Privacy Policy

Campus Grind is a student marketplace for universities and colleges in South Africa. It is available as an app and at campusgrind.co.za. In this policy, Campus Grind means the team that runs the marketplace, and we are the responsible party for the personal information described below.

Privacy questions, data requests and complaints about how we handle your information can be sent to hello@campusgrind.co.za.

• Account details: your name, email address, password (stored in encrypted form), campus or institution, profile photo, and the settings you choose, such as whether you want to see listings from outside your region.
• Listing details: the photos, titles, descriptions, prices, category, campus and tags attached to anything you post, or to a listing you save to your wishlist.
• Your activity in the app: conversations and messages you send, stories you post (these disappear after 24 hours), story views and reactions, the sellers you follow, reviews and ratings you give or receive, reports you submit, and your in-app notifications.
• Payment and escrow details: when you use escrow, we store the transaction amount, the reference and the state of the transaction. Card and bank details are entered directly on our payment partner's own secure checkout page and are never stored by Campus Grind.
• Search and support: the wording you type into search, AI search or the chatbot, and any message you send our support team.
• Technical details: IP address, device and browser type, session tokens, the pages you visit and error logs.

We use cookies and browser storage for essential purposes: keeping you signed in, remembering your filters and settings, and protecting the app against abuse. We also use product analytics to understand which features are used. We do not use third-party advertising cookies.

We use your personal information to:

• create and manage your account, verify your email address and keep you signed in
• show listings, sellers and stories that are relevant to your campus
• enable chat between buyers and sellers, and escrow payments where you choose to use them
• review listings before they go live and moderate content
• keep the marketplace safe by detecting scams, fraud, fake accounts and abuse
• send you in-app notifications about messages, follows and stories
• answer your questions and help resolve disputes
• understand how the app is used so we can improve it
• meet our legal, tax and accounting obligations

We process your information with your consent, to perform our agreement with you, for our legitimate interest in running a safe marketplace, and where the law requires it.

• Base44, the platform that hosts the app. It provides our database, file storage, authentication and email delivery as our operator.
• TradeSafe, our independent escrow partner. If you use escrow, we share the details needed to create the transaction, such as names, email address, mobile number and the transaction amount.
• Our AI provider, which processes the wording you enter in AI search and the chatbot so that it can generate a reply.
• Other users. Your display name, profile photo, campus, listings, stories, reviews and anything you send in a chat are visible to the students you interact with.
• Authorities, regulators or courts, where the law requires it, or where we need to protect someone's safety or our own rights.

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

Escrow is optional and is provided by TradeSafe, an independent payment partner. When you pay through escrow, TradeSafe holds the money and releases it to the seller once the deal is completed under its rules. TradeSafe processes your payment details under its own privacy policy, which we encourage you to read.

Campus Grind does not receive or store your card or bank account numbers, and we do not hold your money.

When you search in plain language, or ask the chatbot a question, your text is sent to our AI provider so that it can produce a result. Please do not type sensitive personal information, bank details or passwords into AI search or the chatbot.

AI results are generated automatically and may be incomplete or wrong, so always check the listing itself before you act on an answer.

Our servers and those of our operators may be located outside South Africa. Where personal information is transferred across borders, we require appropriate safeguards as set out in section 72 of the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA).

• Account and profile information: while your account is active, and for a reasonable period afterwards.
• Stories: 24 hours, after which they are removed automatically.
• Messages: while the conversation exists, so that both sides keep a record of the deal.
• Listings: while the listing is live, and afterwards for record keeping.
• Escrow and payment records: for as long as our own and our payment partner's legal obligations require.
• Server and error logs: for a limited period, for security and debugging.

If you delete your account, we remove or anonymise your personal information, except where we are required to keep it for legal reasons.

Your information travels over encrypted connections and is stored on access controlled servers. Access rules limit which records an account may read or change. No system is perfectly secure, so please use a strong, unique password and tell us immediately at hello@campusgrind.co.za if you think someone else has accessed your account.

Under POPIA you may:

• ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you
• ask us to correct or delete information that is wrong, out of date or no longer needed
• object to processing, or withdraw consent you gave earlier
• ask us to stop sending you notifications or messages
• complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa if you are unhappy with how we have handled your information. The Information Regulator can be reached at inforegulator.org.za or complaints.IR@justice.gov.za.

To exercise any of these rights, email hello@campusgrind.co.za. We may ask you to confirm your identity, and we aim to respond within 30 days.

Campus Grind is intended for people who are 18 or older. If you are younger than 18, you may use the app only with the permission and supervision of a parent or guardian. If we learn that someone under 18 has created an account without the necessary consent, we will close it.

We update this policy when the app or the law changes. The date at the top of the page shows when it was last updated, and we will highlight significant changes in the app before they take effect.

For anything to do with privacy, data access or this policy, email hello@campusgrind.co.za or use the contact page.