Privacy

This Privacy Policy explains how Uchi K.K. collects, uses, shares and protects personal information through Uchi Japan at uchijapan.com and Uchi Snow at uchisnow.com, and through the property enquiries, agency accounts, communications and related services connected with those brands. 

Last updated 7th October 2026.

Uchi Japan and Uchi Snow are operated by Uchi K.K., a company based in Japan. In this policy, ‘Uchi’, ‘we’, ‘us’ and ‘our’ mean Uchi K.K. We are responsible for the personal information we collect and use for our own services. Where applicable data protection law uses the term, we act as a data controller.

Company: Uchi K.K.
Company representative: Chris Pickering, CEO
Address: 11-1 Aza Yotei, Niseko-cho, Hokkaido 048-1541, Japan
Privacy contact: [email protected]

This policy applies to website visitors, people making property or business enquiries, mailing-list subscribers, and representatives of agencies, developers and other business partners. A separate notice may provide additional information for a particular service. Independent agencies, developers and external platforms are responsible for their own handling of personal information.

The information we collect depends on how you interact with us. It may include:

• Contact and enquiry information: your name, email address, telephone number and country code; the property, development or location you enquire about; your message; and any preferences, budget, language, attachments or other details you choose to provide.
• Account and business information: account and login information, subscription details, invoices and payment records; and, where relevant, company and trading names, business contact details, professional role, licence details, listing content and authorised profile photographs. Some business information identifies individual representatives.
• Communications and preferences: correspondence, support requests, newsletter subscriptions, marketing choices, records of notices or consent, and delivery, opening or link-click information where email measurement is enabled.
• Website and technical information: IP address, browser and device information, pages visited, links used, referral source, approximate location inferred from technical data, and cookie or similar identifiers, where collected by the relevant service.
• Enquiry progress: limited information from the agency or developer about whether an enquiry was received, followed up or resulted in a transaction, where lawfully provided. We use this to support enquiries and understand service performance.

We collect information directly when you complete a form, create an account, subscribe, contact us or submit content. We may also receive relevant information from your agency or employer, the recipient of your enquiry, a person you authorise to contact us, or public business sources used for professional communications. Technical information may be collected automatically when you use our websites.

Please provide only information relevant to your request. Do not send passport copies, bank statements, health information or other sensitive personal information through a general enquiry form. If you provide someone else’s information, make sure you have authority to do so and that they know it will be shared with us.

You can browse our public pages without making an enquiry or creating an account. Providing information is generally your choice, but without the contact or account details needed for a request, we may be unable to respond or provide the relevant service. Optional marketing consent is not a condition of submitting an enquiry.

We use personal information for the following purposes, as relevant to your interaction with us:

• To receive, route and respond to property and business enquiries, arrange requested introductions and support relevant follow-up.
• To create and manage accounts, publish authorised listings and professional profiles, provide subscriptions and content, and administer payments.
• To provide customer support and communicate about accounts, enquiries, contracts and changes to our services.
• To send newsletters, property updates, destination news, research and reports, films, service updates and offers relating to the Uchi brands, within the scope of your subscription or another applicable permission recognised by law, as explained in section 8.
• To measure website, listing and enquiry performance, understand demand and improve our services.
• To maintain security, detect spam or fraud, prevent misuse and troubleshoot technical problems.
• To keep business records, meet legal obligations, handle complaints and establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

We may maintain shared customer, enquiry and subscription records within Uchi K.K. and combine relevant information about your interactions with our brands to administer your relationship with us, manage subscriptions and preferences, provide requested services, understand demand and improve our services. Access is limited to authorised people who need the information for these purposes. This is use within the same company; it does not itself authorise additional marketing or disclosures to independent organisations. We respect the purposes explained when information was collected, your preferences and applicable legal requirements, obtaining further consent where required. Where possible, we use aggregated or de-identified information for reporting and analysis.

Where applicable law requires a lawful basis, we use information to provide a service you contract for on the basis of that contract, and to meet tax, accounting or other statutory duties on the basis of legal obligation. We rely on legitimate interests, balanced against your rights, to administer requested enquiries and introductions, manage relationships with company representatives, provide support, protect our systems and improve service performance, where those activities are permitted on that basis. For optional marketing and non-essential tracking, we rely on consent where required. Where the applicable email-marketing rules permit communications without consent, we may rely on our legitimate interests for the related processing; legitimate interests do not override a requirement for consent. Permitted analytics may also rely on our legitimate interests in service improvement. We obtain consent for agency disclosures or international transfers where required. You can ask us which basis applies to a particular use.

When you submit a property or development enquiry through Uchi, we use your contact details, message and relevant property information to connect you with the agency, developer or sales representative responsible for that listing. For a development, this may involve both the developer and its appointed sales agency. We may also share relevant enquiry reference, date, source and language information needed to understand and respond to your request.

The intended recipient is identified in the listing or enquiry process, or we will explain the proposed introduction before forwarding your details. If you ask us for a broader property search or introduction, we will explain which relevant recipients we propose to contact. We share enquiries with recipients you request or agree to, or where disclosure is otherwise specifically permitted or required by applicable law.

Recipients generally handle your enquiry as independent organisations under their own privacy policies. They may contact you about the property or related real-estate requirements. Submitting an enquiry does not automatically authorise unrelated marketing by Uchi or the recipient. We do not sell or rent property enquiry details or mailing-list contact details.

We may retain a record of your enquiry and follow up with you or the recipient to check that it has been handled and to assess our service. Information supplied for performance reporting should be limited to what is necessary.

If you contact an agency directly through an external website, email, telephone, WhatsApp or another third-party service, that communication is also subject to the recipient’s and the platform provider’s privacy arrangements.

We may provide information to service providers supporting our websites and business, including hosting and IT support, customer relationship management, email and communications, analytics, security, and payment or accounting services. We limit access to what is needed for the relevant purpose. Where a provider processes information on our behalf, we require appropriate confidentiality, security and limits on its use, and supervise that processing as required by law. Some providers, such as payment providers, may also process information for their own legal obligations.

We may disclose relevant information to professional advisers, courts, regulators or public authorities where required or permitted by applicable law, including lawful disclosures to address fraud, protect rights or deal with legal claims. If our business is sold, merged or reorganised, relevant information may be disclosed to advisers and a prospective or actual successor, subject to appropriate confidentiality and applicable legal requirements.

Information you authorise us to publish in a property listing or professional profile is publicly accessible and may appear in search engines. Please avoid including private contact details or other personal information that is unnecessary for publication.

Uchi operates from Japan. Your information may be handled in Japan, in the country where the agency or developer receiving your enquiry operates, and in other countries where relevant service providers process information. The destination of a property enquiry depends on the listing and recipient. Information about the recipient’s location is provided through the listing or enquiry process, or separately before an introduction. You can contact us for details of relevant overseas recipients, processing countries and safeguards, including how to obtain a copy or summary of applicable safeguards.

Before making an international transfer, we take the steps required by the laws applicable to that transfer. These may include relying on a legally recognised level of protection, putting appropriate contractual or other safeguards in place, or obtaining informed consent where required. Different countries may provide different levels of legal protection.

Where Japan’s Act on the Protection of Personal Information requires consent to a transfer to a third party outside Japan, we provide the required information about the destination country, its privacy protections and the recipient’s safeguards before seeking that consent. Where we instead rely on arrangements requiring the recipient to maintain protections equivalent to those required in Japan, we take the required steps to check their continuing implementation, address problems and provide relevant information on request.

Additional requirements may apply to information subject to other countries’ privacy laws. Where applicable, these may include an adequacy decision, approved contractual terms or another permitted transfer mechanism. This policy alone, or an agency’s acceptance of our commercial terms, does not constitute your consent to an international transfer.

Our websites use cookies and similar technologies to support functions such as account sessions, security and preferences. Analytics technologies, including Google Analytics where enabled, help us understand website visits, interactions and service performance. They may process cookie identifiers, device and browser information, pages viewed, approximate location and other usage data. Such information is not necessarily anonymous merely because it does not include your name.

Embedded maps, videos and other third-party features may also collect technical information or use their own cookies when loaded or used. The provider’s privacy policy explains its processing.

Where consent is required for non-essential cookies or similar technologies, we obtain it before using them and provide a way to withdraw it. You can also manage or delete cookies through your browser settings, although blocking essential cookies may affect website functions. Browser controls do not necessarily stop every form of tracking. Contact us if you need information about the technologies used on a particular Uchi service or help changing your choices.

When you choose a Uchi-wide email subscription, you subscribe to marketing emails from Uchi K.K. about Uchi Japan, Uchi Snow, Uchi Insights and Uchi Media. These may include property listings, destination news, research and reports, films, service updates and offers relating to our services. We explain this scope when you subscribe, whether through Uchi Japan or another Uchi website. Emails may be sent under Uchi or one of the brands included in your subscription; you do not need to subscribe separately to each brand where all four were clearly included in the subscription you chose.

If you subscribed only to a particular brand, topic or newsletter, we respect that scope and any later preferences you give us. Updating this policy or maintaining a shared database does not, by itself, expand your marketing consent. We obtain further permission where required before sending communications outside your existing subscription or another applicable permission recognised by law. Making an enquiry, creating an account or purchasing a service does not by itself enrol you in the Uchi-wide email subscription.

You can change your brand or topic preferences using any preference controls we provide or by contacting [email protected]. Every marketing email includes an unsubscribe link. You may object to direct marketing at any time, including profiling for that purpose. Unless you clearly choose to stop only particular communications, we treat an unsubscribe or objection as applying to all marketing emails from Uchi K.K. across these brands. You can also contact us to stop all Uchi marketing emails.

An unsubscribe request does not prevent necessary messages about an enquiry, account, payment, contract or security issue. We may keep a limited record of your opt-out so that we can respect it. Withdrawal of consent does not affect processing that was lawful before withdrawal.

If you receive marketing directly from an independent agency or developer, you can exercise your choices with that organisation. Please also let us know if you believe information shared through Uchi has been misused.

We retain personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this policy, taking account of legal requirements. Relevant factors include whether an enquiry or account remains active, the nature of the information, the need to provide support or resolve a complaint, accounting and tax obligations, security needs and applicable periods for legal claims.

Enquiry records are retained as needed to support relevant follow-up, resolve issues and maintain necessary business records. Account and billing records may need to remain after a subscription ends to meet legal or contractual obligations. Marketing information is kept while the subscription remains active or another lawful basis applies, with limited suppression records retained to honour opt-outs. Technical data and cookies are retained according to their purpose and the settings of the relevant service.

When information is no longer needed, we delete it or de-identify it. Backup copies may remain until replaced or deleted through the normal backup cycle, subject to restricted use and applicable legal requirements.

We apply reasonable organisational and technical measures appropriate to the information and risks involved. These include limiting access to authorised people who need it for their work, protecting accounts and systems, and requiring appropriate handling by personnel and service providers. Where information is handled overseas, we consider the relevant local environment and safeguards. Further information about our security measures is available on request, except where disclosure would undermine security.

No website, email service or storage system can be guaranteed completely secure. Please protect your account credentials and notify us promptly if you suspect unauthorised access or a privacy incident. We investigate suspected incidents and notify affected individuals and authorities where required by law.

Depending on the law that applies and the circumstances, you may have rights to obtain information about our use of your personal information; access or receive a copy of it; correct inaccurate information; request deletion, restriction or cessation of use or disclosure; object to processing, including direct marketing; withdraw consent; or receive certain information in a portable format. Under Japanese law, relevant rights may also include requesting disclosure of records of provision to or receipt from third parties.

Where applicable law gives you this right, you may also object to processing based on legitimate interests on grounds relating to your particular situation. Contact us using the details below; we will assess the objection and stop processing where required.

To make a request or complaint, email [email protected] or write to the address in section 1. Please describe the request and the website, enquiry or account involved. We may ask for proportionate information to verify your identity or your authority to act for someone else. You do not need to send identity documents unless we ask for them through an appropriate process.

We will investigate complaints and respond to requests within the period required by applicable law. Rights may be subject to legal conditions or exceptions. If we cannot fulfil a request, we will explain why, where permitted. Requests are ordinarily handled without charge; if a fee is permitted by law and proposed, we will explain it before proceeding.

For information controlled by an independent agency or developer, you may need to contact that organisation directly. We will provide reasonable assistance with requests involving information shared through Uchi.

You may also complain to the privacy regulator responsible for your situation, including Japan’s Personal Information Protection Commission, or, where applicable, your local supervisory authority. You do not have to complain to us first where the law gives you a direct right to contact a regulator.

Our property and professional services are intended for adults. We do not knowingly seek personal information from children for these services. If you believe a child has provided information without appropriate authority, please contact us so that we can assess the situation and take appropriate action.

Our websites may link to other websites or services. This policy covers Uchi K.K.’s processing through Uchi Japan, Uchi Snow, Uchi Insights and Uchi Media; it does not replace the privacy policies of external organisations.

We may update this policy to reflect changes in our services, data handling or legal obligations. The latest version will be published at https://uchijapan.com/privacy with its update date. For material changes, we will provide additional notice where appropriate or required, and obtain fresh consent where the law requires it.