Privacy

Artisan Connect is a directory of Barbadian tradespeople, run by [COMPANY NAME]. We decide what personal data the site collects and why, which makes us the data controller under the Barbados Data Protection Act, 2019.

Questions, requests and complaints about your data go to hello@artisanconnect-bb.com.

Your account. Your name, email address and password (stored only as a one-way hash we cannot read), your role, and a phone number if you give one. We need these to sign you in and to send you the emails you ask for.

A storefront, if you are an artisan. Your business name, trades, parish, service area, prices, photos, reels, description and the numbers customers use to reach you. This is public once you publish it; that is the point of it.

An apprentice profile. Your trade, training and the tasks you can do. Your contact details are shown only to verified artisans unless you choose otherwise, and each time one is shown we record who saw it.

Verification documents. The licence or ID you send to be verified. They are kept in private storage that only our administrators can open, and used only to decide verification.

Contact clicks. When someone taps Call, WhatsApp or Email on a storefront, we record which storefront, which button, when, the account if they were signed in, and a scrambled version of their internet address (a salted hash, not the address itself). Artisans see the counts, never who clicked. This is also how a review is marked as from a verified customer.

Storefront views. When you open a storefront we count the visit once a day, against a scrambled version of your internet address. Artisans see the counts, never who looked. These are deleted after 13 months.

Reviews. Your ratings and words, shown publicly with your first name and the first letter of your surname.

Job requests. The trade, parish, timing, budget and description of a job you post, and the name and number you give for it. Matching artisans see the job; your name and number go only to the artisans you accept.

Payments. When an artisan buys First Look or Front Row, the card payment is handled by Fygaro on its own pages. We receive the amount and whether it was paid, never the card number.

Reports. If you report a listing, review or reel, we keep what you told us, your account if you were signed in, and an email address if you gave one for a reply.

Security records. Failed sign-ins and emails the site sends are counted against a scrambled internet address so nobody can flood an inbox or guess a password. These records are deleted after a day.

We use two: one that keeps you signed in, and one that carries a short on-screen message (such as “Saved”) to the next page and is then deleted. There are no advertising cookies, no tracking across other sites, and no analytics scripts.

We do not sell personal data. These services handle it for us, only to run the site:

• Cloudflare: hosting, file and video storage, and sending email.
• Neon: the database.
• Fygaro: card payments for paid tiers.

Their servers are mainly in the United States, so your data leaves Barbados. We use these providers under their data protection terms, which bind them to protect it and to use it only on our instructions.

We will also disclose data where the law requires it, for example to the police with a court order.

Your account and storefront stay until you ask us to delete them. Job requests stop taking answers after fourteen days and stay in your account until you ask us to remove them. The record of what our administrators did, kept so every decision can be checked, is deleted after two years. Security records are deleted after a day, and storefront views after 13 months.

When you ask us to delete your account, we delete your profile, storefront, photos, reels, requests and verification documents. Reviews you wrote are removed with it. Contact clicks you made stay in artisans’ counts, with your account removed from them.

Under the Data Protection Act you can ask us to:

• tell you what personal data we hold about you and give you a copy;
• correct anything that is wrong;
• delete it, or stop using it, where we have no good reason to keep it;
• stop using it in a way that is causing you damage or distress.

Write to hello@artisanconnect-bb.com. We will answer within 30 days and may ask you to confirm who you are first. Most of your details you can also change yourself from your account.

If you are unhappy with how we handled your data, you can complain to the Data Protection Commissioner of Barbados.

Data travels encrypted. Passwords are stored only as hashes. Each request reaches the database with the access of the person making it, which keeps one account out of another’s private data. If a breach puts your data at risk, we will tell the Commissioner and you without undue delay, and within 72 hours where we can.

Artisan Connect is not for children under 16. If you are an apprentice under 18, ask a parent or guardian before you publish a profile.

When this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. If a change affects how we use data you have already given us, we will email you before it takes effect.