Safety & privacy

The exact address you give when posting an item is never shown on the listing, the feed, the map, a shared link, or a page preview. Anyone browsing sees only an approximate distance and a rough locality.

• Map pins are offset by a random 150–500 metres. The offset is generated once when you post and then frozen — so viewing a listing repeatedly, or from different places, cannot narrow down where you really are.
• Distances are rounded to 100 metres for the same reason.
• Addresses are encrypted with AES-256-GCM and stored in a separate database table from the listing, so a public query physically cannot return one.
• Photos have their location data stripped before publication — a phone photo of a couch on your driveway carries GPS coordinates otherwise.
• Every access to an address is logged, including by our own moderators, who have to record a written reason.
• When you mark an item gone, the stored address is deleted.

Before an address is revealed you see a confirmation screen. That friction is deliberate: a claim hands you a stranger's home address and takes the item away from everyone else, so it should never happen by accident.

Only one person can hold a claim at a time. If they cannot collect, the item goes back into the feed for someone else.

Weapons, drugs, alcohol, tobacco and vapes, explosives, hazardous chemicals, prescription medicines, live animals, stolen property, and anything unlawful in New Zealand. Selling anything is also prohibited — Kerb Side is completely free.

Every listing is scanned automatically when posted. Clear breaches are refused outright; borderline cases are published but queued for a moderator.

Every listing has a report button. Reports are confidential, and serious categories take a listing down immediately while a moderator reviews it.

• Collect in daylight where you can.
• Bring someone with you if you would rather not go alone.
• Read the collection notes — most items are left outside, so there is often no need to knock.
• Check that an item is safe before you use it, especially anything electrical or anything for a child.
• Trust your instincts. If something feels off, cancel the claim and report the listing.

If you are ever in immediate danger, call 111.

If someone repeatedly claims items and does not collect them, we track that privately. It leads to a warning, then a temporary pause on claiming — never a public mark on their profile. People have bad weeks, and a community platform should leave room for that.