Privacy policy

1. Who is responsible

Au Pair Nation, a company registered in South Africa, is the responsible party (POPIA) and data controller (UK GDPR) for personal information processed through aupairnation.com. Contact our information officer at privacy@aupairnation.com.

2. What we collect

Account information: email address, password (hashed), phone number, role (family or au pair), region.

Profile information you give us: display name, photos, a short bio, location at city or suburb level, languages, availability, experience, certifications, preferences. For families: children’s age bands and any care notes you choose to write. For au pairs: date of birth, nationality, current country, an optional intro video.

Identity verification: the identity document and selfie you submit are processed by our verification partner. We store the result (verified, failed, review), the document type, and a reference number. We do not store a copy of your document or selfie.

Messages and connections: the requests you send and receive, and the messages and attachments in your chats.

Reports: details you give when reporting another user, including excerpts of the relevant chat.

Technical information: IP address, approximate country derived from it, browser type, pages visited, and cookies described in our cookie policy.

What we deliberately do not collect: children’s names, photos of children’s faces, school names, or street addresses.

3. Why we process it

4. Who sees your information

• Other users: verified families in your region see au pair profiles that match; au pairs see a family’s profile once that family sends them a request. Contact details are never shown; you choose what to share in chat.
• Service providers: hosting (Vercel), database and file storage (Supabase), identity verification (Smile ID), email delivery (Resend), error monitoring. Each processes data only on our instructions.
• Authorities: where required by law or to protect someone’s safety.

We do not sell personal information.

5. International transfers

Our infrastructure providers store data in data centres outside South Africa, including in the European Union and United States. We transfer data only to providers that are bound by contractual safeguards providing a level of protection substantially similar to POPIA and, where applicable, UK GDPR standard contractual clauses.

6. How long we keep it

• Account and profile data: for as long as your account is active, then deleted within 30 days of closure.
• Messages: while both parties’ accounts exist; deleted when the connection or an account is deleted.
• Verification results: for the life of the account, then deleted.
• Reports and moderation records: up to 3 years, to protect users from repeat harm.
• Waitlist emails: until you unsubscribe or 12 months after launch in your region.

7. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you have the right to access, correct, delete or export your personal information, to object to or restrict certain processing, and to withdraw consent. Email privacy@aupairnation.com. We respond within 30 days. You can also complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa), the Information Commissioner’s Office (UK), the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, or your state attorney general (US).

8. Children

The Service is for adults only. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. Families describe their children only by age band.

9. Security

Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Access to personal information is restricted by database-level rules so that each user can only see what these rules allow. We will notify you and the relevant regulator of any breach that is likely to cause you harm, as the law requires.

10. Changes

We will post changes here and, for material changes, email you.