Traverse — Privacy Policy (Riders)
Last updated: 25 July 2026
Who we are
Traverse ("we", "us") provides campus ride-sharing for students and drivers at participating universities in Ghana.
The data controller is Traverse, of Accra, Greater Accra Region, Ghana.
Questions, or any request about your data, go to traversegh@gmail.com. We respond within 14 days.
What we collect
When you create an account: your full name, phone number, email address, and the school you belong to. There is no password — you sign in with a one-time code sent to your email and then to your phone, so there is nothing for us to store and nothing for you to lose.
Your date of birth, collected for one reason only: Traverse is for people aged 18 and over, and we check that at sign-up. We do not use it for anything else, and we do not use it to profile you.
A record that you accepted these terms: the date and time you agreed, and which version of this policy and the Terms of Service you were shown. We keep this so that we can show what you actually agreed to, and so can you.
To confirm you are really you: a one-time code sent to your phone and to your email. We record when each was confirmed.
When you book and take rides: where you were picked up and dropped off, when, how many seats, the fare, which driver, and whether the ride completed or was cancelled. Also any scheduled or routine bookings you set up.
Money: your wallet balance and every transaction behind it — top-ups, ride charges, refunds, adjustments, campus passes and promo codes you used. We do not store your card or mobile-money credentials; those go directly to our payment provider.
Location: the app reads your device location only while you are actively using a map or booking screen, to show nearby campus stops. We do not track riders in the background, and your position normally stays on your phone.
There are exactly two times it is sent to us, and you press a button for both: when you send an SOS, and when you tell us none of the listed stops is where you are — that sends the one position so your school can consider adding a stop there, along with anything you typed as a name. That report is kept until an administrator has dealt with it, and is deleted with your account.
Safety features you choose to use: if you add an emergency contact, we store that person's name and phone number, and we send them a message containing your name, phone number and ride details when you press SOS.
We also keep a record that an SOS was raised — who raised it, when, which ride
it was about, and whether your phone had a position at the time. We do not
keep the position itself. Your coordinates go into the message to your
contact and are stored nowhere. The record exists so your school can see that
alarms are being raised and answer questions about them, including yours: if
you tell us you pressed SOS and nothing happened, this is what lets us check.
Your contact's number is stored only in a shortened form such as
+2335***101.
If you book a ride for someone else: we store the name and phone number you give us for that person, and we text them the driver's details and a tracking link so they can find their ride.
If you organise a group ride: we store the name and phone number you give us for each person you invite, whether or not they use Traverse, so we can tell them about the ride and record who is paying for which seat. If you invite someone who has no account, that name and number is the only thing we hold about them, and it is deleted with the group ride.
If you use a referral code: we store which rider referred which — a link between your account and theirs — and, where your school runs a referral scheme, what the referrer earned from your rides and for how long. Your referral code is created for you when you sign up, whether or not you ever share it.
If you save places or trips: we store the pins you drop and the routes you save, under the names you give them. They are yours alone — no other rider ever sees them — and they are deleted with your account.
Device information needed to keep you signed in.
About other people's information
Two features involve someone who may not use Traverse at all — adding an emergency contact, and booking a ride for another person. When you give us someone else's name and number, you are confirming you have their permission to do so. We use those details only for that specific purpose (reaching them in an emergency, or telling them about the ride you booked for them). They can contact us at traversegh@gmail.com to have their details removed.
Why we use it, and on what basis
- To provide the service you asked for — matching you with a driver, pricing and charging the ride, showing your trip history. (Performance of our contract with you.)
- To keep people safe — confirming identities, running the SOS feature, investigating incidents and disputes. (Our legitimate interest in a safe service, and yours.)
- To prevent fraud and abuse — spotting misuse of wallets, promos and refunds. (Legitimate interest.)
- To meet legal and accounting obligations — retaining transaction records. (Legal obligation.)
- To improve reliability — understanding demand patterns by time and route. We use this in aggregate, not to profile you individually. (Legitimate interest.)
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use it for third-party advertising.
Who sees it
- Your driver sees what they need to complete your ride: your name, your phone number (so they can call you), and the pickup and drop-off points.
- Your school's Traverse administrators can see operational records for their own campus — trips, disputes, wallet adjustments and promo usage. Administrators are scoped to their own school and cannot see another school's riders.
- Service providers who act on our instructions: our payment processor (Paystack), our SMS provider (Arkesel), our email provider (Brevo), and our push-notification provider (Expo), together with the hosting provider that runs our servers and database. Maps are drawn by Apple Maps on iPhone and by OpenStreetMap on Android; neither receives anything about you from us.
- Authorities, where we are legally required to disclose.
Transfers outside Ghana. Some of those providers process data outside Ghana — for example our email provider's and our hosting provider's servers. Where that happens we rely on the data-protection terms in our contract with that provider, which require them to protect your data to a standard comparable to Ghanaian law and to use it only on our instructions.
How long we keep it
- While your account is open, we keep your account and ride history so the service works.
- After you delete your account, we remove or scramble everything that identifies you — your name, phone number, email, emergency contact, saved places and any rating comments you wrote.
- Financial records survive deletion in anonymised form. We are obliged to keep an accurate record of money that moved, so wallet and fare entries remain, but they are no longer linked to a name, phone number or email.
- We keep those anonymised financial records for six years, which is the period Ghanaian company and tax law expects accounting records to be retained. After that they may be deleted entirely.
Your rights
Under Ghana's Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843) you may:
- See your data. The app has a "Download my data" option that gives you everything we hold about you.
- Delete your account. The app has a "Delete my account" option. It works immediately and cannot be undone. We will ask you to first finish or cancel any ride in progress, settle any unpaid fare, and empty or reclaim any remaining wallet balance — so that deleting never silently costs you money.
- Correct anything wrong, from your profile or by contacting us.
- Object to, or ask us to restrict, certain uses.
- Complain to the Data Protection Commission of Ghana if you think we have handled your data wrongly.
Security
Signing in uses one-time codes rather than a password, so there is no password of yours for anyone to steal from us. Traffic is encrypted in transit. Access to administrative tools is restricted by role and limited to a single school. Payment credentials never touch our servers.
No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your personal data, we will notify you and the Data Protection Commission as required by law.
Children
Traverse is for people aged 18 and over and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18. If you believe a child has created an account, tell us at the address above and we will remove it.
If a participating school enrols students under 18, that school must arrange appropriate consent before those students use Traverse.
Changes
We may update this policy as the app changes. If a change materially affects how we use your data, we will tell you in the app before it takes effect.