Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

When you join Borrow-It, you trust us with your information. That’s not something we take lightly. We’ve written this Privacy Policy to help you know what data we collect from you, how we use it and how we protect it for you. If you have any questions, please do get in touch at info@borrow-it.com

Who are we?

We are Borrow-It Inc. (that’s “we”, “our”, “us”) and operate under the name of Borrow-It. Our registered office address is 2140 N. Cleveland Ave, Chicago, IL 60614.

What information do we hold about you?

Information you submit through our app or website

• To help keep Borrow-It a safe place to own and rent, we require certain information to verify your account. This will be some or all the following: your name, ID, email address, phone number, a selfie photograph, address or information about your employment or studies.
• We might also collect information from communications you make through the platform and other information about how you use the app and website.

Information on how you use your phone

• This might include your mobile network, IP address or operating system and your phone settings.

Information you give us permission to access on your phone

• These are things you give us explicit permission to see. This might include your photos and camera, so that you can post photos of your items, and your geolocation so that we can show you the most relevant items.

Information from social media accounts

• Information from any social media accounts that you share with us or sign up with.

Cookie information

• By using the Borrow-It website and/or app, you agree to our use of cookies:
  • We use Session, Persistent and Third-Party cookies to track what you’re doing on the site to help us improve it and give you a better experience in the future. Please note that cookies don’t store your banking details.
  • You can turn cookies off at any time (although this will reduce the quality of your user experience). Exactly how will depend on your browser or phone settings – try searching Help on your browser toolbar or go to your phone settings to change cookie controls.

How do we use your information?

To provide, analyze and improve the Borrow-It service, we use your data to:

• Enable you to use the Borrow-It service, communicate with other users, access customer service and receive relevant communications and notifications from us.
• Contact you via email, SMS or phone if we need to send you information relating to your Borrow-It account.

To keep Borrow-It a safe place to own and rent and to meet our legal obligations, we use your data to:

• Search your record at immigration and fraud prevention agencies.
• Prevent illegal activities like money laundering, tax evasion and fraud.
• Enforce our Terms of Service and other policies and resolve any disputes with any of our Members.

To exercise our legitimate interests (which doesn’t involve overriding your privacy rights), we use your data to:

• Market products, services or new features we think you’ll like, in the app, online or via text and email.

Who do we share it with?

We have never and will never sell your data to 3rd parties. We might share your personal information with:

• Anyone who works for us, if they need it to do their job. This is only ever on an as-needed basis.
• Your phone number will be shared with users who you have made a rental agreement with for the purposes of communication and facilitation of your rental.
• Any organisation which supports any of our services you use, when they need it to offer those services, including:
  • Stripe, our payment processors, who hold details from your rentals with us in order to verify your payment. These may include your name, ID, payment cards and bank accounts.
  • Intercom, our customer messaging (Live Chat) platform
  • Credit reference agencies
  • Analytical, Know Your Customer (KYC) and cyber security service providers
• Anyone who you give us explicit permission to share it with.

Where necessary, we’ll also share information to comply with regulatory authorities, to enforce our Terms of Service or other agreements and to protect the rights, property or safety of us, our customers, or others.

What are your rights?

You have a right to:

• Access and update some of your information through your Borrow-It account.
• In some jurisdictions, you may have the right to request copies of personal information which you can’t see through your Borrow-It account, though we will not be able to comply when such requests are manifestly unfounded, repetitive, or excessive.
• Ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete personal information which you can’t update yourself through your Borrow-It account.
• Ask us to delete your data. If you request this, please note:
  • We may retain certain information necessary for our legitimate business interests, such as fraud detection and prevention and enhancing safety. E.g. if we suspend a Borrow-It account for fraud or safety reasons, we might retain certain information to prevent that user from opening another account in the future.
  • We may retain and use your personal information to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations.
  • Information you have shared with others (e.g. Reviews) may continue to be publicly visible even after your Borrow-It account is cancelled.
  • Object to us using your data for direct marketing and in certain circumstances ‘legitimate interests’, research, and statistical reasons.
• Withdraw any consent you’ve previously given us. To do so, please get in touch at info@borrow-it.com.
• Have your personal data erased from our system. To do so, please get in touch at info@borrow-it.comrequesting to have your data deleted.

Where do we store your data?

• We take your privacy seriously. That’s why the information you give us is transmitted using SSL, the secure encryption which websites use to transmit credit card numbers.
• We store your verification information in an encrypted form, and only authorized Borrow-It employees are given access to your original documentation, to help them do their jobs.
• Data collected inside the EEA may be transferred and stored outside of the EEA for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy. However, we’ll only do this where appropriate safeguards are in place to ensure an adequate level of data protection.

Creditworthiness

When renting on a qualifying long-term plan with recurring payments via one of our retail partners (this excludes rentals made via our marketplace at https://www.borrow-it.com), we may assess your creditworthiness by supplying your personal information to credit reference agencies (CRAs). The CRA we currently supply information to is Experian.

This information includes:

• Full name, billing address, shipping address, date of birth

The credit reference agencies will provide us with information about you including public information, address data and information about your financial history.

If you enter a contract with us, we will also continue to exchange information with CRAs including successful payment or delays in payment of receivables. More information on Experian and the ways in which they use and share personal information can be found at https://www.experian.com/help.

How to ask a question or make a complaint

If you have a complaint, please get in touch at info@borrow-it.com and we’ll do our best to help you.

Changes to this policy

We’ll post any changes we make to our privacy policy right here, on this page. If the changes are significant, we’ll let you know by email.