ID and background checks: a letter from Mathew, TrustedHousesitters CEO

Hi everyone, 

Mathew Prior, CEO of TrustedHousesitters here. We recently announced an update to make ID and background checks mandatory for sitters from the 16th March, and I’d like to take a moment to reach out and address a few queries that have been raised by the community.

I understand that some of our long-standing members may feel particularly concerned by this recent change. For many of you, your TrustedHousesitters membership is much more than that: it’s a lifestyle. However, we believe this is a crucial step as we grow our business globally to future-proof our platform and continue safeguarding our members, their homes, and their pets.

A bit about Evident ID

As a digital platform, we feel it’s our responsibility to do everything we can to further build trust and safety in our wonderful community. However, we understand sharing your personal identification can cause feelings of unease - particularly in a digital world where protecting your data and privacy from threat is more important than ever. 

So I’d like to add some reassurance around Evident. They are a US-based, industry-leader in identity verification, who we have worked with successfully for many years to carry out sitter verifications (any sitter who has previously completed an ID check would have done so via Evident). Continuing to partner with them for the roll-out of mandatory ID and background checks* (*US sitters only) felt like the natural, rational decision for us. For your extra reassurance, I wanted to share some insights from our Chief Technical Officer, whose team has been leading on this next step in our partnership with Evident: 

“Evident is an established, industry-leader trusted by many global companies including Airbnb, FirstSteps and Roomi, and many of our competitors ask for similar levels of verification. They have taken appropriate safeguards to require that your personal data is protected and compliant with the US Privacy Shield framework. Additionally, TrustedHousesitters will not be processing your ID check on our servers and neither do we store any of the personal information you provide to Evident during your check.

We have undertaken many hours of research and calls with potential providers and feel that Evident is the best partner to carry out these important checks for us.” - Will Ogden, Chief Technical Officer at TrustedHousesitters

A bit about ‘why’

We strongly believe that the value exchange we support and the resulting 24/7, 1-1 care that our amazing sitters offer pets is the absolute best way to ensure owners have peace of mind when they go away. 

There is demand for our service from US pet owners, and background checks are an absolute fact of life in the US. We have carried out extensive research into potential US pet owners’ view of TrustedHousesitters, and the requirement for background checks from prospective new owner members is overwhelming. 

I’ve never shied away in my communications with you from the fact that we want to grow, in the right way, to the benefit of all members and their pets. A growing business is a healthy one that can invest more in the service it offers and provide more options and choice for members. As we grow, we need to keep the community balanced between the number of owners and sitters, so when there’s a clear barrier to new members on either side we try our best to address it. If we don’t introduce this, we’ll be effectively trying to appeal to new owners in the US with one hand tied behind our back.

So our aim is to increase the appeal of TrustedHousesitters and reduce barriers to adoption to new owner members, now and in the future. It’s about the nature of our platform, the requirement for balance, and wanting to ensure that above all, sitters have great options for their next sit.

I understand there have been some more specific questions - relating to T&Cs or what this means for owners - for which I’d like to direct you to our FAQs page. This should hopefully address some more specific queries raised by members. 

Finally, I would like to apologise for the concern that this has caused some of you. Thank you for feeding back your thoughts to the team: we really don’t want to lose any members so I hope this letter has helped to shed some further light on the topic. Our members are the foundation of what we do, and I hope that you’ll continue to join us as we grow our wonderful, trusted community. 

Kind regards,

Mathew Prior

CEO of TrustedHousesitters