Privacy Policy

Everyone who uses the PlusBoda app or website: riders and buyers, drivers and riders who deliver, sellers and the teams of professional accounts, parents and guardians, and partner-school staff. The app is for adults. Where it involves a pupil, that pupil’s parent, guardian or school manages the information on their behalf.

• Account details — Your name, phone number and username. Optionally an email address and a profile photo. If you sign in with Google or Apple, the name and email they share with us.
• Location — Precise device location while you use the app: to find drivers near you, set pickups and delivery addresses, draw routes, price trips, and share a live trip with people you choose.
• Trips and orders — Pickups, drop-offs, saved places, what you ordered or booked, from whom, prices and the status of each, so receipts, support and refunds work.
• Marketplace listings and messages — Photos, descriptions and prices of what you sell, and the messages, photos and voice notes you exchange with buyers, sellers, shops, drivers and our team in the app.
• Professional accounts — The business name, photos, address, hours, items and prices, team members, and the sales and expenses you record in its book.
• Verification — To get the gold tick: a photo of your ID, a selfie, photos of your premises and, for drivers, permits and vehicle details. These are seen only by our verification team and our ID-check provider, never shown on your profile.
• Payments and points — Which payment method you chose (cash today), mobile-money numbers you save if online payments are on, and your PlusBoda points and how you earned them. We do not store card numbers.
• School transport — For monitored school runs: the pupil, their guardians' contact details, the vehicle and crew, and pickup and drop-off status.
• Device and usage data — Crash reports, diagnostics, device identifiers (an id the app keeps on your phone, and your phone's app id from Apple or Google, which we store only in scrambled, hashed form) and push-notification token, and how the app is used (screens opened and how long you stay on them, searches, which buttons you tap — never what you type — and what you view and order), to keep PlusBoda working and improve it.
• App context — Each time the app opens: how it was opened (a notification, a link or its icon), your phone's model and operating system, whether you're on Wi-Fi or mobile data, the battery level, whether notifications are on, and whether the app closed unexpectedly last time. We never collect the names of Wi-Fi networks or the networks around you, and none of this needs an extra permission.

We do nottrack you across other companies’ apps or websites, we do not use advertising networks, and what we learn about you never changes a price.

• Provide the service — Match rides and deliveries, show prices and arrival times, run orders, listings, bookings and school runs, and show live progress.
• Safety and trust — Verify drivers and businesses, show the gold tick, let you share a trip and use SOS, and investigate reports of fraud or abuse.
• AI features — When you ask, a photo you take is sent to our AI provider to draft a listing and suggest a price, and a business's own book is read to give it insights. It is not used to advertise to you.
• Notifications — Trip, order, message and safety alerts on your device. If you turn on Offers & tips, also deals, points and reminders (see section 5).
• Personalised lists — Sort Eats, Shops and the Marketplace by what you view and order, and time reminders to the hours you usually use the app. You can turn this off (see section 5).
• Points and invites — Credit points for rides, orders and invited friends, and keep the referral count honest: the hashed phone identifiers let us pay invite points once per phone and never for inviting yourself. They are used for nothing else.
• Improve PlusBoda — Fix crashes and understand which features help.

With your permission we use precise location to find drivers, set your pickup and draw the route. While a driver is on a trip or a school run, their location updates in the background so the rider, guardians or school can follow it. You can turn live-location sharing off in the app or revoke the permission in your device settings at any time; some features won’t work without it.

• Offers & tips are your choice — Deals, points, food near you, a nudge when a friend joins, or a reminder when you haven't been back in a while. They are off until you turn them on, in the app or in Settings → More settings → Offers & tips, and you can turn them off there at any time.
• Few, and never at night — At most one a day and a few a week, never between 9:30 pm and 7 am, and fewer if you don't open them. Trip, order, message and safety alerts are never limited or affected by this switch.
• How we choose — From how you use PlusBoda: what you view and order, when you usually open the app, and the app context in section 2. We use it to decide which message is useful and when to send it, and to sort lists for you.
• Personalised for you — Lists in Eats, Shops and the Marketplace are sorted by what you've viewed and ordered. Turn it off in Settings → More settings → Personalised for you, and lists are sorted the same way for everyone.
• Prices are the same for everyone — Fares, delivery fees and prices never depend on who you are, what you've bought, your phone, your battery or anything else we know about you. A price depends only on the trip or the item.
• Your right to object — You can tell us to stop using your information for direct marketing at any time (Data Protection and Privacy Act 2019, section 26). Switching off Offers & tips does it straight away; if you email us, we stop within 14 days and confirm in writing.
• Children — A pupil's or student's account never receives offers and is never personalised.

PlusBoda is not marketed to children. A pupil’s information (name, school, home pickup point, guardians) is provided and controlled by their parent, guardian or school, and is used onlyto run school transport and alert their guardians. We never use a child’s information for advertising or sell it.

• People you deal with — Your driver sees your pickup and name; a seller or shop sees your order and delivery address; people you message see your messages and profile; a guardian or school sees their pupil's run.
• Public profile and listings — Your username, photo, member number, listings and a business's page are visible to other users and, for business pages and listings, on the web.
• Service providers — Google (Firebase hosting, sign-in and database; Google Maps), Apple (sign-in), Twilio (sign-in codes), Smile ID (ID checks), our AI provider (listing drafts), Sentry and PostHog (crash reports and usage analytics), Expo (push notifications) and payment partners when online payments are on. They process data only to provide their service to us.
• Legal reasons — Where the law requires it, or to protect someone’s safety.

We do not sell personal data, and we do not share it with advertisers.

We keep information as long as your account is open and as needed to meet legal, tax and safety obligations, then delete or anonymise it. Usage events, app context and the record of which notifications we sent are deleted when your account is deleted. Data is encrypted in transit. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to keep your information safe.

Even while your account is open, some records are deleted automatically: usage events after 5 years, the record of which notifications we sent (and whether you opened them) after 6 months, planned reminders after 30 days, and the app context from your last session (phone type, network type, battery level) once you haven’t opened PlusBoda for 90 days. We review once a year what we collect against what we use, and stop collecting what we no longer need.

ID checks are kept longer, because the law requires it. Uganda’s Traffic and Road Safety (Digital Networks) Regulations 2023 require us to keep a copy of each verified ID or permit, the selfie taken with it and the check’s result for 5 years. We keep them for 5 years from the check, including after you delete your account, and then delete them. While your account is open we keep the copies behind your current Verified tick; copies from earlier checks are deleted once they are 5 years old.

• Access and update — View and edit your profile, listings and business details in the app at any time.
• Delete your account — In the app: Settings → More settings → Delete account. This deletes your account and the personal data tied to it: your profile, push address, online status, points, the record of what you viewed, your usage events and our notification history. Your member number stays reserved but no longer shows your name or photo. Records we must keep by law (such as completed orders and payments) are kept only as long as required. You can also email us to ask for deletion, or to delete specific data without closing your account.
• Offers and personalisation — Turn Offers & tips and Personalised for you on or off in Settings → More settings.
• Object to direct marketing — Email us and we stop using your information for marketing within 14 days.
• Control permissions — Manage location, camera, photos and notifications in your device settings.
• Block and report — Block anyone so they can't see or message you, and report listings or people to our team.

• Location — To find drivers, set pickups, plot routes and share live trips (in the background only while you drive a trip or a school run).
• Camera and photos — To photograph things you sell, your business, your profile picture, and your ID for verification.
• Notifications — Trip, order, message and safety alerts, and Offers & tips only if you turn them on. We ask when an alert would help (your first ride, order or chat), not when the app opens.
• Microphone and speech recognition — For in-app calls, voice notes in chats, talking to Plus, and answering Plus when it picks up a call for someone. English speech is turned into text by your phone's own service (Apple or Google).

When you talk to Plus, our assistant, in Luganda, Runyankole, Acholi or Ateso, your voice message is turned into text by speech models from Sunbird AI. They run on PlusBoda’s own servers, or on Sunbird AI’s service when ours is busy or off. Plus’s spoken replies are deleted within a day. English voice is recognised on your phone.

Teach AI your language (optional).Most AI does not understand our languages or our accents. If you choose “Yes, I’m in”, we keep your voice messages in those languages, with what Plus heard, its translation and the language, to train and improve speech models for African languages. We keep them until you turn this off, and for at most five years. They are stored on Google Cloud, outside Uganda, are never published, and are never linked to your name in a trained model. We may share them with Sunbird AI to improve the open models for everyone. Children’s accounts are never asked.

Turn it off any time in Plus → settings → “Teach AI your language”. That deletes what you shared. You can also ask us to delete it through Contact support.

Plus works from what is already in your PlusBoda account: your rides, orders and reminders, the chats waiting for you, and, if you run a business, its orders, stock, unfinished page and how many people viewed it. Each Monday it uses these to write you a short list for the week, and it tells you in Plus when people view your listings. It reads your calendar only if you switch Calendar on.

Nothing is done without you.When Plus lines something up (a ride, your usual lunch), it asks first, in the app or with Allow and Don’t allow on the notification. Allow needs your phone unlocked, and Plus tells you when it is done.

Answering unknown calls.When someone you have never chatted or spoken with calls you in the app, Plus may pick up instead of ringing, ask who is calling and why, and show you their answer so you can pick up or decline. Rides and verified people always ring. If you are the caller, Plus tells you this, your words are turned into text on your own phone, and that text is shown to the person you called and kept with the call’s record and in their Plus. Turn it off in Plus → settings → “Answer unknown calls”.

We update this policy as PlusBoda grows. We change the “last updated” date above and, for significant changes, tell you in the app.

Questions about your privacy or this policy? Email us at hello@plusboda.com, or write to AFRICANLABS.AI LLC, 6201 EP True Pkwy, West Des Moines, IA 50266, United States.