Privacy policy

1Who we are

This policy explains what the people who run ShopApp, published on Google Play as ShopApp Labs ("we", "us") hold about you and your shop, why, and what you can do about it. It covers the ShopApp phone app, the agent app, the account page at accounts.shopapp.biz, the admin console at admin.shopapp.biz and this website.

For the records your shop enters, the shop decides what goes in and we store it on the shop's behalf. For profiles, devices and payments to us, we decide, and we answer for it.

2What we do not collect

ShopApp is built to work without knowing who you are. We do not collect:

• your real name, unless you choose it as your username
• your phone number, email address, home address, ID number or date of birth
• your shop's phone number or address, unless you type them onto an invoice or put them on your online store
• your location, which the app never asks for. A shop that wants its online store to show where it is pastes a Google Maps link, which we keep as a link and never open
• your contacts, call log, messages or microphone
• anything about your customers, unless you sell to one on credit or write one an invoice: every other sale has no customer name or number on it
• card, bank or EcoCash details: we take no payment through the app

There are no adverts, no analytics and no tracking tools in the apps, the account page, the admin console or this website.

3What we do collect

• Your profile: a username, your role and what you are allowed to do in the shop, your password in a scrambled form nobody can read back, whether the profile is active, and when you last signed in.
• Your shop: its name, its ShopApp number, who is in it, who set it up, its trial and payment dates, its price, and any hold we have put on it with the reason.
• What your shop enters: items, barcodes, prices, costs, item photos, sales, payments taken and how (cash, EcoCash, swipe), returns, stock received and counted, expenses and other income, and any notes typed alongside them. Each record carries which profile and which phone made it, and when.
• People you sell to on credit: when you record a sale on credit, the name you type for the customer, their phone number if you add one, what they owe and the day they are to pay. Your shop decides whether to record them, and only the people in your shop see them.
• Invoices: when you write an invoice, what is on it. That is the customer's name, and their phone number and address if you add them, the items and figures, any notes, and the shop name, phone number and address you choose to print at the top.
• Your phone and your sign-ins: a number that identifies the phone to ShopApp, the phone's model and software version, which version of ShopApp it runs, when it was last seen and last synced and, each time you sign in, your internet (IP) address and the name of the app or browser you used.
• Payments to us: the amount, the date, how you paid, a reference such as an EcoCash code, any note, and a photo or PDF of the proof of payment if there is one. A reference or a proof can show the payer's name and phone number.
• Messages: if you message us on WhatsApp we see your WhatsApp number, your profile name and what you send, and the chat stays in WhatsApp.
• Set up by an agent: a ShopApp agent records your shop's name and the username you choose. Nothing else.
• Your online store, if a shop admin turns one on: the store's name, web address, description, WhatsApp number, address and map link, whether every item is listed or only the ones picked, which items are listed, the description written for each, when the admin agreed to it being public, and whether we have taken it off the web and why.
• Web orders: when someone builds an order on your online store we keep the items, their quantities and prices, the total, a code, and when it was made, for 30 days, so its link opens the order in your app. We keep nothing about the customer: no name, number or address. If the order becomes a sale, the sale carries the code and the order stays with the sale. We also keep a count of how many orders were made on your online store each day, and nothing else about them.
• Data downloads: when a shop's admin compiles a download we record who asked and when, and we hold the file, which is spreadsheets of the shop's records with its product photos, for 48 hours.
• Alerts: what each alert says, who it went to and whether they have read it, how you have set your alerts (what is paused, your quiet hours, which sales are worth a buzz), and an address Google gives your phone so alerts can reach it. We clear alerts after 90 days.
• Messages from ShopApp: when one of us writes to shops from the admin console, we keep what was said, who wrote it, who it went to and how many phones it reached.
• Server logs: our servers note each request they get, the internet address it came from, how long it took and any error, which can include a profile or device number. For a request an online store turned away as a program, the log also notes the name the browser gave.
• Visits to the online stores: to tell shoppers from programs, our servers count what each neighbourhood of internet addresses has asked for in the last few minutes, by the first part of the address. The count is held in the server's memory for up to 15 minutes and is never written to our records. A store's pages are handed to a browser with a short-lived pass, which holds nothing about the visitor but a mark of the browser's name.

Notes are yours to fill in, and we do not read them to check. Do not put other people's personal details, such as a customer's or a worker's name, phone number or ID number, into item names or notes. The one place for a customer's name and number is the customer field of a sale on credit or an invoice.

4Why we use it

• to run ShopApp for you: store your records, keep every phone in the shop in step and work out your figures
• to keep profiles safe: check passwords and codes, notice a stolen sign-in, and turn away phones and people that should not be there
• to bill: know which shops are on trial, paid up or behind, and record payments
• to help you when you ask, which can mean looking into your shop's records to sort out what you raised
• to see how ShopApp is doing, through counts and totals such as how many sales shops have recorded
• to meet the law and to defend a legal claim

We rely on the agreement with you (the terms of use), on your consent where you give it, on our legitimate interest in keeping ShopApp safe and running, and on the law where it requires something of us.

We do not sell what we hold, rent it out, share it for advertising, or use it to make automated decisions about you.

5Who can see it

• People in your shop. A shop admin sees everything in the shop. A shop assistant is shown the items, the stock and only their own sales. Expenses and other income never reach a shop assistant's phone. Everyone in a shop can see the usernames of the others.
• ShopApp staff. They can see your shop's name and number, its usernames and roles, how many sales each person recorded, the phones signed in to it (the model, the version of ShopApp, and when each was last seen and last synced), and its payment history with us. They can see totals for each day and each hour of the week: how many sales, items added, stock updates, stock counts, returns, sales on credit, invoices, new customers and entries in your books it recorded, how many orders were made on its online store, and the value of its sales and refunds. The admin console does not show them individual sales, items, prices, stock records, customers, invoices or your books, and never an amount from your books. Your records are kept on our servers, so we are able to read them there. We do not look into them unless you ask us to, or we have to look to sort out a question or a problem you raised with us. They can issue a new code for a profile, which resets its password. Before they do, they are shown when your last sale was and what it came to, and the names of your five best sellers over 30 days, to check that it is your shop asking.
• ShopApp agents. An agent sees the shops they set up in the last 7 days, by name and username. While a shop they set up is on its free trial and not using ShopApp much, they also see when the trial ends, how many items it has loaded, how many sales it recorded in the last 30 days, how many days it sold on and the day of its last sale, so they can call and help. They never see what it sold, any amount, or anything else inside the shop.
• Our hosting provider, which runs the servers and stores what is on them for us, under our instructions.
• The police, a court or a regulator, when the law requires it.
• Whoever takes over ShopApp, if it is ever sold or merged, under this same policy.
• Anyone on the internet, for what a shop admin chose to put on the shop's online store: the store's name, description, WhatsApp number and location, and each listed item's name, price, pictures, description and whether it is in stock. Whoever holds an order's link can see that order's items and total. Nothing else about the shop is public.

Nobody else.

6Other companies' services

• Google Fonts. This website loads its typefaces from Google. When you open a page here, your browser asks Google for them, so Google sees your internet address and browser type. The apps, the account page and the admin console do not do this.
• WhatsApp. The buttons that message us open WhatsApp, which belongs to Meta. What you send there is handled under WhatsApp's own privacy policy as well as this one.
• Google Play. The phone app is installed from Google Play. Google handles the install, and anything your phone shares with Google, under its own privacy policy. Google shows us totals, such as how many phones have the app, and crash reports from people who chose to share them. None of it names you or your shop.
• Sharing a receipt. When you share a receipt or save it to your gallery, it goes wherever you send it. That is between you and the app you chose.
• Firebase Cloud Messaging. Alerts reach your phone through Google's Firebase. Google carries the heading and the few lines of each alert, which can name an item, an amount or a person in your shop, together with your phone's alert address. It does not get your shop's records. We do not use any other part of Firebase.
• Cloudflare Turnstile. Before an order on an online store is made, when a visit to a store looks like a program's, and when you press to download the computer app on this website, Cloudflare checks that a person is asking. Cloudflare sees the visitor's internet address and browser details for that check, under its own privacy policy. On this website it runs only once you press a download. It never runs in the apps.
• Google Maps. A shop may put a Google Maps link on its online store. Opening it takes the visitor to Google, under Google's own privacy policy. We never open the link ourselves.

That is all of them. No advertising network, analytics, crash reporting, email or SMS service is built into ShopApp.

7Cookies

A cookie is a small file a website asks your browser to keep. Here is every place ShopApp could use one.

• This website, shopapp.biz, sets no cookies and keeps nothing in your browser.
• The phone apps use no cookies. They keep your sign-in in the phone's secure storage (the Android Keystore).
• The account page, accounts.shopapp.biz, is where people in a shop sign in. The admin console, admin.shopapp.biz, is used by ShopApp staff. Both set the same three cookies below and keep one setting.

• shopapp_access

  Shows the server you are signed in. Scripts in the browser cannot read it.

  Lasts 1 hour

• shopapp_refresh

  Keeps you signed in by fetching a fresh shopapp_access. It is replaced every time it is used, and scripts cannot read it.

  Lasts 30 days, or until you sign out

• shopapp_csrf

  Stops another website from sending requests in your name.

  Lasts 30 days, or until you sign out

• shop-theme

  Not a cookie: a setting kept in the browser that remembers light or dark.

  Lasts until you clear it

All of these are strictly necessary: neither site can sign you in without them. None of them tracks you, none comes from another company, and none is used for advertising or analytics. That is why no banner asks for your consent.

The cookies are set for the shopapp.biz family of sites, so a browser that is signed in may send shopapp_csrf along when it opens this website. This website never reads it.

You can delete or block cookies in your browser's settings. If you block these, you cannot sign in to the admin console or to your account page. Signing out removes all three.

The online stores set no cookies. A store keeps the order you are building, and the codes of orders you have made, in your own browser's storage, where only that browser can read them. An order you have not sent is cleared 24 hours after you last changed it. Clearing your browser's site data empties both. The pass a store hands your browser is held only while the page is open.

If we ever add a cookie that is not strictly necessary, we will list it here and ask first.

8On your phone

The phone app asks for these permissions, and only when it needs them:

• Camera, to read barcodes. Scanning happens on the phone, and no picture of it is kept or sent.
• Photos, to pick pictures for an item and to save receipts and barcode labels to your gallery. Only the pictures you pick are uploaded.
• Internet, to sync.
• Nearby devices (Bluetooth), on Android, to find a receipt printer and print to it. It asks the first time you choose a printer. Nothing about the devices nearby is kept or sent.
• Notifications, to show your shop's alerts. It asks once, after you first sign in. You can turn alerts off in your phone's settings, or pause them in the app. Paused alerts still wait for you in the app's Alerts tab.

It never asks for your location, contacts, microphone, SMS or call log.

When you download your shop's data in the app, the file is saved to the app's temporary folder and handed to your phone's share sheet. Where it goes from there is up to you.

So that it works with no internet, the app keeps a copy of your shop's records on the phone. That copy is protected by the phone's own lock and app protections, not by a separate password, so put a screen lock on any phone that runs ShopApp. Signing out clears it.

9Where it is kept

What we hold is kept on servers outside Zimbabwe, run for us by a hosting provider. By using ShopApp you agree to your shop's records and your profile being sent to, kept and processed there. We choose providers that protect what they hold, and we stay responsible for it wherever it is kept.

10How long we keep it

• While your shop is on a trial or paid up, we keep its records so that ShopApp works.
• Once a shop is no longer paid up, we make no promise about how long its records stay on our servers. We may delete them at any time.
• When a shop's admin deletes the shop, its records, photos and profiles are deleted from our servers for good. Our own business accounts, which the law makes us keep, may still show that a payment was received.
• A file of shop data compiled for download is deleted 48 hours after it is made. Deleting the account that asked for it removes the file straight away.
• When someone in a shop deletes their own account, the profile is removed and their username is replaced with a made-up one. The sales they recorded stay with the shop.
• A profile nobody signs in to for 6 months is made inactive. It is not deleted.
• A sign-in session, and the internet address recorded with it, is kept for as long as the session could still be used, and after that only as long as we need it to look into misuse.
• The count of visits to the online stores is gone after 15 minutes, or sooner when the server restarts.
• Where we keep backups of our servers, a deleted record can remain in a backup until that backup is replaced.
• WhatsApp chats stay in WhatsApp until you or we delete them.

11Your rights

Under Zimbabwe's Cyber and Data Protection Act you have the right to:

• ask what we hold about you, and get a copy
• have it corrected if it is wrong
• have it deleted when we have no good reason to keep it
• object to how we use it, or ask us to stop for a while
• take a copy of your shop's data with you
• withdraw a consent you gave

Most of this you can do yourself at accounts.shopapp.biz: change your password, download a copy of everything your shop has recorded, and delete your account. Deleting your account or your shop is your choice and does not bring a refund, as the terms of use explain. The download belongs to the shop's admin, so if you work in a shop, ask them for what you need. The shop's admin can also change or delete the shop's records, and delete the shop, in the app. For anything else, message us on WhatsApp. Because we do not know who you are, we will ask you to show that the profile or the shop is yours, usually by signing in while we talk. We answer within 30 days.

If a request is about records a shop entered, such as a worker asking about their sales, we pass it to the shop's admin, because those records are the shop's.

If you are not happy with our answer, you can complain to the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ), which is the data protection authority.

12How we protect it

• Passwords are stored scrambled (hashed). Nobody, including us, can read them back.
• Set-up codes are stored scrambled, last 10 minutes and lock after 5 wrong tries.
• Sign-in sessions are stored scrambled and replaced every time they are renewed. A stolen one that gets used twice shuts the session down.
• On the phone, your sign-in is kept in the phone's secure storage.
• Every request is checked against the shop the signed-in profile belongs to, so one shop cannot reach another's records or photos.
• Phones and browsers talk to our servers over an encrypted connection.
• Closing an account, or changing or resetting a password, signs that profile out everywhere at once.

Your part matters as much as ours. Your password is the only lock on your profile, and we cannot tell you apart from someone who has it.

• Set a strong password of at least 8 characters, use it nowhere else, and never share it. We never ask for it.
• Put a screen lock on every phone that runs ShopApp.
• Sign out on any computer or phone that is not yours or that other people use, and before you lend, sell or repair a phone. On a phone, let it sync first.
• If a phone is lost or stolen, or you think someone knows your password, change it straight away at accounts.shopapp.biz. That signs your profile out everywhere.

What the terms of use ask of you

No system is perfectly secure. If something goes wrong that puts your information at risk, we will tell the people affected and the regulator as the law requires. With no contact details for you, we do that on this website, and in the app where we can.

13Children

ShopApp is for people running or working in a shop, and is not meant for anyone under 18. We do not knowingly hold information about children. If you think a child has a profile, tell us and we will remove it.

14Changes to this policy

We may change this policy. The new one goes on this page with a new date. We have no email address or phone number for you, so this page is where changes are announced.

15Contact

For a question about this policy, or a request about your information, message us on WhatsApp.

Message us on WhatsApp

Read the terms of use