Privacy
Kesbook keeps a record of your house so it can tell you which repairs and bills are coming. This page says what that record holds, who else handles any of it, who at Kesbook can see it, and how to take it with you or delete it. Last changed to be supplied: the day this goes live.
What we collect
Your account. Your email address, which is how you sign in and where a password reset goes; your password, kept only as a one-way hash; a display name if you give one; your time zone, for the timing of reminders; and whether you signed up as a homeowner or as a real-estate agent. An agent may record a client's name beside a house.
Your house. Its address; the rooms, systems and things in it and your answers about them; Photographs you take of a furnace, a water heater, a nameplate; inspection reports, receipts and floor plans you upload; mail you forward to the house's own address; and the shape of a room scanned with the phone. If you prove a house is yours, the document you upload for that (a deed, a tax bill or a utility bill) is part of the record until it has been checked; then it is deleted.
What you type. Questions and answers in the product, notes on an upload, and the names you give rooms.
From public records. Starting from the address, we look up what public sources say about the house: its place on the map and census area, flood and radon zones, local climate, the county's assessment and the owner of record, building permits and zoning. We keep what we find, including the owner of record, because it is how the house is checked against what you tell us.
Cookies. Five, all set by us: one that keeps you signed in for 30 days, one that protects forms against forgery, two that remember how you like lists shown, and one set when you arrive through a home inspector's or realtor's link, which remembers who sent you for 90 days. No cookie from anyone else, and nothing that follows you to other sites.
Location is removed from every photo
A photograph carries the coordinates of where it was taken. Before a photo is stored, that location data is removed — the coordinates are overwritten, not merely hidden — however the photo reaches us: from the phone, uploaded on the website, as a floor plan, as proof that a house is yours, or attached to mail you forward or send. We know where your house is because you give us its address. The only other location data we hold is the network address a request comes from, kept for seven days to stop password guessing, and the time zone you set.
A model reads your documents
Kesbook uses a language model from Anthropic to read what cannot be read by rule: inspection reports, receipts, forwarded mail and one attachment of it, floor plans, nameplate photos, and the questions and answers above when a rule cannot answer them. Room names and the layout of the house go with a report so that what is found can be placed. Photographs you take only to record a thing's condition are stored and not read. Documents sent for reading are deleted from Anthropic's systems after they are read. awaiting counsel: whether we may say Anthropic does not train on them, from the agreement we are on A model can misread; everything it finds is shown to you to confirm or correct.
Who else handles it
There is no advertising, no tracking, and no third-party analytics on the website or in the app. These companies do part of the work, and each sees only what that part needs:
- Anthropic reads what is described above.
- The US Census Bureau, and Google or Smarty when we use them, turn the address you type into a place on the map. FEMA, the EPA, NOAA, the Cook County Assessor, the City of Chicago, and Regrid or ATTOM when we use them, answer the public-records questions above. Each receives the address or its coordinates, never your name.
- Fly.io runs the service and its database, in Chicago, and Tigris stores the files you upload.
- Postmark receives mail you forward to a house's address and passes it to us. Our mail provider, to be supplied: the sending provider's name, delivers the mail we send you.
- Apple delivers notifications to your phone if you turn them on; a notification names the house by its address and says what is due.
- Lob prints and mails a postcard to the house if we use that to confirm it is yours; today we do not.
- Google Fonts serves the typefaces these pages are set in, so your browser asks Google for them when a page loads.
An assistant, a webhook or a calendar app that you connect to your account receives what you allowed it to: an assistant with a read key can read the house and its files; a webhook receives a line for each change; a calendar feed holds what is due and what it may cost. Nothing is sent to one you did not connect, and you can disconnect each one.
Who sent you
If you arrive through a home inspector's or realtor's link, QR code or code, or tell us who sent you, we record that they did. We tell them how many people they sent and how many subscribed, not who you are: not your name, your address or anything about your house. awaiting counsel: whether, with your consent, we may name you to them
Who at Kesbook can see your record
Kesbook's staff can open your house's record to help you, to check a claim that a house is yours, or to correct a mistake. Every time a member of staff opens a house, that is written down: who, which house, when and what for, so every look is on a log. A correction made by staff appears in your house's activity as made by "kesbook staff". The people who run the service can also reach the database directly. Nobody else can see your record. awaiting counsel: the owner's acknowledgement before anyone who is not staff, such as a hired specialist, may look
Improving the catalog
Kesbook's estimates come from a catalog of how long the parts of a house last and what replacing them costs. We intend to check that catalog against what the houses in Kesbook show, using tables that hold the year a water heater was installed and the year it was replaced, its kind, a grade, a state, and a code for the house that cannot be turned back into it: no address, no name, no free text, no photograph. Those tables exist, and the switch that lets them be read over customers' houses is off. awaiting counsel: it stays off until this paragraph has been reviewed, and what consent, if any, is needed
Sending work to the trades
Kesbook is built to tell you when the roof, the plumbing or the heating will need a professional. One day we may offer to send that job, with the part of your record the job needs, to a contractor. That does not happen today. When it does, it will happen only when you ask, for that job, with what you can see and stop. awaiting counsel: wording that can be relied on when the feature exists
Mail we send you
Reminders are on when you sign up: once a month, in the first week, with what is due on the house, and on the day something goes overdue. Never more than one message a day for a house. Turn them off under Settings, reminder mail, or with the link at the foot of any reminder. Mail about your account, your subscription and your deletion is sent either way. awaiting counsel: the postal address and any other line each kind of mail must carry
Keeping it, and deleting it
Taking it with you. Export this house, under More on any page of the house, downloads one archive of its record: the house, its rooms and things, every file you uploaded or forwarded to it, its activity and its score history.
Deleting a house. From your list of homes. The house, its photographs, reports and files, and everything we worked out from them are deleted at once, and a claim that the house is yours goes with it. The address's place on the map, the public records we looked up for it and the text of address searches stay, no longer tied to you or to any account.
Deleting your account. From Delete my account in your settings. Then every house and the account are deleted at once, and we confirm to you by mail when it is done. The log of staff who opened your houses is deleted with them. If you were on staff, the log of houses you opened keeps your account number and nothing else.
Backups. A backup of the database may hold a deleted house for to be supplied: the cluster's retention window; the copy of the files kept off-site is pruned to be supplied: on what schedule. Backups are used only to recover from a failure.
A lapsed subscription. Your record stays. awaiting counsel: how long, and the notice before anything is deleted
Children
Kesbook is for people who own or look after a home. awaiting counsel: the age line, and what to say about children
Your rights
awaiting counsel: what state privacy laws give you and how you exercise it here: access, correction, deletion, no sale Export and deletion are above and need no request.
Where the service is offered
Kesbook is offered in the United States. awaiting counsel: wording for sign-ups from elsewhere
If something goes wrong
awaiting counsel: what we do and whom we tell if your data is exposed
Changes to this page
When this page changes in substance, the date at the top changes, and awaiting counsel: how you are told.
Questions
Write to support@kesbook.com. A person reads it. to be supplied: the legal name of the business and a postal address