Draft — pending legal review
This document describes how Sawa Cars actually operates today, written in plain language. It has not yet been reviewed by a qualified lawyer in Rwanda and is not legal advice. Users should obtain independent legal advice for their own contracts and regulated obligations before launch.
Scope
This policy covers Sawa Cars — this website, the Android and iOS apps, and the records our team keeps at the inspection centers. All three share one account and one database, so information you give in one place is available to you in the others.
What we collect
When you create an account
- Your name, email address and phone number.
- Your password, stored only as a cryptographic hash. Nobody at Sawa Cars can read it, including us.
When you verify your identity as a seller
- Photographs of the front and back of your national ID, and a selfie.
When you use the marketplace
- Cars you save, searches you save, and the alerts you switch on.
- Seller-contact disclosures and rental availability inquiries.
- Messages you exchange with sellers, buyers or our team.
- Vehicle details you submit, and the inspection results our mechanics record.
Automatically
- Basic technical logs needed to run and secure the service.
- In the app only: camera access when you choose to take a photograph, and a push notification token if you allow notifications. Neither is used for anything else.
Why we hold it
- To verify that a seller is a real, identifiable person — the basis of the whole marketplace.
- To publish accurate listings and inspection reports.
- To enable direct marketplace communications and provider responses to rental inquiries.
- To send the alerts you asked for: price drops, saved-search matches, messages.
- To investigate reports about platform content or conduct and prevent fraud.
- To maintain security, consent and administrative audit records.
We do not build advertising profiles, and we do not sell personal information to anyone.
Identity documents, specifically
ID photographs and selfies are the most sensitive thing we hold, and they are treated accordingly.
- They are never shown on a listing, and never shared with buyers or other sellers.
- Access is restricted to the Sawa team members who review verifications. The documents sit behind an administrator-only route; an ordinary account cannot reach them even with a direct link.
- What other users see is the outcome only: a “Verified seller” marker, and the trust score that flows from it.
- We keep them while your account is open and for as long afterwards as record-keeping on completed sales requires, then delete them.
Who sees what
- Buyers see a seller’s display name, verification status, trust score, seller profile information and contact-channel availability. A phone or WhatsApp number is disclosed only after seller consent and buyer acknowledgement.
- Sellers and rental providers see the information needed to answer messages or availability inquiries sent to them.
- Our team sees what is required to run the pipeline: submissions, inspections, listings, inquiries, contact disclosures and — where platform safety or a report requires it — conversations.
- Nobody sees your password, your ID documents or your saved searches except you and the reviewers named above.
How it is protected
- Passwords are hashed, never stored in a readable form.
- Sessions on the web are held in an httpOnly cookie rather than in browser storage.
- Every request to our API is authorised on the server, and administrator functions are gated by role rather than by hiding a link.
- Identity documents are served only to reviewers, never publicly.
No system is perfect. If you believe an account has been compromised, contact contact@sawacars.com and we will act the same day.
Your choices
- You can view and correct your profile at any time from your account.
- You can switch any alert off without losing the saved car or search behind it.
- You can close your account yourself, at any time and without anyone’s approval — on this website under Profile → Close account, or in the app under Settings → Danger zone. Closing takes effect immediately; your data is erased 30 days later, and until then you can sign back in and reopen the account. Full details are on the account deletion page.
- Closing takes your listings off the marketplace and stops your phone number being shown straight away. After 30 days the erasure removes your profile, your contact details, your identity documents and your saved cars and searches. Records of vehicle transfers that already completed are retained where the law requires, with your name and contact details removed from them.
- You can ask for a copy of what we hold about you by writing to contact@sawacars.com.
Children
Sawa Cars accounts are for adults. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18, and we delete it if we discover we have.
Changes and contact
We will update this page whenever the platform changes what it collects, and account holders will be notified of material changes.
Questions about privacy go to contact@sawacars.com, or to contact@sawacars.com for anything else.