Privacy policy

• A business’s identity and documents are shown only to buyers the seller approves under an NDA.
• Identity documents are seen only by our compliance staff and administrators. Photo IDs, selfies and proofs of funds are deleted 90 days after the check is decided.
• Sellers see a buyer’s funds as a dated band, never a balance.
• Uploaded files are encrypted when they are stored.
• We do not sell personal information, show advertising, or use advertising or third-party tracking cookies.

From everyone with an account

• Your name, email address and password. We store only a scrambled form of the password (a hash), never the password itself.
• Your messages, offers, saved listings and searches, and notification settings.
• The NDAs you sign: the exact text, the name you typed, the time and your IP address.

From sellers

• Answers about you and the business, including confidential details such as its legal name, address and tax ID.
• The business documents you upload: tax returns, profit and loss statements, bank statements, leases and the like.
• A photo ID and a selfie, and a phone number if you give one.

From buyers who choose to add them

• A profile: what you are looking for, how you plan to pay, your timeline and experience.
• A photo ID and a selfie, and proof of funds.

Automatically

• IP addresses, for security, to limit repeated attempts, and to record who signed what. Listing views are counted once per visitor per day, using a code made from your IP address and browser that changes every day.

• To run the marketplace: show listings, deliver messages, process access requests and offers.
• To check listings and people: compare documents with what sellers entered, and confirm identities and funds.
• To keep people safe: hide contact details before access is approved, hold back messages that ask for money, and review reports.
• To tell you about your account, your listings and the searches you saved, as your notification settings allow.
• To meet legal obligations, and to keep a record of verification decisions and staff actions.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not use it for advertising.

Each member of our staff can open only what their role needs. Every time staff open a verification case or an identity document, it is recorded in our log of staff actions.

Proof of funds shows to sellers as current for 90 days after it was checked, and then as out of date.

We share information with service providers who help us run NextOwner, such as hosting and email, only as far as they need it. They are listed under Service providers.

Software reads the documents sellers upload and compares them with what the seller entered. When AI reading is switched on, the contents of business documents, and the printed text on the front of a photo ID or a proof of funds, are sent to an AI service that reads them for us. [Name of the AI provider and its data handling terms]

Selfies are never sent to it, and software is never asked to compare or recognize faces. A member of our compliance team does that. Software flags mismatches; a person makes every approval decision.

• Uploaded files are encrypted when stored, kept outside the public website, and served only to people allowed to see them.
• Photos are rebuilt when they are uploaded, which removes hidden details such as the location they were taken.
• Sensitive fields, such as phone numbers, are stored encrypted.
• Documents opened in a data room carry the viewer’s name as a watermark, and each opening is recorded for the seller.
• Staff actions and verification decisions are written to a log built so that any later change to it can be detected.

• Photo IDs, selfies and proofs of funds are deleted 90 days after the check is decided. They are never deleted while the check is pending. The record that a check was made, its result and when, is kept.
• Business documents are kept while the listing exists and for [retention period after a listing closes].
• When you delete your account, your name and email are removed, your profile, saved items and notifications are cleared, and every session ends. Records that others rely on stay: signed NDAs, messages the other person received, offers, verification records and the log of staff actions.

We use a few cookies, all of them needed for the site to work as you expect:

• One that keeps you signed in, and a separate one for staff in the back office.
• One that remembers your light or dark appearance.
• One that remembers your time zone, so dates and times show correctly.
• One that skips the opening animation, used by automated checks.

We do not use advertising or third-party tracking cookies, and pages load no scripts from other companies.

• You can see and correct your account details in your account settings, and your buyer profile on your buyer passport.
• You choose which documents a buyer with an approved NDA can open, and you can remove a buyer’s access at any time.
• You can delete your account once you have no live listings and no open offers.
• [Rights under the privacy laws that apply in each country and state served, and how to exercise them]

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will tell you before it takes effect. This version is dated [version date].

Questions about privacy: [privacy contact]. See also how to stay safe and how verification works.