the daily limit.
• Rewards: your points, rewards you redeem, daily check-ins and referrals.
• Safety reports: content or people you report, and why.
• Feedback and support: ratings and comments you send us in the app, together with your app version and a random ID for your install, and anything you tell us when you email us.

We don’t use any analytics or crash-reporting service in the app. If you have chosen to share analytics with app developers in your iPhone settings, Apple may share crash reports with us.

What we collect on pingloapp.com

• Update sign-ups: the email address you give us, your consent and the date.
• Notes on a shared report: if you open a report someone shared and tell its owner you’ve seen the item, we keep your note and, if you give it, your email address. We also keep a scrambled code made from your IP address and the date, only to stop the form being misused. It changes every day and can’t be turned back into your address.
• Partnership enquiries: the details you enter in the form, such as your name, email, organisation, location, phone number (optional) and message. They are emailed to our partnerships inbox and not stored on the website.
• Community applications: the details you enter when you apply to run a community for your organisation, such as your name, work email, organisation, type of place, area and notes.
• Web app: if you sign in at pingloapp.com/app, your browser stores what it needs to keep you signed in, and a random ID used to join communities from the web.
• Visits: we count page visits with Cloudflare Web Analytics, which does not use cookies or track you across other websites. pingloapp.com sets no advertising or analytics cookies.

Like any online service, our hosting and database providers receive your device’s IP address when the app or website connects to them, and keep it for a short time in their logs.

Location

• While you use the app: if you allow location, the app uses your phone’s approximate location to show reports near you. We don’t store it for this.
• Nearby alerts: these are off unless you turn them on in Account → Notifications. While they are on, we store a location rounded to about a kilometre, and your phone’s time zone, so we can tell you about new reports near you. You can also choose up to three places, such as home or your university, to hear about reports near them. For each one we store its type (for example “Home”), a place or area name, and a location rounded to about a kilometre, never an exact address. When you turn nearby alerts off, we delete that location and your chosen places. If you joined before October 2026 and haven’t chosen yet, nearby alerts may still be on from before; you can turn them off in the same place.
• Where a report goes on the map: the place you type or pick on the map is sent to Apple’s mapping service to find it. We save the report’s position rounded to about a kilometre, and other users see it on the map. If you don’t give a place, the report is placed near where you are, moved at random within the distance you choose, and never at your exact position (or in central London if the app doesn’t have your location). On the web app, you choose a place from a list, or tap “Use where I am”. That sends your browser’s location once, with that report, and our server rounds it to about a kilometre before saving it. Sorting the web feed by distance uses your location only in your browser; it is not sent to us.
• Community safety notes: their position is rounded to about a kilometre in the same way.

Other users never see your phone’s location.

Who can see what

• Anyone, including people without an account: open reports, with their item details, the area you give, their rounded map position, when the item was lost or found, and the name on your profile. Comments on reports, public safety notes and approved return stories are public too. If you share a report as a link, anyone with the link sees the same details while the report is open.
• A note you leave on a shared report: only the person who posted the report sees it. They see your email address only if they choose to reply to you.
• The other person in a claim: your claim answers and description, your messages and photos in that chat, and your name and profile photo.
• Community members: the posts, safety notes and group chat in that community, and your name on your posts and messages. Community safety notes don’t show who wrote them. Lost posts don’t either. When you post that you’ve lost something, we send the community’s admins a notification that says only the category (for example “a wallet”) and the community, so staff can check what’s been handed in. There is no member list for members: other members only see the community’s admins and people they already have a chat with. A community’s admins see its members’ names and who is an admin. Never your email address. Admins can remove members. If you ask to join a community, its admins see your Pinglo name until they answer. They don’t see your email address. Direct messages are seen only by the two of you.
• The organisation behind a community (for example a university) doesn’t get your contact details or messages from us. If someone from the organisation is one of the community’s admins, they see what is described above. Otherwise they see only what any member sees.
• A community’s desk: if you post something you found in a community and hand it in, the community’s admins can confirm they have it and take over. From then on they see the claims for that item, the messages about it, its private photo and the private details you added to check claims, and they reply as the community’s desk. If you claim an item a desk holds, the desk’s admins see your claim and your messages about it. Admins don’t see any other chats.
• Your profile photo is stored at a web address that is hard to guess but not protected by sign-in, so anyone who has the address can open it.
• Us: we can access the data we hold to run Pinglo, help you when you ask, and investigate safety reports.

Private photos and details

Public posts never include real photos. A finder can add one private photo to a found report. It is never shown in the public feed.

A finder can also write down one private detail about the item: something only its owner would know, such as an engraving or what is on the lock screen. It is stored privately and never shown in the feed or to a claimant.

Someone who claims the item can see the photo only after an automated check finds that their description matches the photo or the private detail, or after the finder confirms them. The check is done by an AI model from Anthropic, our service provider. It receives the photo and the private detail (whichever the finder added), the item’s public details and the claimant’s description, but no names, email addresses or account IDs. If the check isn’t sure, the finder decides.

The photo and the private detail are deleted when the finder marks the item returned, removes them, deletes the report or deletes their account. If none of these happens, they are deleted automatically within a day of reaching 90 days after the report was posted.

Photos sent in a claim chat are stored privately and can only be opened by the two people in that chat. They are deleted with the report they are about, or when you or the other person deletes their account (see “How long we keep data”).

Why we use your data, and our lawful basis

UK data protection law requires a lawful basis for each use of your data. Ours are:

• To provide Pinglo (because it is needed for our contract with you): your account and sign-in, publishing your reports, claims, chats, the private photo and detail check, communities, rewards, the notifications you choose, and handling your requests.
• With your consent: nearby alerts and the location they use, and update sign-ups on the website. You can withdraw consent at any time by turning nearby alerts off, or by emailing us to be removed from updates. Withdrawing doesn’t affect anything we did before.
• For our legitimate interests in keeping people safe and running a reliable service: preventing fraud and abuse, reviewing safety reports, moderating content, keeping safety records after an account is deleted, counting website visits, improving Pinglo from your feedback, and replying to partnership enquiries and community applications. You can object to these uses (see “Your rights”).
• Notes on a shared report: our legitimate interest, and yours, in getting a lost item back to its owner. Giving an email address is optional.
• To meet our legal obligations: for example, keeping records we are required to keep, or responding to lawful requests from the authorities.

Who we share data with

We don’t sell your personal data. We share it only with these providers, who handle it for us under contract and only on our instructions:

• Supabase: our database, sign-in, file storage and server functions. Your app data is stored in its London data centre.
• Anthropic: the automated private-photo check described above.
• Cloudflare: hosts pingloapp.com and the web app, stores update sign-ups, and provides Web Analytics.
• Resend: sends our emails: sign-up, sign-in and password emails to you, the one-time code when you join a community with your email address, emails to organisations that run a community, and partnership enquiries and community applications to our team.
• Microsoft: our email inboxes, including admin@askfortask.co.uk.
• Apple’s, Google’s and Mozilla’s push notification services: deliver notifications to your iPhone, or to your browser if you turn them on in the web app. A notification can include an item’s title or the start of a message, and may show on your lock screen. Browser notifications are encrypted, so the push service cannot read them.

These companies receive data under their own privacy policies when you use them:

• Apple and Google, if you sign in with them.
• Apple’s mapping service, for the places you type or pick on the map.

We may also share data if the law requires it, to protect someone’s safety, or with a buyer if our business is ever sold, in which case this policy would continue to apply to your data.

Data sent outside the UK

Some of our providers, including Anthropic, Cloudflare, Resend, Apple, Google and Mozilla, may handle data in the United States or other countries. When they do, the transfer is protected by UK adequacy regulations or by the safeguards in that provider’s data protection terms, such as the UK International Data Transfer Addendum. Email us if you’d like more detail.

How long we keep data

We delete data on these schedules automatically, once a day. If something isn’t listed, we keep it until you delete your account.

• Your account: until you delete it.
• Open reports: while they are open.
• Private found-item photos and details: as set out in “Private photos and details” above.
• Reports you delete: the report and its comments disappear from Pinglo straight away, and its private photo and detail are deleted. Within a day we delete the rest of the report, and any claims, chats and chat photos about it.
• Returned items: the report, and any claims, chats and chat photos about it, are deleted 90 days after the item is marked returned. We still count the return, as a number with no personal data.
• Disputes and safety reports: if a claim is disputed, or someone reports a report or a claim, we keep that report and its claims and chats for up to 12 months after it closes, so we can deal with it.
• Claim chats and chat photos: deleted with the report they are about, as above, or when you or the other person deletes their account.
• Results of the private-photo check: 90 days.
• Community group chat and direct messages: 12 months after they are sent.
• Community safety notes: 90 days after they are resolved, or 12 months after they are posted if they are never resolved.
• A community its organisation stops running: deleted 30 days after it ends, with its posts, notes and messages.
• Community join requests: until the community’s admins accept or decline it, you cancel it, or you join another way. If nobody answers within 30 days, we delete it.
• Community join codes: deleted within a day of being sent.
• Location for nearby alerts: replaced each time it is updated, deleted when you turn nearby alerts off, and deleted if it hasn’t been updated for 30 days.
• Places you choose for nearby alerts: until you remove them, turn nearby alerts off, or delete your account.
• Record of nearby alerts sent to you: 30 days.
• Notification token or browser push subscription: deleted if the app, or the browser you turned notifications on in, hasn’t opened Pinglo for 180 days; a browser subscription is also deleted when you turn notifications off there or sign out.
• Safety reports: 24 months. If you delete your account, we remove your name and account ID from safety reports you made, and the links to anything we deleted.
• Feedback you send in the app: 24 months.
• Update sign-ups: 12 months after you sign up, or sooner if you ask to be removed or we stop sending updates.
• Notes on a shared report, including any email address: 14 days, or sooner if the report is deleted.
• Community applications: 6 months after we set the community up or turn the application down.
• Partnership enquiries: for as long as we are talking with you, and afterwards as business records for as long as there is a reason to keep them.
• Provider logs (which can include IP addresses): for the short periods set by the provider.

Deleting your account

You can delete your account in the app from Account → Delete account and local data. We delete straight away your profile and sign-in, profile photo, reports, private photos and details, claims, chats and chat photos, comments, safety notes, return stories, community memberships, posts and messages, rewards, feedback and notification settings. We also clear Pinglo’s data from your phone.

We keep one thing: safety reports, with your name and account ID removed, so we can deal with abuse. Someone you were chatting with may still have a copy of messages on their phone until their app next refreshes.

If you can’t delete your account in the app, or you use the web app, email admin@askfortask.co.uk and we will do it for you. If you signed in with Apple, you can also remove Pinglo from your Apple ID in your iPhone’s Settings.

Your choices

• You decide what to put in a report, and whether to add a private photo or detail.
• You can turn nearby alerts and other notifications on or off in Account → Notifications, or turn notifications off in your iPhone settings.
• You can turn location off in your iPhone settings; the feed then shows reports from everywhere.
• You can block people and report content in the app.
• You can delete a report, or your whole account, at any time (see “How long we keep data” for what deleting a report does).

Your rights

You have the right to:

• ask for a copy of your personal data;
• ask us to correct data that is wrong or incomplete;
• ask us to delete your data;
• ask us to restrict how we use your data;
• object to our use of your data where we rely on legitimate interests;
• get the data you gave us in a format you can take elsewhere;
• withdraw your consent at any time, where we rely on consent.

To use any of these rights, email admin@askfortask.co.uk. It’s free. We may ask you to confirm your identity. We reply within one month, or tell you within that month if we need longer because your request is complex.

Decisions made by a computer

The private-photo check only decides whether a claimant is shown the photo, and the finder can still confirm a claimant themselves. We don’t make any decision about you based only on automated processing that has a legal or similarly significant effect on you.

Age

Pinglo is for people aged 13 and over. Communities run by universities and halls of residence are for members aged 18 and over, and we ask you to confirm your age when you join one. We don’t knowingly collect data from children under 13. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 13, we will close it and delete its data. If you think a child under 13 is using Pinglo, please email us.

Keeping your data secure

Data travels between the app and our servers over encrypted connections. Private photos and chat photos are kept in private storage, and access to your data is limited to the people and services that need it. No system is perfectly secure; if something goes wrong that puts your data at risk, we will tell you and the regulator when the law requires it.

Changes to this policy

When we change this policy, we update the date at the top. If a change matters to how we use your data, we will tell you in the app before it takes effect.

Complaints

If you’re unhappy with how we handle your data, please email admin@askfortask.co.uk first. We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days and try to put it right.

You can also complain to the UK’s data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office, at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113.