Privacy

Written to be read, not to protect us. Everything below describes what the software actually does — if you find a difference, that's a bug and we want to hear about it.

Who we are. Doorstep is run by Louis George Scott, trading as Doorstep, who is the data controller for everything described here. Contact: hello@doorstepjobs.co.uk. Registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) as a data controller, registration reference ZC254463.

If you're looking for work

What we take

• Your CV, and the details we read out of it — name, contact details, where you've worked.
• The postcode you type, how far you'll travel, and the kinds of work you want.
• The letters we draft for you, including any edits you make.
• Whether you approved or skipped each letter.

What we do with it

We use it to find employers near you, write letters that are true about you, and send you the few emails described just below. That's all. We don't sell it, we don't share it with advertisers, and we don't build a profile of you for any other purpose. (The only thing an advertiser can ever hear from us is described under counting visits, and the Meta question — and only if you say yes.)

Your CV is sent to Anthropic's Claude API to be read and to write your letters. Anthropic processes it on our behalf and does not use it to train models. If we're running without an AI key, your CV never leaves our server at all.

Emails we send you

A few emails go to you, never to anyone else, and none of them carries a word of your CV or your letters. None of them goes to an employer.

• Your Doorstep link, once your letters are written, to the email address you gave for replies. It opens your letters on any phone or computer until they are deleted after 30 days — so keep it to yourself: anyone with the link can read the letters. It does not carry your plan.
• Follow-ups ready, on a paid plan, when a place hasn't replied and we've written a follow-up for you to read. Its link lets you send those follow-ups from any browser; nothing goes unless you press Send.
• After you pay, to the email address you gave Stripe: your plan is live, with a link that brings your plan to another browser after you confirm it on our page. If Stripe didn't pass an address on, it goes to the address you gave for replies, and its link opens your letters only.
• Getting your plan back, only if you ask for it under "Already paying?" on the pricing page: a sign-in link to the email address you typed. We look that address up in Stripe to find your plan, and if there's no plan on it, nothing is sent. The link works for an hour, and only while the plan is live.

We keep a note that each email went (which kind, which search, and when) — not the address it went to. Those notes go after 30 days, with your search.

New-openings alerts — only if you ask

If you sign up to hear when somewhere new opens near you, we keep your email address and your search area (postcode, distance, and the kinds of work you picked) for exactly that purpose and nothing else. It works like this:

• Nothing is sent until you click the confirmation link we email you. A request nobody confirms deletes itself after 7 days.
• At most one email a week, and only when something has actually opened. Silence means nothing opened.
• Every email has a one-click stop link. Using it deletes your address and search area immediately — there is no "preference centre", just deletion.
• The address is never used for anything else, never shared, and never added to any other list.

If you pay

Payments are taken by Stripe, on Stripe's own payment page. Stripe receives your card details, the email address you give it, and your billing country or postcode where it asks for them. Your card details never reach our servers, and we never see them.

What we send Stripe is the random id from your cookie (so a payment can be matched to your browser without an account) and which plan you chose. What we get back and keep is Stripe's reference numbers for the payment. That is how getting your plan back on a new device works: you give the email you paid with, and Stripe finds the payment.

Pay once is a single payment. Nothing is stored for a future charge, and nothing more is ever taken.

Stripe keeps payment records for as long as the law requires for tax and fraud prevention, under its own privacy policy. Our 30-day deletion of your CV, searches and letters is not affected by paying.

How long we keep it

Thirty days. After that your CV, your searches and your letters are deleted automatically. This is enforced in code, not by a promise — the job runs every six hours. These are the only things kept for longer:

• The anonymous reply record described just below — with no end date, and with nothing in it that could identify you.
• The free-letters note described under "Your IP address": the random id in your cookie and a hash of your IP address, kept with no end date so the two free letters can't be claimed twice. Doorstep stopped offering free letters on 9 October 2026, so no new notes are made. That note is linked to your browser's cookie, so we treat it as personal data.
• Which ad brought you — only if you arrived from an ad: the note described under counting visits, and the Meta question, kept next to the random id in your cookie for up to 180 days, whether or not you buy. It is linked to your cookie too, so we treat it as personal data.
• If you pay, Stripe's reference numbers for the payment next to the random id in your cookie, so your plan keeps working and can be found again from the email you paid with. These have no end date.
• New-openings alerts, if you confirmed them: your email address and search area, until you use the stop link (an unconfirmed request goes after 7 days).
• Which employers were written to, for 12 months, so that if a business asks what was sent to them we can answer honestly. That record contains the employer's details and the date, not your CV.

What we keep indefinitely

If you tell us whether a letter got a reply, we keep an anonymous record of that fact alone: the letter's position in your list, the type of business, whether it went by email or by hand, roughly how far away it was, and yes or no. It has your name nowhere in it, no employer name, no contact details, and nothing from your CV. Everything else that outlives the 30-day deletion is listed, with how long it is kept, under "How long we keep it" above.

We keep it because it is the only way to find out whether this service actually helps anyone, and whether writing sixteen letters is better or worse than writing eight. Telling us is entirely optional and nothing changes if you don't.

What we never do

We never connect to your email account. We have no access to your inbox, we cannot read your mail, and we cannot send anything as you. That is the central design decision of the product and it isn't going to change.

What we do instead depends on how this server is set up, and you'll be told which before you approve anything:

• If sending is switched on, we send the letter from our own address, applications@doorstepjobs.co.uk, with your name on it and your address as the reply address. We send from our domain rather than yours because a letter that claims to come from your email account but leaves our server fails the checks mail providers run, and lands in spam. When the employer replies, their answer goes straight to your inbox. It never reaches us, and we never see it.
• If sending is switched off, nothing leaves this server. The letter opens in your own email app and you send it yourself.

Either way you approve every letter individually, one at a time, and nothing is sent that you have not read.

Young people

Doorstep is for anyone 16 or over. If you're 16 or 17, we hold exactly what we hold for anyone else, for exactly as long — your CV, your searches and your letters are deleted after 30 days — and nothing extra is asked of you. A parent or guardian can ask us to delete what we hold about you, just as you can: email hello@doorstepjobs.co.uk. Our Instagram and Facebook ads are aimed at adults. We never ask your age, and we never tell Meta anyone's age or date of birth: the messages described under counting visits, and the Meta question carry nothing about it.

If you're a business we wrote to, or a place to walk into

You're receiving this notice under Article 14 of the UK GDPR, because we obtained your details without asking you directly.

Where we got your details

• The Food Standards Agency food hygiene register — a public dataset of registered food businesses.
• OpenStreetMap — open mapping data.
• Your own website, where a contact address is published on it — and your company number, where your site shows it.
• Companies House, to check whether you're a registered company: by your name, or by the company number your own website shows.

We hold your business name, address, business type, and a published contact address where one exists. We never guess an email address. If it isn't published on your own site, we don't have one — and without one we never email you.

A letter reaches you from applications@doorstepjobs.co.uk, carrying the applicant's name. Replying goes to the applicant, not to us — we never see your answer. If you would rather not hear from anyone through Doorstep again, the opt-out below is the way to stop it.

Places to walk into

Since 7 October 2026, a business we may not email can still be shown to a person looking for work as a place to walk into — but only if it is on the Food Standards Agency's food hygiene register. They read a letter on screen, download it as a one-page PDF, print it and hand it over in person. We never email you, and nothing is sent to you by us.

• What is shown. Only your public register details: your business name, address and postcode, the kind of business, and your food hygiene rating with the date of that inspection — plus how far you are from the person, and your opening hours or phone number where OpenStreetMap lists them. The letter they print is addressed to you by business name ("Dear Anchor Inn team,"); it carries their own name and contact details, never an email address of yours.
• What we keep. That the letter was downloaded, and — if they tell us — that they handed it in, kept on their search and deleted with it after 30 days.
• Why. Legitimate interests: helping someone, often young and new to work, apply to a local business in person, the way people always have. We've weighed that against yours: only register details already published by the Food Standards Agency, letters a person has read and chosen, the same weekly limits as email, and a permanent opt-out.
• Making it stop. The opt-out works for walk-ins too: give your business name (an email address or website domain we know is yours works too) and, from that moment, Doorstep stops offering your business as a place to walk into — in searches already made as well as new ones — and nobody can download a letter to you.

Why we're allowed to

Our lawful basis is legitimate interests: helping people find work, and putting them in touch with employers who may be hiring. We've weighed that against your interests, which is why the volume is capped, the letters are reviewed by a person before sending, and opting out is one click and permanent.

Where you're a registered company, PECR's electronic mail rules don't apply to corporate subscribers. Where you're a sole trader or an unincorporated partnership — or we can't confirm you're a registered company — we treat you as an individual subscriber and never email you. PECR's rules are about electronic mail; a letter handed to you in person is not electronic mail, so if you're on the food hygiene register you may be shown as a place to walk into, as described above.

Making it stop

Opt out here. It takes effect immediately, applies to every person using Doorstep, and we keep it forever — that record is the only thing we retain about a business that asked us to stop. You can also email hello@doorstepjobs.co.uk and we'll do it for you.

Everyone

Cookies and your browser's storage

No Meta pixel, no ad cookies, no third-party scripts. Nothing on these pages is run by anyone but us. The only thing an advertiser ever hears from us is described under counting visits, and the Meta question — and only if you say yes.

• Our cookie. A random id, signed so it can't be forged. It is how we count the rounds you've run and remember that you've paid, without making you create an account. It is not a name, and it tells us nothing about you.
• A 15-minute code, only when you open an emailed Doorstep link on a new device. While you confirm the link on our page, a one-time random code is kept in a second cookie, so the link can't be opened by someone else. It is used once and deleted, and it is gone after 15 minutes either way.
• Your browser's own storage. Your place in the flow if the page reloads, a half-finished CV so you don't lose it, which CV design you picked, which employers you've already followed up, which version of our Instagram page you were shown (so you see the same one next time), and your answers to its questions until the search starts. All of it stays in your browser. None of it is sent to us — apart from the random visit number, which version of the Instagram page it saw, and your answer to the Meta question, all described next — and your answers to those questions, which become your search when you start it.

Counting visits, and the Meta question

We advertise on Instagram and Facebook, and we'd rather know which ads actually help people than guess. Here is everything that involves:

• Anonymous step counts. When you open the site, your browser makes up a random visit number and keeps it in that tab until you close it. As you go, it tells us which steps the visit reached — arriving, starting, seeing places, picking some, adding a CV or carrying on without one, getting letters written, reaching the payment step, paying — and which ad it came from, if any (the campaign and ad names we put in our own links). We are testing two versions of our Instagram page, so it also says which one the visit saw, and on the version with questions, which questions were answered — never the answers. A payment also notes whether the letters were written with a CV or without one: that yes or no, never the CV. That is the whole record: no IP address, no name, nothing from your CV or your letters. The visit number is not the cookie above, and we don't join the two: it is never stored next to the cookie, and a payment is counted under a visit number of its own, made up at random.
• Which ad brought you. If you arrived from an ad and have the cookie above (it is set when your first search starts), we note that ad's campaign and ad names, which version of our Instagram page you saw, and your answer to the Meta question, next to the random id in the cookie, so that if you buy a plan — that day or weeks later — the purchase counts towards the right ad. This note is kept whether or not you ever buy, for up to 180 days. It holds no visit number, nothing from your CV and nothing about which steps you reached.
• Telling Meta — only if you say yes. If you arrive from an Instagram or Facebook ad, we ask once whether we may tell Meta when you build a round or pay. Say yes and our server — not a Meta script — tells Meta when places are shown to you, when your letters are written, and when a payment goes through, with its price. Nothing is sent for pressing a Pay button. Each message carries the time, the page it happened on (without anything after the "?"), the code Meta added to the ad link you tapped, and the IP address and browser type your visit reached us with, so Meta can match it to the ad. With a payment only, we also send a scrambled copy (a SHA-256 hash) of the email address you gave Stripe, which is how Meta matches a purchase to an account; it can't be turned back into the address. We never send Meta your CV, your letters, the employers, your postcode or your name.
• Why we're allowed to. The step counts are anonymous and only measure how our own service is used. Telling Meta rests on your consent and nothing else: say no, or don't answer, and Meta hears nothing from us. What Meta does with what it receives is covered by Meta's own privacy policy.
• Changing your mind. Your answer lives in your browser, and our note follows whatever it last said. Saying no with the button below, or turning off counting, stops it at once, and we delete the ad link code we were keeping for you. If you clear this site's data, this browser no longer has an answer; the next time it reaches us with the cookie, our note follows it to "no" and the code is deleted. Without the cookie, nothing from that browser can be joined to the note at all, and it is deleted on the 180-day clock. We can't recall what has already been sent; Meta's "Your activity off Meta technologies" setting lets you see and clear it.
• Turning off counting. This browser stops reporting steps at once. If you then buy a plan, our server still counts that one payment — that a payment happened, and whether the letters were written with a CV — with nothing in the count that says whose it was.
• How long. The step counts and the note of which ad a purchase came from are deleted after 180 days. Our audit log records that a message went to Meta — what kind and when, nothing about you — and is deleted after 12 months like the rest of that log.

Your IP address

We never store it. To stop one person overloading the service we store a one-way cryptographic hash of it, which cannot be turned back into an address. Those records are deleted after 30 days, with one exception: when you sent one of the two free letters Doorstep offered until 9 October 2026, we noted that a free letter was used — the random id in the cookie, that hash, the letter's id and the date — and keep that note with no end date, so the two free letters can't be claimed again by clearing cookies. It holds no name, no email address and nothing from your letter or your CV. If you said yes to the Meta question, your address is passed on to Meta with those messages, as described above — and still not stored by us.

Your rights

You can ask for a copy of what we hold, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it — email hello@doorstepjobs.co.uk and we'll respond within a month. If we get it wrong you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.

Where it's kept

On servers in London, United Kingdom (Fly.io, region lhr). Backups are held for 14 days.

Last updated 8 October 2026. Data controller: Louis George Scott, trading as Doorstep. ICO registration reference ZC254463.