Privacy Policy

We only collect what we need to run the service:

• Your name, email address, and phone number when you create an account. If you sign in with Google, we also receive your Google profile photo.
• A one-time code is sent to your phone so we can confirm the number belongs to you.
• The content you add yourself: requests, offers, item details, links, photos, prices, delivery cities, and the messages and images you exchange in chat.
• What you send our support team: your messages, and any photos or screenshots you attach to them. A photo you attach to a support message in the app is shrunk on your device before it is sent, which also removes the location a phone camera stores inside it.
• Basic technical information your browser provides, such as your device type and rough location. If you turn on notifications, we also store the subscription that lets us reach your device.
• If you pay for a deal or are paid for one, a record of that deal and its status. Your card and bank details go to Trustap, our payment provider, and never to us.

Your information lets us:

• Show your requests to travellers and your offers to requesters, and open a private chat once an offer is accepted.
• Confirm that accounts belong to real people and keep fraud, spam, and abuse off the platform.
• Tell you when something happens that you care about, such as a new offer or a reply, through in-app alerts, browser notifications, and email.
• Answer your questions and look into reports about other users.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use it to show you third-party advertising.

So that people can decide who to deal with, other users can see your real name, your profile photo, the date you joined, your rating, how many deliveries you have completed, and any verification badges you have earned. The details of a request are visible to signed-in users. An offer is seen only by the two people in it: the requester and the traveller who made it. Your phone number and email address are never shown to anyone else. The only way two users contact each other is through the in-app chat that opens after an offer is accepted. Your messages to our support team, and any photos you attach to them, are seen only by you and our support staff.

Your chat with the other person in a deal is private from other users. It is not private from us. Our staff can open a thread where we genuinely need to: to look into a report or a support request, to investigate fraud or abuse, to enforce our Terms, or where the law requires it. Every time a member of staff opens a thread, that access is recorded in an internal log with who opened it and why, and we review those records. We do not read chat for advertising, and we do not read it out of curiosity.

We also keep a record when a deal shows signs of moving off the platform, because arrangements made elsewhere are where most scams start. Please keep your conversation here.

We use a few trusted companies to operate PorterBee, and they only handle your data to provide their service to us:

• Google Firebase handles sign-in, our database, chat, and notifications.
• Vercel hosts the application.
• Resend delivers the emails we send you.
• Cloudinary stores the photos you upload to a request.
• Cloudflare receives the emails you send to any porterbee.com address, such as a reply to our support team, and passes them on to us.
• Google Gmail is the mailbox our support team works from, so your support requests and replies are kept there.

Trustap is different. When you pay for a deal, or are paid for one, Trustap handles that payment. It is not simply working on our behalf: you have your own relationship with Trustap, you accept its Terms of Service and Privacy Policy directly, and it decides for itself what it collects and keeps. We send it what it needs to set up and identify the two sides of a deal, such as your name, email address, and the details of that deal. It may ask you for more, including identity documents and bank details, in order to pay you. We never see or store your card number or your bank details.

By using Trustap’s services, you consent to us sharing those deal and account details with Trustap. This consent may be required by data protection law, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) where it applies. To see how Trustap collects, uses, and protects your information, read Trustap’s Privacy Policy as well as this one.

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, or where we genuinely need to in order to protect our users or the service.

We hold your information for as long as your account is open. You can ask us to delete your account and personal data at any time through Contact support. We may keep a limited amount of information for longer where we need it to settle a dispute, prevent abuse, or meet a legal obligation. Chat threads from completed or cancelled deals may be archived after a period of time.

Access to data is restricted by server-side rules, and sensitive actions require a verified phone number. No online service can promise perfect security, but we take reasonable steps to protect your information and review those steps as the service grows.

You cannot change your name, email address or phone number in the app. To correct your details, contact us through the Contact Support page. On your Account page you can set up how you are paid and turn two-factor sign-in on or off. You can also turn browser notifications on or off from your device settings, and ask us to delete your account. If you would like a copy of the information we hold about you, get in touch and we will help.

PorterBee is meant for adults. It is not intended for anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect information from children.

We may update this policy as the service develops. When we do, we will change the date at the top of the page, and for anything significant we will let you know inside the app.

If you have any questions about your privacy, you can reach us through Contact support or by writing to support@porterbee.com.