Privacy Policy

ScanIfLost is the data controller for the personal data described here. We are a sole trader based in the United Kingdom.

Post: ScanIfLost (MH Web), WeWork, 29 John Dalton St, M2 6FW
Email: matthew@mhcommerce.com

This policy is governed by UK data protection law — the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.

If you have an account:

• Your name and email address, so we can identify your account and send you scan alerts and messages. Only your first name is ever shown to a finder, and only when you have marked an item as lost.
• Your password, stored only as a one-way hash. Nobody at ScanIfLost can read it.
• Your delivery address, collected by Stripe at checkout, so we can post your labels or keyring to you.
• Your order history and account status — what you bought, when, and whether your tags are live (including whether a membership is running, if you’re on one). We never see or store your card number; Stripe handles that.
• The items you protect — the name and description you set. Remember that these are shown to anyone who scans that item’s tag, so don’t put anything private in them.

If you scan someone’s tag as a finder:

• The fact a scan happened, with the time and your browser’s user-agent string, so we can tell the owner their item has been seen.
• Approximate location — only if you choose to share it. Your browser will ask first, and if you say no we record nothing. If you say yes, we round the coordinates to roughly one kilometre. We do not track you, and we cannot see where you go afterwards.
• Anything you type into a message, plus a name and contact detail if you choose to give one. Both are optional — you can stay anonymous and still receive replies through a private link.

• Performing our contract with you — running your account, taking payment, posting your tags, relaying messages.
• Your consent — for a finder’s approximate location, and for advertising cookies. You can refuse either, and withdraw at any time.
• Our legitimate interests — keeping the service secure, preventing fraud and abuse, and understanding faults. We balance these against your rights and keep the data to a minimum.
• Legal obligations — keeping records of sales for HMRC.

This is the heart of ScanIfLost, so we are specific about it. A finder who scans your tag never sees your surname, your email address, your phone number or your postal address. They see the item name and description you wrote, and your first name if the item is marked lost.

Messages pass through ScanIfLost. Your email address is not revealed by replying. If you decide to share direct contact details inside a message, that is your choice and outside our control.

We do not sell your personal data, and we do not share it for anyone else’s marketing. We use a small number of processors to run the service:

• Stripe — payments, any subscriptions and delivery addresses. Stripe is a data controller in its own right for payment data; see its privacy policy at stripe.com/gb/privacy.
• Resend — sending the emails you receive from us.
• Our hosting and database providers — storing and serving the application.
• Meta (Facebook) — measuring our advertising, and only if you accepted advertising cookies. See the Cookies section below for exactly what is sent.

Some of these providers process data outside the UK. Where they do, the transfer is covered by UK adequacy regulations or by the International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum, so your data keeps essentially the same protection it has here.

We may also disclose data where the law requires it, or to establish or defend legal claims.

• Account, item and message data — while your account is open. If you ask us to delete your account, we remove it and everything attached to it, normally within 30 days.
• Order and payment records — six years from the end of the relevant tax year, because HMRC requires it. This is the one category we cannot delete on request.
• Scan records — deleted with the tag or the account they belong to.

Strictly necessary — always on. sil_session keeps you logged in and sil_consent remembers the choice you made below. Neither needs your permission, because without them the site cannot do what you asked it to.

Measuring our own pages — always on. sil_vid is a random number we give your browser so that we can count one visit as one visit: how many people reached our sales page, how far down it they read, and whether they went on to buy. It also means that while we are trying out two versions of a page you keep seeing the same one rather than a different layout on every visit. It is ours alone, it is never shared with anyone, and it says nothing about you: no name, no email, no profile, and nothing that follows you to another website. We don’t set it on the pages a finder sees.

If you tell us why you didn’t buy. After a while on the sales page we may ask, once, what put you off. Answering is entirely optional and the box for your own words is optional too. What you choose is emailed to us along with which advert brought you and what sort of device you were on — never your name, your email address or anything else about you, because we don’t have any of it. We ask you not to type personal details into the box, and if you do, you can email us and we’ll delete it.

Advertising — only if you say yes. We advertise on Facebook, and we’d like to know which of those ads actually lead to an order. If you accept, Meta’s pixel sets _fbp and, if you arrived from an ad, _fbc.

• Nothing advertising-related loads until you press Accept. Rejecting costs you nothing — the whole service works exactly the same.
• You can change your mind at any time using the Cookies link at the bottom of any page.
• We never run these on the pages a finder sees. Somebody who scanned your lost property is not an advertising prospect, and we won't treat them as one.

What Meta receives. If — and only if — you accepted, we tell Meta when a purchase completes, so an ad can be credited with it. That report includes the amount, and your email address hashed with SHA-256 so Meta can match it against an existing account without us handing over the address itself. Some of this is sent from our server rather than your browser, which is why an ad blocker won’t stop it — your consent is what stops it, and we honour the choice recorded at the moment you paid. Meta acts as an independent controller for this data; see Meta’s privacy policy.

• Passwords are hashed with bcrypt and never stored in a readable form.
• Public tag, item and conversation links use long random tokens, never database IDs, so they cannot be guessed or enumerated.
• Card details never touch our servers — Stripe handles payment directly.
• Traffic is encrypted in transit with HTTPS.

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach ever affects your rights and freedoms, we will tell you and the ICO as the law requires.

Under UK data protection law you can ask us to:

• Give you a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Correct anything that is wrong or incomplete.
• Delete your data, where we have no continuing legal reason to keep it.
• Restrict or object to how we use it.
• Send your data to you or another provider in a portable format.
• Withdraw consent you previously gave, such as a finder's location.

Email matthew@mhcommerce.com and we will respond within one month. There is no charge.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113. We would rather you came to us first so we can put it right.

ScanIfLost is sold to adults. You must be 18 or over to open an account and buy from us. A finder of any age can send a message without an account, and we ask for as little from them as possible.

If we change how we use your data we will update this page and change the date at the top. Where a change is significant, we will email account holders before it takes effect.

See also our Terms of Service and Returns & Cancellations.