Privacy Policy

We collect the following categories of information:

• Account information — when you sign up, we collect your email address and a securely hashed password. We never see your plain-text password.
• Business listings — when you submit a business, we collect the information you provide: business name, category, town, description, phone, WhatsApp number, email, address, operating hours, services, and any image URL you supply.
• Usage data — like most websites, our infrastructure providers log technical details such as IP address, browser type, and pages viewed, for security and operational purposes.
• Favourites and messages — businesses you save and messages you send through the contact form are stored in your browser's local storage on your own device.

We use the information we collect to:

• Create and maintain your account
• Publish and display your business listings
• Let you edit, update, or delete your listings
• Respond to questions and provide support
• Detect and prevent abuse, spam, or security threats
• Improve the platform and understand how it is used
• Comply with legal obligations

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use it for advertising networks or profiling.

We rely on a small set of trusted service providers to run the platform:

• Supabase — hosts our database and authentication. Your account and listing data are stored on Supabase servers. See Supabase's privacy policy.
• Vercel — hosts the frontend and API routes. Vercel logs standard HTTP request data. See Vercel's privacy policy.
• Unsplash — provides some demonstration photography. Images are served directly from Unsplash's CDN when loaded. See Unsplash's privacy policy.
• OpenStreetMap — provides map tiles for the map view. See OpenStreetMap's privacy policy.

We do not share your information with any other third parties except where required by law.

We use the following browser storage mechanisms:

• Session cookies — set by Supabase Auth to keep you signed in. These are essential for account functionality.
• Local storage — used to remember your theme preference (light / dark), your saved businesses, and your locally stored messages. This data never leaves your browser.

We do not use advertising cookies, tracking pixels, or third-party analytics that fingerprint users.

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you
• Correct inaccurate or incomplete information
• Delete your account and associated data
• Export your data in a portable format
• Object to certain types of processing
• Lodge a complaint with a data protection authority

You can exercise most of these rights directly from your account: edit your listings from My Businesses, or clear saved favourites from Saved. For anything else, contact us using the details below.

We retain your account information for as long as your account is active. If you delete your account, we remove your personal information within 30 days, except where we are legally required to retain it longer (for example, for tax or audit purposes).

Business listings you have published may remain visible in cached search engine results for a short period after deletion while those systems refresh.

We protect your information using industry-standard practices:

• Encrypted connections (HTTPS) for all traffic
• Passwords are hashed by Supabase Auth and never stored in plain text
• Row-level security in our database ensures users can only access data they own
• Access to production systems is limited to the project maintainers

No system is perfectly secure. If you become aware of a vulnerability, please contact us so we can fix it.

Eswatini Connect is not directed at children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will change the “Last updated” date at the top of this page. Continued use of the platform after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

For questions about this Privacy Policy or your personal information, contact:

Eswatini Connect
Email: privacy@eswatiniconnect.example
Mbabane, Eswatini