1. Who we are
SafiFood (“we”, “us”) is a food-safety service available at safifood.space, as an installable web app, and through chatbots on WhatsApp and Telegram. It was built as a capstone project at Strathmore University, Nairobi, Kenya. For any privacy question or request, contact us at support@safifood.space.
2. Information we collect
Account information
- Your name and email address, and a password if you sign up with email (stored only as a secure hash).
- If you sign in with Google or GitHub: your name, email address and profile picture from that account. We do not get access to your contacts, files, mail or anything else.
- If you sign in with a phone code: your phone number.
- If you connect Telegram: your Telegram user ID and username.
- Your role (household, community health worker or admin) and settings such as language, text size and notification choices.
Food information you enter
- The food items you log: type, storage method, dates and quantity.
- Photos you choose to add. We remove location and camera data (EXIF) from photos before they are uploaded.
- Spoilage predictions and their explanations, reviews by health workers, outcomes you report, and recipe ratings.
- Food you offer to or claim from your community.
Location (only if you turn it on)
If you enable location, we store your device's coordinates to look up the local weather (which improves predictions) and to sort community listings by distance. Other users never see your location or address, only a rough distance to a listing. Turning location off deletes the stored coordinates. Health workers may also save a coverage area for the neighbourhood they serve.
Chat messages
When you message the SafiFood bot on WhatsApp or Telegram, we process your messages and any food photo you send to run the check you asked for. The conversation state is kept for at most 30 minutes; the results are saved to your account like any other check.
Technical information
- Your browser stores your sign-in session, language and theme choice, and an offline copy of the app and recent data, so SafiFood works on a poor connection. This data stays on your device and is cleared from the offline cache when you log out.
- Our hosting providers keep standard server logs (such as IP address and browser type) for security and reliability.
- We count requests per user or per IP address for a short time to prevent abuse of sign-in and prediction features.
- We do not use advertising or analytics trackers.
3. How we use your information
- To run your account and sign you in.
- To predict how long your food stays safe, explain why, and suggest ways to preserve it.
- To have a community health worker review uncertain or unsafe results.
- To let you share surplus food and let neighbours claim it.
- To send the notifications you choose (in the app, WhatsApp or Telegram).
- To measure and improve accuracy, using outcomes you and health workers report. Any model training uses de-identified data.
- To keep the service secure and prevent misuse.
We rely on your consent (which you give when you agree to these terms, and separately when you turn on location or chat notifications) and on our legitimate interest in running a safe service. You can withdraw consent at any time.
4. Information from Google
If you sign in with Google, we receive only your basic profile (name, email address and profile picture) and use it only to create and identify your SafiFood account. SafiFood's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. We do not sell it, use it for advertising, or share it with anyone except the service providers listed below that store it for us.
5. Who can see your information
- You can see everything in your account.
- Community health workers see items sent to them for review, including the photo, and listings waiting for approval, so they can check them.
- Other households see only the food you choose to offer, with its photo and a rough distance.
- Admins manage accounts, roles and recipes and see summary statistics.
6. Service providers
We use these providers to run SafiFood. They process data only on our instructions:
- Supabase (servers in Frankfurt, Germany): database, sign-in, photo storage and server functions.
- Vercel: hosting the website.
- Google and GitHub: sign-in, if you choose them. Google Fonts serves the text fonts.
- Meta (WhatsApp) and Telegram: chat messages and notifications, if you use them.
- Open-Meteo: weather forecasts. It receives coordinates, not your name or account.
Some of these providers are outside Kenya. We use providers with appropriate safeguards for international transfers.
7. Public verification records
To make food-safety records tamper-evident, SafiFood writes a digital fingerprint (a hash) of certain events, such as a prediction, a review or a food listing, to the public Hedera network. A fingerprint cannot be turned back into the original information and contains no names, phone numbers, email addresses or locations. Because the network is public and permanent, these fingerprints cannot be deleted, but they cannot identify you.
8. How long we keep information
We keep your account and food records while your account is active. You can download a copy of your data from Settings at any time. If you ask us to delete your account, we delete your profile, food records and photos within 30 days. Review records kept for safety purposes lose your name. Backups expire on their normal schedule.
9. Your rights
Under the Kenya Data Protection Act, 2019, and similar laws, you have the right to:
- be told how your data is used (this policy);
- access and receive a copy of your data (Settings → download my data);
- correct inaccurate data (Settings, or ask us);
- have your data deleted, or object to or restrict its use;
- withdraw consent, for example by turning off location or notifications.
Email support@safifood.space to use any of these rights. If you are not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) in Kenya.
10. Security
Data is encrypted in transit. Access rules in the database ensure each user can reach only the data they are allowed to see, and photos are private by default. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects you, we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires.
11. Children
SafiFood is meant for adults managing a household's food. If you are under 18, please use it with a parent or guardian.
12. Changes to this policy
If we change this policy in a meaningful way, we will update the date above and ask you to agree again the next time you open the app. See also our Terms of Service.