Privacy Policy
Swag Swap is a cash-free barter app: people nearby swap things, in person, with no money involved. This policy explains what we collect, why, how long we keep it, and what you can do about it. We write it to the standard of the EU General Data Protection Regulation even where that law does not apply to you, because it is the standard we build to.
Who we are
Swag Swap is operated by private individuals, not a registered company. For anything in this policy, write to
support@swagswap.app.What we collect, and why
Your phone number — to sign you in with a one-time code and to reach you about your swaps. Basis: performance of our contract with you.
Your profile and listings — name, photo, the items you post, their photos and descriptions, and your ratings. These are public inside the app by design; that is how a swap starts. Basis: contract.
Your approximate location — to show you items nearby and to show others roughly how far away you are, rounded to a distance, never a point. We do not store a location history. Basis: contract.
Your messages — chats with the people you swap with. They are encrypted in transit and stored securely. They are not end-to-end encrypted: messages may be automatically scanned, and read by our team when a chat is reported or a dispute is opened, to keep people safe. We are honest about that trade-off. Basis: contract, and our legitimate interest in keeping the service safe.
Swap records — offers, agreed meetups, confirmations, ratings, disputes and reports. Basis: contract, and legitimate interest in resolving disputes and enforcing our rules.
Device and usage data — a push-notification token, app version, and the basic technical logs any service keeps. Basis: legitimate interest in running the service.
Identity verification
Browsing and building a profile need no ID. Before you can post an item and meet someone in person, we ask you to verify who you are, because the app puts strangers in the same place. You photograph a government identity document and record a short selfie video following on-screen prompts.
Your ID is encrypted, opened only by our verification team, and deleted after your check is decided — we keep only the result.
In detail: captures go into a separate encrypted vault; a member of our verification team — a person, not an algorithm — reviews them; every time a reviewer opens a capture, the access is logged. The images and video are destroyed when the decision is made, and in every case within 30 days of submission. We keep the decision, the date, the document type, and — to stop a banned person from coming back under a new number — a one-way fingerprint of the document number, which cannot be turned back into the number. No face template is created or stored, and no machine compares your face to your document. Basis: performance of our contract (verification is what makes in-person swapping safe) and our legitimate interest in preventing fraud and harm.
How long we keep things
Identity captures: deleted on decision, 30 days at most. Verification record and the document fingerprint: for the life of your account and 12 months after it closes. Reviewer access log: 24 months. Listings, chats and swap records: while your account is open. When you close your account (Settings → Close my account), your profile, listings and messages are erased; records we must keep to resolve open disputes, and anonymised statistics, may remain.
Who sees your data
Other members see your public profile, listings, ratings and approximate distance — never your phone number, exact location, or verification documents. Our team sees what it needs to run the service and handle reports. We use a small number of providers to operate: SMS delivery for sign-in codes, push notifications, and hosting. They process data on our instructions and cannot use it for their own purposes. We never sell your data and never show you third-party advertising.
Where your data lives
Our servers, including the verification vault, are hosted in Portsmouth, United Kingdom, in a single region. If we ever move it, this policy will say so first.
Your rights
You can see and edit your profile in the app, close your account yourself at any time, and ask us for a copy of your data, a correction, or an erasure by writing to us. We answer within 30 days. If we ever suffer a breach that puts you at risk, we will tell you without undue delay.
Age
Swag Swap is for adults. You must be 18 or older; verification checks this, and accounts found to belong to minors are closed and their data erased.
Changes
If we change this policy in a way that matters, we tell you in the app before it takes effect. The date at the top is always the current version.