Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy describes the exhaustive protocols Yandaz Ghana Limited ("Yandaz," "we," "us," or "our") follows regarding the processing of personal data. By accessing our platform, you confirm that you have reached the age of 16 (or are supervised by a legal guardian) and agree to the lifecycle of data usage described herein.
1. Personal Data Controller
Yandaz Marketplace Ghana Limited is the sole controller of your personal data. We are a registered corporation in Ghana, operating under the Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843). Our headquarters and data compliance team are situated in the Greater Accra Region, ensuring that local data standards are met and exceeded.
2. Comprehensive Categories of Data Collection
We collect data that you provide voluntarily and data that our systems capture automatically to ensure a high-trust marketplace environment.
2.1 Information Disclosed Voluntarily
Registration Infrastructure: We collect your full legal name, a verified Ghanaian mobile phone number, email address, gender, and date of birth. This is "Required Information" to establish your digital identity on the Platform.
Business Metadata: For professional users, we collect business registration certificates, physical storefront locations, operational hours, and tax identification numbers. This ensures all commercial entities on Yandaz are legitimate and traceable.
Public Profile Data: Any information you include in an announcement—such as CVs, work history, or portfolio photos—is considered public. While this facilitates transactions, we issue a Privacy Warning: you are solely responsible for the risks of making your precise location or financial details public in these descriptions.
2.2 Data Captured Automatically
- Device Intelligence: We record your IP address, browser type, hardware model, operating system version, mobile carrier, and unique device hardware IDs (UDID/MAC address).
- Behavioral Analytics: We log every search query, ad interaction, time spent on specific sections (e.g., Vehicles vs. Jobs), and the frequency of your visits. This allows us to personalize your experience.
- Transaction Metadata: While we do not store full credit card numbers, we log transaction dates, amounts, payment methods, and success/fail statuses via our third-party processors.
3. Global Data Protection Principles
Our data practices are governed by the following strict pillars of accountability:
- Purpose Specification: We only collect data for legitimate, documented business needs consented to by you.
- Adequacy: We ensure all data collected is relevant and accurate, without prejudice to the dignity of the human person.
- Security Measures: We protect against theft, unauthorized dissemination, cyberattacks, and environmental damage using AES-256 cloud encryption.
4. Operational Processing Purposes
We process your data to drive the Yandaz ecosystem, specifically for:
- Service Delivery: Enabling seamless ad posting, real-time messaging, and secure account access.
- Personalization: Adjusting the content of the Platform to match your specific Ghanaian region and individual interests.
- Support: Responding to technical requests or investigating reported scams. For this, we may access your account logs to diagnose issues.
- Marketing: Adding you to our newsletter and special offer lists (with an easy one-click unsubscribe option).
5. AI, Biometrics & Automated Document Review
Yandaz utilizes advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) to maintain community safety. This includes:
Security Protocol
Biometric face-matching: When you upload a government ID, our AI (via Smile ID or Google Vertex AI) estimates the facial geometry of the document holder against your profile photos to ensure you are the true owner.
Automated Content Review: Our AI scans ad descriptions and images to detect fraudulent manipulation, copyright infringement, or prohibited keywords. If the AI flags your account, you have the absolute Right to Manual Review by a Yandaz safety officer in Ghana.
6. Legal Bases for Processing
We process data based on your Consent (for cookies and marketing), Contractual Necessity (to provide the marketplace), and Legitimate Interests (to protect our users from scammers and improve our algorithm’s efficiency).
7. Data Sharing & Disclosure
We share data only with audited partners who provide essential infrastructure:
- Cloud Storage: Amazon (AWS), Google Cloud, and Hetzner for redundant, secure global hosting.
- Payment Services: Flutterwave and local Ghanaian banks like Access Bank and Sterling Bank.
- Identity Verification: Smile Identity Inc. for validating Ghanaian government ID numbers against official records.
- Law Enforcement: We will disclose data only when presented with a valid legal warrant from the Ghana Police Service or Judiciary.
8. Exercising Your Privacy Rights
You have full legal control over your digital footprint on Yandaz:
- Access & Correction: Update your profile data instantly via Account Settings.
- Data Erasure: Request the permanent deletion of your account and all associated personal data.
- Objection to Profiling: Opt-out of automated ad-targeting and behavioral tracking via your device settings.
9. Data Retention & Erasure
We store your data as long as your account is active. Upon a deletion request, we purge all identifiable data within 30 days. However, we retain "Hashed" (encrypted) versions of banned phone numbers and IDs indefinitely to ensure that bad actors cannot re-enter our community under a different alias.
