1. About this policy
In short: We collect only what we need to run HostelGig and SchoolYard, we never sell your personal information, and you can ask us what we hold, to fix it, or to delete it.
This policy explains what personal information HostelGig ("we", "us") collects when you use hostelgig.com, hostel booking, SchoolYard and our other services ("the Services"), why we collect it, who sees it, how long we keep it and what choices you have. It is written to follow Ghana's Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843). We are the "data controller" of the information described here.
It applies to students, hostel managers, writers, sellers, advertisers and visitors. It does not cover other websites that we link to or that advertisers send you to. Please read it together with our Terms and Conditions.
2. What we collect
| When | What we collect |
|---|---|
| You book a hostel | Name, username, email, phone, gender, date of birth, campus, programme, level, student ID, national ID number (if you give it), nationality and address, passport-style photo, signature, guardian's name, contact and details, room choice, payment receipts you upload, and the payment reference from ExpressPay. |
| You join SchoolYard without a booking | Name, username, email, phone, country, school, the name of your hostel or homestel and its manager's contact, and a password (stored only as a scrambled "hash"). |
| You use SchoolYard | Your profile (photo, bio, campus), posts, photos, comments, likes, follows, polls, anonymous confessions (kept with your account but hidden from other students), saves, reports, messages in hostel chat, marketplace and tutoring chats, listings, reviews, orders, inventory records, study files you upload, quiz and challenge results, forum posts, Crimson articles, comments and votes, coins, League points, badges and tips. |
| You are paid or you pay | Coin purchases and advertiser top-ups: amount, time and the ExpressPay reference. Writers: Ghana mobile money number, the name on the wallet, earnings and withdrawals. We never see card numbers or mobile money PINs. |
| You are an advertiser | Name, business, phone, email, website, a photo of your national ID (to confirm who you are), your campaigns, pictures and balance. |
| You use the Services in any way | Technical data: IP address, browser and device type, pages and actions (for security and to make things work), the country and timezone we work out from your address and browser, sign-in times, failed log-in tries, and a pseudonymous key (not your name) used to count ad views and clicks once. |
| You contact us | Your message, and whatever you choose to tell us. |
| You use AI study help | The text or file you ask it to work on and the answer it produces. |
3. Why we use it
| Purpose | Basis |
|---|---|
| To create your account, run the Services, process bookings, orders, coins, payouts and ads, and give you support | To carry out our agreement with you |
| To keep the Services safe: log-in limits, email codes, spotting fraud, fake clicks and abuse, enforcing our rules and the law | Our legitimate interest in security, and legal duty |
| To show you relevant content: your campus feed, local ads, your timezone and your own day and week for rewards | Our legitimate interest, and to carry out our agreement |
| To send you service emails and notices (codes, receipts, approvals, security alerts, payout news) and, if you allow it, updates and offers | Agreement and consent (you can switch off emails in Settings or use "unsubscribe") |
| To count and bill advertising and share revenue with Crimson writers | Agreement |
| To improve the Services and understand how they are used (in totals, not about you personally where possible) | Our legitimate interest |
| To keep records, pay tax, and meet our legal duties and answer lawful requests from authorities | Legal duty |
Where we rely on your consent you can withdraw it at any time; this does not affect what we did before.
4. What other people can see
- Your username, name, photo, bio, campus and posts are visible to other students, depending on your privacy settings. You can make your account private, hide your photo and stay out of search in Settings > Privacy.
- Your articles on Crimson show your name as the writer. If their reach is "SchoolYard + the HostelGig home page", visitors who are not logged in can read them. Ads and article cards may also appear in the SchoolYard feed.
- Marketplace and tutoring listings show what you choose to show. Your phone number and email are hidden until a buyer unlocks them.
- Hostel managers see the details of students who booked their hostel. Hostel chat messages are visible to the students and managers of that hostel.
- Your ID photo (advertisers) and your national ID number, guardian details and mobile money details are never shown to other students, and are visible only to the people who need them to do their job (for example the verification team, or the manager of the hostel you booked).
5. Who we share information with
We do not sell your personal information. We share it only with:
| Who | Why | What they get |
|---|---|---|
| ExpressPay | Taking payments | Your name, phone, email, the amount and the order reference |
| Hostel managers | Your booking and tenancy | The details you gave when you booked |
| Our email and SMS providers and web hosting company | Sending messages and running the website | Your contact details and the message; the data we store, held on their servers |
| An outside AI provider (when AI study help is switched on) | Producing summaries and questions | The text you ask it to work on |
| A free address-lookup service (ipwho.is) | Working out your country and timezone | Your IP address only |
| Website statistics on every page, including signed-in pages (Google Analytics), and fonts | Your IP address and which pages you open, as Google describes in its own policy. We never send your name, e-mail, phone number, messages or sign-in details, and pages with private links are reported without the private part of the address | |
| Advertisers | Showing their ads | Only totals (views, clicks, spend, by place). Never who you are. |
| Authorities and courts | When the law or a court order requires, or to protect people from harm | Only what is required |
| A buyer of our business | If HostelGig is ever sold or merged | Your information, under the same promises as here |
Everyone who handles information for us is required to protect it and to use it only for us.
6. Ads and tracking
- Ads are matched to where they appear (a page or section) and, if the advertiser chooses, to your campus. We do not build a profile of you for advertisers and we do not use the sites you visit elsewhere.
- To count a view or click once per person, we make a short scrambled key from your account number (or from your address and browser if you are not logged in). Advertisers never see it.
- Advertisers' pages are outside our control. Tapping an ad takes you to their site, where their own policy applies.
7. Cookies and similar tools
| Name | What it does | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Session cookie | Keeps you logged in and protects forms against forgery. Essential. | Until you log out or after a long idle time |
| hg_tz | Remembers your browser's timezone so times and your daily rewards use your own day | 1 year |
| Theme setting (stored in your browser) | Remembers light or dark mode | Until you clear it |
| Google Analytics | Counts visits to hostel pages and what is popular | Up to 2 years |
You can block or delete cookies in your browser; the Services will still work but you may need to log in more often and some features may not work as well. The essential session cookie is needed to log in.
8. How long we keep it
| Information | How long |
|---|---|
| Account and profile | While your account is open. After you ask us to delete it, we delete or anonymise it within 30 days, except what we must keep (below) |
| Bookings, payments and money records (including coin purchases, ad top-ups and writer payouts) | As long as needed for accounting, tax and disputes, normally up to 6 years |
| Posts, comments, articles, listings and reviews | Until you or we delete them or your account is deleted (copies reposted or quoted by others may remain) |
| Failed log-in tries and rate-limit records | 30 days |
| Addresses and devices your account was used from | Up to 12 months after last use |
| Country/timezone lookups, one-time codes, password-reset links | A few days to 30 days |
| Activity record (who added, changed or deleted something, from which address, and sign-ins; never passwords or message text) | 180 days |
| Error records (technical errors, with the page and address they happened on) | 90 days |
| Advertiser ID photos | While the advertiser account is open; deleted when the account is closed at the advertiser's request unless the law needs us to keep it |
| Ad view and click keys | 3 days. Daily totals are kept for reports |
9. How we protect it
- Passwords are stored only as one-way hashes. Our pages use HTTPS where the server supports it. Sessions end after a long idle time. Forms are protected against forgery.
- We limit repeated log-in tries per person and per address, send one-time codes to students who joined without a hostel booking, and confirm ID photos only through a restricted page.
- ID photos and other private files sit in folders that the web cannot open directly. Staff only see what they need, and money requests are checked by a person.
- No system is perfectly safe. If a breach is likely to harm you we will tell the Data Protection Commission and the people affected as the law requires, and tell you what to do.
10. Information leaving Ghana
Some of our providers (for example Google, email and AI services) store or process information outside Ghana. When that happens we only use providers that protect it properly, and share the minimum needed. If you live in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom you also have the rights that your own law gives you, and we treat the rights in the next section as available to you.
11. Young people
The Services are for people aged 16 and over. If you are under 18, a parent or guardian must agree to your use of them. If you are a parent and think a child under 16 has an account, email us and we will remove it. We do not use anyone's information to show ads aimed at under-18s, and our Advertising Terms forbid ads that exploit young people.
12. Your rights
Under Act 843 and other laws you can ask us to:
- tell you what personal information we hold about you and give you a copy;
- correct anything that is wrong or out of date (most of it you can change yourself in Settings);
- delete your information or close your account (we may keep what the law requires);
- stop using your information for direct marketing, or object to other uses;
- move your information to someone else in a usable form, where it makes sense;
- withdraw a consent you gave.
To use these rights email info@hostelgig.com from the address on your account (we may ask you to prove it is you). We answer within one month. There is no charge unless a request is clearly unreasonable or repeated. If you are not happy with our answer, you can complain to Ghana's Data Protection Commission.
13. Choices you control
- Make your account private, hide your photo, and stay out of search in Settings > Privacy.
- Switch off email notifications in your profile or use the "unsubscribe" link in any email.
- Set your timezone and see where you have signed in under Settings > Region; change your password in Settings, or use "Forgot password".
- Report anything you see that should not be there.
14. Changes to this policy
We will update this policy when we change what we collect or how we use it, or when the law changes. The date at the top shows the latest version, and we will tell you about important changes in the app or by email.
15. Contact
HostelGig, Ghana
Email: info@hostelgig.com
Phone / WhatsApp: +233 24 749 3826