Privacy Policy

1.Who we are and what this policy covers

AVERENTIUM LLC operates Help: the Help app and averentium.com. Help is offered only to people who live in the 50 states of the United States or the District of Columbia, for jobs at United States addresses, paid in United States dollars, and is not directed to anyone outside the United States. Averentium is based in the United States. Our service providers may store or process information in other countries under their own safeguards. This policy covers information about Help's users and about visitors to averentium.com.

2.Information we collect

Account: your legal name, date of birth, email address, phone number, recovery email address if you add one, the state you live in, your password (kept only as a one-way hash), and, if you sign in with Apple or Google, the name, email address or relay address and identifier they give us. We keep your legal name and date of birth to apply the age rules and to enforce a ban against a person, not only an account.

Account photo: the photograph you add to your account, if you choose to add one. It is shown to you and to Help's administrators, and, if you are added to a job as a helper, to that job's poster.

Jobs: the jobs you post or accept, with their description, address, price, times and status; what the poster disclosed and confirmed when posting; tips; photographs added to a job; and the completion and report photographs taken in the app, with the time, place and device they were taken on.

Messages and calls: the messages you send and receive in a job's conversation, their earlier versions when edited, and the photographs sent in them, with when each was sent, delivered and read; and a record of each voice call: who called whom, when, how long it lasted and how it connected. The sound of a call is never recorded.

Reports and enforcement: reports you make and reports made about you, with their text and photographs; responses to reports; records of each Stop for safety; helper invitations and answers; ratings and reviews; records of automated screening of posts and messages; and the identity snapshots, one-way codes and evidence files described in section 10.

Requests: support messages you send and the answers given; and requests to remove an image or requests from law enforcement, with the details the person sending them gives us.

Devices and usage: the notification token your device gives Help and the language your notifications are written in; the app version and build, platform, operating system and device model; your IP address and browser or user agent; and crash reports.

Records of your agreements: the acceptance records described in section 18.

Payments and tax: card, bank account, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Cash App Pay details, and a worker's identity documents, taxpayer identification number and bank details, are collected and held by Stripe. We receive from Stripe statuses and identifiers, such as whether a worker's verification passed, whether tax information is complete and whether payouts are enabled; a fingerprint of a card or bank account that Stripe provides; and the payment details Stripe includes in its records of a payment, such as a card's brand, last four digits and expiry date, the billing name and postcode, and a bank account's bank name, routing number and last four digits. We keep those payment records as section 12 describes. We never receive or store a full card number, a full bank account number or a Social Security number.

Location: as section 3 describes.

3.Location

With your permission, Help reads your device's location: when you browse jobs near you (the position is rounded before it is searched); when you post a job, to fill in its address; when a worker checks in at a job, when completion or report photographs are taken, and when a worker finishes a job; and while a job is active, so that its poster can see where the worker is. Help does not collect your location in the background when the app is closed. You may refuse or withdraw permission, but checking in and finishing a job need it: they need your phone to be within about a mile of the job's address. This is a record of where the phone was; it does not confirm that the work was done. Positions recorded with a job's check-in and photographs are kept with the record of that job for the periods in section 12.

4.Sensitive information and your consents

Some information is sensitive under state law: your precise location, information about a health condition or disability, and information that you were the victim of a crime. Help asks for your consent to use your precise location on a separate Location screen before your device's permission prompt; on a phone that had already allowed Help to use location before that screen existed, there is no prompt left to precede and the screen is not shown. You can turn location off at any time in your device's settings; Help's Location setting records that you withdrew your consent and takes you there.

Help does not ask for health, disability or crime-victim information. If you choose to include it in a post, message, report, response to a report or support request, it is used only for that job, report or dispute, and shared only as this policy describes. Before you send a report, or a response to one, the screen tells you that what you write may include such information and how it is used and shared. Health information in a report is shared with an insurer only with the consent of the person it is about. When a report is about harassment, a threat, fraud or illegal activity, we may also use and share it as the law allows to respond to that activity. Our Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy, at https://averentium.com/legal/health, says more about health information.

You may ask us to stop using sensitive information you gave us by emailing contactus@averentium.com. Withdrawing a consent does not affect what was done before, and some features do not work without it.

5.Messages, photographs and calls

No call audio is recorded. Photographs sent in messages, and account photos, have their location and camera details removed. Unsending a message, or deleting it from your own view, hides it but does not remove it from Help's record, so that neither person can erase the other's record of a job. A conversation is kept for three years after its job is completed, cancelled or refunded, or after a dispute about it is resolved, and is then deleted, unless it is held for an open report, dispute, chargeback, investigation or legal request, in which case it is kept until that ends, or it is part of an evidence file or under a legal hold, in which case it is kept as section 10 describes.

Automated screening. Help's systems automatically check the text of job posts and messages for words that may show a breach of the Terms of Service, such as illegal activity, threats, requests to pay outside Help and requests for tips. The screening is a tool for enforcing the Terms of Service. Help is not a safety service: the screening does not watch for or respond to danger, and a flagged message may not be reviewed quickly or at all. A message is never blocked by this screening, but it may be flagged for review by a Help administrator. A job post that clearly breaks the rules is not published, and one that may break them is held until an administrator reviews it.

Administrator access. A Help administrator reads a conversation, its photographs and its call records only to handle a report, a dispute, a concern that someone is in danger or that fraud is taking place, a legal request, or a report to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that the law requires, and every reading is recorded with its reason.

Your consent to disclosure. As a sender and as a recipient of messages, you consent to that screening and review, and to Averentium disclosing a conversation's contents and records: (a) to the other person in it; (b) to either person and, at that person's request, their representatives, and to any court or arbitrator, in a dispute, claim or proceeding about the job; (c) to law enforcement under valid legal process, or in a good-faith emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury; (d) to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children as the law requires; and (e) as the law otherwise allows.

6.How we use information

We use information to run the marketplace and show jobs near you; to arrange, record and pay for jobs and keep the record of work done; to apply the age rules and the state-specific terms of the Agreement using the state you live in; to enforce the Agreement, including bans against a person and not only an account; to handle reports, disputes and reviews; to prevent fraud and money laundering; to meet legal obligations, including tax reporting and record keeping; and to communicate with you about your account, your jobs and changes to our agreements.

7.Automated decisions and screening

When a party to a job or conversation reports illegal activity, sexual harassment or assault, threats or violence, a child's safety, or an intimate image shared without consent, the reported account may be closed automatically, before any person reviews the report. An administrator may then review it. An automatic closure stays in force, with no end date, until an administrator decides the case. No refund is decided and no payment is withheld permanently by automation alone. A refund decided on a payment report because the worker did not do the job as posted, or for damage the worker caused, counts as a strike, and a second strike suspends the worker's account automatically until an administrator reviews it.

Averentium may limit automatic closures, for example for reports from an account that recently caused one, and reviews those reports without an automatic closure. The automated screening of posts and messages is described in section 5; it never closes an account by itself.

8.Who receives information

(a) The other party to a job: your name and rating, and your full legal name on the Job Contract each of you can download; the contact and address details needed for the job; a worker's position while a job is active; the hazards the poster disclosed; the name, and account photo if there is one, of each helper added to the job; and the messages, photographs and calls in the job's conversation. A helper added to a job sees the job, its address and the hazards the poster disclosed.

(b) Stripe, for payments, worker setup, payouts, fraud prevention and tax reporting. When you provide personal data in connection with worker setup and payments, Stripe receives that personal data and processes it in accordance with Stripe's Privacy Policy (https://stripe.com/privacy).

(c) Card issuers and banks, in a dispute about a charge: the record of the job, as section 11 of the Payment Agreement describes.

(d) Apple: CloudKit stores account records and Help's encrypted photographs; Apple's notification service delivers notifications to iPhones; Sign in with Apple, if you use it; and, on an iPhone, Apple's maps service, which turns a position into an address, or an address into a position, when you post a job or use your current location.

(e) Google: its notification service delivers notifications to Android devices; Sign in with Google, if you use it; and, on an Android phone, Google's location service, which does the same. When you ask for directions to a job, the maps app you choose receives its address.

(f) Railway, which hosts Help's servers, database and file storage; Resend, which delivers Help's email; and, if we use one, an error-reporting service that receives technical reports of errors in Help's servers.

(g) Tax authorities: the Internal Revenue Service and state and local tax authorities receive the information the law requires, on information returns and in answer to lawful requests.

(h) Law enforcement, courts and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, as section 9 describes.

(i) A successor, if Averentium's business is sold, merged or transferred, under this policy.

What you write in a report, and the photographs you add to it, may be shared with the other person in the job or conversation, with Stripe, with courts and arbitrators, and with law enforcement as section 9 describes, and with either person's insurer when that person asks for it; health information in it is shared with an insurer only as section 4 describes.

9.Law enforcement, child safety and preservation

We disclose information, including the contents of messages and photographs, only as the law allows:

(a) in response to a subpoena, court order or warrant that meets the requirements of federal and state law;

(b) to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children when we learn of apparent child sexual exploitation, child sex trafficking or enticement of a child, as federal law requires, and to state child-protection authorities where state law requires;

(c) to law enforcement or emergency services when we believe in good faith that an emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury requires it, in response to a request from law enforcement or emergency services;

(d) with the consent of the sender or of a recipient of a message; and

(e) as necessary to provide Help, or to defend the rights or property of Averentium, including to investigate and enforce the Agreement.

Averentium does not report crimes to the police on anyone's behalf; the person affected should contact the police.

Requests from law enforcement go to contactus@averentium.com, as described at https://averentium.com/legal/law-enforcement. We may tell the account holder about a request for their information, unless the law, a court order or an emergency prevents it, or telling them could endanger someone or help a crime. When an authority asks us to preserve records, or a report, dispute, investigation or legal claim is open, we keep the relevant records, including records that would otherwise be deleted under section 12, for as long as the law or the request requires.

If an intimate image of you has been shared through Help without your consent, you can ask us to remove it at https://averentium.com/safety/remove-image, or by emailing contactus@averentium.com, whether or not you have a Help account. We remove the image, and any identical copy we know of, no later than 48 hours after we receive a valid request.

10.Evidence files and legal holds

When an account is closed after a severe report (section 12 of the Terms of Service), Averentium copies into a sealed evidence file in its own database: the report; the listings, photographs, payments and other records of the jobs between the person who reported and the reported person; their conversations, including earlier versions of messages, the photographs sent and the call records; identity details of both accounts; and the network addresses and devices used to sign in to them in the previous 90 days. Each item is stored with a fingerprint (SHA-256).

To stop a banned person from opening a new account, Averentium keeps one-way codes made from the email address, phone number, legal name and date of birth on the account, and from the payment cards and bank accounts used with it (as fingerprints Stripe provides).

Evidence files, identity snapshots, ban records and these one-way codes, and records of requests from law enforcement and of requests to remove an image, are kept permanently and cannot be deleted, including when the account is deleted, except that images of apparent child sexual abuse are kept sealed for one year after the report to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, or longer if the law or a request requires, and then only a one-way fingerprint of each is kept. When an account is closed after a report, a hold keeps every job and conversation the person is part of, including with other users, beyond the periods in section 12, and the hold stays after the closure is lifted.

11.What we do not do

We do not sell personal information. We do not share it for targeted or cross-context behavioural advertising. We do not let other companies collect information about your activity on Help to track you across other websites or apps. Because we do no such tracking, nothing changes when your browser sends a "Do Not Track" signal, and a Global Privacy Control signal is treated as a request not to sell or share your information, which we already do not do. We do not use personal information to train large language models, and we do not send your messages or photographs to third-party artificial intelligence services.

12.How long we keep information

We keep information only as long as this section describes, and then delete it or remove what identifies you. The periods below are the longest we keep each kind of information, except that we keep information longer while it is under a legal hold, while it is needed for an open report, dispute, chargeback, investigation, legal request or claim, or where the law requires it.

(a) Account profile and contact details: while your account is open. Your contact details are removed within 30 days after you delete your account.

(b) Jobs: kept as the record of work done and money moved. When an account is deleted, the poster's address details and the worker's recorded positions are erased from its jobs, and the text of its reviews is removed.

(c) Completion photographs: kept with the record of the job, including after an account is deleted. A completion photograph a worker removed is deleted 30 days after both the removal and the end of the job.

(d) Listing photographs of a post that was cancelled, expired or taken down: 90 days after the post ended, or at once when the poster deletes their account. Listing photographs of a completed job are kept with it.

(e) Report photographs: for the life of the account of the person who reported; after that account is deleted, while the report is open and then for 3 years after the later of the report's closing and the deletion.

(f) Account photo: while your account has it. It is deleted when you remove or replace it and when your account is deleted.

(g) Conversations, message photographs and call records: 3 years after the job ends or a dispute about it is resolved, whether or not an account is deleted.

(h) Support messages: 3 years after they are answered. Messages you sent while signed in are deleted with your account.

(i) Sign-in sessions: about a month after they end. One-time codes and password-reset links: within a week after they expire.

(j) Notification tokens: 180 days after the app last registered one, 30 days after the notification service refuses it, and at once when your account is deleted.

(k) Records of automated screening: 1 year.

(l) Records of your agreements (section 18): for the life of your account and 10 years after it is deleted.

(m) Evidence files, identity snapshots, one-way codes, and records of requests from law enforcement and of requests to remove an image: permanently, as section 10 describes.

13.Deleting your account

You can delete your account at any time in the Help app (Profile, then Delete account) or at https://averentium.com/help/delete-account. Jobs and payments that are still in progress must be finished or settled first, and a post that no worker has accepted is cancelled, and refunded if it was paid for. Deletion usually finishes within 30 days, and we confirm it in the app and by email. Deleting your account removes your profile, contact details and sign-in from Help. We keep, for the periods in section 12: the agreements you accepted and the records of acceptance; records of completed jobs and their photographs; payment and tax records; ban records and evidence files; and records under a legal hold or needed for an open report, dispute or legal request.

14.Your choices and rights

You can see your account information in the Help app. You can change some of it yourself, such as your account photo, your recovery email address and the state you live in, and Support can correct the rest. You can also turn notifications off, and delete your account as section 13 describes. If the law where you live gives you further rights, such as to confirm whether we process your information, to access, correct or delete it, to receive a portable copy, to opt out of sale, targeted advertising or certain profiling, or to receive a list of the third parties we have disclosed it to, you can exercise them by emailing contactus@averentium.com. We verify a request through your Help account before acting on it. An authorised agent must show written authority. We respond within 45 days, and may extend that once by 45 more days when reasonably necessary, telling you why. If we decline, you can appeal by replying to our decision within 60 days; we answer appeals within 45 days, and if you disagree with our answer you may contact your state's Attorney General. We do not treat you differently for exercising a right. Some information is exempt from deletion, as sections 10, 12 and 13 describe.

15.Security

Averentium uses administrative, technical and physical safeguards that it considers reasonable for a service of Help's size and the sensitivity of the information it holds. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and there is no guarantee that information will never be accessed, disclosed, altered or lost. If a security breach affects your personal information, Averentium notifies you and the authorities as and when the law requires. Keep your password private, and tell us at once at contactus@averentium.com if you believe your account has been used without your permission.

16.Children and age

Help is only for people who are at least 18 and old enough to make a binding contract on their own where they live (19 in Alabama, 21 in Mississippi). We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone younger. An account that does not meet this rule is closed or restricted.

17.Communications

We send messages about your account, sign-in, security, jobs, payments, taxes and changes to our agreements by email, in the app and by push notification. These messages are part of Help. You can turn push notifications off in your device's settings, and turn message previews off in Help's notification settings. We send no marketing email and no marketing push notifications, and Help sends no text messages (SMS).

18.Records of your agreements

When you agree to or acknowledge one of Help's documents, or give a consent or certification on an agreement screen, Averentium keeps a record of it: the document and its version; a fingerprint (SHA-256) of its text; the date and time; your Help User ID; your IP address; your browser or device, operating system and app version; the words of the box you checked and of the button you tapped; the documents you opened on that screen; the language the app was in; the state you live in; how you signed in; and the legal name and a one-way code of the date of birth on your account at that time. We also keep the lines you accept when you post, pay for, accept, check in to or help on a job, with the same kind of record, and the full text of every version of every document. These records are kept for the life of your account and 10 years after it is deleted, and are not removed when you delete your account. You can view and download what you signed in the Help app under Profile, then Documents, then Signed agreements, and we email you a copy when you accept if your account's email address, or a recovery email you added, has been confirmed.

19.Changes to this policy

When we change this policy we publish the new version at https://averentium.com/legal/privacy with its effective date. If a change is material, we tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect and ask you to acknowledge it before you continue to use Help. We do not use information we already hold in a materially different way from the one described when we collected it unless you consent where the law requires consent; you may instead delete your account.

20.Language and accessibility

This policy is written in English. Where a translation is provided, it is for convenience, and the English text controls, except where the law requires otherwise. If a disability makes this policy, or Help, difficult for you to use, email contactus@averentium.com to ask for the information in another way.

21.Contact

AVERENTIUM LLC. Legal notices, notices of dispute, arbitration opt-outs, privacy requests and requests from law enforcement: contactus@averentium.com. Support: the Support screen in the Help app, or averentium.com. A postal address for notices is available on request to contactus@averentium.com.