Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy describes how Seblea Inc. ("Seblea," "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, shares, and protects information about users ("you" or "your") of the Seblea platform, including our website, web application, and all related services.

This policy applies whenever you access or use Seblea, whether you are browsing listings as a visitor, creating an account, posting a sublease, completing a roommate questionnaire, or communicating with other users through our messaging system. By using Seblea, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy.

When you create a Seblea account, we collect your full name, email address, and a securely hashed version of your password. If you register with a .edu email address, we verify that address to grant you a verified student badge.

We also collect the name of the university or college you attend or recently attended. This information is used to connect you with other students at your institution and to display relevant listings near your campus.

You may choose to provide additional profile information including a biographical description, your major or field of study, expected graduation year, city, and state. This information is displayed on your public profile to help other users learn more about you.

Profile data is provided voluntarily and can be updated or removed at any time through your account settings. The information you share on your public profile is visible to other registered Seblea users.

When you post a sublease listing, we collect property details such as address, rent amount, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, available dates, property type, and a written description. We also collect any photographs you upload of the property.

Photos are stored in Supabase Storage buckets and are displayed publicly alongside your listing. You retain ownership of all photos you upload but grant Seblea a license to display them on the platform as described in our Terms of Service.

If you choose to participate in roommate matching, we collect your responses to our lifestyle questionnaire. This includes information about your sleep schedule, cleanliness habits, noise preferences, social habits, study patterns, dietary preferences, guest policies, and other lifestyle factors.

Your questionnaire responses are used exclusively by our compatibility algorithm to calculate match scores with other users. These responses are visible to other users who view your roommate profile so they can assess compatibility before reaching out.

When you send messages through Seblea's messaging system, the content of those messages is stored in plaintext in our database. Messages are protected by row-level security policies, meaning only the participants in a conversation can access its contents.

Seblea may review message content when necessary for safety and moderation purposes, such as investigating reports of harassment, fraud, or other violations of our Terms of Service. Messages are not end-to-end encrypted.

Seblea requires account verification before you can message other users, post a listing, or use roommate matching. You may choose either of two methods, and both result in the same verification badge on your profile. We do not disclose to other users which method you used.

Student email verification: you provide a school email address ending in .edu, and we send a one-time code to that address. We store the confirmed email address on your profile so that a single school address cannot be used to verify more than one account. The one-time code itself is stored only as a cryptographic hash, is never stored in readable form, and expires after ten minutes. Your student email address is not displayed to other users.

Government ID verification: this is handled by Stripe Identity, our third-party verification provider. You scan a government-issued ID and take a selfie directly through Stripe's secure interface. Seblea does not receive, store, or have access to your identity documents or selfie images. Stripe processes these documents according to its own privacy policy. Seblea receives only your verification status (verified or not verified) and your verified legal name from Stripe. If you verify by this method, your name is locked to the name on your ID and can only be changed by contacting support.

In both cases we also record which method you used and the date you verified.

We use PostHog, a product analytics platform, to understand how users interact with Seblea. PostHog collects data including page views, button clicks, feature interactions, session recordings (visual replays of how you navigate the platform), device information, and feature flag evaluations.

This data helps us identify usability issues, measure the effectiveness of new features, and improve the overall platform experience. Session recordings capture your interactions with the interface but do not record passwords or sensitive form inputs.

When you access Seblea, we automatically collect certain technical information including your IP address, browser type and version, operating system, device identifiers, referring URLs, and cookies.

This data is used for security purposes (such as rate limiting and fraud detection), to ensure the platform functions correctly across different devices and browsers, and to understand general usage patterns.

We use the information we collect to provide and operate the Seblea platform, including displaying your listings to other users, calculating roommate compatibility scores through our matching algorithm, facilitating real-time messaging between users, and processing identity verification requests.

We also use your information for safety and moderation purposes, to enforce our Terms of Service, to communicate with you about your account and platform updates, and to improve and develop new features for the platform. We use aggregated and anonymized data for analytics and research purposes.

Seblea shares data with the following third-party service providers, each for a specific and limited purpose: Stripe Identity processes identity verification documents and returns verification status to Seblea. Resend delivers transactional emails on our behalf, such as verification codes, viewing confirmations, and account notifications. PostHog provides analytics and session recording capabilities to help us improve the platform. Supabase hosts our database and file storage infrastructure. Mapbox provides geocoding services to convert addresses into map coordinates for listing display.

Seblea does not sell your personal data to any third party. We do not share your information with advertisers. We may disclose information if required by law, court order, or government request, or if we believe disclosure is necessary to protect the safety of our users or the public.

We retain your account data, profile information, listings, roommate questionnaire responses, and messages for as long as your account remains active. If you delete your account, we remove your personal data, listings, and roommate profile. Messages you sent are anonymized by removing your identity as the sender, preserving conversation context for other participants.

Identity verification status may be retained after account deletion for safety and fraud prevention purposes. Analytics data is retained according to PostHog's data retention policies. Aggregated, non-personally-identifiable data may be retained indefinitely for research and platform improvement purposes.

Seblea employs multiple layers of security to protect your data. All data transmitted between your device and our servers is encrypted using TLS (Transport Layer Security). Data stored in our database is encrypted at rest. We implement row-level security policies in our database to ensure users can only access data they are authorized to view.

We apply rate limiting on authentication endpoints to prevent brute-force attacks. Our infrastructure is hosted on secure, professionally managed cloud platforms. While we take reasonable measures to protect your information, no method of electronic transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

If you are a California resident, you have the following rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA): the right to know what personal information we have collected about you and how it has been used; the right to request deletion of your personal information; the right to opt out of the sale of your personal information; and the right to non-discrimination for exercising your privacy rights.

Seblea does not sell personal information to third parties. To exercise any of your rights under the CCPA, please contact us at support@seblea.com. We will respond to verifiable consumer requests within 45 days.

Seblea is not an educational institution and is not subject to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Any information you provide to Seblea, including your university name, major, or graduation year, is provided voluntarily by you and is not considered an education record under FERPA.

Seblea does not access, receive, or store any education records from your institution. Your university does not provide any information about you to Seblea. All data on our platform is self-reported by users.

Seblea is intended for users who are at least 18 years of age. We do not knowingly collect personal information from individuals under 18. If we become aware that we have collected personal information from a person under 18, we will take steps to delete that information promptly.

If you believe that a user under 18 has created an account or provided personal information to Seblea, please contact us immediately at support@seblea.com so we can investigate and take appropriate action.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technologies, legal requirements, or other factors. When we make material changes, we will provide notice through email and/or a prominent notice within the platform at least 30 days before the changes take effect.

Your continued use of Seblea after the effective date of any updated Privacy Policy constitutes your acceptance of the revised terms. We encourage you to review this policy periodically to stay informed about how we protect your information.

If you have questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us at support@seblea.com.

Seblea Inc. Email: support@seblea.com