Privacy policy

What we hold

• Your name, university and email

  Given at signup. Your first name and your university go to a hostel owner when you send them an enquiry. Your email address never does.

• Your saved hostels and your enquiries

  Kept so you can see them. Hostello records that you sent an enquiry to an owner. It does not see the call or the WhatsApp conversation that follows, because those do not go through this site.

• Your roommate answers

  Used only to suggest roommates. They are never shown on your profile and never readable by another student, and that is enforced in the query rather than by hiding them in a component.

• Your reviews and your questions

  Published under your first name and the initial of your surname, alongside your year and university if you gave them. Everything else on your account stays private.

• A report you send us

  Held so a person can act on it. A report is never shown publicly, and the hostel is told what was reported so they can answer it, never who reported it.

What we do not do

We do not sell your details to hostels, to agents, or to anybody else. There is no broker in this product to sell them to. We do not run advertising, we do not accept payment for placement in search results, and we do not build a profile of you to sell on.

We do not ask for your CNIC, your family details or your payment information, because Hostello never takes a payment from a student and has nothing to verify you against.

What an owner sees

An owner sees your first name, your university and your message when you send an enquiry through the site. They do not see your email address. If you call the number on a listing or open WhatsApp from it, they see your phone number, because you dialled them directly and that conversation does not pass through Hostello.

What other students see

Other students see what you chose to publish: your reviews and your questions, under your first name and the initial of your surname. They never see your email address, your enquiries, your saved hostels or your roommate answers.

Cookies and measurement

One cookie keeps you signed in. One entry in your browser storage remembers whether you chose the light or the dark theme. Neither is used to track you across other sites, and there are no advertising or third party tracking cookies on Hostello.

Deleting your account

Deleting your account removes your roommate answers, your saved hostels, your enquiries and your contact details. Reviews and answers you wrote for other students stay, with your name removed, because taking them down would remove information other students relied on when they chose where to live.

If you would rather everything went, including what you wrote, email us and say so and we will do it by hand.

Asking us about your data

Email us and ask what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. A person reads that inbox and will answer you.