Privacy Policy
Plain-language version — what we collect, why, and who can see it. Civic_Goodway is a small, admin-run marketplace, not a large company with a legal department, so this is written to actually be read.
What we collect
- Account info: name, email, password (hashed, never stored in plain text), and phone number.
- Sellers only:a Ghana Card number and a photo of it, used to verify you're a real person and to stop banned sellers from re-registering under a new account.
- Buyers, at checkout: a delivery address and phone number, so the seller can actually get the item to you.
- Messages you send through the in-app chat with a buyer or seller.
- Delivery proof a seller submits after shipping — a photo, notes, and optionally your GPS location if you choose to share it.
- Reviews you leave, and items you wishlist.
Why we collect it
Strictly to run the marketplace: verifying sellers are real (fraud prevention), getting items from sellers to buyers, letting buyers and sellers coordinate a sale, resolving disputes when something goes wrong, and showing sellers what commission they owe. We don't sell or share your data with advertisers or other companies. There are no third-party trackers on this site.
Who can actually see it
- Your Ghana Card is only ever shown on a single admin-only page, used to verify you by phone. Buyers and other sellers never see it.
- Your delivery address and phone are only visible to the specific seller fulfilling that order, and to admin.
- Messages are visible only to the two people in that conversation, and to admin if needed to resolve a dispute.
- Publicly visible:your business name (if you set one) and seller rating — never your real name, email, or phone, unless you're the buyer or seller on that specific order.
Where it's stored
Structured data (accounts, orders, messages) lives in a hosted Postgres database. Photos (Ghana Cards, listing photos, delivery proof) are stored on Vercel Blob storage. Being direct about a real limitation: photo URLs are technically public if someone guesses the exact random link, since this app doesn't yet have private/signed-URL storage set up. In practice these links are long, random, and never shown anywhere public, but we're not going to pretend it's the same as true access-controlled storage. This is a known item we intend to harden as the platform grows.
How long we keep it
As long as your account is active. Ghana Card details are kept for as long as your seller account exists, specifically to prevent a suspended or banned seller from simply re-registering — this is the whole point of collecting it, so we can't delete it on request while your seller account remains active. Everything else, see below.
Removing your data or an item
Contact Samuel Bimpong Asamoah (the person running this platform) directly to request:
- Taking down a listing.
- Deleting your account, messages, and photos.
- Deleting your Ghana Card record — this closes your seller account permanently, since the two exist together on purpose.
The one exception: if you're involved in an open dispute or have unresolved commission owed, we'll keep the relevant records until that's settled, the same way any marketplace keeps transaction records during an active disagreement.