Legal

Privacy Policy

Last updated: 4 September 2026

In short. We are a marketplace. Clients post jobs; verified tradespeople see those jobs and quote on them. To do that we have to share some of your details with the other side of a job — and we tell you exactly what, and when, below.

1. Who is responsible for your information

Book A Tradie is operated by Book A Tradie (Pty) Ltd (registration number 2022/762404/07), a company registered in South Africa, of 13 Lionel Road, Walmer Downs, Gqeberha, Eastern Cape, 6070 ("we", "us", "our"). We are the responsible party for your personal information as that term is used in the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 ("POPIA").

Information Officer: Jason Egerton
Email: info@bookatradie.co.za

2. What we collect, and why

Information	Why we need it	Legal ground (POPIA s11)
Name, phone number, email address	To create your account and let the other party contact you about a job	Necessary to perform our contract with you
Identity document, South African ID number, selfie or proof of identity	To verify that a person is who they say they are before they can post work or receive leads. This is the core safety promise of the platform	Your consent, and our legitimate interest in preventing fraud
Property address and map pin (GPS coordinates)	To match a job to tradespeople who actually cover that area, and to let the tradesperson find the site	Necessary to perform our contract with you
Trade qualifications, licences, registrations (for example PIRB, SAQCC Gas, Department of Employment and Labour) and public liability insurance certificates	To check that a tradesperson may lawfully do licensed work, and to show clients what has been verified	Necessary to perform our contract, and to comply with law
Company registration (CIPC) details	To verify a registered business, where a tradesperson provides it	Your consent
Photographs of a job, and photographs of completed work	To describe the work needed, and to let tradespeople show their portfolio	Necessary to perform our contract with you
Messages sent through the app	To let the two parties arrange the work, and to investigate disputes or abuse	Necessary to perform our contract, and our legitimate interest in safety
Ratings and reviews you write	To build the trust rating other users rely on	Necessary to perform our contract with you
Subscription and payment records	To take payment for a tradesperson's subscription and keep accounting records	Necessary to perform our contract, and to comply with tax law
Device and usage information, including IP address and app version	To keep the service working, diagnose faults and detect abuse	Our legitimate interest in operating a secure service
Push notification token, if you allow notifications on your device	To send you an alert when you receive a message, a lead or a job update. You can switch these off at any time in the app, and revoke the permission in your device settings	Your consent

What we do not collect

We do not ask for your banking details. Card and subscription payments are handled by our payment providers (see section 5) — we never see or store your full card number. We do not collect information about your race, religion, health, political opinions, sex life or trade-union membership, and you should not send us any.

3. Who your information is shared with

We share only what the job requires, and only when it is needed:

With tradespeople: when you post a job, verified tradespeople whose service area covers your property, and who hold the accreditation for that trade, can see the job description, the photographs, the suburb and an approximate distance. Your exact address and your phone number are released only once you accept a quote from that tradesperson.
With clients: a tradesperson's business name, profile photograph, trade, accredited trades, ratings, reviews and work photographs are visible to clients. Their phone number is released once a quote is accepted.
With our service providers, who process information on our behalf under written agreements: Supabase (database and file hosting), Render (website hosting), Paystack and RevenueCat (subscription payments), Resend (sending our notification and account emails), and Expo (mobile app delivery and push notification delivery).
With regulators, professional bodies or law enforcement, where we are required to by law, or where it is necessary to investigate fraud, a safety incident or a serious dispute.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with advertisers.

4. Where your information is stored, and transfers outside South Africa

Please read this. Our database and uploaded files are hosted by Supabase in a data centre in Frankfurt, Germany. Your personal information therefore leaves South Africa.

Section 72 of POPIA permits this transfer because Germany is subject to the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, which upholds principles for the lawful processing of personal information that are substantially similar to POPIA's, and includes comparable provisions on onward transfer. The transfer is also necessary for the performance of our contract with you. Our hosting agreements require the provider to protect the information and to process it only on our instructions.

If you would prefer your information not to be processed outside South Africa, we regrettably cannot provide the service to you, and you should not create an account.

5. Payments

Tradesperson subscriptions are billed through Paystack (on the website) and through RevenueCat with Apple or Google (in the mobile apps). These providers collect your payment details directly and are responsible for them. We receive only a record that a payment succeeded or failed, and the period it covers.

6. How long we keep it

Account information: for as long as your account is open, and for 12 months afterwards in case of a dispute.
Identity and accreditation documents: for as long as your account is open, and for 5 years afterwards, because they evidence the checks we carried out.
Job records, quotes, messages and reviews: 5 years from completion of the job, so that both parties have a record if a dispute or an insurance claim arises.
Invoices and payment records: 5 years, as required by the Companies Act and tax legislation.

After those periods we delete the information or de-identify it so it can no longer be linked to you.

7. Your rights under POPIA

You have the right to:

ask what personal information we hold about you, and be given a copy of it;
ask us to correct or update information that is wrong or incomplete;
ask us to delete information we no longer have a lawful reason to keep;
object to processing that we carry out on the ground of legitimate interest;
withdraw a consent you gave us, at any time (this does not affect anything done before you withdrew it);
not receive direct marketing by electronic means unless you agreed to it, and to opt out at any time; and
complain to the Information Regulator.

To exercise any of these, email info@bookatradie.co.za. We will respond within 30 days. We may ask you to confirm your identity first, so that we do not hand your information to someone else. Requests for access to records are dealt with under our PAIA manual.

What we cannot delete: if you have completed a job through the platform, we must keep the job record, the invoice and any review for the periods in section 6. We will close your account and remove your profile from public view, but the underlying transaction record remains.

8. How we protect your information

All traffic between your device and our servers is encrypted (HTTPS/TLS), and information is encrypted at rest.
Access to your records is enforced at the database level, so one user cannot read another user's properties, contact details, jobs or messages.
Contact details are released only at the point a quote is accepted.
Identity and accreditation documents are stored in restricted storage that ordinary users cannot browse, and are visible only to staff carrying out verification.
Administrative access is limited to staff who need it, and is protected by multi-factor authentication.

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach occurs that creates a real risk of harm to you, we will notify you and the Information Regulator as soon as reasonably possible, as section 22 of POPIA requires.

9. Children

Book A Tradie is not for children. You must be 18 or older to create an account. We do not knowingly collect information about anyone under 18, and if we learn that we have, we will delete it.

10. Cookies and similar technologies

We use only the storage that is strictly necessary to keep you signed in and to remember your preferences on your own device. We do not use advertising cookies and we do not track you across other websites.

11. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy in a way that materially affects you, we will tell you in the app or by email before the change takes effect. The "last updated" date above always reflects the current version.

12. How to complain

Please raise it with us first at info@bookatradie.co.za — most issues are quickly resolved. If you are not satisfied, you may complain to:

The Information Regulator (South Africa)
JD House, 27 Stiemens Street, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, 2001
Email: POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za
Website: inforegulator.org.za