Privacy Policy

PeerAbroad is operated by James Cheng in the United Kingdom. James Cheng is the controller of the personal information described in this policy. PeerAbroad is not currently operated through a limited company.

For general questions, email hello@peerabroad.co.uk. For privacy questions or requests, email privacy@peerabroad.co.uk.

• Reviews: your name, home country, exchange city, exchange dates, rating, review text and any optional tips.
• Review photos: an optional image you choose to upload. PeerAbroad re-encodes supported images to remove unnecessary embedded metadata before public storage. The processed image may be displayed publicly with your approved review.
• Suggestions: the city and category concerned, your suggested correction, optional context, page context and an optional email address.
• Community emails: the email address you submit to receive PeerAbroad updates, city data and student exchange tips.
• Preferences: choices such as theme, language, display currency, onboarding status and your cookie preference, stored in your browser.
• Technical and usage information: ordinary request information needed to deliver and secure the site, plus page-view information if you allow optional analytics.

PeerAbroad does not currently provide public user accounts and does not use Supabase authentication for visitors.

• To deliver, maintain and secure the website, based on our legitimate interests in operating a useful and safe service.
• To receive, moderate, translate and publish reviews you submit, and to administer the submission under the Terms of Use.
• To review suggested data corrections and, where you provide an email, follow up about that submission.
• To send updates, new city data and exchange tips when you join the mailing list or separately opt in while making a suggestion, based on your consent. You can unsubscribe at any time.
• To run optional Vercel Web Analytics only when you have allowed Analytics in Cookie settings, based on your consent.
• To establish, exercise or defend legal claims and meet legal obligations where necessary.

Where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw it at any time. Withdrawal does not affect processing that took place beforehand.

Reviews are held as pending until they are manually moderated. If approved, your name, home country, exchange city, exchange period, rating, review text and optional photo may be displayed publicly. Optional tips are stored with the submission and may be used when administering the review.

Uploaded JPEG, PNG and WebP review photos are re-encoded before they are stored publicly. This applies the image's orientation and removes unnecessary embedded metadata, including EXIF location and device information where present. The original unsanitised upload is not stored publicly.

Review text and optional tips may be sent to DeepL for language detection and translation. PeerAbroad may also create further translated versions when approving a review. Please do not include sensitive information or another person's personal information unless you have their permission.

To ask for a published review or photo to be removed, email privacy@peerabroad.co.uk with enough information to identify the submission. PeerAbroad may ask for reasonable information to confirm that the request is genuine.

• Vercel: hosts PeerAbroad, runs its server functions and, with your permission, provides Web Analytics.
• Supabase: provides the database and public storage used for city data, suggestions, reviews and optional review photos.
• Loops: stores mailing-list contacts and supports updates, new city data and exchange-tip emails after an explicit signup or separate marketing opt-in.
• DeepL: detects and translates the language of submitted review text and tips.
• ImprovMX: routes email sent to PeerAbroad's @peerabroad.co.uk addresses.
• Google/Gmail: receives, stores and supports replies to email routed to PeerAbroad's mailbox.
• ExchangeRate-API: provides exchange-rate data to PeerAbroad's scheduled server process. PeerAbroad does not deliberately send it visitor information.

These providers process information under their own infrastructure arrangements. Some processing may take place outside the United Kingdom. Where UK data-protection law requires it, PeerAbroad relies on the transfer safeguards made available by the relevant provider, such as approved contractual protections or an applicable adequacy arrangement.

PeerAbroad keeps personal information only for as long as reasonably needed for the purpose for which it was collected, to operate and improve the service, to handle requests or disputes, and to meet legal obligations.

Pending and rejected review submissions may be retained as reasonably necessary for moderation, administration, dispute handling and site integrity. Approved reviews and their photos may remain published while relevant to PeerAbroad. Contributors may request removal of a review or photo by emailing privacy@peerabroad.co.uk. Suggestions and mailing-list records may be deleted or anonymised when no longer needed. Browser preferences remain until you clear site data or a policy-version change asks you to choose again.

Depending on the circumstances, you may have the right to:

• ask for access to personal information held about you;
• ask for inaccurate or incomplete information to be corrected;
• ask for information to be deleted or its use restricted;
• object to processing based on legitimate interests;
• receive certain information in a portable form; and
• withdraw consent where processing relies on consent.

Email privacy@peerabroad.co.uk to make a request. PeerAbroad may need reasonable information to identify the relevant submission and confirm that the request is genuine.

You also have the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office. Information about making a complaint is available on the ICO website.

PeerAbroad uses a small number of browser-storage items for preferences and consent, an admin-session cookie, and optional Vercel Web Analytics. See the Cookie Policy and use the “Cookie settings” link in the footer to change your Analytics choice.

This policy may be updated as PeerAbroad develops or its legal obligations change. The date at the top will be updated when that happens. If a material change affects the consent choices stored in your browser, PeerAbroad will ask you to choose again.