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🔒 Privacy Policy

Last Updated: July 2026 · Local Vibes (Pty) Ltd

1. Introduction

Local Vibes (Pty) Ltd ("we," "our," "us") respects and protects your privacy. We are committed to safeguarding your personal information and only collect what is necessary to run the community features you use. We do NOT collect device IDs, hardware identifiers, or advertising identifiers, and we do not track you across other apps or websites. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, share, and protect your data when you use the Local Vibes app and services.

2. Data We Collect

We collect the following categories of personal data to provide and maintain the app's community features:

  • Contact Information: Your name, email address, phone number, and physical address. Phone numbers and WhatsApp numbers are used for business, seller, and event organizer contact within the app.
  • Location Data: Your precise location (latitude and longitude) when you create posts, safety alerts, or safety pins, and your coarse location (neighbourhood and city) on your profile to show you relevant community content.
  • User Content: Posts, comments, messages, photos, videos, audio recordings (voice messages), reviews, group posts, group events, and content reports you submit through the app.
  • Identifiers: Your user account ID, used to identify your account within the app.
  • Usage Data: Product interaction data such as app launches, taps, and scrolls, and the search terms you enter, collected to improve the app and make local search results more relevant.
  • Other User Contact Info: WhatsApp numbers provided by businesses, sellers, and event organizers for in-app contact.

3. Data We Do NOT Collect

We do not collect the following types of data:

  • Health or fitness data
  • Financial information (payment card numbers, credit scores, salary) — payments are processed by third-party payment providers and we never have access to your payment details
  • Sensitive information (racial or ethnic data, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, political opinions, biometric data)
  • Contacts (your device contact list or address book)
  • Browsing history (websites visited outside the app)
  • Purchases or purchase tendencies
  • Device IDs, hardware identifiers, or advertising identifiers — we never access your device's IMEI, UDID, serial number, or advertising ID. Anonymous, non-permanent visitor IDs are used only for aggregate analytics (such as counting unique post views) and cannot be used to identify or track you.
  • Crash data, performance data, or other diagnostic data
  • Surroundings scanning (mesh, planes, scene classification)
  • Body data (hand or head structure and movement)

4. How We Use Your Information

Your data is used for the following purposes:

  • App Functionality: To provide core features including the community feed, marketplace, events, groups, businesses, safety alerts, and messaging.
  • Account Maintenance: To create and manage your account, authenticate you, and maintain account security.
  • Analytics: To understand how users interact with the app so we can improve features and user experience.
  • Safety and Security: To moderate content, prevent fraud, and respond to user reports of inappropriate content.
  • Community Engagement: To enable communication between users, businesses, sellers, and event organizers.
  • Contact Engagement Analytics: When you tap a contact button (WhatsApp, call, or directions) on a business, event, activity, or marketplace listing, we log the click so listing owners can be shown aggregate engagement and platform admins can verify the platform is driving enquiries. For signed-in users this log includes your account email and which button you tapped; for guests it is recorded under an anonymous visitor ID that cannot identify you.

5. Tracking

We do not track you. Your data is not linked with third-party data for advertising or advertising measurement, and we do not share data with data brokers. No data collected by Local Vibes is used for tracking purposes as defined by Apple's App Privacy Details.

6. Data Sharing

We do not sell, rent, or share your private personal information with third parties. Your private information (such as your email, phone number, location, and messages) stays within Local Vibes and is never shared with outside companies or data brokers. The only exceptions are:

  • Service Providers: We use trusted providers for core infrastructure only (hosting, email delivery, and security). They process data strictly on our instructions under confidentiality agreements and are not permitted to use your data for any other purpose.
  • Content You Choose to Share: Posts, comments, photos, marketplace listings, business pages, and events you post are visible to other Local Vibes users in your community because you chose to share them — this is the app's community functionality, not third-party sharing.
  • Legal Obligations: If required by law, court order, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of our users and others.

7. Data Linked to You

The following data is linked to your identity (name, email, or account ID):

  • Contact Info: Name, email address, phone number, physical address, other contact info (WhatsApp)
  • Location: Precise location and coarse location (neighbourhood)
  • User Content: Emails/messages, photos/videos, audio data, customer support reports, other user content
  • Identifiers: User ID
  • Usage Data: Product interaction

8. Data Retention

We retain personal data only as long as necessary for the purposes outlined in this policy or as required by law. When data is no longer needed, it will be securely deleted or anonymized. You can delete your account and its associated data at any time — see section 15 for how.

9. Security Measures

We implement industry-standard safeguards to protect your information, including:

  • Encryption of sensitive data in transit and at rest.
  • Secure servers with restricted, role-based access.
  • Regular monitoring for unauthorized activity.
  • Row-level security policies on all data to ensure users can only access data they are authorised to see.

10. Your Rights

Depending on your jurisdiction (e.g., POPIA in South Africa, GDPR in the EU), you may have the right to:

  • Access the personal data we hold about you.
  • Request correction or deletion of your data.
  • Withdraw consent for data processing.
  • Request data portability.

You can exercise these rights by contacting us at support@localvibes.me.

11. Children's Privacy

Local Vibes is not intended for children under 12. We do not knowingly collect personal data from minors. If we discover such data has been collected, we will delete it promptly. Please see our Child Safety Policy for additional information.

12. International Data Transfers

If you access Local Vibes from outside South Africa, your data may be transferred to and processed in other countries. We ensure appropriate safeguards are in place for such transfers in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

13. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Updates will be posted in-app and on our website. Continued use of Local Vibes after changes means you accept the updated policy.

14. Payments & Membership

Local Vibes offers an optional paid membership. Payments are handled by our third-party payment provider, Stripe. We never receive or store your card details.

  • What we receive: a customer reference, a subscription reference, your membership status (free trial, active, payment failed, or canceled), and the start and end dates of your billing period.
  • What we never receive: your card number, security code, or bank details.
  • Cancelling: you can cancel at any time from the billing portal, and you keep access until the end of the period you have already paid for.

15. Deleting Your Account

You can delete your Local Vibes account and the personal data associated with it at any time.

In the app: go to Settings → Delete Account and confirm — your account and data are removed straight away.

Without the app: visit https://localvibes.me/account-deletion, or email support@localvibes.me with the subject "Account Deletion Request". We action requests within 30 days and confirm by reply.

Some records may be retained where the law requires it — for example a completed payment record or a report of abusive content.

16. Contact Us

For questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy, contact us at:

support@localvibes.me