Privacy Policy

Car Deals (“we”, “us”) operates cardealsghana.com and the Car Deals mobile app. We decide why and how personal information is processed on the Platform, and we are committed to handling it in line with Ghana’s Data Protection Act 2012 (Act 843).

For any question about this policy — including a request to see, correct or delete your information — write to support@cardealsghana.com.

You give us:

• your name or registered business name, email address, phone and WhatsApp number;
• your region and town, so buyers can find vehicles near them;
• your password (stored only as an unreadable security hash);
• listing details and photographs, vehicle condition and equipment, prices and documents you attach;
• buyer requests, offers, messages and reviews you write;
• verification information — a camera “human check” image, phone confirmation, and, for dealers, business and identity documents;
• support messages you send us, and any consent you record with us.

We also receive automatically:

• device, browser and app version details, and your IP address;
• pages, searches and listings you view, and which link shared your listing;
• crash, error and performance information that helps us fix faults;
• payment confirmations from our payment provider for paid plans and promotions (not your card details).

From other members: reviews about a dealer, and reports about a listing or person.

The camera check exists for one purpose: to confirm that the account making a sensitive action belongs to a real human being and not an automated script or a bulk fake account.

• The image is not published on your profile, on a listing, or anywhere else members can browse.
• It is not shared with buyers, sellers, dealers or partners.
• It is seen only by the automated check and, where a review is genuinely needed, by a small number of authorised Car Deals staff bound by confidentiality.
• We keep it only as long as needed to prevent repeat fraud and to meet our legal obligations, then delete it.
• Dealer identity and business documents are treated the same way: reviewed by authorised staff and kept private. Only your business name, location and badge status appear publicly.

You may decline these checks. The consequence is simply that the sensitive action is not available — browsing, searching and reading listings still works.

Location on Car Deals is optional and coarse. If you use a “detect my location” control, your browser or phone asks your permission first and we use the result only to fill in your region and town — the same information you could type yourself.

We do not track your movement, do not store a trail of your position, and do not publish your home address. Dealers who choose to show a shop pin do so deliberately, and only the shop position becomes public.

We process personal information to:

• create and secure your account, and let you use the features you asked for;
• publish your listings and requests, and connect you with buyers or sellers;
• detect bots, fake accounts, duplicate photos, scam pricing and other abuse;
• review dealer applications and maintain the verified dealer directory;
• take payment, issue receipts and administer paid plans and promotions;
• answer support requests, send service notices and keep records of agreements;
• improve search, categories, and the fairness of listing and promotion placement;
• comply with Ghanaian law and cooperate with lawful investigations.

The legal grounds we rely on are: the contract formed when you open an account, your consent where we ask for it, our legitimate interest in running a safe and useful marketplace, and legal obligations.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use your private messages or verification images to train unrelated systems or to advertise third-party products.

• Other members — only what you choose to publish: your listing, your shop or dealer profile details, and your contact numbers once you open a conversation.
• Service providers — hosting, storage, email delivery, maps and payment processing, under instructions to use data only for us.
• Payment provider — the information needed to take a payment and prevent payment fraud.
• Advisers and authorities — lawyers, auditors, and the police, EOCO, courts or the Data Protection Commission where we are legally required or permitted.
• A buyer of the business — if Car Deals is sold or restructured, on terms that keep this policy intact.

Public pages are crawlable by search engines. If you list a vehicle, the listing text and photos are visible to anyone who finds them.

Card and mobile-money details are handled by our licensed payment provider, not by Car Deals. We receive only a confirmation, an amount, a reference and a fraud signal. Please never send us your PIN or a one-time code.

We keep account and listing data while your account is open. After you close it, we keep only what is genuinely needed — for example records of a paid promotion for accounting, or a fraud marker that stops a banned account from re-registering — and we delete the rest.

Verification images are retained for the shortest period that still lets us investigate abuse, and are deleted automatically once that period ends.

We use encrypted connections, hashed passwords, role-based access so only authorised staff see verification material, audit logging of administration actions, and monitoring for suspicious activity. Private screens are never stored for offline use — only public listing pages are, briefly, so the site still works on a poor network.

No system is perfectly secure. Keep your password private, and tell us immediately at support@cardealsghana.com if you think your account is compromised.

Under Ghana’s Data Protection Act 2012 (Act 843), you may ask us to:

• confirm what we hold about you and give you a copy;
• correct anything inaccurate — including your name, phone, town or business details;
• delete information that is no longer needed or was collected without a lawful basis;
• stop processing your information for direct marketing;
• withdraw a consent you gave (for example, a marketing email) at any time;
• explain an automated decision that significantly affects you.

Email support@cardealsghana.com from your registered address. We respond within thirty days and may need to confirm your identity first. You also have the right to complain to the Data Protection Commission of Ghana.

You can permanently delete your account from My profile or the account-deletion page. Confirm using your account email. Your personal marketplace data and verification files are removed; required payment and staff audit records may be retained privately for lawful obligations. Deletion does not issue refunds or cancel external rental agreements.

Car Deals is not aimed at anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly create accounts for children. If you learn a child has given us information, tell us and we will remove it.

Some infrastructure we rely on (hosting, email delivery, payment processing) may store data outside Ghana. Where it does, we choose providers with appropriate safeguards and keep the transfer limited to what the service actually needs.

We use a small amount of on-device storage to keep you signed in, remember your light or dark theme, and hold a short-lived copy of public listing pages (about 24 hours) so the marketplace still opens when your connection drops.

We do not store your messages, verification images, payment data or private dashboard information on your device for offline use, and we do not use advertising trackers.

When this policy changes, the new version replaces this one on this page with a fresh “Last updated” date. If a change materially reduces your protections, we will also tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect.