Privacy notice

Who is responsible

The operator of LokoKat Marketplace is responsible for account, platform messaging and seller-verification information. Independent sellers and employers are responsible for information they separately collect and use for transactions or recruitment. The operator and privacy contact are identified in the contact details below.

Information we use

We use account name, email, password hash, country and session information; seller business details and chosen public contact information; listing text, prices, specifications and photos; messages between participants; identity-review applications and outcomes; and security and moderation records. For guests, we use an IP address to estimate the country and show local listings. A published business pin includes coordinates, accuracy and the time it was captured. Server logs may contain IP addresses, request information and timestamps.

Purposes and legal grounds

Account, listing and messaging information supports the service you request. Security and moderation records help protect users and investigate abuse. Identity documents support an optional seller-approval request; a submission requires an explicit acknowledgement. Public contact details and business pins are published only when the seller chooses to publish them. Depending on the activity and applicable law, processing relies on performance of a contract, legitimate interests, consent or legal obligations. An upload acknowledgement is not a blanket waiver of privacy rights.

Public and private information

Business profiles, listings, approval status and deliberately published contacts and map pins are public and may be indexed by search engines. Registration email addresses and ID photos are not public. Messages are available through the messaging interface only to the two participants. They are not end-to-end encrypted; authorized infrastructure operators may have technical access where necessary for security, support or legal obligations. The ordinary administrator interface does not provide access to private conversations.

Identity documents and photographs

Front and back ID photos are required and converted to WebP, encrypted at rest and stored outside the public directory. Authorized reviewers can preview both sides in a private viewer; reviews and document access are audited. Product photos are public. Uploads are re-encoded, metadata is removed, and images are resized/compressed to no more than 1 MB. Do not include unrelated people or sensitive information in public photos. Keep ID text readable and do not send identity documents in chat.

Sharing and external services

Hosting, storage and email providers may process information to operate the service. For visitors whose hosting network does not supply a country code, LokoKat sends the visitor IP address to its configured IP-country lookup provider and stores only the resulting country in the session; lookup results are cached against a one-way IP hash for 24 hours. Opening an external map or seller contact takes you to another service governed by its own terms. We do not currently run advertising or analytics trackers. We may disclose information where required by law or necessary to address fraud and safety incidents. When you open the marketplace map, your browser requests map tiles from OpenStreetMap infrastructure, which receives ordinary connection information such as your IP address. The search-results map receives only rounded, approximate seller coordinates from LokoKat.

Retention and deletion

Account deletion is available through Account settings and administrator review. Once confirmed, the live account, store and location, listings, uploaded product and ID photos, job postings, worker profile, saved items and searches, authored reviews and reports, login sessions and reset tokens are removed. Associated conversations and application updates are removed for both participants. A failed file cleanup is retried every five minutes and is shown as pending to administrators. Verification photos are otherwise retained while the account exists; there is no automatic age-based ID expiry yet. A random deletion receipt containing only a reference and timestamps is retained for 90 days. Administrators may delay a request for a documented legal or dispute-related reason and explain the decision.

Your choices and requests

You can edit your seller profile and listings, remove a business pin, choose whether to publish external contact details and make your worker profile private. You may request access to your personal information, correction or deletion and withdraw consent where processing relies on it. Other rights, including objection, restriction or portability, apply where provided by applicable law. Contact the privacy address below from your registered email where possible, explaining your request. We may ask for proportionate evidence to verify your identity; never send passwords or an ID in ordinary email. We will explain any lawful reason that prevents all or part of a request from being fulfilled. You can complain to the relevant data protection authority. Removing content cannot guarantee removal of copies already held by other people or search engines.

Children and changes

Accounts are intended for adults aged 18 or older. Tell the operator if a child’s information has been submitted. This notice will be updated when the service, providers or processing arrangements change.

Sponsored listings

Seller hub promotions give eligible listings from the promoted hub a ranking benefit within matching search results. This uses the current search filters and the seller hub’s promotion status, not cross-site tracking or a behavioural advertising profile. We store promotion requests, durations, decisions and administrative audit records to manage the service. Promotion does not change who can access messages or ID documents.

Activity status

If activity sharing is enabled, we record your latest activity time and a short-lived active indicator while you use the signed-in website. People who share a conversation with you can see Active now or Last seen; it is not shown on your public profile. You can switch activity sharing off in Account settings; doing so clears the stored activity time and stops further presence updates until enabled again. Activity is hidden between accounts with an active block. Active now is approximate and does not prove someone is reading a message. Background or idle tabs stop extending active status.

Message status

We record whether a message has been saved, delivered to a signed-in browser and read internally so your inbox can track unread messages. You can switch read-receipt sharing off in Account settings. This hides your read status from the sender. Messages first read while sharing is off are not later marked read to the sender when sharing is turned back on. Delivery indicators may still appear. Blocking prevents new delivery or read acknowledgements to the other account while the block is active. Previously displayed information cannot be removed from copies another person has kept.

Jobs and worker profiles

Employers publish job details, company names, work locations, requirements and any disclosed pay. Job seekers choose whether to publish worker profiles containing their display name, skills, experience, education, approximate work location and availability. Public profiles may be indexed by search engines. Account emails, applications and enquiry messages are not published. Applications and worker enquiries are visible to their conversation participants; administrators may moderate submitted vacancies and profiles but cannot browse private conversations through the administrator interface. Making a worker profile private removes public discovery and new contact requests; it does not erase existing applications or conversations.

Providing information

Required account and listing fields are needed to provide the requested feature. Seller ID approval is optional: you can list as a non-approved seller without submitting an ID. A worker profile is public only if you choose to publish it. Do not submit health records, bank details, identity documents or other unnecessary sensitive information in listings, worker profiles or messages.

Saved listings and searches

Saved listings and named searches are private to your account. We store the listing references, search filters and a marker indicating which new entries you have checked. While you are signed in, the website checks for newly added public entries matching your saved searches and displays an alert. The same entry can match more than one search. Removing a saved search stops its alerts. We do not email these alerts or share saved collections with sellers.

Feedback and reports

Your account name, star rating, written feedback and date are public when you publish listing feedback. Contacting a seller through a listing is required before reviewing; this does not verify a purchase. You can update or withdraw your feedback. Withdrawal clears the published text and rating; a minimal record and any moderation restriction remain to prevent bypassing moderation. Reports are private to the reporting and administration process. When reporting a conversation, only the report details you choose to submit are shown to administrators; the report does not unlock your conversation history. Relevant report and moderation records may be retained to investigate abuse. Seller responses and the responding store name are public alongside visible reviews. Removing a customer review also clears its seller response. Administrators may hide a response independently of the customer review.

Account settings and blocking

You can change your password, control activity and read-receipt sharing, and mute in-site new-message banners or saved-search alerts in Account settings. Muting does not delete messages or saved searches. Blocking stops platform messages in both directions across product, job and worker conversations, without deleting the history. You can remove your own block in settings or the conversation. Public listings and external contact details remain public, and blocking here does not block external calls or messaging services.

Account deletion requests

Submit a deletion request in Account settings after confirming your password. You can track the administrator response and cancel while the request is pending or under review. Submission alone does not deactivate the account. An administrator reviews the request and confirms permanent deletion separately. After completion you cannot sign in or recover the removed account. Copies already held by other people, search engines or external service providers are outside the platform deletion process.

Job application progress

Employers can update an application’s status and add notes visible to the applicant and employer in their private conversation. We store status history, the person making each change, timestamps and the applicant’s acknowledgement of updates. Applicants receive in-site update alerts unless their message/application banners are muted. Applicants can withdraw their own applications; withdrawal does not erase their messages or history. Status updates are not public and do not establish an employment contract.

Seller statistics

We keep aggregate daily listing-page view counts using only the listing reference, date and count. These statistics do not store visitor names, account references, IP addresses or device identifiers and do not add tracking cookies. Repeat visits may count; recognised bots, owner and administrator visits, sample listings and unavailable listing views are excluded. Sellers can see counts for their own listings alongside totals calculated from existing saved-listing and enquiry records. Statistics do not reveal which visitors saved a listing. Existing server security logs are separate from these counters.

Signed-in sessions

Account settings shows recent sessions using browser/device information and activity times from essential session records. These labels are approximate; they do not establish a person’s identity or precise location. Confirming your password lets you sign out other sessions and revoke remembered logins while keeping your current device signed in. Password changes and resets invalidate older sessions. We retain a session-version number on your account to enforce these sign-outs. This security feature does not introduce advertising or analytics trackers.

Deletion and backups

Completing deletion removes existing local marketplace backup archives. The backup recovery tool rejects archives older than the latest erasure cutoff recorded on the server. After cleanup, the scheduler attempts a fresh backup within five minutes containing the remaining data. Recovery keys and the erasure cutoff must be preserved when moving servers; separately exported backups require deletion by their custodian. Failed file cleanup blocks new backups until resolved. Operational logs and independently held provider records are not selectively erased by the account-deletion tool and require a separate privacy review.

Privacy regulator

In Uganda, you can raise a data-protection concern with the Personal Data Protection Office (PDPO). Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to contact your local supervisory authority.

Operator and contact details

LokoKat Marketplace is designed for buyers, sellers, businesses, employers and job seekers across supported countries. Users must follow the laws that apply to them and to each listing, service, stay, job or transaction.

Operator name

LokoKat Marketplace

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