Privacy Policy
How ArtisHelp collects, uses, shares, and protects your information. Written in plain English.
1. Who we are
ArtisHelp is a marketplace that connects customers with skilled artisans across Nigeria. When this policy says "we", "us", or "ArtisHelp", it means the ArtisHelp team and the operators of this website. When it says "you", it means anyone using the platform, whether as a visitor, a signed in customer, or a registered artisan.
This policy explains what information we collect, why we collect it, how we use it, who we share it with, and what rights you have over it. If anything here is unclear, contact us and we will explain it.
2. What information we collect
Account information. When you create an account we collect your full name, email address, phone number, and password. We also record your role, whether you are using ArtisHelp as a customer or as an artisan.
Artisan profile information. If you register as an artisan, we additionally collect your category, your area or city, your GPS coordinates if you choose to share them, your years of experience, your starting price, a written description of your work, your calling number, an optional separate WhatsApp number, and any profile photo or portfolio photos you upload. If you add service listings, we also store each service's title, description, price, pricing type, and its photos or videos.
Job requests. When you submit a job request we collect the description you wrote, the preferred date if you provided one, the budget if you provided one, any reference photos you attached, and the status history of that request from pending through accepted, completed, or cancelled.
Messages. When you send a message to another user we store the text and any image you attached, along with the timestamp and who sent it. Messages are only readable by the two participants in the conversation.
Reviews. When you leave a review we store the star rating, the written text, and the timestamp. Reviews are publicly visible on the artisan profile.
Payment information. When an artisan pays for verification or a subscription plan, we store the payment reference, the amount, the currency, the purpose, and the status of the payment. We do not store your card number, your bank details, or your CVV. Paystack handles the card and bank details directly and shares only the outcome of the payment with us.
Analytics counters. For each artisan we store a set of daily counters: how many times the profile was opened, how many times Call was tapped, how many times WhatsApp was tapped, how many messages were received, and how many reviews were left. These counters do not identify the visitors and do not record IP addresses. They exist so that Featured artisans can see their own traffic in the analytics dashboard.
Technical information. Our servers receive the browser type, the operating system, the page requested, and the approximate time of the request. This is standard server logging. We do not store IP addresses beyond what is needed for basic security monitoring and we do not associate them with your account.
What we do not collect. We do not collect your bank details, your national identification number, or any other financial information. We do not use third party advertising trackers or analytics scripts that build a profile of your browsing across other sites.
3. How we use your information
We use your information for a limited set of purposes, each tied to running the platform.
To operate your account. Your email and password authenticate you. Your name and profile information appear on your profile. Your phone number and WhatsApp number are shown to customers who choose to contact you.
To let customers find you. If you are an artisan, your category, location, description, price range, portfolio photos, and reviews appear on your public profile. Service titles, descriptions, prices, and attached media are public too. This is the entire point of the platform. Do not put anything in your public profile or service listings that you do not want publicly visible.
To enable job requests and messaging. The descriptions, photos, dates, budgets, and messages you submit are shown to the artisan you sent them to and to you. Nobody else can read them.
To process payments. Payment references and amounts are used to confirm that a payment succeeded and to grant or renew the plan or verification it pays for.
To show analytics to artisans. The daily counters are aggregated and shown to the artisan who owns the profile. They are not shown to anyone else except the platform administrators.
To moderate the platform. Reviews, reports, and contact form submissions help us identify scammers, impersonators, and abusive accounts, and remove them before they harm other users.
4. Who we share your information with
We do not sell your personal information. We do not rent it. We do not share it with advertisers. We do not share it with data brokers.
We share information with a small number of service providers who are necessary for the platform to function.
Google Firebase handles authentication and stores your account data, artisan profile, job requests, messages, reviews, notifications, and analytics counters on our behalf. Firebase is operated by Google and follows Google security and privacy standards.
Cloudinary hosts profile photos, portfolio images, service photos and videos, job request reference photos, and chat images that users upload. Uploaded media is stored on Cloudinary servers and displayed to the people who are meant to see it.
Paystack processes verification fees and subscription payments. Card and bank details go directly to Paystack and never reach our servers. Paystack is PCI compliant and handles all payment data under its own privacy policy.
We will also share information when required by law, by a valid court order, or by a request from a regulator, or when necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of ArtisHelp, our users, or the public. Where the situation permits, we will tell you about such requests.
5. How we protect your information
Passwords are hashed and salted before they are stored. Not even our team can read your password. If you forget it, you can reset it through email, but we cannot tell you what it was.
Our database uses Firestore security rules to define who can read and write each piece of data. A customer can only read their own account and conversations they participate in. An artisan can edit their own profile. Conversations are readable only by the two participants, and job requests are readable only by the customer who sent them and the artisan who received them. Service listings are public to support artisan discovery; creating, editing, and removing them is handled by our server after it verifies the artisan's signed-in account and plan allowance. These controls are enforced beyond the page interface and cannot be bypassed by changing browser code.
All traffic between your browser and our servers is encrypted with HTTPS. There are no plain HTTP endpoints on ArtisHelp.
No system is perfectly secure. If we experience a data breach that affects your account, we will notify you by email within 72 hours of discovering it, explaining what was affected and what we are doing about it.
6. How long we keep your information
Account information, artisan profiles and service listings, uploaded media, job requests, messages, and reviews are kept for as long as your account exists. Some nested Firestore records and media hosted by Cloudinary may remain after account deletion, as described below.
When you delete your account from the account settings page, we remove your account document, artisan profile document, reviews, conversation records, saved artisans, notifications, analytics counters, and sign-in record. The current deletion process does not automatically remove service documents or individual message documents stored in nested Firestore collections, or media files hosted by Cloudinary. These may remain after account deletion. Contact us to request removal of these remaining records or files. Account deletion is irreversible.
Copies of past profile data may remain in our backup archives for up to 30 days. Contact form submissions are kept for 12 months for reference, then deleted. Audit log entries about actions taken on the platform are kept indefinitely because they are the historical record that admin actions rely on.
7. Your rights
You have several rights over the information you have given us.
Access. You can request a copy of every piece of information we hold about you. We will send it to the email address on your account within 30 days of verifying the request.
Correction. You can update most of your information yourself through your dashboard. For anything you cannot change there, contact us and we will update it after verifying your identity.
Deletion. You can delete your account yourself at any time from the account settings page. The records removed and the information that may remain are described in section 6. You can also request deletion by contacting us if you no longer have access to the account.
Portability. If you want your data in a machine readable format, we can provide it as a JSON export.
Objection. If you disagree with how we are handling some piece of your information, tell us and we will review it. If we cannot resolve the issue you have the right to escalate to the appropriate regulator.
8. Cookies and browser storage
We use browser storage for two purposes. First, to keep you signed in. When you check Remember me at login, we store a token that lets you skip the login page on your next visit. Second, to remember your session so you do not have to sign in again on every page navigation within the same visit.
We do not use third party tracking cookies. We do not use advertising cookies. We do not use cookies from Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, or any other analytics service. What you do on ArtisHelp stays between you and ArtisHelp.
You can clear browser storage at any time from your browser settings. Doing so will sign you out of the platform.
9. Children
ArtisHelp is intended for adults aged 18 and older. We do not knowingly allow anyone under 18 to create an account. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has created an account, contact us and we will remove it within 48 hours.
10. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy as the platform evolves. For minor clarifications we update the last updated date without further notice. For material changes we will email every registered user before the change takes effect and display a banner on the site for at least two weeks.
11. Contact
If you have questions about this policy, want to exercise any of your rights, or believe we have mishandled your information, please contact us. We respond to every privacy related message within 5 business days.