Who we are
Sprie helps people discover local businesses near them, message them directly, and place orders.
For questions about your data, email privacy@sprieapp.com.
What we collect
When you create an account: your name, username, email address, and password. Your password is stored by Google Firebase in a hashed form — we never see it.
If you sign in with Google, we receive your name, email address, and profile photo from Google instead of asking you to type them.
If you add a phone number, we send a verification code to it by text message.
If you create a business account: your business name and category, and optionally your address, opening hours, contact details, logo, shop photos, products, and services.
What you create in the app: messages, photos and videos, captions, reviews and review photos, comments, likes, saves, follows, orders, and appointment bookings.
If you allow notifications, a notification token for your device, so we can tell you about new messages, orders, and activity.
Photos and camera
Photos and videos you post or send are chosen from your phone's photo library. Sprie reads only the ones you pick.
Sprie uses the camera for one thing: a business scanning a customer's order QR code when the order is collected. The camera is only switched on while that scanner is open, and nothing it sees is recorded or stored.
When you save a receipt, it is saved to your own phone and is not sent to us.
Location
We ask for your device location so the app can show how far away businesses are. You can decline — the app still works, but distances will not show.
Business addresses are handled carefully. Many Sprie sellers work from home, and publishing a home address on a public map is a safety risk.
Your exact address is stored separately from your public profile, and only you can read it. If you choose to appear on the map, your exact position is published. If you choose to keep your address private, we publish only an approximate position — rounded and shifted by roughly a kilometre — plus the area name you provide. Your street address is never published.
You can share your exact address with a specific customer through chat, when you decide to. You can change this choice at any time in Settings.
What we do not collect
We do not collect your payment card details. Sprie does not process payments.
We do not track you across other apps or websites.
We do not sell your personal data to anyone.
Who can see what
Public, visible to anyone including people without an account: your username, display name, and profile photo; your follower counts; business profiles and their products, services, photos, hours, and contact details; posts and captions; reviews you write, including your name, photo, rating, text, and photos.
Private, only you: your email address and phone number; your exact business address if you chose to keep it private; your saved items; your basket; who you follow, unless you choose to make that list public.
Shared with one other person: messages, visible only to you and the person you are messaging; orders and bookings, visible only to you and the business.
Keeping Sprie safe
To keep Sprie safe for everyone, content is checked automatically. Words in posts, captions, comments, reviews, messages, product listings, business names, and searches are checked against a list of words that are not allowed. Photos and videos you post or send, and profile and shop photos, are checked by an automated service for nudity, sexual content, and graphic violence. Videos are checked using a few still frames taken from them.
Content that breaks these rules is removed automatically. We keep a short record of what was removed and why, so mistakes can be looked into.
If you report something, your report — what you reported, why, and your account — is kept so it can be reviewed. The person you report is not told who reported them. We may remove reported content or ban an account that breaks our rules. A banned account cannot sign in, and its content is hidden from everyone.
No automated check is perfect. If you think something of yours was removed by mistake, email hello@sprieapp.com.
Who processes your data for us
Google Firebase stores your account and app data on servers in the United States, with some processing on servers in Belgium. Photos and videos are stored with Firebase Storage and Cloudinary.
Photos, and still frames from videos, are checked for unsafe content by Google Cloud Vision.
Verification and password reset emails are sent through Resend. Text message codes are sent through Termii. Push notifications are delivered through Expo. Emails to our addresses are forwarded through ImprovMX.
Each of these handles your data only to provide that service to Sprie.
How long we keep it
Your account and its content: until you delete your account.
Accounts that are never verified: deleted automatically after 48 hours.
Verification and password reset codes: deleted once used, or after 10 minutes.
When you delete your account, we delete your profile, username, products, services, posts, comments, likes, saved items, follows, reviews, notifications, and device notification tokens.
Conversations, orders, and bookings also belong to the other person in them, so they are not erased — instead they are anonymised. The messages you sent are wiped and show as deleted, and your name and photo are removed and replaced with "Deleted account". Any upcoming bookings with you are cancelled. The other person keeps a record that the conversation, order, or booking happened, without anything that identifies you.
Reports you made, and records of content removed for breaking our rules, are kept for safety reasons.
Your rights
Under the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023, and the UK GDPR where it applies, you can ask us to show you the data we hold about you, correct anything that is wrong, delete your account and data, or object to how we use your data.
Most corrections you can make yourself in the app. To delete your account, go to Settings and choose Delete account.
For anything else, email privacy@sprieapp.com and we will respond within 30 days.
Security
Passwords are hashed by Firebase Authentication and we never see them. Verification and reset codes are hashed, expire after 10 minutes, and are limited to five attempts. Access to your data is controlled by database rules that deny anything not explicitly permitted. Exact business addresses are held in a separate, owner-only store.
No system is completely secure. If a breach occurs that puts you at risk, we will tell you and notify the relevant authority.
Children
Sprie is not intended for anyone under 18. We do not knowingly collect data from children. If you believe a child has created an account, email privacy@sprieapp.com and we will remove it.
Changes
If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will tell you in the app before it takes effect.