Privacy Policy
What Kweele collects when you hire a pro, buy materials or work on Kweele, why we collect it, who sees it, how long we keep it, and the choices you have.
1. About this policy
Kweele is a marketplace that connects people building in Liberia, many of them living in the United States, with builders, tradespeople and material suppliers in Liberia. This policy covers kweele.com and the Kweele app. It explains what we collect, why, who sees it, how long we keep it, and the choices you have.
Kweele is operated by Kweele LLC, a Minnesota limited liability company.
2. Information we collect
We collect what you give us, what is created as you use Kweele, and what sign-in providers share with us.
Some of it is about other people: a crew member, a reference, or the person receiving a delivery. If you give us someone else’s details, please make sure they’re happy for you to share them.
- Account: your name, email address, phone number if you add one, your role (buyer, professional or supplier), and how you sign in: a password, or Apple, Google or Facebook, which share your name and email with us.
- Professional profile: business name, trade, bio, rates, service area, photos, services and availability, and figures we work out from your activity (rating, jobs paid through Kweele, typical reply time).
- Verification (professionals): your ID type and number, photos of your ID, years in your trade, and the names, phone numbers and relationship of the references you list.
- Your crew (professionals): the names, roles and mobile-money numbers of crew members you add, and the payments you record for them.
- Suppliers: business name, collection address and hours, listings, and payout number.
- Projects and jobs: job posts, quote requests and quotes, stages, progress photos and captions, delivery photos and counts, reports of missing or damaged items with their photos, and disputes.
- Messages: what you write and attach in conversations, and when you last read each one.
- Orders and payments: what you bought, the delivery address and the recipient’s name and phone, a record of each payment and refund, and your payout network and number. Card details go to Stripe, not to us.
- Reviews and reports: reviews and replies you write, and reports you make about messages, reviews, profiles or items.
- Contact form and waitlist: what you send us, or your waitlist email address, the trade you need first and where you’re building.
- Location (professionals, in the Kweele app): when you open the screen to post a work update, the app asks for your phone’s location. If you allow it, the location is attached to that update, and the buyer on that project can see it. The app never collects location in the background, and the website never asks for your location.
- Device and log data: your IP address, browser or device type and the pages you request, which our hosting and sign-in providers record to keep Kweele secure and working. Your time zone, which your browser or phone tells us so we can show dates in your local time; we don’t store it with your account. In the app, if you allow notifications, a push-notification token and whether your phone runs iOS or Android.
- Our own records: a log of the emails and texts we send you, and a log of the actions our staff take on accounts and money.
3. How we use it
We use your information to run Kweele:
- Run your account, sign you in and keep it secure.
- Show professionals and suppliers in search, and show job posts to professionals.
- Check professionals’ identity and references, and use ID numbers to stop duplicate or banned accounts.
- Take payments, hold each stage’s money until the buyer approves it, send payouts and make refunds.
- Carry messages, quotes, reviews and reports, and settle disputes.
- Show a buyer that a work update was posted on site, and where.
- Send account and transaction emails, texts and app notifications, for example about new messages, payments, marketplace deliveries, job invitations and verification results.
- Prevent fraud and abuse, enforce our Terms, and meet our legal duties.
We don’t use your information for advertising, and Kweele has no analytics.
5. What’s public
Some of what you post can be seen by anyone, signed in or not:
- professional profiles (name, photos, trade, area, rating and reviews) and supplier storefronts and listings (business name, products, ratings, and the collection address on items that can be collected);
- reviews and replies, shown with the writer’s account name;
- open job posts: title, description, budget, area and photos;
- photos of a finished stage on a professional’s profile, only if the buyer agreed when releasing that stage. The buyer can stop this at any time from the project, and it stops when the buyer deletes their account.
6. Photos and the details inside them
Photos you add to a job post, a quote request, a progress update, a delivery or a profile are stored at web addresses that aren’t password-protected: anyone who has the link can open them. Files sent in messages are private to the people in the conversation. Photos of ID documents, and photos sent with a report about an item, are private to our staff.
Phone cameras can save hidden details inside a photo, such as where and when it was taken. Photos you add in the Kweele app are re-saved on your phone before they upload, which removes those details. Photos you add on the website are stored exactly as you send them, so if your camera saved its location in the file, it stays there, and anyone with the link to the photo can read it. To avoid that, turn off location for your camera, or add the photo from the app.
7. Payments and payouts
Buyers pay by card or Stripe Link. Stripe processes each payment into Kweele’s own account, and Kweele holds a stage’s money until the buyer approves the work or we decide a dispute about it. Kweele is not a bank or a licensed escrow agent. We then pay the professional by mobile money: for MTN we send MTN a payment file with each payee’s name, wallet number and amount and a note saying what the payout is for, and our staff send Orange Money payouts by hand.
We never see or store full card numbers; Stripe handles card details. A card is saved for later only if you choose to save it in the app’s payment form, and Stripe stores it. Cards used before we made saving a choice were saved automatically, and stay saved until you remove them. You can remove a saved card in the app, or ask us through the contact form and we’ll remove it. Every saved card is deleted when you delete your account. Stripe emails you a receipt for every payment.
8. Verification and ID
When a professional applies for verification, we use their ID document to confirm who they are, and we check the ID number against other accounts to stop duplicate or banned accounts. Only our staff can see the ID photos, which are kept in private storage. We may contact the references a professional lists.
When a professional deletes their account, we delete the ID photos right after the account closes. If that fails, we try again every night until they’re gone. If they were ever paid through Kweele, we keep a record of the check (their name, the ID type and number, and the result, not the photos) for 5 years after the account is deleted, to meet record-keeping duties for payments. Then we delete it.
10. How long we keep information
We keep information only as long as we need it:
- Your account and profile: while your account is open.
- Messages and reviews: messages you sent stay with the people who received them, and reviews you wrote stay on the profile or product they’re about. Once you delete your account, both show as from “Former Kweele member”.
- A closed supplier account’s business name: it stays on the supplier’s past orders, replies to reviews and listings, and in our staff’s record of actions on the account, as long as we keep its order records. The listings come off the shop, but a direct link to one still opens it.
- Projects, with their updates, photos and any location on them: as long as we keep that project’s payment records.
- Payment, order, payout and dispute records, including the mobile-money number each payout went to, and the log of our staff’s actions on accounts and money: as long as tax, accounting and other legal rules require.
- A paid professional’s ID check: 5 years after the account is deleted (section 8).
- If we suspend an account for fraud, threats or serious breaches of our rules, we keep scrambled fingerprints of its email, phone, sign-in, ID number and mobile-money number, which can’t be read back, so the same person can’t open a new account. We keep them while the suspension stands.
- Logs of the emails and texts we sent: 24 months, or until you delete your account.
- Records of Stripe’s payment notifications to us, which hold only Stripe’s reference numbers: 90 days.
- Contact-form messages: 24 months after you send them, once we’ve dealt with them, or until you delete your account.
- Waitlist sign-ups: 24 months if we never invite you. Once we invite you, we keep your sign-up, because it’s what lets you create an account, until you delete your account or ask us to delete it.
Stripe, our email and text providers, and our hosting and sign-in providers keep their own records under their own policies. Deleting your Kweele account doesn’t delete those copies.
11. Your choices and rights
Whoever you are and wherever you live, you can:
- See and correct most of your information in Settings on the website or Profile in the app.
- Get a copy, or ask us to correct or delete something: use our contact form, choose “Privacy or account deletion request”, and enter the email address on your account. We’ll confirm it’s you before we act, and reply within 45 days.
- Delete your account. Buyers and professionals can do it themselves (website: Settings → Delete account; app: Profile → Delete account). Suppliers, and anyone who can’t sign in, can ask us through the contact form. Delete your account explains what we delete and what we keep.
- Not a Kweele member? If you joined the waitlist, wrote to us, or a professional added you to their crew or named you as a reference, you can ask us to delete your details the same way.
- Emails: in Settings → Notifications, turn off emails about new messages, job invitations and your marketplace deliveries. Waitlist invitations have an unsubscribe link. Stripe sends a receipt for every payment. We don’t send marketing emails; if we ever do, they’ll be off unless you turn them on, and each will have an unsubscribe link.
- Texts: reply STOP to any text from us.
- In the app: turn location and notifications off in your phone’s settings. Work updates still post without a location.
- Saved cards: remove them in the app’s payment form, or ask us through the contact form and we’ll remove them.
12. Your US state privacy rights
Some US states, including California, give their residents particular privacy rights. Here is how they apply at Kweele.
In the last 12 months we collected these categories of personal information:
- identifiers: name, email address, phone number, IP address and account IDs;
- customer records: delivery addresses and payment records (card details are held by Stripe);
- commercial information: projects, orders, payments and payouts;
- internet activity: pages requested and device type, in our providers’ logs;
- geolocation: from the app, when a professional posts a work update;
- photos you upload;
- professional information: trade, years of experience and references;
- sensitive personal information: government ID numbers and photos, precise location, account sign-in details, and the contents of messages between users.
We collect it from you, from other users (for example a buyer’s review or a professional’s progress photo), and from sign-in providers. We use it for the purposes in section 3, share it with the service providers in section 4, and keep it as described in section 10.
We don’t sell personal information, and we don’t share it for cross-context behavioral advertising; we haven’t done either in the last 12 months. We use sensitive information only to run Kweele, never to infer things about you.
Depending on your state, you can ask to know what we hold about you, get a copy, and have it corrected or deleted. Ask through the contact form as described in section 11; we’ll confirm it’s you and reply within 45 days. You can use an authorized agent. We’ll ask for proof that they can act for you, and may check with you directly.
If we turn down a request, our answer will say why. To appeal, send the contact form again with the same topic and say you’re appealing. We’ll look at it again and tell you what we decided and why. We won’t treat you differently for using any of these rights.
13. International transfers
Kweele works across the United States and Liberia. Our service providers may store and process your information in the United States and in other countries where they operate, and payout details go to mobile-money providers in Liberia.
14. Security
We use encrypted connections, keep ID photos and other private files in storage that opens only through short-lived links for the people allowed to see them, and limit our staff tools to staff accounts. No system is perfectly secure, so we can’t promise that nothing will ever go wrong.
15. Children
Kweele is only for people 18 or older. Our Terms require it, and the website’s sign-up asks you to confirm it. We don’t knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you think a child has given us information, tell us through the contact form and we’ll delete it.
16. Changes to this policy
When we change this policy, we update the date at the top. Before a material change takes effect, such as collecting a new kind of information or sharing it with a new kind of company, we’ll tell you with a notice on Kweele or by email. We won’t use information we already have in a materially different way without asking you first.
17. Contact us
For questions or requests about your privacy, use our contact form and choose “Privacy or account deletion request”. We reply to the email address you give us.
Kweele is operated by Kweele LLC, a Minnesota limited liability company.
Use our contact form and choose “Privacy or account deletion request”. See also our Terms of Service and Cookie policy.