Privacy

1. Who we are

Mello runs this website and decides how the personal data described here is used. In the GDPR's words, we are the controller.

Legal name	[LEGAL ENTITY NAME]
Address	[STREET, POSTCODE, ROTTERDAM]
KvK number	[KVK NUMBER]
Email	rotterdam@mello-housing.nl
Data protection contact	rotterdam@mello-housing.nl

2. What we collect

If you're looking for housing

• Your name, email address and phone number.
• What you're looking for: budget, area, move-in date, length of stay.
• Your university or programme, and the evidence you send that you can pay the rent.
• The messages you send to landlords through us, and their replies.
• Which listings you opened and how far into a walkthrough you watched.
• Whether you confirmed the 48-hour check, and anything you told us about a mismatch.

If you're letting a property

• Your name, email address, phone number and postal address.
• The address being let, and documents showing you may let it, including any permit.
• Invoicing details, so we can bill our fee.
• The footage we shoot inside your property.

Everyone

• Basic technical data from your device: IP address, browser, and which pages you opened. See Cookies.

We don't ask for special category data, such as health, religion or ethnicity, and you shouldn't send it to us. If a landlord asks you for it, tell us.

3. Why we hold it

What we do	Legal basis
Show you listings and pass your messages to a landlord	Performing our agreement with you
Apply our published selection criteria and give reasons for a rejection	A legal duty under the Wet goed verhuurderschap
Film, edit and publish a walkthrough	Performing our agreement with the landlord
Run the 48-hour check and invoice the landlord	Performing our agreement, and a legal duty to keep records
Check a landlord may lawfully let the property	Our legitimate interest in keeping fake listings off the site
Email you when we film something that fits what you asked for	Your consent, which you can withdraw at any time
Measure how the site is used beyond what's strictly needed	Your consent through the cookie banner

4. What we don't collect

Rent, deposits and service costs are paid by tenants to landlords directly, so we hold no payment data about tenants at all: no IBAN, no card details, no balances, no transaction history. The only financial data we hold is our own invoicing to landlords.

5. Video and filming

A walkthrough is filmed inside someone's home, so we handle it more carefully than the rest.

• We film shared spaces when nobody is home, and we don't film inside a sitting tenant's room without their written consent.
• If a person appears in a shot by accident, we blur them or refilm.
• We blur house numbers, post, name plates and anything else on camera that identifies a resident.
• Footage is published while the home is available, and comes down when it's taken.
• The landlord and any tenant who appears can ask us to delete footage at any time, and we do.
• We keep the original file after a listing closes only to settle a dispute about whether a home matched its walkthrough.

6. Who else sees it

We don't sell your data and we don't hand it to advertisers. It reaches other people only in these cases.

• The landlord of a home you apply for. They see your name, your message and the evidence you supplied. They don't see your search history or other applications.
• A student who applies for your property. They see your name and your replies.
• Suppliers who run parts of the service for us, under a processing agreement. Today that is our website host, Netlify, and our email provider, [EMAIL PROVIDER]. We do not use an analytics tool, and we have not yet chosen a video host. We will name any supplier we add on this page before we start using it.
• Our accountant and, if it comes to it, our lawyer, the municipality or a court.

Netlify is based in the United States, so we rely on the European Commission's standard contractual clauses for it. It stores the pages of this website, not your messages. Everything else sits inside the European Economic Area.

7. How long we keep it

What	How long
What you told us you are looking for	12 months after your last email to us
Messages between you and a landlord	24 months after the conversation ends
Applications and the reasons given for a rejection	12 months, so a decision can be checked
Published walkthrough footage	Until the home is taken or the landlord asks us to remove it
Original footage of a let property	12 months after move-in, to settle a dispute
Invoices and anything tax-related	7 years, because Dutch tax law says so
Ownership and permit documents from a landlord	Until the listing closes, then 12 months

8. Your rights

Under the GDPR you can ask us to show you what we hold and give you a copy, correct anything wrong, delete it where we don't have to keep it, pause what we do with it while a dispute is open, hand it to another service in a machine-readable file, stop relying on legitimate interest if you object, or withdraw a consent you gave.

Email rotterdam@mello-housing.nl and we'll answer within one month. We may ask you to prove who you are first, so nobody else can request your data.

9. Security

Data sits behind encrypted connections and access controls, and only the people who need it can reach it. If a breach puts you at risk, we'll tell you and the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens within 72 hours of finding it.

10. Contact and complaints

Write to rotterdam@mello-housing.nl first and we'll try to sort it out. If you're not satisfied, you can complain to the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens at autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl, or to the authority in the EU country where you live.