The short version
- Your profile and your listings, including your car videos, are public. That is how a marketplace works.
- Your messages are visible only to you and the person you are talking to. We look at them only to handle a report, stop fraud or abuse, or when the law requires it.
- There are no ads in Kwayes. We don’t sell your data, and we don’t track you across other apps or websites.
- You can delete your account and everything in it from the app, at any time.
Who we are
Kwayes is a marketplace app for buying and selling cars in the United Arab Emirates through short videos. It is operated by Kwayes Information Technology, based in the United Arab Emirates (“Kwayes”, “we”, “us”). This policy covers the Kwayes apps for iPhone and Android and the website kwayes.com.
For any privacy question or request, write to support@kwayes.com.
What we collect
Information you give us
- Account: your email address, used to send you a sign-in code. If you sign in with Google, we receive your name, email address and profile photo from your Google account.
- Profile: your username, display name, profile photo, bio and language, and whether you sell as an individual or as a dealer.
- Dealer verification: if you ask for a verified dealer profile, the documents you send us to show you run a car business, such as a trade licence.
- Listings: the video of your car (including its sound), its thumbnail, and the details you enter: make, model, year, mileage, price, regional spec, body type, gearbox, fuel, colour, title, description, emirate and area.
- Messages: what you send to other users in Kwayes, and when it was sent and read.
- Reports: the reason and any details you give when you report a listing or a user.
- Support: what you write when you contact us.
Information collected when you use the app
- Activity: the cars you save, the sellers you follow and the users you block. We count how many times each listing is viewed, but we don’t keep a list of the listings you viewed.
- Notifications: if you allow notifications, a push token for your device and whether it runs iOS or Android.
- Technical logs: your IP address, device and app version, and the time of requests. Our hosting providers keep these logs to run the service and protect it from attacks.
We don’t collect your phone number, your contacts or your device’s location. Where a car is, is whatever emirate and area you type in.
Device permissions
Kwayes asks for these permissions only when you use the feature that needs them, and you can turn them off in your device settings at any time:
- Camera and microphone: to film your car, including the sound of the engine.
- Photos: to pick a video or photo you already have.
- Notifications: to tell you about new messages and activity on your listings.
How we use it
- To run Kwayes: create your account, sign you in, publish and show listings, deliver messages and send notifications. (Needed to provide the service you asked for.)
- To keep Kwayes safe: review reports, remove content that breaks our community guidelines, prevent fraud and spam, and enforce our terms. (Our legitimate interest in a safe marketplace, and our legal obligations.)
- To talk to you: sign-in codes, replies to your support requests and important changes to the service. We don’t send marketing emails unless you agree to them.
- To improve Kwayes: using counts and statistics that don’t identify you, such as how many listings were published this week.
- To comply with the law: when a valid request from a court or authority requires it.
What other people see
Anyone using Kwayes can see your public profile (username, display name, photo, bio, account type, verified badge and follower counts) and your listings (video, details, emirate and area, date posted, and how many times it was saved and viewed). Listings can be shared as links outside the app.
Think about what your video shows before you post it. You can keep your number plate, other people and your home out of the frame.
Who we share it with
We don’t sell your personal information and we don’t share it with advertisers. We share it only with:
- Other users, as described above, and the people you message.
- Service providers who run parts of Kwayes for us, under contracts that limit what they can do with your data:
| Provider | What they do | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Database, sign-in and file storage | India (Mumbai) |
| Bunny.net | Video storage, processing and streaming | Germany, with a copy in Singapore |
| Sign in with Google, and push notifications through Firebase Cloud Messaging | Worldwide | |
| Email delivery provider | Sending sign-in codes and service emails | Worldwide |
| Cloudflare | Hosting and protecting kwayes.com | Worldwide |
- Authorities, when the law requires it, or when we need to protect someone’s safety or our users’ rights, for example to report a scam.
- A buyer of our business, if Kwayes is merged or sold. This policy would keep applying to your data.
Apple and Google distribute the app and handle any in-app purchases under their own privacy policies.
Where it is stored
Our servers are outside the United Arab Emirates, in the countries listed above. When your data leaves the UAE or your own country, we rely on our providers’ contractual commitments to protect it to the standard required by UAE data protection law and, where it applies, the EU General Data Protection Regulation.
How long we keep it
- Your account and profile: until you delete your account.
- Listings: a listing is shown for 60 days after it is published, then it expires. Expired, sold and removed listings stay in your account until you delete your account.
- Messages: as long as both accounts exist. When you delete your account, the conversations you are part of are deleted too, including for the other person.
- Backups and logs: deleted data can remain in encrypted backups and provider logs for up to 30 days before it is overwritten.
- Legal holds: if the law requires us to keep something longer, for example because of an investigation, we keep only that, only for as long as required.
Your choices and rights
Depending on where you live, including under UAE Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021 and the EU GDPR, you can ask us to:
- Access the personal data we hold about you, or get a copy in a portable format.
- Correct it. You can edit your profile and listings in the app yourself.
- Delete it. Go to Profile, then Delete account, or see how to delete your account.
- Object to or restrict how we use it.
- Withdraw consent, for example by turning off notifications or camera access in your device settings.
Email support@kwayes.com from the address on your account. We reply within 30 days. You can also complain to your data protection authority, such as the UAE Data Office or the authority in your EU country.
Security
Data travels between the app and our servers over encrypted connections. Access to each piece of data is limited by database rules, so a user can only read and change what they are allowed to, and only the few people who run Kwayes can reach our systems. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects you, we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires.
Children
Kwayes is only for people aged 18 and over. It is not meant for children and we don’t knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you think a child is using Kwayes, tell us at support@kwayes.com and we will delete the account.
This website
kwayes.com doesn’t use cookies, analytics or advertising trackers, and it has no forms. Cloudflare serves the site and processes your IP address to deliver and protect it. Fonts load from Google Fonts, and the demo videos on the home page load from Mixkit, so those services also receive your IP address when you visit.
Changes
When we change this policy, we update the date at the top. If a change affects how we use your data in an important way, we will tell you in the app before it takes effect.
Contact
Kwayes Information Technology, United Arab Emirates
support@kwayes.com