Privacy Policy

Last updated: 2026-05-11

Bingwa Sokoni ("we", "us") is a Kenyan mobile-commerce platform that lets customers buy Safaricom airtime, data bundles, and other digital products via WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram DM, and our marketplace website. This page explains what personal data we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, and how you can ask us to delete it.

1. Data we collect

From customers (people who buy from a Bingwa shop)

• Phone number — used to deliver your bundle and trigger an M-Pesa STK prompt.
• WhatsApp display name and profile photo — pulled from the WhatsApp message you send us; shown only to the merchant whose shop you contacted.
• Facebook / Instagram identifier (PSID) — only if you message a Bingwa-connected Page; used to route your reply back to you.
• Chat messages — the text you exchange with the bot; stored so you can review your own orders.
• Order history — what you bought, when, and the M-Pesa receipt code (no full M-Pesa PIN is ever shared with us).

From affiliates (people who run a Bingwa shop)

• Email address, password (bcrypt hash; we never see the plaintext), display name, phone number.
• WhatsApp pairing state managed by Baileys; persisted in our database so your session survives restarts.
• Optional OAuth access tokens for Facebook Pages and Instagram Business accounts you choose to connect — stored AES-256-GCM encrypted at rest.

2. How we use it

• Fulfilling orders (looking up the right product, charging M-Pesa, delivering the bundle).
• Routing your reply back to you on whichever channel you contacted us on.
• Calculating commissions for affiliates and showing each affiliate their own sales totals.
• Detecting abuse — for example, the rate-limit on outbound messages per merchant.

We do not sell your data, run ad networks on it, or train large language models with your chat content.

3. Who we share it with

• Safaricom Daraja — phone number and order amount, to trigger and reconcile the M-Pesa STK Push.
• Meta Platforms (Facebook / Instagram) — only the identifiers Meta itself originated (your PSID / IGSID), used to send replies via the Meta Graph API.
• Cloudflare — fronts our domain; sees request metadata (IP, user-agent) per their own privacy notice.
• The merchant whose shop you contacted — sees your chat history with them, like any small business taking orders on WhatsApp would.

We never share your data with other affiliates, other customers, or any advertising platform.

4. Where it's stored

Inside a single PostgreSQL database hosted in Kenya, on infrastructure operated by Bingwa Sokoni. Backups are kept for 30 days. Encryption-at-rest is provided by the underlying disk; OAuth tokens get a second layer of application-level AES-256-GCM encryption.

5. Retention

• Orders and M-Pesa receipts: kept for 7 years (Kenya Revenue Authority requirement).
• Chat messages and order conversation context: 12 months from last activity, then deleted.
• OAuth tokens: deleted within 24 hours of you tapping "Disconnect" on the affiliate dashboard, or when you ask us via Data Deletion.

6. Your rights

• Access — email us and we'll send you everything we hold on you within 14 days.
• Correction — ask us in the same way.
• Deletion — see the Data Deletion page, or reply DELETE ME in any chat with us.
• Disconnect from Facebook / Instagram — click "Disconnect" on the Page in /shop/account, or revoke the app from Facebook's business-tools settings.

Kenya's Data Protection Act 2019 backs these rights. Complaints can also go to the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (odpc.go.ke).

7. Children

Bingwa Sokoni is not directed at children under 13. If you believe we have data on a minor please contact us and we'll delete it.

8. Changes

We may update this policy. Material changes will be announced on the marketplace homepage at least 14 days before they take effect.

9. Contact

Email: [email protected]

Bingwa Sokoni · Nairobi, Kenya · [email protected]