Privacy Policy
What we collect, why we collect it, and how long we keep it.
Last updated: June 2026
1What We Collect
| Category | Examples |
|---|---|
| Account details | Name, email, college, password (stored as a salted hash, never in plain text), optional phone number |
| Verification data | One-time email codes (hashed, never stored in plain text), college ID card photo, an automated text reading of that photo for an admin to review |
| Marketplace activity | Listings, skill profiles, wishlist items, chat messages between buyers and sellers, skill order details |
| Payment review data | The name/email/UTR reference and screenshot you submit when paying to feature a listing or pay a seller — we never collect card numbers, OTPs, or net-banking credentials |
| Technical data | IP address and request metadata, used only for rate-limiting, abuse prevention, and basic error/performance logging |
2Your ID Card, Specifically
If your college email domain isn't already recognized, we ask for a photo of your college ID to confirm you're a real student. That photo is used only to verify your identity:
- An automated reader pulls the name, guardian name, and college off the card to pre-fill the review — this is advisory only and never decides approval by itself;
- A human admin always reviews the actual image before approving or rejecting your account;
- The image is never shown to other users, never used for anything besides this one-time verification, and isn't sold or shared with any third party.
3How We Use It
We use your data to: run your account and verify you're a genuine student; show your listings/skills to other students at your college; deliver chat messages between you and other users; review payment submissions; send you account, verification, and order-status emails; and keep the platform safe (rate-limiting, fraud and abuse prevention). We don't use your data for ad targeting and we don't sell it.
4Who Can See It
Your name and college are visible to other students alongside your listings, the way a normal marketplace profile works. Your email and phone are never shown publicly — they're only used for account access and notifications. Chat messages are visible only to you and the other person in that conversation. ID cards and payment screenshots are visible only to admin reviewers, never to other students.
5How Long We Keep It
Account and listing records are kept for as long as your account is active, so your history (orders, listings, chats) stays available to you. ID card images are different: once a review decision is made, the image itself (and the raw automated-reading guess) is automatically purged after a short retention window — only the decision, timestamp, and reviewer are kept afterward, not the photo. One-time email codes expire within minutes and are never kept in plain text.
6Security
Passwords and one-time codes are stored as salted hashes, not plain text. Access to admin tools (ID review, payment review, account actions) is restricted and rate-limited. No system is perfectly secure, but we design with the assumption that sensitive fields — passwords, codes, ID images — should never be readable from the database in plain text, even if it were exposed.
7Your Choices
You can edit or remove your own listings and wishlist items at any time from your dashboard. To request a copy of your data, ask a correction, or close your account entirely (which removes your listings, profile, and any pending ID image), contact us through the channel below — we'll act on it as the law where you live requires.
8Cookies
We use one essential session cookie to keep you logged in, and a local (on-device) preference for light/dark theme. We don't use third-party advertising or tracking cookies.
9Changes to This Policy
If we change what we collect or how we use it, we'll update the "Last updated" date above and, for material changes, let you know in-app. See our Terms of Service for the rules of using MiniXMart itself.
10Contact
Questions about your data, or want to request deletion? Reach out through the Contact Us section on our Support page.