Privacy policy

The short version

Sit&Co collects what a babysitting service needs to work and nothing more. We don't sell your data and there are no adverts anywhere on our site or in the app. This marketing site can set optional cookies that count visits and tell us which of our own adverts brought someone here - but only if you say yes, and you can change your mind whenever you like from the cookie settings below. If you want your data gone, email [email protected] and we'll delete it.

Who we are

Sit&Co is the trading name of SIT&CO LTD, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 17409295, registered office 16 Dedmere Road, Marlow, England, SL7 1PG), which runs the local babysitting marketplace at sitandco.uk and app.sitandco.uk. For UK data protection law, SIT&CO LTD is the data controller for the information described here, and is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office under registration number ZC227014. Contact us any time at [email protected].

What we collect

• This website (sitandco.uk) sets no cookies of any kind unless you allow them, and none that identify you personally. What the optional ones do, and who they belong to, is set out under Cookies below. Our hosting and network providers keep standard short-lived technical logs (such as IP addresses) for security. Two other things on the home page reach outside it. The coverage map draws its background from the OpenStreetMap Foundation, so if you scroll to it your IP address is visible to them while it loads; the map itself only ever shows how many sitters cover a postcode district, never an individual. And the postcode checker looks your postcode up with postcodes.io, in your browser - so if we don't cover you yet, that postcode never reaches us at all unless you choose to join the waiting list.
• The waiting list: if we don't cover your area yet and you ask us to tell you when we do, we store your email address, the postcode you entered and when you asked (entries from before sitters could join from anywhere also record whether you were looking for a sitter or hoping to be one). We keep it because you asked us to. We'll email you when we reach your area, and may occasionally email you before then with news about Sit&Co's availability near you - nothing else, and never about anything unrelated. Every one of those emails carries an unsubscribe link; one click removes you and we won't email you again. You can also email [email protected] to be taken off and deleted. To decide which town to open next we group these by postcode district (like "SL7"), not by anyone's full postcode.
• An account: your name, email address and password. The password is stored in scrambled (hashed) form - we never see or keep the actual password. We also keep a record of the devices and approximate locations that sign in to your account, so we can email you when it's used from somewhere new.
• Push notifications: if you choose to turn them on, your browser gives us a delivery address for notifications to that device, which we store. The notifications themselves are delivered through your browser maker's push service (Google, Apple or Mozilla, depending on the browser).
• Parents: your address and phone number, an emergency contact, and the details about your children, household and pets that you choose to enter so a sitter can do their job well.
• Sitters: your profile (photo, bio, skills, hourly rate, travel area), date of birth, and your application details including references - plus a parent or guardian's confirmed consent if you're under 18, and the name, relationship, email and phone of any guardian or trusted contact you name.
• Bookings: dates, times, status, the messages exchanged between a family and their sitter, and reviews - including each side's answer to the would-you-again question after a paid sit (a family's answer feeds the sitter's public tally; a sitter's answer about a family is never published and is seen only by the Sit&Co team).
• Payments: handled by Stripe. Card numbers go directly from your browser to Stripe and never touch our servers - we keep only the card type, its last four digits, and the record of each transaction. When sitters set up payouts, their bank details and the identity information Stripe needs to verify them likewise go directly to Stripe. For a sitter under 18 it may be their confirmed guardian who sets up and holds the payout account, in which case it is the guardian's bank and identity details that go to Stripe.
• Support: anything you report to us and the conversation that follows.

Cookies

Neither this site nor the app sets anything on your device until you have answered the banner, and we only ask when there is something to ask about - if no banner has ever appeared for you, nothing optional is switched on. Refusing costs you nothing: every part of both works the same either way. The two share one banner and one answer, so you are asked once and not again when you move between them, and a category you refuse here stays refused there.

• Necessary: one cookie of our own, sitandco_consent, which remembers the answer you gave so we don't ask again. It lasts six months and holds nothing but your choice and the date. It needs no permission because it exists solely to record whether permission was given.
• Analytics (optional): Google Analytics, which counts visits and tells us which parts of the page people actually read and what the postcode checker answered, so we know what is worth writing and where we are wanted next. It sets cookies named _ga and _ga_… lasting up to two years, and Google sees your IP address and approximate area. We never send it your name, your email address or anything about your bookings, and we do not use it to build a profile of you or to target adverts.
• Advertising (optional): while we are advertising on Facebook or Instagram, the Meta pixel, which tells us which of our adverts actually brought a family to us, and stops us paying to show the same advert to somebody who has already signed up. It sets cookies named _fbp and _fbc lasting up to three months. It tells Meta that a browser visited a page and, if you allowed it, the few things that may follow: that an account was created and whether it was a family's or a sitter's, that a family asked a babysitter, and that a sit was paid for. That is the whole of it: never your name, your email address, your postcode, your children, which babysitter, when or where a sit happened, or what you paid for it - the only figure that ever accompanies a payment is the fee we earned on it, which is our own. The events we send are listed plainly because they are few: a waiting-list join, a click through to the app, an account created, a sitter submitting an application, a babysitter being asked, and a sit paid for.

Both optional groups involve companies outside the UK, which transfer data to the United States under their own approved safeguards - Google and Meta each publish the detail. You can change your mind at any time, and switching something off deletes the cookies it set. Your browser's own settings can block or clear all of them too.

The app itself, at app.sitandco.uk, keeps your sign-in in your browser so you stay signed in, which is necessary to give you the service you asked for and needs no permission. Beyond that it carries no analytics at all - Google Analytics runs on this marketing site only, deliberately, because the app's addresses contain booking and account references and we are not willing to send those anywhere. The one optional thing it can carry is the advertising cookie above, and only if you allowed it, and only to report that an account was created.

What we use it for

Running the service: showing sitters to families, taking bookings, processing payments, and notifying you about your own bookings and account. That's it. We only email you about things you're involved in. The one thing you can opt into is the waiting list, which exists solely to tell you about Sit&Co coming to your area and unsubscribes you from a single click in any of its emails; we run no other marketing list. Separately, if you allow the optional cookies above, we use what they tell us to see how this site is read and whether our adverts are worth what they cost. Our lawful bases under UK GDPR are performing our agreement with you, your consent for the waiting list and for optional cookies, our legitimate interest in keeping the marketplace safe and honest, and the legal obligations that come with handling payments.

Who sees what

• Other users: before a booking is confirmed, a sitter sees only your general area, how many children you have and their age range - never your address, your contact details or your children's names or notes. Those are shared with your sitter only once you've confirmed a booking with them.
• The guardian of a sitter under 18, or an adult sitter's trusted contacts: where your sitter is under 18, the parent or guardian who confirmed their consent by email is told when their child accepts, starts and finishes a booking with you (and if it is cancelled), and can see the date, the times, the booking address and the messages you and the sitter exchange about that booking on a private link we email them. This is a safeguarding measure and is not optional; the link expires two days after the booking ends. An adult sitter may name trusted contacts who, once they have confirmed by email, receive the same, except the messages. None of them are told your surname, and none are ever given your children's names, ages or any details about them.
• Our local team: the people who run Sit&Co in your area review sitter applications and handle day-to-day support for that area on our behalf, under confidentiality obligations to SIT&CO LTD. They see only what's needed to do that job, and only for their own area.
• Service providers: Stripe (payments), Hetzner (hosting, on servers in the European Union), Cloudflare (networking and security), Resend (sending email), the OpenStreetMap Foundation (map images), postcodes.io (turning postcodes into map locations - the homepage checker asks it from your browser, and our own server asks it to place account postcodes for distance search) and Google (Gmail, where email sent to [email protected] is received and answered). Each receives only what it needs to do its job. If you allow the optional cookies on this site, Google (Analytics) and Meta also receive what those cookies collect, as described under Cookies.
• Nobody else. We don't sell personal data, and nothing you tell us as a family or a sitter is shared with advertisers - the optional advertising cookie knows only that a browser visited us and, at most, that somebody signed up, asked a babysitter or paid for a sit, never who they are or who they asked. We'd disclose information to authorities only where the law requires it.

Payments and Stripe

We use Stripe for payment processing, sitters' payout accounts, and fraud prevention. When you pay, save a card, or set up payouts, you are also providing your information directly to Stripe, which processes it as an independent controller under its own privacy policy. Stripe collects and processes personal data, including identifying information about the devices that connect to its services, and uses this information to operate and improve the services it provides to us, including for fraud detection and prevention. You can learn more about Stripe and its processing activities at stripe.com/privacy.

Children's information

Details about children are entered by their own parents and exist so a confirmed sitter knows who they're looking after. They're never shown in search results or to sitters you haven't booked. Sitters under 18 can only join once a parent or guardian confirms their consent by email.

Where it lives and for how long

Everything is stored on our own server in the European Union, with regular backups. We keep your information for as long as you have an account, and delete it when the account goes. The exception is the optional cookies described under Cookies, if you allow them: those send data to Google and Meta, who hold it outside the UK under their own safeguards and for their own stated periods.

Your rights - including deletion

You can ask to see the information we hold about you, have mistakes corrected, or have it all deleted. Just email [email protected] - no hoops. If you ask us to delete your data, we delete your account and everything tied to it. The only things we may keep are basic transaction records that tax law requires us to retain, and Stripe keeps its own payment records under Stripe's privacy policy.

If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, you also have the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

Changes

If this policy changes, we'll update this page and the date at the top. A meaningful change will be flagged to account holders by email.