Handy privacy policy

Handy is run by HandyApp Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales, company number 17153591, registered office 82a James Carter Road, Mildenhall, Bury St. Edmunds, England, IP28 7DE, ICO registration number ZC274092. Handy is run day to day from Poland, so EU data protection law applies to our processing as well as UK law, and Poland's data protection authority (UODO) is our lead authority in the EU. Contact us at support@handyapp.ai, or privacy@handyapp.ai for anything about your data.

Two businesses handle your data on Handy, and each is responsible for its own part:

Where we hold data for your accountant, we act as their processor under our agreement with them. For everything in the first row, we decide how your data is used.

If you're a client:

• Account: your name and preferred name, email, phone number, date of birth, address, country, tax residence, any dependants you list, a profile picture if you add one, your language, and your password or Google sign-in.
• Questionnaire: the countries you file in, your tax years, the kinds of income you have, and your answers about your year, such as where you lived, your family situation and details of each kind of income. Your answers decide which services your return needs, and so your match and your price. Your accountant sees them as a starting point.
• Your return: documents you upload, tasks you complete, messages with your accountant, your approval of the draft and your declaration.
• Tax identifiers: your TFN, NI number or UTR, if you choose to save one (section 6).
• Payments: amounts, dates, refunds, credit notes and chargebacks. Your card details go to Stripe; we never see your full card number.
• Acceptances: which version of our terms you accepted, when, and for which return.
• Support: what you tell us when you contact us.
• Feedback: after a return we matched you for, you and your accountant can each rate the other and leave a comment. Each of you sees what the other said once you've both answered, or after 14 days. The average of the ratings accountants give you is kept with your account, and an accountant holding one of your returns can see it. It isn't used to match you or for any other decision about you.
• Technical: your sign-in history (date, device, IP address and rough location), kept for account security, and the log and device data needed to keep Handy secure and fix faults. We use no analytics or error-tracking services.

If your accountant added you to Handy: the details they enter, and anything you send through a pay link. You may never have created an account. Your accountant tells you they use Handy, normally in their engagement letter or their own privacy notice. Emails about your return that we send for them come in their name and link to this policy. Sign-in, password and account security emails come from Handy and also link to this policy. We never contact you for our own purposes.

If you use our free tools, such as the CARF checker: we don't keep your answers. They stay in your browser, and the checker asks for no email address.

If you ask us about a country we don't cover yet: your email, the country, the kinds of income you have, and anything you write to us. We use it only to tell you when we cover that country. To withdraw, write to privacy@handyapp.ai.

If you're an accountant: your name, contact and business details; your identity and credential checks, including your professional registrations and their expiry dates, and your anti-money-laundering supervisor and reference; the countries, services, languages and prices you offer, your years in practice and your availability; your firm and your role in it; your tax registration; your Stripe account status and, if you give them to us, your payout bank details; your invoice details; your record on Handy (client ratings, on-time filing, refunds, disputes, and how you accept or hand back work); and your acceptance of the accountant agreement, with its time, your IP address and your browser. If you apply to join Handy, for yourself or for a firm, we also hold your application and the documents you send with it, including if we don't approve it.

When we decide how your data is used (we're the controller):

When we act for your accountant (we're their processor):

Decisions our software makes on its own. Some decisions on Handy are made by software following fixed rules, without a person choosing each time. None of them uses AI. This table lists the ones that could significantly affect you, the information each uses, and what you can do if you disagree. It doesn't describe how much weight each piece of information carries.

We don't sell your data and we don't use it for advertising. Our staff use Claude, an AI assistant made by Anthropic, to help build and fix Handy. It works with our code and with test accounts, not with your personal data.

We never sell your data or share it for marketing.

Before anything moves, we show you what will move, name your current and your new accountant, say where the data is stored, and ask you to confirm. We keep a dated record of that confirmation.

If you paid your first accountant, they keep read-only access to their own work and their payment records, so they can keep their own professional records.

This covers your Australian tax file number (TFN), and your UK National Insurance number and Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR).

• Who asks and why: your accountant, named at the field, asks for it to prepare and file or lodge your tax return, and only once you have an accountant for that return: after you accept their terms, or when your own accountant holds your return on Handy. That is the only purpose it is held for.
• Our role: HandyApp Ltd hosts it for your accountant, as their service provider. We never use it ourselves: not for matching, identity checks, or anything else. While no accountant you've shared a UK number with can open it, for example after you change accountant, we hold it only for you, so you can share it again.
• At the field itself: a short notice names your accountant, says why they ask for it and how long it's kept, and we record your agreement to share it with that accountant and the version of the notice you saw. For a TFN, the notice also says you're giving it to your accountant and Handy only stores it for them.
• Your choice: you don't have to give it. For a TFN: your accountant asks for it under the Taxation Administration Act 1953, because they act for you in your tax affairs, and uses it only to prepare and lodge your tax return and deal with the Australian Taxation Office for you. It isn't an offence not to give it. If you don't give it to your accountant at all, they may not be able to lodge your return online for you, and your assessment may be delayed. You can tell your accountant you don't have one, or that you'd rather give it another way.
• Where it's kept: Your identifier is encrypted, in our database in Ireland. Only you, and an accountant you agreed to share it with, can reveal it: while they work on your return, and for 30 days after it's filed or closed. Every reveal is recorded, and you can see who opened it and when. No Handy screen, tool or export shows it to our staff.
• Who else receives it: no one through Handy. Your accountant copies it into the software they file or lodge with.
• How long: deleted 30 days after your last return in that country is filed or closed, straight away if you delete it yourself, or within a day of your closing your account. A TFN is also deleted within a day of the last accountant you shared it with losing access to it, for example after you change accountant, and your new accountant asks again. Your accountant keeps their own record of it, under their professional rules.
• On documents and in messages: please cross out your TFN on documents before uploading them, and don't send it in messages. Handy asks you to check a message that looks like it contains a TFN before it's sent and, if your accountant has asked for it, offers the secure field instead.
• Complaints: to us first at privacy@handyapp.ai. For a TFN you can also complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).

Our database, file storage and app servers are in Ireland, and database backups are kept for 7 days. Requests to Handy pass through our host's global network, so a data centre near you can handle a request, including your sign-in cookie, before it reaches Ireland. When you or your accountant open a file, our storage provider's network can keep a copy of it near the person opening it, to deliver it faster. Your data can also be reached from other places: by your accountant, by our providers, and by Handy's own staff giving support, some of whom work outside the UK and Australia.

We use no analytics, error-tracking or video services.

Safeguards for these transfers outside the UK and the EU: for Supabase and Resend, the EU standard contractual clauses with the UK Addendum, in their data processing agreements; for Vercel, the EU standard contractual clauses with the UK international data transfer agreement, in its data processing agreement; for Stripe and Google Workspace, their certification under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and its UK Extension, with the standard contractual clauses as a fallback. You can ask us for a copy.

Your accountant may be in another country. If your accountant works from Australia, the UK or elsewhere, they access your data from there. You see their business address before you accept their terms. If your accountant is outside the UK or the EU, our agreement with them covers that transfer with the EU standard contractual clauses and the UK Addendum to them, wherever the law requires a safeguard. You can ask us for a copy. Australian clients' data held in Ireland is protected to a standard equivalent to the Australian Privacy Principles.

When you close your account, we delete your account details, questionnaire answers and settings. Your returns, with their documents, messages and tasks, stay with the accountant who worked on them, read-only, for the period above. We also keep the payment, invoice and acceptance records the law requires. You can't close your account while a return you've paid for, or one your own accountant bills you for, is open. Returns no one has paid for yet are withdrawn when you close. You can close your account in Settings, under Data and privacy.

• Access follows the return: an accountant sees a return only while they hold it, and their firm sees only what section 4 describes.
• Saved tax identifiers are encrypted with a key kept outside our database, so someone with database access sees only scrambled text, apart from the last four characters, which we keep so you can recognise it. Every reveal is recorded.
• Tax identifiers are kept out of our emails, notifications, search, exports, PDFs and logs.
• Data is encrypted in transit. Our database provider encrypts the database and file storage at rest.
• Admin access to Handy requires two-step sign-in, and admin changes are recorded.
• If there's a data breach the law requires us to report, we report it to the regulator that law names: the ICO in the UK, UODO in the EU, or the OAIC in Australia. We tell you too where it's likely to put you at high risk, and, for an Australian notifiable breach, whenever we report it. For data we hold for your accountant (your return and your saved tax identifier), we tell your accountant within 24 hours of becoming aware of it and help them tell you and the regulator. For a TFN, if your accountant doesn't tell you and the OAIC, we do.

Where the law that applies to you gives you the right, you can ask us to:

• give you a copy of your data;
• correct it;
• delete it, unless we must keep it (section 8);
• restrict or object to how we use it;
• send data you gave us to you or another service in a usable format, where we use it on the basis of contract or consent.

Your right to object. Where we use your data on the basis of legitimate interests (section 3), you can object at any time. We then stop, unless we have compelling legitimate grounds that override your interests, rights and freedoms, or need the data for a legal claim.

Write to privacy@handyapp.ai. We answer within one month. For data we hold for your accountant (your return and your tax identifier), your accountant decides, and we pass your request to them straight away and tell you we have. You can delete your saved tax identifier yourself at any time.

Complaints: to us first. In the UK you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk). In Australia you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (oaic.gov.au), including about your TFN. If you live or work in the EU, you can also complain to the data protection authority there, or to our lead authority in the EU, Poland's UODO (uodo.gov.pl).

We follow the Australian Privacy Principles, whether or not the small business exemption applies to us.

• Children: Handy is for people aged 18 or over. If we learn we hold data about someone younger, we stop further use of the account, restrict access to it, find out how it was created, and keep only what an accountant must keep for work already done.
• Cookies: see our cookie policy at handyapp.ai/cookies.
• Changes: we tell you about material changes to this policy in advance where we can. Changes the law or security require can apply straight away.
• Contact: privacy@handyapp.ai, or HandyApp Ltd at the registered office in section 1.

Effective 1 November 2026. Version 2026-11-01.