Privacy notice
What we collect, why we collect it, and what you can do about it.
The short version
- We collect the minimum needed to run accounts and listings.
- We never ask for national ID numbers, passport or licence numbers, or photos of identity documents. If anyone claiming to be Private Wheels ZW asks for them, do not send them and tell us.
- One account is enough to buy and sell.
- We do not sell your personal information.
- You can edit, download or delete your data yourself from your account settings.
What we collect
| Information | Why we need it | Who can see it |
|---|---|---|
| Display name | To identify you to other users and greet you. | Shown on listings you publish. |
| Email address | To sign you in, confirm it is really yours, reset your password and send account messages. | Only you and site administrators. Never shown publicly. |
| Password | To sign you in with email. Stored only as a salted one-way hash; we cannot read it. Not needed if you only use Google. | Nobody. |
| Phone number (optional) | Optional contact number for when you are buying. | Only you and site administrators. If a future feature shares it with a seller, we will tell you first. |
| Seller phone number | Only if you sell: the number a buyer's WhatsApp chat opens to when they tap Contact Seller on your listing. | Not shown on listing pages. It is revealed only to a signed-in buyer, inside the WhatsApp link, at the moment they tap the button. Site administrators can see it. |
| Seller location (province, town or city) | Only if you sell: so buyers can find vehicles near them. A general location, not a street address. | Intended to be shown on listings you publish. |
| Listings and photos | The vehicle details, price and photos you choose to publish. | Everyone, while the listing is live. |
| Enquiries (leads) | When a buyer taps Contact Seller we record who, which listing, when, and the price and commission rate at that moment, with a reference. This is how we know a buyer was introduced through the platform. We do not read or store your WhatsApp conversation. | The buyer and seller involved (the seller sees the buyer's display name only) and site administrators. |
| Sale reports | If you report what happened after an enquiry (bought, not bought, seller unreachable, already sold, suspicious), we keep your answer, the price and date you give if you bought, and any note you write. The seller is asked to confirm a purchase. | The other party sees a purchase report and its price. Suspicious-activity notes go only to administrators. |
| Listing and seller reports | If you report a listing or seller, we keep your reason, what you wrote, any screenshots you attached and a log of what our team did. Screenshots are stored privately. | Only authorised administrators. We never publish a report, its reason or a count of reports, and the seller is not told who reported. The seller may be shown the category and a neutral message so they can respond, and is told the outcome. |
| Photo checks | When you upload a vehicle photo we compute a fingerprint (a hash and a visual hash) so we can spot the same photo reused on other listings, and we run automatic checks that can only flag a photo for a person to look at. Photos are never approved or rejected automatically, and no external AI service is used. | Only administrators see the flags. If a local screening model is configured it runs on our own server. |
| Commission records | For confirmed sales introduced through the platform: advertised and final price, rate, commission and payment status. Kept for accounting. | The seller concerned and site administrators. |
| When you agreed to our terms | A timestamp, as a record of consent. | Only you and site administrators. |
What we do not collect
This site does not ask for, accept or store:
- national ID numbers, passport numbers or driver's licence numbers;
- photos or scans of identity documents, or selfies for identity checks;
- your home address, date of birth or financial account details.
Signing in with Google
If you choose Continue with Google, Google tells us your email address, whether Google has verified it, your Google account identifier, and your name (which we use to suggest a display name). That is all we keep: we do not keep your profile photo or language, and we do not store Google access tokens, so we cannot read your Gmail, Drive, contacts or anything else in your Google account. Google handles your Google password; we never see it.
Google sign-in does not verify ownership. It only shows that you control a Google account with that email address. It does not verify your identity, and it is not evidence that you own any vehicle you list. Buyers should always check ownership papers themselves (see our safety tips).
Cookies and security data
- Session cookie: keeps you logged in. If you leave "Remember me" unticked it ends when you close your browser.
- Security cookie (CSRF): protects forms from forgery.
- IP address: used briefly to limit repeated login, sign-up and password-reset attempts and to protect the service from abuse. Our web server may also record it in standard access logs.
We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.
Who else handles your data
We do not sell your personal information. It is processed only by services needed to run Private Wheels ZW: our hosting provider, the email service that delivers our messages, and Google if you choose Google sign-in. We may disclose information where the law requires it.
Your choices
- See and edit your details in your profile.
- Change your email or password in your account settings.
- Download a copy of your data from account settings.
- Delete your account. Your name, email, phone numbers, location and sign-in details are erased and your listings and photos are deleted. Records we must keep for accounting, such as a commission on a completed sale, are kept with your identity removed.
Questions
Email support@privatewheels.co.zw. Last updated: 8 November 2026.