Privacy Policy

Data Controller: SchoolTransit — the school-transport platform at schooltransit.app. Your school's admin account manages day-to-day transport for that school (assigning children to drivers, viewing routes), while SchoolTransit provides the platform, monitoring tools and emergency backup pickups.

Data Protection contact: privacy@schooltransit.app or +254 708 845 848. Write to us for any privacy question or to exercise the rights in section 9.

• Account data: name, email, phone number, role (parent, driver, admin), vehicle number for drivers.
• Children's data: name, age, class, home and school addresses with map coordinates, pickup schedules and term dates — provided by a parent/guardian or by the school with the parent's/guardian's consent.
• Location data: the driver's live GPS position while a trip is active, and pickup/dropoff confirmations per child. Parents see the live position only while their child is in transit.
• Safety & service data: issue reports (e.g. breakdown, delay) with the driver's location and contact, and in-app notifications.
• Payment records: parent↔driver fee records and driver→school subscription records (amount, month, receipt reference). These are financial records, not bank credentials — we never see your M-Pesa PIN or bank login.
• Consent records: what you consented to, when, and which policy version — so we can prove consent and honour withdrawals.
• Mailbox messages: your @schooltransit.app address and the text-only messages you send and receive, kept in your private mailbox and forwarded to the recipient's real inbox.
• Technical data: strictly-necessary app data such as login session, theme preference and trip device identifiers stored on your device or in our database.

We practice data minimisation: we do not ask for national ID numbers, bank logins, or any data the service does not need.

• Running school transport — matching children to drivers, routing pickups, live tracking and pickup alerts (contract + consent).
• Child safety — monitoring trips, flagging stalled vehicles, logging and sharing safety issues with the school, drivers and affected parents (vital interests of the child + consent).
• Payments — recording parent fees and driver subscriptions so drivers and schools can reconcile (contract + legal record-keeping).
• Service messages — trip alerts and safety notices. General announcements need your opt-in and you can opt out anytime; safety and trip alerts are always sent while your child is enrolled.
• Legal compliance — responding to lawful requests and keeping records the law requires.

We do not sell personal data, and we do not use children's data for advertising or any purpose beyond safe school transport.

Under section 26 of the Data Protection Act, a child's data may only be processed with the consent of a parent or guardian. That is why a child can only be enrolled after a parent/guardian consents — directly in the app, or to the school (verbally or in writing), which the school admin records with the date and method.

Withdrawing consent is as easy as giving it: a parent can withdraw tracking consent for a child from the Privacy tab of the parent portal. Withdrawal stops live tracking for that child (the child is unassigned from the driver until re-enrolled) and does not affect anything already lawfully done.

• Your driver & school: the assigned driver sees their riders' names, pickup points and schedules; the school admin sees the children, drivers and routes they manage.
• Other parents: never see your child's data. Each parent sees only their own children.
• Safety sharing: when a driver logs an issue, the school admin, other drivers and the affected parents are notified with the driver's contact and location so help can reach the vehicle.
• Service providers (processors): Google Firebase (secure database, login and hosting), Google Maps (maps, traffic-aware routing) and Resend (forwarding mailbox messages to real inboxes). They process data only to provide these services under their own data-protection terms.
• Authorities: only where Kenyan law requires it.

Parent↔driver payment transactions are private to the parent and driver — school admins cannot see them.

Our processors (Google Firebase and Google Maps) store and process data on servers that may be outside Kenya. By using SchoolTransit you consent to this transfer, which is necessary to provide live tracking, maps and secure login. We rely on the providers' contractual safeguards and on strict access controls so only the people listed in section 5 can see personal data.

• Account & enrolment data: while your account is active; erased on request with a 30-day backup grace period.
• Live location: only while a trip is active; inactive trip device breadcrumbs are purged after 90 days.
• Issue logs: map pins auto-hide after 3 hours; logs are purged after 90 days.
• In-app notifications: read notifications are purged after 180 days.
• Mailbox messages: kept while your account is active; your mailbox is erased when you delete your account (copies already delivered stay with their recipients).
• Payment & subscription records: kept 7 years as financial/tax records, then erased.
• Consent records: kept 6 years after account closure as proof of consent, then erased.

When data is no longer needed it is deleted or irreversibly anonymised.

We use encrypted connections (HTTPS), Firebase Authentication for logins, and database access rules so parents see only their children, drivers see only their riders, and payment transactions stay private to the parent and driver. School admins access only the drivers and children they manage.

If a personal data breach occurs, we will notify the Data Commissioner within 72 hours as the law requires, and inform affected individuals where there is a real risk of harm, with clear guidance on protective steps.

• Be informed & access: this notice plus a free copy of your data — use “Download my data” in your portal's Privacy tab.
• Rectify: correct your profile, or a child's details, directly in the app; ask your school admin for anything you cannot edit.
• Erase: delete your account from the Privacy tab, or send an erasure request to your school admin for records you cannot delete yourself (e.g. a school-held child record).
• Object & withdraw consent: opt out of general announcements, withdraw driver location consent or a child's tracking consent from the Privacy tab. Withdrawing consent never affects past lawful processing.
• Portability: your “Download my data” file is machine-readable JSON you can take elsewhere.

We respond to requests within 14 days. If you feel your request was not handled properly, you may complain to the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (Kenya).

SchoolTransit uses only strictly-necessary storage: your login session, theme preference, trip device identifier and offline app files. We set no advertising or analytics cookies. You can clear site data in your browser settings at any time (you will be signed out).

When this policy changes materially we will show a notice in the app and ask for fresh consent where the law requires it. The version number at the top always tells you which policy your consent records refer to.