Privacy notice

Who we are

HereHum is run by Every Call Handled Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales, which is the data controller for the information described here.

Questions or requests about your information: hello@herehum.com. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk.

What we collect

If you contact HereHum as a resident: your phone number, so we can reply; what you ask for, in your words, so we can help with it; the area you tell us you are in; the consents you give us, with the wording you saw and when; and, if you join HereHum Plus, your account and payment details, the latter held by Stripe and never by us.

If you sign up on the website for a newsletter or for a business’s numbers: your email address, which we check by sending it a code; the code on the HereHum card you used, if any; the wording you agreed to and when; and a scrambled form of your internet address, kept as a record of the sign-up.

If you call HereHum: the call is processed as it happens so the receptionist can answer. A transcript is kept as described under Retention; a recording is kept only where the Safety and trust page says so.

If you run an organisation: the public details on your listing, the contact details you give when you claim or correct it, and the notes residents ask us to pass to you.

On the website: the cookies described on the Cookies page; Google Analytics only with your consent; and your internet address, which we use to limit how many requests one connection can make and, when you search for a kind of business, keep for 14 days as the code described under How we use it. The site also keeps a standard server log of each page request: your internet address, the address of the page you asked for and the page you came from, the time, and your browser type. We use these logs to keep the site working and safe and to see how the site is used, such as whether the code on a card we posted to a shop has been scanned. They set no cookie, are not joined to any account, go to no one but our hosting provider, and are deleted after ninety days.

Where listing information comes from

We list organisations, including sole traders and partnerships, from public information because we have a legitimate interest in running a local directory people can use. Listings are built from licensed public sources: Overture Maps open places data (name, phone number, website and address), the Food Standards Agency register, DVSA MOT stations, NHS organisation data, the Care Quality Commission, the Charity Commission, Companies House, and the organisation’s own website, from which we read only what it publishes about itself. Organisations also add and correct their own details.

We keep a note of where each detail came from and when. Any organisation can correct or remove its listing at any time from its listing page, and we mark a listing added by its owner as not yet checked until a public source or a call-back agrees.

How we use it, and why we may

To answer you and find local options: this is the service you ask for (performance of a contract, or our legitimate interest in running a directory people can use).

To pass a note or put you through to an organisation you have asked us to contact: you ask us to, and we share only what the note needs, which is what you need and how to reach you.

To send you a weekly note or offers, by email if you signed up on the website or by text if you asked on a call or by text: only with your consent, given at the time, which you can withdraw with the unsubscribe link in any email or by replying STOP to any text.

To email a business’s numbers to someone who asks for them with the code on the card we posted to that business: only with that person’s consent, given on the website, which they can withdraw with the stop link in any of those emails, or with their mail app’s own unsubscribe button. Each email also says in one line what HereHum’s next paid level would have done for the people who asked.

To show a business how often HereHum was asked for it, including by sending those numbers to people who hold the card we posted to it: our legitimate interest in letting local businesses see the demand HereHum finds for them. The numbers never say who asked. A business that wants its numbers to go to nobody else can tell us at hello@herehum.com and we will stop them; removing the listing stops them too.

To tell businesses which kinds of business people in the town asked for most: our legitimate interest in showing local businesses the demand HereHum finds. For 14 days we keep a note that someone asked for a kind of business in a given week. In place of the caller’s number or the website visitor’s internet address, the note holds a code made from it with a secret key we hold, so that the same caller or connection counts once in a week and nobody without the key can turn the code back into a number or address. The note never says who asked, is only ever used as a count, and kinds of business that could reveal something private, such as health, care, legal or faith, are never noted.

To keep the service and the website working and safe, and to see how the website is used, from the server logs described above: our legitimate interest in running a secure service and knowing which pages help people. To improve the receptionist from anonymised conversations, to bill HereHum Plus, and to meet our legal obligations.

Who we share it with

The organisation you ask us to contact, and only the note you asked us to pass.

Our service providers, bound by data processing agreements: Twilio for calls and texts; Amazon Web Services for hosting; OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Groq and OpenRouter for the AI that drafts replies; Cartesia for speech; Stripe for payment; email providers for notices.

Organisations see numbers about their listing, such as how often people asked for them, never who asked. So does anyone who signs up for a business’s numbers with the code on the card we posted to it; they cannot claim or change the listing.

Public authorities only under a valid legal request, which we review, challenge where unlawful or overbroad, answer with the minimum necessary, and record. Nothing is sold to anyone.

How long we keep it

Conversations, transcripts and notes: twelve months, then deleted.

Call recordings, where made: thirty days, then deleted.

Website server logs: ninety days, then deleted.

Your account and consent record, whether you use HereHum as a resident or get a business’s numbers: while you use HereHum, and two years after your last contact, so we can show what you agreed to if asked.

Our note of what the town asked for, in coded form: 14 days, then deleted. The counts made from it name nobody and are kept with the other listing numbers.

Listing details: while the listing is live; a removed listing keeps only the fact of removal, so it is not re-added.

Payment records for HereHum Plus: seven years, as the law requires.

Your rights

You can ask for a copy of what we hold, ask us to correct or delete it, object to or restrict how we use it, and withdraw any consent at any time. Use the unsubscribe link in any email, or reply STOP to any text, to stop them. Email hello@herehum.com for anything else; we answer within one month.

Young people

On text and web chat HereHum treats everyone as possibly under eighteen unless told otherwise in that conversation, and collects nothing it does not need.

Where your information goes

Some of our providers operate outside the UK. Where they do, the transfer is covered by the UK’s adequacy decisions or the standard contractual clauses the law provides for.

Changes

We will change this notice as HereHum changes. The date at the top says when. A material change is announced on the site and, for HereHum Plus members, by email.