Privacy Policy

1. Overview

SafeGuard NG is an emergency safety app that lets people alert a trusted community — family, friends, coworkers, or neighbours — when they need help, sharing live location and short audio recordings for the duration of the alert.

Because SafeGuard NG's entire purpose is handling sensitive information in urgent moments, this policy is written to be specific about what we collect, why, who sees it, and how long it sticks around — not just a general statement of intent. If anything here is unclear, contact us using the details at the bottom of this page.

2. Information we collect

Account information

• Name and username, used to identify you to your communities.
• WhatsApp number, shared with your community when in trouble so members can reach you directly if you trigger an alert.
• Password, stored only as a salted, hashed value — we never store or can see your actual password.
• Email address, used for account verification and account-related notices.

Location data

When you trigger an SOS alert, or while you have location sharing active on the map, we collect your device's GPS coordinates and share them with the members of the relevant community in real time. We do not collect or store your location at any other time.

Audio recordings

While an SOS alert is active, SafeGuard NG records short audio clips from your device's microphone and uploads them so your community can review what happened. Recording only happens during an active alert — the app does not listen in the background otherwise.

Community and activity data

• Communities you create or join, and your role within them (admin or member).
• Invite codes you generate or use.
• Alert history: when alerts were triggered, by whom, how they were resolved, and any admin actions taken on them.
• In-app notifications, such as unread alerts or membership changes.

Device and technical data

• A push-notification token, used to deliver SOS and community alerts to your device.
• Basic device and app information (such as app version) used for troubleshooting.

3. How we use your information

• To operate the core safety feature — broadcasting your location, audio, and alert status to your community when you trigger an SOS.
• To manage your account and communities — authentication, verifying your email, and keeping your community memberships and roles up to date.
• To send notifications — push alerts when someone in your community triggers an SOS, when you're added to a community, or other account-related events.
• To keep the service secure and reliable — detecting abuse, debugging errors, and rate-limiting suspicious activity such as repeated failed logins.

We do not use your information for advertising, and we do not sell your information to third parties.

4. How information is shared

With your communities

This is the primary way information moves in SafeGuard NG. Your name and role are visible to members of any community you join. During an active SOS alert, your live location and audio recordings are visible to the members of that specific community only not to your other communities, and not to anyone outside them.

With service providers

We use a small number of infrastructure providers to run SafeGuard NG. They process data on our behalf and are not permitted to use it for their own purposes.

For legal reasons

We may disclose information if required by law, or if we believe in good faith that doing so is necessary to protect the safety of a user or the public, or to respond to a valid legal request.

5. How long we keep it

• Alert history and audio recordings are visible to your community for 48 hours after the alert is created, then automatically removed.
• Location data shared during an alert is not retained beyond the 48-hour alert history window.
• Account and community data (name, username, WhatsApp number, community memberships) is kept for as long as your account is active.
• If you delete your account, your account and profile data is permanently removed. Some records — such as an alert history entry another community member relied on — may be retained in anonymised form for safety and record-keeping purposes.

6. Security

Passwords are hashed using PBKDF2 before storage — we never store passwords in plain text. Data is encrypted in transit between your device and our servers. Access to production data is limited to what's needed to operate the service.

No system is completely secure, and we can't guarantee absolute security. If you believe your account has been compromised, contact us right away.

7. Your choices and rights

• Access and correction — you can view and update your name and profile details from within the app at any time.
• Leaving a community — you can leave any community you belong to from the Settings screen; this removes your membership and visibility to that community going forward.
• Account deletion — you can permanently delete your account and associated data from the Settings screen.
• Push notifications — you can disable push notifications for SafeGuard NG at any time in your device settings, though this will prevent you from being alerted if someone in your community triggers an SOS.
• Location permission — you can revoke location access in your device settings; SafeGuard NG will not be able to share your location during an alert until it's re-enabled.

Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights over your personal information, such as the right to request a copy of the data we hold about you. Contact us to make a request.

8. Children's privacy

SafeGuard NG is intended for users aged 10 and older. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 10. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, contact us and we will take steps to remove it.

9. Where your data is stored

SafeGuard NG is built for a Nigerian audience, but our infrastructure providers may store and process data on servers located outside Nigeria. Wherever your information is processed, we require our providers to protect it consistently with this policy.

10. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as SafeGuard NG changes. If we make a material change, we'll update the "last updated" date at the top of this page and, where appropriate, notify you in the app.

11. Contact us