Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

VarsityHub ("we", "us") is a student marketplace operating in South Africa, connecting registered university students to buy, sell, and offer services. We are committed to protecting your personal information in accordance with the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), 2013.

2. Information We Collect

• Account data: Full name, student email address, university, campus, province, and your confirmation at signup that you are 18 or older
• Seller data: Business/shop name (optional), WhatsApp number (required, so buyers can contact you)
• Listing data: Title, description, price, category, condition, images
• Payment data: If you buy a subscription, your name, email address, and the amount are sent to our payment processor to process payment. We never receive or store your card details ourselves; see "Payments" below.
• Support data: Anything you tell us directly if you contact support, or details you include in a report you file against another user.
• Technical data: Your IP address and basic device/browser information are processed briefly for security purposes, to prevent abuse of our sign-up and login forms, and by our error-monitoring tool if something breaks; and, if you consent to analytics, this same information also helps us understand overall site traffic. See our Cookie Policy for detail.
• Session recordings: If you consent to analytics, on the sign-up, log-in, and account-recovery pages only, we record on-screen activity (never your password) so we can see where people get stuck during registration and fix it. See our Cookie Policy for detail.

We do not collect payment card details. All payments are processed securely by a third-party payment processor.

3. How We Use Your Information

• To create and manage your account
• To display your listings to other registered students
• To show your WhatsApp number to logged-in users so buyers can contact you
• To process subscription payments
• To send transactional emails (account verification, password reset)
• To detect and prevent fraud, scams, and misuse, including automated abuse of our sign-up and login forms
• Where you've consented to analytics (see our Cookie Policy), to understand overall site usage; we do not track individual browsing behaviour for this.

4. Who Can See Your Data

• Your listings are visible to all visitors (logged in or not)
• Your name and university are visible to other logged-in, registered students
• Your WhatsApp number is only visible to logged-in, registered students, and only ever to open a WhatsApp chat directly with you; when a buyer taps "Connect", your number and display name are pre-filled into a WhatsApp message on their device before it's sent to WhatsApp, not before.
• Your email address is never shown to other students, only to you and to VarsityHub admin staff
• VarsityHub admin staff can access all data for moderation purposes

5. Data Storage and International Transfers

Your data is stored securely with providers that use row-level access controls, and encryption at rest and in transit (HTTPS/TLS) as standard.

Some of the providers we rely on for hosting, database, image storage, and (where you've consented) analytics operate infrastructure outside South Africa, including in the United States and the European Union. This means your personal information may be processed or stored on servers outside South Africa. Where this happens, we rely on providers who maintain appropriate security safeguards, and this processing is limited to operating the service you've signed up to use; it is never sold or used for unrelated purposes. This is standard for online platforms operating in South Africa and is a permitted transfer under POPIA.

6. Your Rights (POPIA)

Under POPIA, you have the right to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you
• Request correction of inaccurate information
• Request deletion of your account and all associated data
• Object to processing of your information
• Lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator of South Africa

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at privacy@varsityhub.co.za or use the account deletion option in your settings.

7. Data Retention

We retain your data for as long as your account is active. When you delete your account, your profile, listings, saved items, and block/like relationships are permanently deleted immediately, not held in a temporary state. Two narrow exceptions, kept only where necessary for legal, safety, or accounting reasons:

• A report you filed against another user, or that was filed against you, is retained for moderation and safety records, but is de-linked from your account once it's deleted.
• A record that a payment occurred (amount and plan, not linked to your name) is retained for accounting purposes, de-linked from your account once it's deleted.

8. Cookies and Analytics

We use only essential cookies required for authentication (login sessions). With your consent, we also use privacy-focused analytics to understand overall site usage; this never runs before you've made a choice in the cookie banner, and we do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies. See our full Cookie Policy for the complete list of what we store and why.

9. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. We will notify you of significant changes via email or a notice on the platform.

10. Information Officer and Contact

Our Information Officer, responsible for POPIA compliance, can be reached at privacy@varsityhub.co.za for any privacy-related queries, access requests, or complaints.