Privacy Policy

Lancelot ("Lancelot", "we", "us", or "our") takes your privacy seriously. This Privacy Policy explains what personal data we collect, why, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and the rights you have. It covers the Lancelot website, the Lancelot app, our waitlist, and the related services we provide (together, the "Platform").

This policy is written to comply with the UK General Data Protection Regulation ("UK GDPR"), the Data Protection Act 2018, the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations ("PECR"). Please read it alongside our Terms of Service, our Cookie Policy, and How Lance Works.

We have tried to describe what actually happens, including the parts that are still being built. Where something is not finished, we say so.

1. Who we are

Lancelot is based in Manchester, United Kingdom. For the purposes of the UK GDPR, we are the data controller responsible for your personal data.

• Who we are: Lancelot, Manchester, United Kingdom
• Data protection contact: support@trylancelot.com

Lancelot is in the process of being registered as a company. We will publish our registered company name, number, and office address on this page as soon as registration is complete.

Heroes are separate controllers. When a Client books a Hero, the Hero receives the Client's details to do the job and becomes responsible, as an independent business, for how they use them. Likewise, a Client who receives a Hero's details (including bank details on an invoice) is responsible for how they use them.

2. The personal data we collect

Depending on how you use the Platform, we collect:

• Identity and account data. Your name, email address, profile photo, the sign-in method you used (Google or an email sign-in link), and the account identifier our sign-in provider gives us. We do not receive or store a password for you.
• Phone number. Your UK mobile number, which we verify with a one-time code.
• Addresses and location. Addresses you save or give for a job (address lines, town, postcode) together with their map coordinates; and, if you allow it, your device location as coordinates, with the town, country, and time zone we derive from it. See section 6.
• What you tell Lance. Your conversations with Lance in full, including text, photos, and voice notes, the transcripts of those voice notes, and the things Lance works out from them (for example, a summary of the job you need).
• Conversations with other people. Messages, photos, and files you exchange with a Hero or Client in a conversation thread.
• Work records. Tasks you post, quotes, bookings, schedules, invoices, payment records entered by you or the other person, and receipts. The PDF of a quote or invoice is produced each time it is opened, not stored.
• Hero business data. Business name, logo, handle, description, services and prices, opening hours, service area, gallery photos, intro video, certifications and insurance documents you upload, and the dates they expire.
• Hero bank details. The account name, sort code, and account number a Hero chooses to put on their invoices. The sort code and account number are encrypted in our database, including the copy kept with each invoice. The email that carries an invoice to a Client is not encrypted (see section 5). We do not collect card details from anyone.
• Reviews and reputation. Reviews you write or receive, ratings, replies, and counts such as jobs completed or late cancellations.
• Support, reports, and disputes. What you tell us when you report a problem, make a complaint, or raise a dispute, which may include information about another person.
• Terms you have accepted. Which version of our terms you accepted and when, together with the IP address and browser or device details at that moment, so that we can prove the agreement.
• Technical data. IP address, browser and device type, and records of requests to our servers (see section 12 on server logs).
• Usage data. How the website and app are used, collected as described in section 13 and our Cookie Policy.
• Waitlist and referral data. Your email address, whether you joined as a Client or a Hero, your referral code, and who referred whom.

We do not ask for special category data (such as health, ethnicity, or religion). Please do not share it unless it is genuinely needed for a job, for example telling a Hero about an allergy or an access need. If you do, we process it on the basis that you have chosen to give it to us for that purpose, and you can ask us to delete it.

3. Where your data comes from

• From you, when you create an account, talk to Lance, set up a profile, send a quote, book a job, write a review, or contact us.
• From your sign-in provider (Google), which gives us your name, email address, and profile photo when you sign in.
• From other users, for example when a Hero adds you as a client to send you a quote, when someone writes a review about you, names you in a report, or refers you to the waitlist.
• Automatically, from your device and browser when you use the Platform.

If a Hero sends you a quote or invoice and you do not have an account, we hold the contact details that Hero entered for you so that the link works. You can ask us to delete them.

4. How and why we use your personal data

The law requires us to have a legal basis for each use. Ours are:

• To provide the Platform to you (performance of a contract). Creating and securing your account; verifying your phone number; running Lance; putting Heroes forward to Clients; showing Hero profiles; creating and sending quotes, bookings, and invoices; sending messages between Clients and Heroes; sending service emails and texts such as sign-in links, codes, quote and invoice notifications, and reminders a Hero has asked Lance to send.
• Our legitimate interests, where these are not overridden by your rights: keeping the Platform safe and preventing fraud and abuse; moderating reviews and content; handling complaints and disputes; keeping records of what was agreed between users; understanding how the website and app are used so we can fix and improve them, measured against your account's random identifier once you are signed in and never against your name or email, with a switch to turn it off (see section 13); enforcing our terms; and defending legal claims.
• Consent. Device location; the analytics cookie that links your visits to our website, and the masked recordings of how our marketing pages are used that come with it; and marketing emails, including waitlist updates. You can withdraw consent at any time, and it will not affect what happened before.
• Legal obligation. Keeping records that tax, consumer, and online-safety law require; responding to lawful requests from authorities; and reporting illegal content where the law requires it.

We do not sell your personal data, and we do not use it to show you third-party advertising.

5. What other people can see

• A Hero's public page is public. It goes live as soon as someone becomes a Hero. Anyone on the internet, including search engines, can see the Hero's business name (or, if they have not set one, their own name), logo, handle, description, services and prices, weekly opening hours, general service area, gallery, intro video, rating, jobs completed, completion rate, reviews, and the checks shown on their profile. Heroes choose what goes on it and can change it, but cannot yet hide the page while keeping their account.
• Logos and profile photos use permanent web links. So that they can appear in emails and PDFs, these images are stored at a long, unguessable web address that does not expire and that anyone holding the link can open. Do not use an image you would not want to be public. Other media (chat photos, voice notes, documents) is served through short-lived links to signed-in users who are entitled to see it.
• Quote and invoice links. Anyone with the link to a quote or invoice can view it without signing in, and an invoice shows the Hero's payment details. Treat these links like the document itself.
• The person you deal with. A Client's name, the job details, relevant contact details, and the job address are shared with the Hero they are dealing with. A Hero's business details are shared with the Client.
• Hero bank details on invoices. When a Hero sends an invoice, the payment details they chose (account name, sort code, account number) are shown on the invoice and sent to that Client by email. Email is not a fully secure channel, and once sent we cannot recall it.
• Reviews are shown publicly with the reviewer's first name.
• Our team. A small number of authorised people at Lancelot can access account data, conversations, reports, and disputes where needed to provide support, keep the Platform safe, and investigate complaints.

6. Location data

• Device location. If you allow it, the app reads your device's location while you are using it so that Lance can find Heroes near you or understand where a job is. We store the coordinates, and the town, country, and time zone derived from them, on your account, and we update them when you use the app. We do not track your location in the background. You can turn location off in your device or browser settings at any time and type a town or postcode instead.
• Addresses. When you save or give an address, we convert it into map coordinates so that distances can be worked out, and store both.
• What Heroes see. A Hero sees a Client's exact address only in the context of a job with that Client. Public Hero pages show a general area, not a home address.

We use Google Maps to turn coordinates into place names and addresses into coordinates. We do not look up your location from your IP address. Before September 2026 we did, once, to pre-fill a rough town for accounts that had never shared a location; if your account still carries one, you can clear it in the app or ask us to.

7. Payments

Today, Clients pay Heroes directly, for example by bank transfer, outside Lancelot. We do not process payments, we never hold your money, and we do not collect card details. The only payment data we hold is the bank details a Hero adds for their invoices (see sections 2 and 5) and the record each side keeps of what was invoiced and paid.

If we introduce card payments, they will be handled by a regulated payment provider, and we will update this policy before they are switched on.

8. Lance, AI, and automated processing

Lance is an AI agent. To work, it sends the following to our AI provider, Google Cloud (Vertex AI, Gemini models), acting on our instructions:

• what you say to Lance, including photos and voice notes (voice notes are transcribed by the same service);
• the earlier conversation, so that Lance can follow it; and
• information from your account that is relevant to the request, such as your profile, addresses, bookings, quotes, invoices, availability, or a support report, and, where you are dealing with someone else, the details of theirs that you are entitled to see.

If a Hero deals with you, your details go too. When a Hero asks Lance about a job, the Client's name, address, job details, and messages in the shared conversation are sent to the AI provider as part of the Hero's request, even if the Client has never used Lance and even if they have no account. The same is true the other way round. This is how Lance can quote, book, and invoice on a Hero's behalf.

We also use the same service to write descriptions of photos Heroes upload to their services and gallery, and to check reviews before they are published. That check is automated and can be skipped if the service is unavailable, so it is not a guarantee that every review has been checked; a person looks at anything reported.

We have configured this service to process data in the United Kingdom (London). We use Google's business service, under terms which provide that Google does not use this content to train its models. Google keeps requests and replies in memory, in the same UK location, for up to 24 hours to make repeated requests faster, and may also keep a copy of requests for a limited period to check for misuse of its service, as its terms permit. It does not otherwise retain them.

To keep Lance working well we also record, for each turn, technical details such as timings, token counts, which tools ran, and the length of the message, against your pseudonymous account identifier, with a monitoring service in the European Union. The words themselves do not go to it.

We keep your conversations with Lance in our own database so that you can come back to them and so that Lance can pick up where you left off. We do not use your conversations to train AI models of our own.

Automated decisions. Lance decides which Heroes to put forward and in what order, using the job, the location, the Hero's services, availability, checks, and track record; see How Lance Works. The review check is also automated. Neither produces a legal or similarly significant effect on you without a person being involved: you choose whom to book, and a person reviews any decision to remove a review or restrict an account if you ask. You can ask us for human review of any automated outcome at support@trylancelot.com.

Lance can be wrong. Do not give Lance information about other people that it does not need.

9. Who we share your personal data with

Apart from other users (section 5), we share personal data with:

• Service providers who process data for us, under contract and only on our instructions: hosting and database, sign-in, file storage, AI, AI performance monitoring, maps, text messaging, email, network security, and analytics. The full list, with what each one does and where, is in Who Processes Your Data.
• Professional advisers and authorities, such as lawyers, accountants, insurers, regulators, HMRC, the police, and courts, where needed to run our business, comply with the law, or protect people's safety or rights.
• A successor business. When Lancelot is registered as a company, your data will transfer to that company, which will take over as controller under this policy. If Lancelot is later involved in a merger, sale, or financing, personal data may be transferred as part of it, subject to this policy.

10. International transfers

Our main database and servers are in the European Union, which the UK treats as providing adequate protection, and uploaded files (photos, videos, voice notes, and the certificates and insurance documents Heroes upload for verification) are stored in a Google Cloud data centre in London. Some providers process data in the United States or elsewhere: our sign-in, text-message, email, and network-security providers operate globally.

Where personal data leaves the UK, we rely on a UK adequacy decision (including the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework, where the provider is certified) or on the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum. You can ask us for more detail.

11. How long we keep your personal data

We keep personal data for as long as we need it for the purposes above. As a guide:

• Your account, profile, and conversations with Lance: for as long as your account is open. We are introducing a time limit on how long old Lance conversations are kept, and will update this policy when it is in place.
• Quotes, bookings, invoices, and payment records: for up to six years after the end of the tax year they relate to, because both sides may need them for tax and legal purposes, even after an account is closed.
• Reports, complaints, and disputes: for up to six years after they are closed, in case of a legal claim.
• Records of the terms you accepted: for six years after your account is closed.
• Waitlist data: until you ask to be removed, or until 12 months after the waitlist closes.
• Server logs: for a short period set by our hosting provider, generally no more than 30 days.

An honest note about deletion. We are still building automatic deletion. Today, closing your account is done by our team when you ask (from the app or by email), and once closed it can no longer be signed in to, but your data is not yet erased automatically. To have your data erased, email support@trylancelot.com and we will erase or anonymise it by hand within one month, apart from records we must keep as described above. See Deleting Your Account and Data.

12. How we protect your personal data

We use measures appropriate to the risk, including encryption of data in transit; encryption of bank sort codes and account numbers in our database; short-lived, signed links for private files; phone verification; rate limiting; and restricting staff access to those who need it.

Our server logs record requests and errors and can include identifiers such as an IP address, a user ID, and in some cases an email address or phone number. We are reducing this. Logs are held by our hosting provider for a short period and are accessible only to our team.

No system is completely secure. If we become aware of a personal-data breach that is likely to put your rights at risk, we will notify the Information Commissioner's Office and, where required, you.

13. Cookies, browser storage, and analytics

We use your browser's storage for things the Platform cannot work without, such as keeping you signed in. Beyond that, we use PostHog, hosted in the European Union, to understand how the website and app are used. Here is exactly what that involves.

What is measured. Which screens are opened and which buttons are pressed, in the app and on the website, together with the type of device and browser. Our servers also record outcomes, such as a quote being sent, a booking made, or an invoice paid, with amounts grouped into bands rather than exact figures. Before anything leaves your browser we strip out names, email addresses, phone numbers, addresses, postcodes, message and quote text, bank details, and the links to quotes, invoices, and profiles.

Usage tied to your account. Once you sign in, these events are tied to your account's random identifier, so that we can see how the product works for people over time. We rely on our legitimate interest in improving the Platform for this. It is on by default, and you can turn it off at any time in Account, then Privacy settings ("Share how I use Lancelot"), which stops your browser sending anything and is remembered on that browser. Turning it off does not affect anything else.

Cookies and recordings on the website need your consent. Until you answer the question we show on the website, nothing is stored on your device and visits by a signed-out visitor cannot be linked to each other. If you accept, an identifier is stored so that returning visits can be recognised, and, on our marketing pages only (the home, pricing, and information pages), we may keep a recording of how the page was used, with every piece of typed text and page text masked. We never record inside the app, and never a conversation, a quote, or a payment page. If you decline, nothing is stored and there are no recordings; measurement carries on without linking signed-out visits. Using Lancelot with an account accepts this storage under our Terms of Service, so if you sign in before answering, we treat the question as accepted and do not ask again; a decline made before signing in is kept. You can change your choice at any time from the same Privacy settings.

The full list of what is stored in your browser is in the Cookie Policy.

14. Your rights

You have the right to:

• be informed about how we use your data (this policy);
• access the personal data we hold about you;
• correct inaccurate or incomplete data;
• erase your data in certain circumstances;
• restrict or object to our processing, including an absolute right to object to direct marketing;
• data portability, for data you gave us that we process by automated means on the basis of contract or consent;
• withdraw consent at any time; and
• ask for human review of automated decisions.

To use any of these, email support@trylancelot.com. We may need to confirm your identity. We will respond within one month; we can extend this by up to two months for complex requests and will tell you if so. It is free unless a request is clearly unfounded or excessive. We handle access and portability requests by hand at present, so please allow us the time to gather your data.

15. Marketing

We send marketing emails, such as waitlist and launch updates, only if you asked for them or the law otherwise allows. You can stop them at any time using the unsubscribe link in the email, your email app's own unsubscribe button, or by emailing support@trylancelot.com.

Reminders that Lance sends in a Hero's name about a quote you have not answered or an invoice that is unpaid can be stopped in the same way. Stopping reminders never stops the quote, invoice, or receipt itself reaching you. Sign-in links, booking and cancellation notices, replies in your conversations, and offers on a job you posted cannot be switched off by anyone, because each one tells you about something a person actually did, and you could not use the Platform without them. Your choices are kept in our own database, not by our email provider. Service messages (sign-in links, codes, quotes, invoices, booking updates) are not marketing, and you will receive them while you use the Platform.

16. Children

The Platform is for adults aged 18 and over, as Clients and as Heroes. We do not ask for or verify your age; it is self-declared when you sign up. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 18. If you believe someone under 18 is using the Platform, or that a child's personal data has been given to us, please contact us and we will act quickly, including deleting it.

17. Third-party links and services

The Platform may link to other websites or services. We are not responsible for their privacy practices; please read their policies.

18. Changes to this policy

We will update this policy as the Platform changes, including when Lancelot is registered as a company and when payments are introduced. We will change the date at the top, and tell you about significant changes in the app or by email.

19. Questions and complaints

If you have a question or a complaint about how we handle your data, please contact us first:

• Email: support@trylancelot.com

We will acknowledge a data protection complaint within 30 days and tell you the outcome without undue delay.

You also have the right to complain to the UK's data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.