Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Corido is run by Corido Marketplace Ltd, company number PVT-AJUE95Q, of Amboseli Road, Shop 9, Lavington, Nairobi. For the personal data in this policy, Corido Marketplace Ltd is the data controller: we decide why and how it is used.

Our Data Protection Officer can be reached at privacy@corido.co.ke.

2. What this policy covers

This policy covers corido.co.ke on phone and desktop; your Corido account; listings, messages and offers; Corido’s seller services (Corido Agency, Corido Consignment, agent visits and House Clearances); the tools Corido staff use to run the marketplace; and the SMS and email messages Corido sends you.

Corido’s systems do not send WhatsApp messages. When you tap a WhatsApp button on Corido, WhatsApp opens on your phone and the chat happens in WhatsApp, under WhatsApp’s own terms. If you message one of Corido’s own WhatsApp numbers, our team reads and answers it on a Corido phone.

3. What we collect

What we collect depends on how you use Corido. Some of it you give us, some is collected automatically, and some comes from other people.

If you visit Corido

• The searches you run (the words, the place you chose and the date). Each is stored with a one-way code that changes every day, never with your name or contact details.
• A record of each listing you open, counted once a day with a one-way code made from your IP address and browser (or from your account if you are signed in), so sellers can see how many people viewed their listing.
• Analytics events, such as a listing opened or a search run, with a random identifier stored in your browser. See section 11.
• Standard web server records (IP address, the page requested, browser type and time), kept for 14 days.
• Settings stored in your browser: light or dark theme, the area you last chose, and whether you have seen a tip.

If you have an account (buyers and sellers)

• Your name, phone number and email address, and a WhatsApp number if you add one.
• Your password, if you set one. We store only a scrambled form of it (a hash) that cannot be turned back into the password.
• If you sign in with Google: your Google account ID and the email address Google gives us. We do not receive or keep your Google password.
• Records of your sign-ins and account changes: time, IP address, browser, and a code that recognises a device you have used before.
• Sign-in codes we send you. We keep only a scrambled form of each code, with the phone number or email it went to, the IP address and the browser.
• Your agreement to these terms and this policy: the date, the policy version, your IP address and browser.
• What you do on Corido: saved items, saved searches, your last 6 searches, the last 20 listings you viewed, your wishlist, offers, messages, reviews you write, reports you make, support requests and the notifications we show you.

If you sell

• Your listings: title, description, price, condition, item details, photos and the area the item is in.
• Photos are published as you upload them. Many phones store the place a photo was taken inside the photo file. Corido’s resized copies remove this, but the original file you upload is kept as it is. Turn off location tagging in your camera settings before taking listing photos.
• Purchases of listing slots and plans, and the M-Pesa codes you enter when you pay.
• A profile cover photo, if you add one.

If you use Corido’s seller services

• Corido Agency and Corido Consignment owners: your name, phone and email; the items, their photos and condition; collection address and time; storage records; the terms you accepted and copies of the terms emails we send you (including whether they were delivered); and your M-Pesa number with the code, amount and date of each payment Corido makes to you.
• Service requests: your area, apartment or house number, contact phone, WhatsApp number and photos of the items.
• Agent visits: your name, phone, email, county, zone, area, meeting place and the times that suit you.
• House Clearances, if you sell: your area, your exact address (kept private, see section 5), the items and notes our staff make. If you buy: your booking, the name of anyone coming with you, the vehicle registration, and the M-Pesa code for the booking fee.

If you choose to verify your identity

• A photo of your ID document, a selfie and, if you add it, a proof of address. See section 7.

From other people

• Google, if you sign in with Google (your name, email and Google account ID).
• Other users: a review a buyer writes about you, or a report about you or your listing.
• Corido staff: notes on your account, listing or ID check; details a staff member enters for an Agency sale (a buyer’s name and phone); details of a Pay Bill payment that could not be matched (the payer’s name or phone as M-Pesa shows it); and photos and notes taken on a visit to collect or inspect items.

If you work for Corido

• Your work email, role, password hash and second sign-in factor (an authenticator app secret, stored encrypted, and recovery codes, stored scrambled), and a record of every action you take in the staff tools.

We never ask for or store your M-Pesa PIN. We do not ask you to type your ID number or KRA PIN.

4. Why we use it, and our legal basis

The Data Protection Act lets us use personal data only for a stated purpose and on a lawful basis. The table shows each use and its basis.

5. What other people can see

Listings are public. Anyone, including search engines, can see a listing’s title, description, photos, price, condition, item details and its area (sub-county and county).

• Your name as you entered it, in full, appears on your listings and your seller page. Use the name you want buyers to see.
• Your seller page shows your active listings, when you joined, your profile cover, your rating and the reviews buyers wrote, the share of messages you reply to, and the ID-verified tick if you have it.
• Reviews you write are public, shown with your initials, not your name.
• A listing shows how many people viewed it once that number reaches 10, and how many saved it.
• A private seller’s phone and WhatsApp numbers are shown only to a signed-in buyer whose phone is verified and who has passed the ID check. We record each time a number is shown, and to whom.
• Listings sold by Corido (Corido’s own stock, Corido Agency and Corido Consignment) show Corido as the seller and Corido’s phone numbers. The owner’s name is not shown.
• When you message someone or make an offer, that person sees your name, your messages and the offer.
• The exact address for a House Clearance is never public. Corido staff and the collection officer see it, and buyers with a confirmed booking receive it by SMS on the day.

6. Messages and offers

Messages and offers are stored on Corido’s servers so both people can see them. They are not deleted automatically.

Corido staff read a conversation only when it is about a listing Corido sells (Corido’s own stock, Corido Agency or Corido Consignment), because Corido is the seller in that chat; when it is part of a support request; or when someone reports it to us. Corido’s staff tools do not show other private chats between a buyer and a seller. We disclose a conversation when the law requires it (section 9).

Replies our team sends are recorded.

7. Identity checks (KYC)

Verifying your identity is optional. You need it for the ID-verified tick and to see a private seller’s phone number.

• What we collect: a photo of your ID document, a selfie and, if you choose, a proof of address. We do not ask you to type your ID number or KRA PIN.
• How it is checked: a Corido staff member (a moderator or above) looks at the photos and approves or rejects them. No outside identity service and no automatic face matching is used.
• ID documents and photos of your face are sensitive. We treat them as sensitive personal data.
• Who can see them: you, and Corido staff at moderator level or above. They are kept in private storage, not on public web addresses, and each view uses a link that stops working after 5 minutes. Staff decisions and notes are recorded.
• How long: your ID check photos are kept while your account is open, unless you ask us to delete them sooner.
• You can withdraw your consent at any time: email privacy@corido.co.ke. We remove the ID-verified tick, and on request we delete your ID check photos. We keep a record of the decision. Without the tick you can no longer see a private seller’s phone number.

8. Automated tools

Some parts of Corido work automatically. None of them makes a decision with a legal or similarly significant effect on you without a person at Corido: every listing is reviewed by a person before it goes live, and only staff can reject a listing or suspend an account.

• The description checker and title meter suggest improvements to a listing. They never block it.
• Before a moderator reviews a listing, automatic checks flag banned words, a possible duplicate and a vague title. The moderator sees the flags and decides.
• The same photo cannot be added twice to one listing.
• Your plan sets how many listings can be live at once. Extra listings wait for a free slot.
• A listing leaves search after 60 days and ends after 90 days unless renewed. We warn you by SMS first. Offers end when their time runs out, and plans end at the end of their term.
• Search results are ordered by how well they match, then paid placement, then newest.
• A private seller’s phone number unlocks only for ID-verified buyers.
• To protect accounts, a sign-in code stops working after 5 wrong tries, repeated requests are limited, and a device you have used before can be recognised.

If you think an automatic rule treated you wrongly, email privacy@corido.co.ke and a person will review it.

9. Who we share it with

We share personal data only with the services that help us run Corido, and only what each needs. We do not sell personal data, and we do not share it with advertisers.

We also share personal data when the law requires it, such as a lawful request from the police or a court; with the police when we report suspected fraud or crime; with our professional advisers (lawyers, accountants and auditors), who must keep it confidential; and with a buyer or successor if Corido’s business is sold or merged, who must then protect it as this policy says.

10. Data leaving Kenya

Some of the services above process data outside Kenya: Contabo and PostHog in the European Union, Sentry in Germany, Google in the United States and other countries, and Cloudflare across its global network. Resend and Africa’s Talking may also process it outside Kenya.

The Data Protection Act, 2019 (sections 48 to 50) allows this where there are proper safeguards. For each service we rely on the provider’s standard terms, and we send each only what it needs.

11. Cookies and analytics

We measure how the marketplace is used so we can improve it. For product analytics we use PostHog, on servers in the European Union, and we record only events we define — a listing opened, a search run, a seller contacted, a listing created. Those events carry a random identifier for your browser, never your name, phone number, email, ID or KRA PIN, and never the exact price of a particular seller’s item. We do not use PostHog’s automatic click or form capture, and we never record your screen or session.

Separately, when you open a listing we record one view for it so the seller can see how their listing is doing: to count you once a day rather than once per refresh we store a one-way hash of your IP address and browser combined with the date and a secret key — it cannot be reversed into your identity, it changes every day, and it is not linked to your account. We also keep a record of the searches run on Corido — the words searched, the place chosen and the date — so we can show popular searches and see where buyers are looking for things that are not yet listed. Each search is stored with the same kind of daily one-way hash (made from your account if you are signed in, or from your IP address and browser if you are not, together with the date and a secret key), never with your name, phone number or email. Search records are deleted after a year, and a search only ever appears publicly as a popular search once more than one person has searched it, and never if it contains a phone number, email address or web address. If you’re signed in, we keep your last 6 searches so you can repeat them; you can clear them any time.

We do not use advertising cookies, we do not sell your data, and analytics requests are served from our own domain rather than a third party’s. To object to analytics, email privacy@corido.co.ke.

Cookies Corido sets

All of these cookies are needed for the service: they cannot be read by scripts on the page and are sent only to corido.co.ke. Your browser also stores, without cookies: the PostHog random identifier, your theme, the area you last chose and whether you have seen a tip. Clearing your browser’s site data removes them.

12. Messages from Corido

Corido sends SMS (through Africa’s Talking) and email (through Resend). We do not send marketing messages or product newsletters.

• Needed for the service, and always sent: sign-in and verification codes; listing approved, rejected or waiting for a slot; offer updates; payment instructions; support replies; Agency and Consignment terms and decisions; and staff invitations.
• Reminders and suggestions: a listing about to leave search or end, wishlist matches, and a Corido service your item qualifies for.

Your account does not yet have a setting to turn reminders and suggestions off.

If we ever start sending marketing messages, we will ask for your consent first.

13. How long we keep it

We keep personal data only as long as we need it. The table shows what we do today.

After an account closes

You cannot close your account in the app yet. Email privacy@corido.co.ke and a person will handle it. An account that has never listed, paid or messaged can be deleted completely. Where an account has listings, payments or messages, some records must be kept (for the other person in a conversation, for tax and for disputes); we then suspend the account, hide its profile and listings, and delete what the law does not require us to keep. A record that an account was deleted, with its name, phone number and email, is kept permanently so we can show the deletion took place.

14. How we protect it

We protect personal data with these measures. No system is perfectly secure, so we also watch for problems and act quickly when we find one.

• Every connection to Corido is encrypted (HTTPS).
• Passwords and sign-in codes are stored only in scrambled form.
• Staff see only what their role allows. Staff sign in with a password and a second factor, and every staff action is recorded in a log that cannot be changed.
• ID check photos are kept in private storage and shown only through links that expire after 5 minutes.
• Our servers accept connections only for the website and for administration.
• The database is backed up every night to private storage, which our storage provider encrypts.
• Error reports and analytics are stripped of personal details before they leave our servers.

15. Data breaches

If a breach of personal data creates a real risk of harm, we will tell the Data Commissioner within 72 hours of becoming aware of it, and tell the people affected as soon as we can, in plain words, with what happened and what they can do.

16. Your rights

Under the Data Protection Act, 2019 you have the right to:

• be told how your data is used (this policy);
• get a copy of your personal data;
• have wrong or misleading data corrected;
• have data deleted that is false, misleading, or no longer needed;
• object to our use of your data, including for analytics;
• receive your data in a common, machine-readable format to take elsewhere;
• withdraw your consent at any time, for example to the ID check;
• not be subject to a decision based only on automated processing that significantly affects you.

To use any of these rights, email privacy@corido.co.ke or contact Support from your account. You can also change some things yourself: edit your listings, clear your recent searches and delete saved searches.

Before we act, we check that the request comes from you, for example by asking you to write from the email address or phone number on your account, or to confirm a code we send. We reply within the time limits in the Data Protection (General) Regulations, 2021: 7 days for a copy of your data; 14 days to correct or delete it, or to restrict or stop our use of it; and 30 days to give it to you in a machine-readable format. We do not charge for ordinary requests.

17. Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, tell us first at privacy@corido.co.ke so we can put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) at www.odpc.go.ke.

18. Children

Corido is for people aged 18 and over. When you create an account, you confirm that you are 18 or over. We do not knowingly collect data from children. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 18, we suspend it and delete its data, except records the law requires us to keep.

19. Changes to this policy

When we change this policy, we publish the new version here, with its version and date at the top. If a change is material, we announce it by email and on the site before it applies.

When you create an account we record which version you agreed to.

20. Contact

Data Protection Officer, Corido Marketplace Ltd, Amboseli Road, Shop 9, Lavington, Nairobi. Email privacy@corido.co.ke.