Privacy Notice
Alfred Go, sole proprietor ("UpaKwarto", "we"), operates upakwarto.com and the booking pages at <property>.upakwarto.com. This notice explains what personal data we hold, why, and what you can ask us to do about it. It is written to the Data Privacy Act of 2012 (RA 10173) and its IRR.
- Personal Information Controller: Alfred Go, sole proprietor
- Based in: Cebu, Philippines
- Data Protection Officer: Alfred Go — support@upakwarto.com
1. Who this covers
Three groups, and we hold different things about each.
Hosts — people who create an UpaKwarto account to manage their rentals. Guests — people who book a stay, either through a host's booking page or whose details reach us from an OTA calendar. Team members — staff and cleaners a host invites.
Guests do not have accounts with us. Their data reaches us because a host uses UpaKwarto to run the property they booked.
2. What we collect
From hosts
- Name, email address, mobile number
- A password, stored only as an argon2id hash — we cannot read it
- Google account identity, if you sign in with Google
- Business details you enter: business name, registered name, TIN, contact
details, and the addresses of your properties
- The IP address a password reset was requested from
- An audit log of significant actions taken in your account, including the
before and after state of what changed
From hosts seeking a verified badge — sensitive personal information
- Government-issued identification
- Business registration documents: DTI, SEC, BIR Form 2303, mayor's permit
These are held in separate, private storage with no public URL. They are readable only by UpaKwarto staff reviewing them and by members of the organisation that uploaded them, and only through an authenticated request that is checked against our records each time. They never appear on a booking page.
From guests
- Name, email address, mobile number
- Booking details: dates, unit, number of guests, requests you write
- Payment references and, if you upload one, a screenshot of your receipt
Some of this reaches us from Airbnb, Booking.com, Agoda or Vrbo through the calendar feeds a host connects. Those feeds frequently contain no contact details at all.
From guests who leave a review
- A star rating, what you wrote, and the name you chose to be shown as
- Which stay it was about, including where it was booked and its dates
After a stay, a guest with an email address on the booking may be sent a private link to review it. Writing one is optional. A review is public: the rating, the text, the name you chose, the month of the stay and where it was booked are shown on that host's booking page, and the review page says so before you post. Your email address, full name and exact dates are not shown.
Automatically
- Standard server logs at our hosting provider
- A cookie storing your language choice, and a session cookie once signed in
We do not use advertising or analytics trackers.
3. Why, and on what basis
| Purpose | Basis |
|---|---|
| Running the account a host asked for | Performance of a contract |
| Sending booking confirmations and reminders to guests | Contract, and the host's legitimate interest in running their stay |
| Asking a guest for a review after their stay | The host's legitimate interest in feedback on their stay |
| Publishing a review a guest chose to write | Consent — given by posting it |
| Deciding a host's appeal against a review | Legitimate interest in keeping reviews honest and lawful |
| Password resets, email verification | Contract |
| Reviewing verification documents | Consent — a host chooses to send these and can decline |
| Taking payment for a subscription and matching a reference | Contract, legal obligation to keep records |
| Fraud prevention and support | Legitimate interest |
| Keeping accounting records | Legal obligation under Philippine tax rules |
Sensitive personal information — the identity and business documents in the verification flow — is processed only with the host's consent, given by choosing to submit them. Consent can be withdrawn; see section 7.
4. Who else sees it
We use these processors. All hold data on our instruction.
| Processor | What it holds | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Vercel | Application hosting, server logs | Functions in Singapore; builds in the USA |
| Neon | The database — everything in section 2 except files | Singapore |
| Amazon Web Services (S3) | Photos, receipts, verification documents | Singapore |
| Resend | Outgoing email and its delivery logs | Tokyo, Japan |
| Sign-in identity, only if a host uses Google sign-in | Global |
We do not sell personal data, and we do not share it for anyone else's marketing.
A guest's data is visible to the host they booked with. That is the point of the service. Hosts are separate controllers of the guest data in their own account and are responsible for their own compliance.
Reviews are public. Anyone can read a published review on the host's booking page, and the host can publish a reply beneath it. A host cannot edit or delete a review. They can ask UpaKwarto to remove one on narrow grounds — abuse, personal details, not about that stay, or not written by the guest — and the review is hidden while we decide.
Staff access. UpaKwarto staff can sign in to a host's account to provide support. Every such session is recorded in that organisation's audit log, visible to the host, and marked as an impersonation.
5. International transfers
Our processors are outside the Philippines, principally in Singapore and the United States. Each is engaged under contractual terms requiring them to protect the data and to process it only on our instruction, as RA 10173 requires for transfers abroad.
6. How long we keep it
- Account and booking records — for as long as the account exists, and for
ten years afterwards, to meet Philippine tax record-keeping rules.
- Archiving a property does not delete its bookings, guests or earnings.
They remain available to the host, deliberately, because they are business records.
- A suspended or unpaid account keeps all of its data. Access is reduced,
nothing is erased.
- Verification documents — deleted once we have recorded a decision on
them. The badge is the outcome; we do not need to keep your identification to keep the badge, and holding it would be a risk to you for no benefit.
- Reviews — published until the guest asks us to take theirs down, or we
remove it after an appeal. A removed review is kept, unpublished, as the record of what was decided and why.
- Uploaded files no record refers to are deleted automatically after 24
hours.
- Sync logs are pruned automatically.
7. Your rights
Under RA 10173 you may ask to be informed, to access what we hold, to correct it, to object to processing, to erase or block it, to data portability, to damages, and to lodge a complaint with the National Privacy Commission.
A host can correct most of their own and their guests' details in the app. For anything else, or to withdraw consent for verification documents, write to support@upakwarto.com. We will respond within 15 days.
A guest who wants their review taken down, or the name on it changed, can write to the same address from the email the review link was sent to. We will unpublish it; that is how you withdraw consent to its publication.
Withdrawing consent for verification documents means we delete them and remove any verified badge. It does not affect your account or your bookings.
8. Security
Passwords are hashed with argon2id. Channel credentials are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM. Verification documents are held outside public storage and served only after checking the requester against our records. Traffic is encrypted in transit.
No system is perfectly secure. If a breach occurs that puts your rights at risk, we will notify you and the National Privacy Commission as RA 10173 requires.
9. Children
The service is not for anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect their data.
10. Changes
We will post changes here and, for anything significant, tell account holders by email.
_Version 2026-09-19 · Last updated 19 September 2026_