Privacy Policy

1. What we collect

• Customers: name, email address, phone number (optional), the review text you submit, and which business you visited.
• Vendors: business name, email address, and login credentials.
• Everyone: basic technical data such as IP address and browser type, collected automatically for security and error monitoring.

2. Why we collect it

• To create and manage your account
• To generate AI-drafted review suggestions based on what you tell us about your visit
• To track and award GrowPoints once a vendor approves your review
• To let a vendor see and respond to feedback left about their business
• To detect and prevent fraud, abuse, or fake reviews
• To send you service-related communications (e.g. account confirmation)

3. Who we share it with

We use a small number of trusted third-party services to run Velgrow:

• Neon — hosts our database (your account and review data lives here, encrypted at rest and in transit)
• Vercel — hosts the Velgrow website and app
• Google — if you sign in with Google, or when your review is posted to Google Maps
• Groq — processes review text to generate AI suggestions and sentiment insights. Review text is sent to Groq for this purpose but is not used by Groq to train their models
• Sentry — helps us detect and fix technical errors; may incidentally capture technical error data, not your review content

We do not sell your personal data to anyone.

4. How long we keep it

We keep account and review data for as long as your account is active, and for a reasonable period afterward in case you return, unless you ask us to delete it sooner (see your rights below).

5. Your rights

Under UK GDPR, you have the right to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you
• Ask us to correct inaccurate data
• Ask us to delete your data ("right to be forgotten")
• Object to or restrict certain processing
• Request a copy of your data in a portable format
• Complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) if you believe we've mishandled your data

To exercise any of these rights, reach out via our Contact page.

6. Cookies

Velgrow uses essential cookies to keep you signed in and to remember your light/dark theme preference. We do not currently use advertising or third-party tracking cookies.

7. Children's privacy

Velgrow is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 16. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us so we can remove it.

8. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be reflected by updating the date at the top of this page.

9. Contact

Questions about this policy, or requests relating to your data, can be sent via our Contact page.