The floor
The rules the app is built on
Not policies we could quietly change. The product would have to be rebuilt to break them.
- Your sitters are yours. Tuck never suggests a sitter, never shows you a stranger, and never shows your sitters to anyone outside your household.
- Address unlocks at yes. Your address and your sit sheet reach one person: the sitter who says yes, once they have. If that sitter can't make it after all, both come off the sitter's page the moment the sitter or you say so — right up until the sit ends, the evening itself included. Your sit sheet's emergency contacts are part of it: their names and numbers reach that sitter alone, and Tuck never texts or calls them. Before yes, the ask — Tuck's text, a text you send from your own phone, and the page either opens — names the kids and pets you tick by first name, and the page adds the kids' ages and what kind each pet is, unless your family chooses Generic on Family, when it says how many kids, their ages and what kinds of pets. Whether a kid is a boy or a girl, the address and the rest of your sit sheet wait for yes either way. A text you send from your own phone goes to a group with your household's other parents on it.
- No sitter sees the list. Tuck asks sitters one at a time, in your order, and you can go back to one who never answered, from your own phone. None of them learns who else was asked, or who said yes. If someone else is confirmed, they see "Meredith's covered."
- Sitters never install anything. One text, one tap on a private page — no account needed, and no password. A sitter who wants one can make an account, only to see their own sits in one place, by texting SITS to Tuck's number from their own phone; it shows them nothing an ask's own page doesn't, and no family can see whether a sitter has one, or who else they sit for. Each evening's page in the app shows you when each sitter's text went, Twilio's word that a text from Tuck's own number arrived, and when each sitter's link was first opened in a browser — never a link preview — and the sitter sees none of it. Tuck's own number sends a family's asks only for a family that has Tuck send its texts, and only to a sitter who has texted YES to it from their own phone, which nobody can do for them; on the free plan your asks come from your phone either way. A STOP to Tuck's number stops Tuck's texts to that number, for every family; a STOP to a text you sent, which you record in Tuck, stops your family's asks to them.
- A no can carry a note, for you alone. A sitter who says Can't this time can add a short note. Only your household's parents read it. So does a sitter's own text to Tuck's number: Tuck passes it to your household's parents and nobody else, and tells the sitter once. It goes one way; you answer, if you want to, from your own phone.
- No money moves through Tuck. The rate is on the page your sitter answers on, never in the text, so nobody's surprised. Payment is between you and your sitter, however you already do it.After a sit, Tuck can work out what it came to from its hours and its rate and keep your note of whether you've paid — for you and the other parents in your household to read, never your sitter. You can log an evening Tuck didn't arrange there too, so your own record is whole.
- We don't vet, and we say so. Tuck runs no background checks and makes no claim about any sitter's age, background or suitability; what it knows is what you told it. Choosing a sitter is yours, and Tuck only ever contacts the sitters you added.
Who sees what
Nothing opens early.
Three moments in one sitter's own progression: saying Tuck can text them, being asked about an evening (or several, in one text), and saying yes to it. A row lights at the moment that fact reaches them, and for several dates, at each date's own yes, and three of them never light at all. The same table is on the home page and in the privacy policy, because it is one promise.
| What a sitter could learn | Sitter, saying Tuck can text them | Sitter, before yes | Sitter, after yes |
|---|---|---|---|
| The first names of the parents in your household | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Day, time, how many kids and their ages, pets, rate | No | Yes | Yes |
| Your note for that sit | No | Yes | Yes |
| Your address | No | No | Yes |
| Kids' and pets' first names | No | If your family chooses By name (the default) | Yes |
| Whether each kid is a boy or a girl if you add it, sit sheet | No | No | Yes |
| Other sitters you asked | No | No | No |
| Your mobile number | Every parent in your household's, only on a text you send them yourself | Every parent in your household's, only on a text you send them yourself | Every parent in your household's, to call or text |
| Your sitter's phone number | The last two digits of their own | Their own | Their own |
| Your sitter's hourly rate | No | Yes | Yes |
| What you record after the sit | No | No | No |
Shown, from that moment onNever shownNeither; the words say what
Who you can add
Sitters are 18 and over
Adding someone to your list means telling us they're 18 or older, and Tuck won't ask a sitter you haven't said that about. It can't check anyone's age and doesn't pretend to; what it keeps is the record of who said it, when, and the words they were shown.
- A sitter hears about Tuck only from a parent who already has their number. We never find, suggest, or contact anyone on our own.
- A sitter is never asked for anything beyond their answer and, if they want, their own hourly rate. Nothing a sitter needs is behind an account.
- Anyone can stop every text from Tuck to a number by replying STOP, or by emailing jarryd@asktuck.com, and we'll take that number off every family's list. If one belongs to someone under 18, tell us and we'll remove it.
Your data
How your data is kept
Your address
Your address is encrypted at rest and only decrypted for the parents in your household and for the sitter who says yes.
Every sitter link
It is long, random and unlisted, and belongs to one sitter and one request, or, when several dates are asked about in one ask, to one sitter and those dates. It stops working when the request is over (for several dates, when the last of them is), or if you take them off your list. A sitter's yes counts only as a text from their own number. A link to sign in to a sitter's own page goes only to that sitter's number, when they text SITS for it, and works once.
No ads, no selling
We don't sell data, show ads, or share your information with advertisers. The services that help us run Tuck are listed in the privacy policy.
Deleting your family
We keep what we need to run your requests and nothing more, besides two things a parent may tell us in the app: whether your family would want Tuck to send its texts, and until when each parent has hidden the card that asks. Both go with your family when it's deleted. We never receive your calendar: in the iPhone app, From your calendar lists your events on your phone, and only the dates and hours you tick reach your Ask sheet. Delete your family on Family in the app, or ask us to at jarryd@asktuck.com and we'll do it within 30 days. Your household, your sitters' entries, and your requests are deleted, for every parent in it.
What stays is what a phone carrier can ask about a text already sent: how each sitter agreed to hear from Tuck (which, for a sitter still on your list, then says your family was deleted, and when); each sitter's own number and first name, and any STOP they sent; any STOP a parent in your household sent Tuck's number, with that number, so Tuck goes on not texting it; and a record of the texts Tuck's own number sent or tried to send, with any kids' and pets' names left out. Tuck also has Twilio erase its copy of the words of any text that named them. We also note when a family was deleted, to find the backup copies that still hold it.
Our backup copies are deleted within 30 days of being made, so a deleted family is gone from them within 30 days too.
In plain words
What Tuck is not
Not a marketplace, an agency, or a background-check service. It doesn't find, screen, recommend or employ sitters, it isn't a party to your arrangement with one, and it isn't there when they are. Tuck carries the messages and keeps the order; the rest is yours and your sitter's. The terms say all of this in full.