Privacy policy

Dyna Praxis Holdings Private Limited (UEN 202555530K), of 60 Paya Lebar Road, #06-28 Paya Lebar Square, Singapore 409051 ("we", "us"), operates defects.sg. This policy covers the defects.sg website, the defects.sg app for clients, and the Defects.SG Biz app for renovation firms and defect checkers. We handle personal data in accordance with Singapore's Personal Data Protection Act 2012 (PDPA).

In this policy, a client is a person or business that has renovation or fit-out work done on a property, or takes handover of one, and uses defects.sg to record its defects, including homeowners and businesses and the people who run a project for them, as our Terms of Use say.

1. What we collect

• Account information: your name, email address, and mobile number if you give one. We verify Singapore mobile numbers with a one-time code. We never ask for, store or accept an NRIC or FIN number, and our systems screen them out of anything that could become public.
• Identity checks: when you verify with Singpass, Singpass sends us a reference number for you (not your NRIC or FIN). If you have no Singpass, you can send a photo of your passport page instead. Only a person on our team sees it, and the image is deleted once our team has decided. Either way, we turn the identity into a scrambled reference (a one-way code made with a secret key we keep apart from the data), so that the same person is recognised if they come back. If the check is approved we keep the scrambled passport reference. Either way we keep the decision, who made it, when, and the reason if it was turned down. We never keep a readable passport number. (Legitimate interests: preventing fabricated records.)
• Which side you are on: the first time a verified person owns a project or joins a renovation business or defect checker on defects.sg, we record that choice against the scrambled reference. Once identity checks are required on defects.sg, one person can be on the client side or work for a renovation firm or defect checker, not both. If your situation changes, write to us (section 12); our team can lift it and records why.
• Details from Myinfo: when you verify with Singpass, we will ask Myinfo for seven details, and Singpass shares them only if you agree. Section 1A lists them, what each is for and who sees it.
• Which projects had verified people: for each project we record the scrambled references of its client and its renovator when each was verified, so that a project can be counted towards a grade only when both were. Nothing in this record is published.
• Property information: the address of the property your record is about, its type, and the works involved.
• What you create: defect descriptions, notes and photographs.
• Messages on a defect: what you write in a defect's conversation, and any files you attach. The people on that project can read them: the client and anyone they gave access, the renovation firm and any defect checker on it. Our team reads them only to look into a report or keep the service secure.
• Your profile photo, if you add one: a client's profile photo is optional and private. Only you, the people on your projects and our team can see it, and it is never published.
• Messages you send us: what you write through Write to us in the apps or on the website, and our reply. We use them to answer you.
• Details of each defect or proof photo: when and where it was taken (if you allow location, or if the photo file already records it), the make and model of the device, whether it came from the camera or your photo library, and a fingerprint of the original file. They are kept separately from the photo. The photo itself is resized before it is stored, which normally removes these details from the file. Only our team can see these details, and nothing is published. We use them to confirm that photos were taken at the project they are on, and to detect photos that were not, such as stock or AI-generated images, as part of keeping grades honest. (Legitimate interests: preventing fabricated records.) They are deleted with the photo.
• Your renovation contract, if you choose to add it: the signed contract (a PDF or photos of its pages) that you upload to your record. Adding it is optional. Our team reads one figure from it, the contract amount, and records it.
• Business account information: for firms and defect checkers, the business name, UEN, the BizFile documents supplied for verification, and the names and photographs of renovators a firm chooses to publish.
• Push notifications, if you allow them: a push token for your device, so that our notifications reach it. A notification says what happened, and can show a name and the project address, but never what anyone wrote.
• Technical information: device type, browser and IP address, used to keep the service secure and running. Our website sets no analytics or advertising cookies.

1A. What we receive from Myinfo

You sign in to defects.sg with your email address, Google or Apple. Singpass is never a way to sign in: it is used only to verify who you are, on an account you are already signed in to. When you verify with Singpass, Singpass will show you the list of details we ask for and share them only if you agree. Once we ask for them, they are these seven and no others: your principal name, alias name, Hanyu Pinyin name and Hanyu Pinyin alias name; your sex; your date of birth; and your registered address. We do not ask Myinfo for your NRIC or FIN, mobile number, email address, race, nationality, passport, pass details or housing type.

• Your names (principal, alias and the two Hanyu Pinyin forms): so that we know the real name behind your account, kept beside the name you chose for yourself. If you are a renovator, your principal name appears on your firm's public staff list next to the Singpass verified mark. A client's name is never published. Our team also uses the alias and Hanyu Pinyin forms to recognise the same person behind two accounts when it looks into suspected gaming of a firm's grade, for example a firm opening extra accounts or paying people to pose as clients. (Legitimate interests: preventing fabricated records.)
• Sex and date of birth: only our team sees them, and they are never shown to anyone else on defects.sg. They tell apart two different people who share a name when our team checks for duplicate identities. Your date of birth also confirms that you are at least 18, which our Terms of Use require. (Legitimate interests: preventing fabricated records.)
• Registered address: we keep only its postal code and block number, never the floor, unit or street. Only our team sees it, as one piece of background when a project is already being checked, and it never decides anything on its own: it is never a rule and never blocks anything automatically, because the registered address may be out of date, and the person looking after a project may be the owner's family.

We do not use any of these details for marketing. How long we keep them is in section 6.

2. Why we collect it

We rely on your consent (given when you create an account and at each specific opt-in), on what is necessary to provide the service you asked for, and, for the purposes marked below, on the PDPA's legitimate interests exception, which we are required to tell you about:

• To keep your defect record and share it with the parties you appoint.
• To calculate and publish the grades described on this site. A firm accepts grading when it accepts your request to link.
• To check that accounts belong to real people and real businesses. (Legitimate interests: preventing fabricated records.)
• To record your verified name and to confirm that you are at least 18.
• To tell you about your record, including whenever a defect is deleted from it.
• To tie each verified identity to one side, to check identities by hand for people without Singpass, and to count towards grades only the projects where both the client and the renovator were verified. (Legitimate interests: preventing fabricated records.) Without these checks, someone could open several accounts, invent a project and its defects, and so build or buy a grade the work never earned. The registry is only worth anything if its records are real.
• To give our team background when it checks whether a project is real, such as whether the owner's registered address is in the same block as the project. This is one clue among others, never a reason on its own to refuse or remove anything. (Legitimate interests.)
• To detect and investigate misuse, fabricated projects, grade manipulation and fraud, and to keep the service secure. (Legitimate interests.)

We do not use your personal data for marketing. If that ever changes, we will ask for your separate consent first, and marketing will never be a condition of using the service.

3. What is never made public

Your name, address, phone number, email address and anything you write are never published. What a firm's public page shows is anonymised: property type, contract size band, month, scope and defect counts. Photographs of your property are never published, and there is no setting that publishes them. Passport images, identity references, and the sex, date of birth and registered address we receive from Myinfo are never published. Your contract is never published, and neither is its amount; we use contract amounts only in aggregate. Automated screening also blocks Singapore phone numbers, NRIC and FIN patterns, postcodes and unit numbers from every public page.

4. Who we share it with

Your contract is not shared with anyone. It is kept in a private store that only you and our team can open. Your renovator and their firm cannot see it (they have their own copy), and neither can any other firm or a defect checker you appoint.

• The parties you appoint: your renovator, firm or defect checker, for your project. What you write about a defect is delivered to the firm that has to fix it, and that firm has its own obligations under the PDPA for what it receives.
• Service providers who run the service for us, under contract and only for that purpose: Supabase and Amazon Web Services (database and file storage, in Singapore), an SMS provider (sign-in codes by text message), Resend (email delivery), and Expo and Apple (push notifications).
• Authorities, where the law or a binding order requires it (see section 10).

Passport images, and the sex, date of birth and registered address we receive from Myinfo, are seen only by our team, and are not shared with the parties you appoint. The only detail from Myinfo anyone else sees is a renovator's name, on their firm's public staff list.

We do not sell personal data.

5. Where your data is kept

Your data is stored in Singapore (Amazon Web Services, Singapore region). Some service providers process limited data outside Singapore, for example to deliver an SMS or an email. Where personal data leaves Singapore, we require the recipient to protect it to a standard comparable to the PDPA.

6. How long we keep it

A defect record is kept for as long as it is useful as a record, because a lasting record is what the service is for. Personal data within it is kept only as long as the purposes above need it, under a written retention schedule. Sign-in codes are kept briefly. BizFile documents uploaded for verification are checked and then deleted, keeping only the outcome, the date, who checked it and a fingerprint of the file. Passport images sent for an identity check are deleted once our team has decided, or when you delete your account if that comes first. Details from Myinfo are kept while your account exists and deleted with it, as section 7 describes; a renovator's name stays on their firm's staff list only while they are on the firm's team. Messages on a defect are kept with the defect record, and section 7 says what happens to them when you delete your account. A push token is deleted when you sign out on that device, when the device stops accepting notifications, or when you delete your account. Messages you send us and your profile photo are kept until you delete your account. A contract you upload is kept with your record until you remove it, which you can do at any time from the project's Contract page, or until you delete your account.

7. Deleting your account

You delete your account yourself, from inside the app (Account → Delete my account) or from your account page on the website. You never need to write to us to delete your account, and nobody will ask you to call. We ask you to sign in again first, we tell you exactly what will happen before you confirm, and it cannot be undone.

Deleted, for everyone: your account and login, your name and phone number, your profile photo, your push tokens, your messages to us, any passport images still waiting for a decision, and the details we received from Myinfo (your names, sex, date of birth and registered address).

If you are a client, also deleted: any address you gave us for a project you have left, every photo you took (the image files themselves), any contract you uploaded, and everything you wrote, including your messages on a defect and the files you attached to them.

If you work for a firm or a defect checker: your personal profile is deleted. Proof photos, replies and files you added as part of the firm's work stay as the firm's record, with your name removed. Your entry on the firm's team list is renamed "Former team member" and its photo is removed. If you are the firm's only administrator and others are still on its team, you are asked to make someone else an administrator, or remove the others, first.

Kept, without your identity: the shape of the defect record (the kind of defect, the trade, the dates, and whether it was fixed), so that no firm's grade changes because a client left. Photos a firm took to show a fix stay: they are the firm's proof photos and show the work, not you. The accepted link between you and the firm stays, because it is how we know the firm agreed to be graded. On a project you shared with another owner, the address stays on the remaining owner's record and household contact details are removed.

Kept to protect the registry: we keep a scrambled identity reference after deletion to prevent fraud on the registry. It cannot be turned back into your Singpass reference or passport number, and it is used only so that one person cannot appear as both a client and a renovation firm or defect checker by deleting an account and starting again, and so that a grade does not move because someone left. It is kept with the side you chose, and, for projects, with a record of whether the client and the renovator were verified. If you were checked by hand, we also keep the decision, who decided and when.

This is deletion by anonymisation, which the PDPA permits: afterwards, nothing we keep can be linked to you, except that the scrambled identity reference above would recognise you if you verified the same identity again. We check this with an automated sweep of every table in the system.

8. Your rights: access and correction

Write to us (section 12) to ask for a copy of your personal data and how it has been used or disclosed in the past year, or to correct an error. We reply as soon as we can; if we need longer than 30 days, we will tell you in writing within 30 days when to expect our answer. We may charge a reasonable fee for access, never for a correction, and will give you a written estimate first. If we refuse a request in whole or in part, we will say why, and we keep the data concerned for at least 30 days so that you can ask the Personal Data Protection Commission to review our decision.

9. If something goes wrong

We keep a data breach response plan. Where a breach is likely to cause you significant harm, or affects 500 or more people, we will notify the Personal Data Protection Commission within three days of establishing that, and we will tell you as soon as practicable.

10. Legal holds and lawful orders

If we refuse an access request, or receive a binding order to preserve or disclose data (for example from a court, the Online Safety Commission, or under the PDPA), we may have to keep a copy of the data concerned for as long as the law requires, including data that would otherwise be deleted. Such copies are kept apart, are available to nobody but our systems, and are deleted automatically when the hold ends.

11. Reporting and content screening

You can report content from inside the product. Every report is reviewed by a person. Automated screening keeps personal data out of anything public. What you write to the firm fixing your defect is never withheld by a machine; only a person can do that.

12. Our Data Protection Officer, and complaints

Our Data Protection Officer can be reached at hello@defects.sg, a mailbox we monitor. Write there for anything about your personal data, including access and correction requests. If you are not satisfied with our answer, you may complain to the Personal Data Protection Commission (pdpc.gov.sg).

13. Copyright notices

Notices of copyright infringement under the Copyright Act 2021 go to our designated representative at hello@defects.sg. Our notice and counter-notice process is described on our support page.

14. Changes to this policy

We will post changes here and update the date above. If a change materially affects how we handle your personal data, we will tell you in the app and, where the law requires, ask you to agree again.