Privacy.
How WhoseInn collects, uses, shares and deletes your personal information, in plain words. It covers the WhatsApp service and this website. Last updated 23 October 2026.
Who we are
WhoseInn is run by REMOLUHLE (PTY) LTD (registration 2024/056058/07), trading as Omeru. Under the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) we are the responsible party for the information described here.
Our Information Officer is Lwazi Ndlovu. Write to hello@omeru.io about anything on this page, or message WhoseInn on WhatsApp, +27 70 573 6794. Registered office: 58 Ophelia Street, Herlear, Kimberley, 8301.
What we collect, and why
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Your WhatsApp number and profile name | To answer you. Everyone who messages WhoseInn. |
| The location you share to search | To show places near you. It is used for that search and not stored, and it is never sent to a map service. |
| Your campus, and whether you pay rent by bursary or in cash | To recommend places near your campus and show the rooms that take how you pay. |
| To verify: full name, email, ID number, a selfie and a photo of your ID | So that everyone here is who they say they are; a person compares the photos. The ID number is kept only as a scrambled code, with its last four digits and the date of birth it contains. The two photos are deleted after 90 days. |
| Conversations with landlords, viewings, saved places, places you looked at | To run the enquiry, and so you can find them again. |
| “Would you stay here?” answers | Only to rank recommendations. Nobody sees them, landlords included. |
| Tenancy records: rent, deposit, payments recorded, leases filed, problems reported, notices, polls, keys | So you and your landlord can run the tenancy, with a record on both sides. |
| House records about conduct, and your reply to them | A landlord can record a broken house rule. You are told what was recorded and can reply; your reply stays beside it. |
| A rating after you move out | Shown on a place only as a total, once there are enough, never one by one. |
| Landlords: the property, its photos and rooms, proof of ownership, an invitation request, a team, money records | To check a place and its owner before it goes live, and to run it. |
| Student card scans | Which landlord looked at your card, and when. You are told each time. |
| Website visits | A random id kept in your browser, the page, the kind of device and where the visit came from, to count visits. No name, number or IP address is stored against a visit. |
| Usage events | Which feature a message went to, and whether a notification was delivered, to see what works. |
Giving us these is voluntary, but without them we cannot do the thing they are for: you can browse places without verifying, but not see one in full, message a landlord or list a property.
Who sees it
- A landlord you message sees your number, your name, what you write, how you pay rent, and their own past dealings with you. Never another landlord's records.
- Your landlord, once you live there, also sees your tenancy and, for the owner only, your verified email.
- Anyone can see a place's public page: its suburb, rooms, rent and distance to campus. Never the street, the pin, or the landlord's name or number.
- People you live with see notices and polls, never your answers or your records.
- Our reviewers see what you send to verify, to check it.
- The suppliers below process it for us. We do not sell personal information or share it for advertising.
Conduct records never appear on a student card. Someone who witnesses a broken rule is anonymous to the person it is about, never to the landlord.
Where it is stored
Some of our suppliers are outside South Africa. POPIA (section 72) allows this where the country has comparable protection, as the European Union does, or where it is needed for the service you asked for.
| Supplier | What it does for us | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | The database, and private storage for ID photos and documents | Ireland (European Union) |
| Koyeb | Runs the WhatsApp service | Germany (European Union) |
| Vercel | Runs this website | United States |
| Meta (WhatsApp) | Carries every WhatsApp message | United States, and worldwide |
| Zoho Mail | Sends our emails | United States |
| OpenStreetMap (Nominatim, Overpass) | Names the suburb of a listing's map pin and what is near it. Only a property's pin is sent, never your location | Europe |
How long we keep it
| What | How long |
|---|---|
| Your selfie and the photo of your ID | 90 days after you send them, then deleted automatically, whether or not you were approved. |
| Everything else about you | Until you delete your data. |
| A past tenancy, its money records, and the leases and receipts filed against it | Kept for the landlord's records, which they need for tax. When you delete your data, your number is removed from the tenancy; a signed lease stays as the paper it is. |
| Usage statistics | Kept; when you delete your data, your number in them is replaced by a random code. |
| A number removed from WhoseInn | The number and the reason it was removed, so the removal stands. Everything else goes when you delete your data. |
People under 18
We verify people 18 and over only. If the ID number you give says you are under 18, verification stops there and nothing you typed is kept: not your name, email or ID number. You can still look at places, and a parent or guardian can ask about one from their own WhatsApp.
If you think we hold information about a child, write to hello@omeru.io and we will delete it.
Your rights, and how to use them
- See what we hold. Type my data to WhoseInn on WhatsApp, or open Account, then Your data, on this website.
- Delete it. Type delete my data on WhatsApp, or use Account, then Your data, then Delete. You are shown what goes and what stays before you confirm, and it happens at once. Two things have to wait: a place you run has to be deleted or handed over first, and while you live somewhere your tenancy cannot be deleted.
- Correct it. If your verification was not accepted, send it again. For anything else, write to us.
- Object, or stop emails. Every news email has a link that stops them. To object to anything else we do with your information, write to us.
- Complain. You may complain to the Information Regulator: inforegulator.org.za, POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za, 010 023 5200, Woodmead North Office Park, 54 Maxwell Drive, Woodmead, Johannesburg, 2191. We would rather hear from you first.
We answer anything you write to us about your information within 30 days.
Emails
The email you verify with receives the records of a tenancy (terms, receipts, filed leases) and now and then news from WhoseInn. Every news email has a link that stops them.
If you run accommodation listed in a public directory, we may have emailed you about listing on WhoseInn. Every one of those emails has a link that stops them for good, and if you delete your data we keep only your address, marked never to be emailed again.
How we protect it
ID numbers are scrambled with a secret key before they are stored. ID photos and documents are in private storage and open only through links that expire in five minutes. The database is closed to everything but our own services. Listing photos are re-saved without the camera's location data whenever our software can read them. If information is ever exposed, we will tell you and the Information Regulator, as POPIA (section 22) requires.
Deleted information can remain for a short time in the encrypted backups our database provider keeps, until they are replaced. Nobody uses those backups except to recover from a failure.
Changes to this notice
We update this page when what we do changes, and change the date at the top.
REMOLUHLE (PTY) LTD trading as Omeru · The free year · Back to WhoseInn