UniGuide Privacy Policy
Effective Date: 10th July, 2026.
Introduction:
UniGuide ("we," "our," or "us") is committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring that your experience on our campus navigation platform is secure. This Privacy Policy outlines how we collect, use, and protect your information when you use our website.
By using UniGuide, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
Accounts and authenticated features
UniGuide also offers optional account registration and sign-in (including email-based registration and, where available, sign-in with Google). Some features—such as contributing map data, ratings, comments, managing a profile, or certain campus tools—may require an account. You may still be able to browse public map content and other general areas without signing in, depending on how we configure the service.
When you register or sign in, we may collect and process identifiers and profile information described below, in addition to the technical and usage data that may be collected when you use the site without an account.
We recommend creating an account. Access to certain tools and features — including UniRide, contribution tools, saved preferences, and personalised functionality — is limited for visitors who have not signed in, and some features are available only to registered users.
1. Information Collection
Since UniGuide is a free-to-use web application without login or sign-up features, we do not collect personal information such as your name, email address, or other personally identifiable details by default.
- Location Data: With your consent, we may collect geolocation information to provide real-time campus navigation. For UniRide, this also includes real-time driver location while a ride is claimed — see "UniRide: live location and safety" below for details on how this is used and shared.
- Device Information: This may include information such as your browser type, IP address, device type, and operating system.
- IP Address and Rate Limiting: We store IP addresses for security, abuse-prevention, and rate-limiting purposes — including through infrastructure such as Redis — to protect the platform from excessive or automated requests and keep the service fair and available for all users.
- Usage Data: We may collect data related to your usage patterns (e.g., pages visited, features used) to improve our service.
- General Site Analytics: We collect analytics on visits to UniGuide — such as pages viewed, the first page you landed on, the referring website or app, and general engagement patterns — to understand how people discover and use the site. This applies to all visitors, whether or not you create an account.
Account and profile information
If you create an account, we may collect information such as your name, email address, optional university email, phone number (if provided), profile photo, authentication details (for example, password hashes for manual accounts or provider identifiers for Google sign-in), and preferences (such as map behaviour settings). Session-related tokens may be stored in cookies or similar technologies to keep you signed in securely.
University, organization, and education details
During profile setup or related flows, you may provide structured information about your institution, role (for example visitor, academic staff, non-academic staff, or prefer not to say), job title or role description where applicable, and education-related details such as institution, faculty, department, student status (e.g. new student, returning student, alumni), admission or graduation dates, and programme level where we collect it. Some tools (such as a GPA calculator) may ask for faculty or department even when your primary role is not "student," so similar academic context may be stored as you provide it.
Referral, landing context, and preferences
We may store how you heard about UniGuide (referral source), the first page you visited on our site, the specific page you were on when you signed up, referring website or app, and any campaign parameters (such as UTM source, medium, or campaign tags) present in the link you followed. This first-touch information may be captured as soon as you land on UniGuide — before you create an account — and associated with your account if you later sign up. We also store your preferred university or campus area, default map location (name and map coordinates), and whether your account is associated with contributions to the platform.
UniRide roles
If you are granted a role related to UniRide (such as driver or service manager for a campus), we store that role assignment, the campus it applies to, and related activity (such as claiming a ride for the day) in order to operate UniRide features and enforce access to them.
2. Use of Information
Any non-personal data we collect may be used for the following purposes:
- To provide campus navigation services efficiently.
- To improve and optimize UniGuide’s functionality and features.
- To analyze user behavior to enhance the overall user experience.
- To monitor and maintain the security of the platform, including detecting abuse and applying rate limiting to protect service availability.
- To operate accounts, authenticate users, and deliver service-related and contribution-related communications (see below).
- To run contribution scoring, moderation, and quality workflows for user-submitted content.
- To provide real-time features such as UniRide live driver location, and to understand how visitors — including those without an account — discover and use UniGuide through general site analytics.
- To help ensure the safety of drivers, passengers, and other users of UniRide, including through live location visibility while a ride is active.
3. Cookies
UniGuide uses cookies to track how users interact with our platform and to optimize their experience. Cookies are small files stored on your device that help websites remember your preferences and actions.
You can manage or disable cookies in your browser settings; however, some features of UniGuide may not function properly without them.
Browser storage (local storage)
Our web application may store limited data in your browser's local storage (for example, your selected university or campus, default map view, dismissal state for profile prompts, or locally saved calculator-related data). This helps with convenience, personalization, and resuming flows. It remains on your device unless you clear site data in your browser; we do not use local storage as a substitute for server-side account data where an account exists.
Push notifications
UniGuide may offer browser push notifications. If you grant notification permission, your browser generates a push subscription — consisting of an endpoint URL and encryption keys provided by your browser vendor — which we store on our servers in order to deliver notifications to you. We do not share push subscription data with third parties for advertising. You can revoke push notification permission at any time in your browser or operating system settings; once revoked, we will no longer be able to deliver notifications to that device and the stored subscription will be treated as inactive. We may periodically remove inactive subscriptions from our records.
Real-time connections
Certain features of UniGuide use persistent real-time connections (WebSockets) to deliver live updates, notifications, or interactive content — including UniRide live driver location (see below). While these connections are active, your connection metadata (such as session identifiers and timestamps) may be logged for security, debugging, and operational purposes. These connections are terminated when you leave the relevant page or close your browser.
UniRide: live location and safety
Driver location
While you hold an active UniRide driver claim for the day, your device's real-time location is broadcast to other users viewing the campus map, and to campus/platform administrators. This is a safety and coordination feature — it lets passengers find and pay for a nearby ride, and lets UniGuide and campus administrators help resolve incidents, complaints, or disputes involving a ride. Driver location broadcasting stops as soon as your claim ends (for example, when you release the ride or your shift ends), and location data associated with a completed ride may be retained for a limited period for safety, dispute-resolution, security, and legal-compliance purposes.
Passenger and general user location
If you are not an active UniRide driver, your own location is private and visible only to you on the map — it is not shared with other users, drivers, or the public. We may still process your location on your own device (for example to show you nearby rides or campus buildings) without broadcasting it to anyone else.
Location sharing with friends (planned feature)
We plan to introduce an optional feature allowing you to share your live location with specific friends on UniGuide — for example so a friend can see where you are on campus. This feature will be opt-in and permission-based: your location will only be visible to people you have explicitly chosen to share it with (such as accepted friends), never broadcast to the wider campus or to users you have not approved, and you will be able to stop sharing at any time. We will update this Privacy Policy with further detail before this feature becomes available.
4. Third-Party Services
UniGuide may use third-party services, such as analytics tools, to understand and improve user experiences. These third-party services may collect anonymous data about your interactions with UniGuide. We do not control how third parties use this data, but we strive to work with partners who share our commitment to user privacy.
Data processors and service providers
Depending on features you use, personal data may be processed by providers including: payment processing (Paystack) for payments, subscriptions, and related transactions; image and media hosting (Cloudinary) for photos and media you upload; content delivery, DNS, and security (Cloudflare) for delivering the site and protecting it against abuse; email delivery (for example Zoho Mail) for verification, password reset, welcome, and contribution-related messages; map and geocoding services (for example OpenStreetMap Nominatim for reverse geocoding of coordinates to addresses, and map libraries, tile, or imagery providers such as Leaflet, OpenStreetMap, and Mapbox, subject to their respective terms); database hosting (for example MongoDB or our hosting provider); and optional sign-in with Google. Institution-related information may be enriched from public sources such as DBpedia or Wikipedia. Each provider has its own terms and privacy practices.
Payments (Paystack)
If you make a payment or subscribe to a paid feature, your payment is processed by Paystack, a third-party payment processor. Depending on the payment method you choose, Paystack collects and processes information such as your name, email address, and card, bank, or transfer details in order to complete the transaction. UniGuide does not store your full card numbers or bank credentials on its own servers; sensitive payment data is handled directly by Paystack under its own terms and privacy policy. We retain limited transaction records (such as a payment reference, amount, status, and the associated account) to provide receipts, manage subscriptions, prevent fraud, and meet legal or accounting obligations.
Media hosting (Cloudinary)
Photos and other media you upload (for example profile photos or place images) are stored and delivered through Cloudinary. Uploaded files, along with technical metadata associated with the upload, are processed and hosted by Cloudinary on our behalf and served from its content network. Cloudinary processes this data under its own terms and privacy policy.
Content delivery and security (Cloudflare)
UniGuide uses Cloudflare for content delivery, DNS, performance, and security. As traffic to UniGuide passes through Cloudflare, it may process technical data such as your IP address, request headers, device and browser information, and connection metadata to route requests, cache content, and protect the platform against malicious traffic, bots, and denial-of-service attacks. Some UniGuide features may use Cloudflare Turnstile to verify that you are human; when this runs, Cloudflare may process signals about your browser and interaction to distinguish humans from automated bots. Cloudflare processes this data under its own terms and privacy policy.
Artificial intelligence services
UniGuide uses AI services — including Google Gemini and OpenAI — to power features such as article content generation, content summarisation, and metadata extraction. When these features are used, the relevant content (for example article text, titles, or descriptions submitted through the platform) may be sent to these third-party AI APIs for processing. We do not send your personal identity information (such as your name or email address) to AI providers as part of content-processing requests. AI providers process data under their own terms and privacy policies. AI-generated or AI-assisted content may appear on the platform; see our Terms of Service for the disclaimer on accuracy and editorial responsibility.
Advertising
UniGuide may display advertisements served by Google AdSense and similar advertising networks. These networks may use cookies, device identifiers, and other tracking technologies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this and other websites. Google's use of advertising cookies is governed by Google's Privacy Policy. You can opt out of personalised advertising through Google Ads Settings or visit aboutads.info.
User-generated content, contributions, and moderation
When you submit content—such as map markers, building details, photos, organization links, ratings and reviews on places, article comments, or requests to create faculties, departments, or institutions—we store that content and associated metadata. We may also maintain contribution records (for example what changed, scores, approval or rejection status, reviewer actions, and links to organizations or content) for audit, moderation, gamification, and service quality. Aggregated metrics such as average rating on a place may be derived from individual ratings. Authorized administrators or designated moderators may access individual records where needed to review submissions, enforce policies, or operate analytics (which may include both aggregated summaries and identifiable records in moderation contexts).
Communications from us
We may send transactional and service-related emails—for example email verification, password reset, welcome messages, and notifications related to contributions (such as first-contribution acknowledgements or contribution score milestones). These messages are tied to your use of the platform and your account; delivery depends on a valid email address on file and may depend on third-party mail deliverability. You may manage certain preferences where we offer them (such as newsletter options in your profile settings, if applicable).
5. Data Security
We take reasonable precautions to protect any information we collect. However, please note that no method of transmission over the internet is entirely secure, and we cannot guarantee the absolute security of data. We regularly update and monitor our systems to prevent unauthorized access or data breaches.
We also use technical measures such as IP-based rate limiting (backed by infrastructure such as Redis), access controls, and bot-verification tools to detect and prevent abuse, protect account security, and keep the service available to all users.
6. Children’s Privacy
UniGuide is not intended for individuals under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect information from children. If you believe that a child under 13 has used our services and provided personal data, please contact us at mail@uniguideng.com, and we will take steps to delete the information.
7. Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes in our practices or legal obligations. Any updates will be posted on this page, and the "Effective Date" will be revised accordingly. We encourage users to review this page periodically for any changes.
8. Your Rights
As a user of UniGuide, you have the right to:
- Decline location-sharing features on your device, including UniRide driver location broadcasting (by not claiming a ride) and any future friends location-sharing feature (by not opting in, or by turning it off at any time).
- Control cookies through your browser settings.
- Contact us with any questions or concerns regarding how your data is used.
- Request access, correction, or deletion of your account information where applicable, subject to our verification and any legal retention needs.
9. Terms & Conditions:
For information on the terms for using our site, please refer to our Terms & Conditions.
10. Contact Us
If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or our data practices, you can contact us at mail@uniguideng.com. For children's privacy matters, you may also reach us at mail@uniguideng.com.
Acceptance
By using UniGuide, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy and agree to the collection and use of information as outlined above.
Last Updated: 10th July, 2026.