Your privacy

How Renter Shield handles your data · Updated June 2026

Renter Shield is local-first. Your evidence, letters, notes, deadlines, and profile are stored on your device — not on our servers. We can't read your content. This is core to how the app is built.

What stays on your device

The sensitive parts of your tenancy never leave your phone in readable form:

Stays on your device

Your evidence and photos · letters and drafts · incident/communication notes · deadlines and cases · your address, landlord, and tenancy details.

What may leave (limited)

If you choose optional backup or share-links, only data we cannot decrypt leaves your device. App diagnostics, if any, are stripped of personal information before they're sent.

What we don't do

  • We don't sell your personal information.
  • We don't read your evidence, letters, or notes — they're stored locally.
  • We don't require an account to start using core features.
  • We don't use your private content to train models.

Personal-information protection

Before any non-encrypted data could ever leave your device, Renter Shield redacts personal details such as email addresses, phone numbers, and identifiers. The design goal is simple: the protective record of your tenancy belongs to you, and stays with you.

Emergency resources are always reachable

You never have to accept any terms or share any data to reach help. Crisis resources, legal-aid directories, and the 211 line are always available. Call 211 · in a crisis, call or text 988, find free legal aid at lawhelp.org, or call 911 in an emergency.

When you contact us or join our list

Almost everything about Renter Shield is local-first, but a few things do reach us, and we want them stated plainly:

  • Email you give us on purpose. If you enter your address in a signup form on this site, or request account deletion, that address is emailed to hello@rentershield.app so a person can act on it. We use it only to reply, to send the updates you asked for, or to process your deletion request. We do not sell it, rent it, or share it for advertising. Reply to any email to be removed from the list.
  • Your email address, if you give it to us in the app. Setup asks for an email so you can restore your information if you lose your phone. You can skip that step. If you enter one, we receive the address, and — so we can tell you which rules apply — your state and ZIP code. Nothing else from the app is sent with it: not your lease, not your evidence, not your letters, not your notes. We use it to reach you about the beta and about your plan. We do not sell it, rent it, or share it for advertising.
  • What you type into Guardian chat, once AI chat is switched on. AI chat is not active during the closed beta — today the assistant answers on your device with no network call. When it is switched on, your question, your state and your city are sent to a third-party AI provider to generate an answer. Your ZIP is deliberately not sent. Your lease, evidence, letters and notes are never sent. We do not use your content to train models, and we will name the provider here before the feature is enabled.
  • Nothing else from the form. The signup does not read your saved data, evidence, letters, or notes. Those never leave your device.
  • Web fonts. This site currently loads two typefaces from Google Fonts, which means Google receives your IP address when a page loads. We are moving these to our own server to remove that third party. Until then, blocking third-party font requests will not break the site — only the typography changes.

Deletion requests are handled as promptly as we can and never require you to pay, subscribe, or explain why. One honest limitation: deleting inside the app erases everything on that device immediately, but it does not yet reach an email address you already sent us. To have that removed too, use the deletion page or email us, and we will remove it by hand.

Deleting your account and data

You can delete your account and data at any time — see Delete my account & data. Because your record lives on your device, most deletion happens instantly and locally; anything server-side (such as an encrypted sync blob, if you enabled sync) is removed when you ask. Deleting your data never removes your access to the free emergency resources.

Contact

Privacy questions: privacy@rentershield.app · General support: hello@rentershield.app or the support page.

This is a plain-language summary of how Renter Shield handles your data. Renter Shield provides legal information, not legal advice, and is not a law firm.

Your use of Renter Shield is also subject to our Terms of Service.