Privacy notice

Who we are

TrailMate lets a hiking group pass on a spare spot on a trail they’ve already booked, to a hiker who wants it. No money moves through TrailMate: you settle directly with each other.

• Responsible party: TODO: registered entity name
• Information officer: TODO: name
• Contact: ryan@menno.co.za

What we collect, and why

• Your account: your email address and a password (stored only in scrambled form, so nobody can read it). Needed to sign you in and to email you about your listings and applications.
• Your profile: your name as your first name and the first letter of your surname (for example “Menno B”), and optionally your home town, a short bio and a phone number. Organisers need a phone number to list a spot.
• Your confirmations: that you’re 18 or older, that you’ve read this notice, and that you understand how contact details are shared, with the time you confirmed. Your age is self-declared: we don’t verify identity.
• Listings: the trail, dates, spots, what you paid and your asking price, a description of your group, and a proof of booking. We check the proof to confirm the booking is real.
• Applications: your message to the organiser, and your companions’ first names, surname initials and a one-line note (see below).
• Trail watches: the trails, dates and maximum price you’re watching, so we can tell you when a spot comes up.
• A record of the emails we send you, and what happened after a swap (which we note ourselves when we follow up).
• Technical records: our hosting providers log requests, including IP addresses and browser details, and sign-in records. We use them to run and secure the service.

Who sees what, and when

• Anyone, including people who aren’t signed in, sees live listings: the trail, dates, price and group description. Not the name of whoever posted them.
• Signed-in hikers see a listing organiser’s name and bio.
• When you apply, the organiser sees your name, home town, bio and message, and your companions’ first names, initials and notes.
• Phone number and email are shared only when an organiser accepts an application, and then both ways: the organiser sees the lead hiker’s, and the lead hiker sees the organiser’s. This is how the service works: you need each other’s details to arrange the booking change and to settle up. They stay visible after the trip, because you may settle by EFT afterwards. Companions’ contact details are never collected or shared.
• Only we see booking proofs. Not even the organiser who uploaded one can open it again.
• We can see all of the above, to run the service and to follow up on how swaps went.

We don’t sell your information or use it for advertising.

Your companions

When you apply with others, you give us only their first name, the first letter of their surname and a one-line note. No contact details. Only add people who’ve agreed to join you. Their full names go on the operator’s booking form after acceptance, not on TrailMate.

Emails we send

• Account emails: confirming your address and resetting your password.
• Updates about your listings and applications.
• Trail watch alerts, only for trails you chose to watch. Stop them at Watch trails.

We don’t send marketing emails or WhatsApp messages.

Where your information is stored

• Our database, sign-in service and file storage (Supabase): London, United Kingdom.
• Our website’s server code (Vercel): London, United Kingdom. Pages and images are also served from Vercel’s global network, from a location near you.
• Our emails are sent from Ireland (Resend).

Vercel and Resend are United States companies, so some account and log data may be held in the United States. This means your information is processed outside South Africa. We rely on this being necessary to provide the service you signed up for, and on these providers’ own data protection terms, under section 72 of POPIA.

How long we keep it

• Your account, until you ask us to delete it.
• Booking proofs: deleted within 30 days after the trip.
• Listings, applications, the record of emails sent and swap outcomes are kept as a record. If you ask us to delete your account, they stay only in anonymised form (see below).
• Our providers’ technical logs, for the periods their own terms set.

Your rights

• See your information: ask us, at the address below.
• Correct it: most of it on your profile; ask us for anything else.
• Delete your account: ask us. We delete your sign-in, clear your phone number, email, bio and home town, remove your trail watches, and replace your name with “Former member”. Your listings and applications stay in that anonymised form, so the other people in a swap keep an accurate record.
• Object or complain: contact us first. You can also complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa).

Contact: ryan@menno.co.za

Cookies

We use only the cookies needed to keep you signed in. No tracking or analytics cookies, so there’s no cookie banner.

Changes to this notice

If we change this notice in a way that matters, we’ll ask you to read it and confirm again the next time you sign in.