Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Zonse Point handles your personal data. See the full Terms & Conditions.

1. Who we are

Zonse Point is operated by Zonse Point Trading Ltd, a company registered in Malawi. We decide how your personal data is used on the platform, under the Data Protection Act 2024. Contact: support@zonsepoint.com.

2. What we collect

• Account: name, email address, phone number, password (stored only in scrambled, hashed form), profile photo, bio and delivery addresses. • Sellers: payout details (mobile money number or bank account) and identity verification (Section 3). • Orders and payments: what you buy and sell, delivery details, payment references, the mobile money number or bank account a payment came from, refunds, payouts, Zonse credit, layby plans and amounts owed. We do not store card numbers or mobile money PINs. • Messages and support: chat messages and attachments, complaints, disputes and the evidence you send, and questions you ask Zonse AI. • Listings: photos, descriptions and prices. • Security: sign-in history, IP address, device and browser details, sign-in attempts and passkeys (we keep only the public part). • Usage, depending on your privacy settings (Section 10): pages and listings viewed, searches and clicks, device details, and your approximate location only if you allow it. • Notifications: your device's push token and your notification and marketing choices.

3. Identity verification (sellers only)

To sell, you verify your identity through Smile Identity. Smile Identity's own app or page captures a photo of your ID document, a selfie and a liveness check, and checks that the face matches. This is biometric data. Smile Identity processes it and sends us the result; we do not receive those photos. If the automatic check cannot be completed, you may instead send photos to us (ID front and back, a selfie, and a selfie holding the ID). They are stored privately, viewed only by our staff to verify you, and each viewing is recorded.

4. How we use it

• To run the marketplace and your account. • To process payments, escrow, refunds, payouts and amounts owed. • To verify identity, prevent fraud and enforce the Terms, including the Contact Information Policy checks. • To meet legal duties: anti-money-laundering record keeping, checking names against international sanctions lists, and reports to the Financial Intelligence Authority. • To answer support requests, including through Zonse AI. • To send order and account messages. • Depending on your settings: analytics, personalisation and marketing. • To give sellers summary statistics about their buyers that do not identify anyone.

5. Legal grounds

We use your data to carry out our agreement with you (the Terms), to meet legal obligations, for legitimate interests (fraud prevention, security and improving the platform), and with your consent for analytics, personalisation, marketing, location and non-essential cookies. You can withdraw consent at any time (Section 10).

We do not sell your personal data. We share it with: • The other party to your order: the name, phone number and delivery details needed to complete it. • Service providers: PayChangu (payments), Smile Identity (identity checks), Cloudinary (images), Microsoft Azure Communication Services (email), Africa's Talking (SMS), Expo, Apple and Google (push notifications), Anthropic and Voyage AI (Zonse AI support, listing-photo checks and title suggestions), Sentry (error reports, with personal details removed as far as possible), and our hosting and network providers (Fly.io, Vercel, Cloudflare and our database provider). • Authorities, where the law requires: the Financial Intelligence Authority, the Reserve Bank of Malawi, the police or the courts.

7. Outside Malawi

Some of these providers store or process data outside Malawi, for example in South Africa, the United States or Europe. Such transfers are made as the Data Protection Act 2024 allows.

8. How long we keep it

• Your account data is kept while your account is open. • When you delete your account, it is removed after 30 days. If you owe money as a seller, removal waits until that is settled. • Records that anti-money-laundering law requires (your identity, transactions and payouts) are kept in restricted form for 7 years after your last related activity, then deleted. • The photos you send us directly to verify your identity are kept privately and deleted 7 years after your last activity on Zonse Point. • Orders, disputes and messages that involve other users stay in their history, with your name removed. • Contact Information Policy violation records are kept permanently.

9. Your rights

• Access your data: Download My Data (website: Profile → Data & Privacy; app: Settings → Data Protection), once every 30 days. • Correct it: in your profile. • Delete your account: Delete My Account. • Withdraw consent or object: Privacy settings in the app, Cookie settings on the website. • Complain to MACRA, Malawi's data protection authority. Some rights are limited where the law requires us to keep data.

10. Cookies and privacy settings

Website cookies: Necessary cookies (sign-in, cart, security) are always on. Preferences, Analytics (our own measurement only) and Advertising (personalised Sponsored listings on Zonse Point, based on your activity here — no tracking on other websites) are switched on when you first visit; you can switch them off at any time in Cookie settings. In the app: analytics, device details, interaction tracking and personalised Sponsored listings are switched on when you join; you can switch them off at any time in Privacy settings. Location and marketing messages are off unless you turn them on.

11. Security

We use measures such as encryption in transit, hashed passwords, private storage for identity photos and access logs. No system is completely secure.

12. Children

The platform is for people aged 18 or over, or with a guardian's consent (Terms Section 15).

13. Changes

We may update this policy. The current version is always shown here, and significant changes are shown on the website and in the app.

Questions: support@zonsepoint.com