Privacy Policy

1What We Collect

Category	Examples
Account details	Name, email, college, password (stored as a salted hash, never in plain text), optional phone number
Verification data	One-time email codes (hashed, never stored in plain text), and — only if you sign up with a personal email — a photo of your college ID card for a human admin to review
Marketplace activity	Listings, wishlist items, and chat messages between buyers and sellers
Technical data	IP address and request metadata, used only for rate-limiting, abuse prevention, and basic error/performance logging

We don't collect or process any payment information. Every sale on MiniXMart is arranged and paid for directly between the two students involved, entirely outside the platform.

2Your ID Card, Specifically

If your college email domain isn't already recognized, we ask for a photo of your college ID to confirm you're a real student. That photo is used only to verify your identity:

• A human admin reviews the actual image and either approves or rejects your account — there is no automated decision-making involved;
• The image is never shown to other users, never used for anything besides this one-time verification, and isn't sold or shared with any third party.

3How We Use It

We use your data to: run your account and verify you're a genuine student; show your listings to other students at your college; deliver chat messages between you and other users; send you account, verification, and unread-message notification emails; and keep the platform safe (rate-limiting, fraud and abuse prevention). We don't use your data for ad targeting and we don't sell it.

4Who Can See It

Your name and college are visible to other students alongside your listings, the way a normal marketplace profile works. Your email and phone are never shown publicly — they're only used for account access and notifications. Chat messages are visible only to you and the other person in that conversation. Your ID card, if you submit one, is visible only to admin reviewers, never to other students.

5How Long We Keep It

Account and listing records are kept for as long as your account is active, so your history (listings, wishlist, chats) stays available to you. ID card images are kept for as long as your account is active — if you'd like your ID image removed sooner, or your account closed entirely, contact us and we'll act on it; closing your account deletes the image along with everything else. One-time email codes expire within minutes and are never kept in plain text.

6Security

Passwords and one-time codes are stored as salted hashes, not plain text. Access to admin tools (ID review, account actions) is restricted and rate-limited. No system is perfectly secure, but we design with the assumption that sensitive fields — passwords, codes, ID images — should never be readable from the database in plain text, even if it were exposed.

7Your Choices

You can edit or remove your own listings and wishlist items at any time from your dashboard. To request a copy of your data, ask a correction, or close your account entirely (which removes your listings, profile, and any pending ID image), contact us through the channel below — we'll act on it as the law where you live requires.

8Cookies

We use one essential session cookie to keep you logged in, and a local (on-device) preference for light/dark theme. We don't use third-party advertising or tracking cookies.

9Changes to This Policy

If we change what we collect or how we use it, we'll update the "Last updated" date above and, for material changes, let you know in-app. See our Terms of Service for the rules of using MiniXMart itself.

10Contact

Questions about your data, or want to request deletion? Reach out through the Contact Us section on our Support page.