Privacy
What we hold, and what we do with it
Registering means handing over a phone number. Trading means handing over a national ID. Here is exactly what happens to both.
This is a description of practice, not a legal policy.
It sets out truthfully what the platform collects and how it is handled. A formal privacy policy, reviewed by counsel and filed with the data protection authority, replaces this page before public launch.
What we collect
| When | What | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Registering | Phone number, full name, your role, country. An email address if you give one. | To identify your account and send you a verification code. |
| Basic verification | National ID number and a photograph of the document, plus a selfie. | To establish you are a real person before you can trade with others. |
| Full verification | Proof of address and payout account details. | Required for larger trading, subsidies, and pledging a receipt as collateral. |
| Registering land | Where the plot is, its size, tenure, what is planted and expected yields. | To connect a delivery to the land it came from, and to forecast supply. |
| Using the platform | Deliveries, weights, grades, receipts, listings, contracts and wallet movements. | These are the records of what you did. They are the platform. |
An email address is optional. Many producers do not have one, and requiring it would exclude them — so a phone number is the primary identifier and email is a second way to sign in if you want one.
How identity documents are held
A national ID or proof of address is not a public file. Documents are stored outside the web root and are only ever served through an endpoint that checks you are entitled to see them and records that you did — there is no URL that hands one over.
Every access is written to an audit log with the account that made it. Verification codes are stored hashed, never in readable form.
Who else sees it
- Compliance officers, who review verification submissions and screen for anti-money laundering purposes. Every document they open is logged.
- Whoever you trade with sees what a counterparty needs to see — not your identity documents.
- Hub agents and warehouse operators see the deliveries at their site.
- Regulators and statutory bodies where the law requires it — commodity marketer registration, tax reporting and exchange control among them.
- Nobody else. Personal data is not sold, and it is not passed to advertisers.
Crossing a border
Completing Basic verification issues you a SADC Trade Identity, which is what lets other institutions on that network accept your verification instead of asking you to repeat it. That transfer is consent-controlled — it carries your signature, and it does not happen without it.
What you can ask for
A copy of what we hold about you, a correction to anything wrong, or an explanation of how a decision about your account was reached. Write to compliance@freetrader.africa.
Some records cannot be deleted on request. A settled trade, the ledger entries behind it and the audit trail on a weight correction are financial and regulatory records — they are what protect the other party, and they outlive an account.
Questions
Get in touch and ask.