Privacy policy

1. Who we are

Tradeaze is the data controller for personal data processed through tradeaze.ie. For anything about your data, email support@tradeaze.ie.

2. What we collect

When you create an account

• Your name and email address.
• Your password, if you set one. It is stored only as a one-way hash by our authentication provider — nobody at Tradeaze can see it.
• If you sign in with Google: the name, email address and profile picture Google shares with us.
• Optionally, a phone number and county, if you add them in your account settings.

When you list a business

• Business details: business name, description, trades, counties covered, years of experience, contact phone and email, website and social links, and optionally an address and Eircode.
• Photos of your work and a logo.
• Verification documents you choose to upload — insurance certificates, tax clearance, SEAI registration or photo ID.
• Billing records: your subscription status, plan, amounts paid and dates. Card details go straight to Stripe; we never see or store them.

When you use the site

• Reviews you write — the rating, text and job description.
• Enquiries you send — your name, email, optional phone and county, and your message.
• Tradespeople you save to your shortlist.
• Technical data: your IP address (used briefly to limit abuse and for security), and the cookies described in our cookie policy.
• If you allow analytics cookies: pages you visit and how you use the site, through PostHog.

3. How we use it, and our legal basis

We don’t send marketing emails, and we never sell your personal data.

4. What other people can see

• Listings are public: everything in a tradesperson’s listing except the address, Eircode and verification documents.
• Reviews are public once approved, shown with your first name and the initial of your last name, the date and the job description if you gave one.
• Enquiries go only to the business you contacted (and are visible to our admins for moderation).
• Your email address, phone and county on your account are never shown publicly.

5. Who we share it with

We use these service providers (processors) to run Tradeaze, each under a data processing agreement:

• Our hosting provider — the server in the EU that runs Tradeaze and holds its database, photos, documents and backups. We run the database ourselves; the provider supplies the machine.
• Stripe — payment processing. Stripe is also an independent controller for payment data; see stripe.com/privacy.
• Resend — sending service emails.
• PostHog — analytics, only if you allow analytics cookies.
• Upstash — temporary rate-limit counters to block abuse.
• Google — only if you choose to sign in with Google.
• Our hosting provider, which runs the website.

Beyond that, we share data only with the business you send an enquiry to, where the law requires it (for example a court order or a request from An Garda Síochána or the PSNI), to protect people from harm or fraud, or with a buyer if Tradeaze is ever sold — in which case we’ll tell you first.

6. Transfers outside the EEA and UK

Some of our providers are based in, or use servers in, the United States. Where personal data leaves the EEA or UK, we rely on the EU–US Data Privacy Framework (and its UK extension) or on Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the European Commission and the UK, so it stays protected to the same standard.

7. How long we keep it

• Your account — for as long as it’s open.
• When you close your account — your account, listing, photos, documents, reviews, enquiries and saved trades are deleted straight away from the live site, and from backups within 30 days.
• Payment records — six years after the end of the tax year they relate to, as Irish tax law requires.
• Email verification and password reset links — expire after three days and one hour respectively.
• Rate-limit data — kept for at most a few hours. Server logs are kept for up to 30 days.
• Admin activity log — the record of moderation decisions is kept for as long as the related account exists, so we can explain decisions if asked.

8. Your rights

You have the right to:

• access the personal data we hold about you;
• correct it — most of it you can edit yourself in your account;
• erase it — close your account from Account settings, or ask us;
• restrict or object to how we use it;
• data portability — get it in a machine-readable format;
• withdraw consent for analytics at any time, using “Cookie settings” in the footer.

Email support@tradeaze.ie from the address on your account and we’ll reply within one month. If you’re unhappy with how we handle your data, you can complain to the Data Protection Commission (Ireland) or, in Northern Ireland, the Information Commissioner’s Office.

9. Security

• All traffic to Tradeaze is encrypted with HTTPS.
• Passwords are hashed; we can’t read them.
• Verification documents are kept in private storage and only opened by our admins through links that expire within minutes.
• Admin access is limited, and every moderation action is logged.
• Sign-in, sign-up, reviews and enquiries are rate-limited to block automated abuse.

No system is perfectly secure. If we ever have a breach that puts your data at risk, we’ll tell you and the regulator as the law requires.

10. Children

Tradeaze is for adults. You must be 18 or over to create an account.

11. Changes to this policy

When we change this policy we’ll update the date at the top. If a change materially affects how we use your data, we’ll email account holders before it takes effect.

12. Contact

Data protection questions and requests: support@tradeaze.ie. Everything else: support@tradeaze.ie.