It took me some time to realize that the profile I created here with many personal details and photos and names of pets and such is completely public to anybody who wants to look at it, not just THS members.
I’m on a 3-month pause at the end of which I expect to not renew due to the new fees and some other things. But I would really like to take my personal photos down now and I seem to have lost the ability to edit my profile.
Can you just delete it all now?
Maybe being on a 3 month pause may prevent you from editing your profile. If that’s it I suggest unpausing, editing, confirm autorenew is off and then let the membership expire.
Member support don’t read the forum - you can have a live chat with an agent ) by asking to speak to a human ) or e-mail support@trustedhousesitters.com
If you want all of your data including reviews received or written by you to be removed you can e-mail privacy@trustedhousesitters.com
When you sign up as a THS member you first have to agree to the privacy policy
Be aware that when you ask THS to delete it all, they will really delete it all, and unless you pay, you can not go and copy anything.
If you create a free account, you can go and see your profile and screen shot anything you like.
Thank you that’s an important caution. I already screenshot everything I wanted before I paused.
You know I’m actually someone who does read privacy policies because online privacy is important to me. And there is no section addressing the fact that anyone can put in a name and fake email and access the entire site with all the personal photos personal information of all of us. I’m guessing in strict legalese this is covered by their use of the word “users” but I assumed users to be members. I guess my bad, but that is very sketchy.
“Other users. Certain information of your personal data may be shared with other users of the Platform as part of the normal operation of the Services (for example your uploaded profile picture, sitter profile/listing will be accessible to all users). "
They can’t put in a “fake email”. Since you have to use a working email address it cannot be “fake”.
It is preventing me from editing my profile. And as soon as I hit resume it wants to charge me so there’s no way for me to edit my profile without that. I guess I have to just reach out and ask them to delete it permanently.
It also shows on the availability calendar showing when sitters are away from home….
You could have tried this yourself before commenting but if you don’t want to, I’ll confirm that yes you absolutely can. I’ve done it twice. The last one I put in was LS@fu.com - totally made up. I did not have to wait to get an email and click a link it just let me right in. I typed in a city and started browsing sitter profiles.
…though it would hardly be better if a real email was required since anybody can make a throwaway Gmail.
It is my opinion that this info: photos, bio, place we live, etc, should only be available only to paid, active members.
The THS privacy policy is (perhaps intentionally) opaque on this point and that’s not cool.
Annoying, but not surprising. After all, the from t page goes “create a FREE account”, with which you can not do anything with so yeah it is free… in the strict sense.
Free account you cant do anything with but snoop when people are away from their homes…
In the privacy policy there are a couple of sentences explaining that
“If you join TrustedHousesitters and create a user account, you are a “Registered User”. If you are using the Services as a paying customer, you are a “Member”.
This is in the policy updated Oct 2025 - I don’t know if this explanation was in the previous versions of the privacy policy .
I do see that distinction there. I still think it’s sleazy. Surely THS knows that if members are aware when they create their profiles and listings that anyone in the world can view them, they would either not join or put fewer personal details.
I personally would not have put a full face photo of myself on my profile if I had known that. I wouldn’t have put my real location which is a rather small town, and I doubt I would have talked about my experience caring for my children and other personal details like pet photos and names. I included those thinking that my audience was only potential house sit homeowners.
But it’s not like I’m suing THS over this, I’m just leaving (left today actually) and warning others.
My Reddit post immediately got a bunch of comments from people who also did not know that. So the fact that I didn’t go through the privacy policy with a sufficiently fine comb suggests that many of us made that assumption also.
Free to creep on (primarily female) sitters, learn their hometown, see pictures of them, learn the names of their pets, and any other personal info they shared with the flawed understanding that only homeowners and perhaps other sitters would see that information.
It just confirms that this company doesn’t GAF about us.
I mean I am on dating platforms. My privacy is as good as gone.
I think it is more a risk for the host, but probably I am living in a too safe country and dont realize how bad it can get.
Please THS, perhaps warn Hosts not to start their post with their full name…eg., Mrs. Mary Brown at Paradise Village, UK. Very dangerous if thieves cruising the www see the name, pictures of the house contents, the village, the absence time, etc. It’s very easy to locate residence by a few vague questions to locals! We know of Sitters who actually helped load the garage contents into a stolen truck …. thieves had all the information to convince the Sitters they were legitimate Movers! The Hosts were uncontactable as away on a cruise ship (stated in Sit details, ”We’re going on a cruise so can’t be contacted!”).
@Tasmazias yes I see this quite a bit, using their names as a header. I think it is the much older generation who grew up using their name as an introduction, I did. So they assume it is courteous to do this and I totally understand why. But a little education on the issue to the HO would not be out of line, it is again just courtesy I think.
I think some owners, particularly the older generation, don’t realise when they see they have to give a Title to their listing, that it doesn’t mean their name title e.g Mrs Betty Smith.
@temba you and I are definitely on the same page today 
It is somewhat about physical safety but due me, not really. It’s more about online safety, identity theft, things like that. I keep all my social media private limited to friends only. I do that for a reason because I don’t want my life, my photo, publicly searchable on the web.
And yes if you have a stalker this doesn’t help. I don’t think that “safe” countries are free of those, or scraping by AI facial recognition software.
And you made a conscious choice to be on dating platforms, understanding what privacy level there was even if it is zero.
However, almost everyone that I’ve spoken to about this today did NOT know that their sitter profiles were completely public to anyone - or any bot.
I might have joined anyway but I certainly would have written my profile differently and not uploaded photos of my face.
Unfortunately that horse has left the barn, in our cases.
THS could do a much better job than they do if they cared about our privacy at all. But it seems clear that their use of us for their marketing is the most important thing.