Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Hanwok is a Nigeria-focused marketplace for creative, craft, and visual work, for example fashion and tailoring, shoemaking, makeup and hairstyling, baking and cake design, custom furniture, bead making, graphic design and similar services where the work is primarily about making, designing, styling, or producing something with a strong creative or visual component.

We help people discover Artisans and Jobs nationwide, chat and agree commercial terms, create Agreements and payment stages, and pay through Hanwok's payment flow (including protected payment batches where applicable).

Hanwok is the data controller for personal data processed to provide the Services: we decide why and how that data is processed. We are not your employer, and we are not a party to the work agreement between a Customer and an Artisan. Payment protection and disputes relate to payment processing under our Terms; they are not insurance for job quality or off-app safety.

2. Who this Policy covers

This Policy applies to:

• • Customers (people who hire and pay through Hanwok)
• • Artisans (people who offer creative skills and may receive payment)
• • Visitors to our website or marketing pages who do not yet have an account
• • Guests who browse parts of the app without signing in (limited data; see section 3)

You must be 18 or older (or otherwise legally capable of entering into a binding agreement under Nigerian law) to create an account and use Hanwok.

3. Personal data we collect

What we collect depends on how you use Hanwok. We collect only what we need for the purposes in section 4.

4. How we use personal data

We use personal data to:

1. Create and manage accounts: registration, sign-in, OTP and federated login, profile settings, identity linking, and account closure
2. Operate the marketplace: show Jobs and Artisans, skills, search and feed ranking, Clear/Refuse workflows, and discovery nationwide (including location signals you provide or permit)
3. Enable Deals and chat: deliver messages, presence, and in-thread commercial references
4. Process payments: take payments, hold and release protected batches under Agreements, operate wallet credits and withdrawals when enabled, apply fees, and maintain accounting records
5. Handle disputes, fraud, and safety: review relevant records (including chat and payment context) for payment disputes, chargebacks, fraud prevention, enforcement of section 4 of our Terms (Acceptable use), reports and blocks, and legal process
6. Send service communications: OTP, security alerts, and messages needed to operate your account, Deals, or payments (these are not promotional marketing)
7. Improve and secure the Services: debugging, performance, abuse prevention, and enforcing our Terms
8. Comply with law: tax, accounting, regulatory obligations, and lawful requests

We do not sell your personal data.

Accepting this Policy at signup is not unlimited consent to promotional marketing. We may still send service messages required to run your account or meet legal duties.

5. What other Users can see

Hanwok is a discovery marketplace. Some information is visible to other Users by design.

Typically visible to other Users (as the product shows it):

• • Display name, profile photo, cover photo (where shown)
• • Skills, bio, and profile information you publish
• • Jobs and gallery content you publish according to listing and Clear rules
• • Reviews and ratings when the product displays them
• • General area or place labels you chose for discovery (not precise GPS coordinates)

Not shown on your public profile by default:

• • Your phone number and email as profile fields (other Users contact you through in-app chat)
• • Precise GPS coordinates
• • Bank details and verification documents
• • Your private Keep list
• • Full card or payment credentials (handled by payment processors)
• • Chat content with people who are not participants in that chat

If you type a phone number, address, or other personal details into a chat message, that is your choice and the other participant may see it.

Banned or closed accounts: product rules may limit visibility, discovery, and authentication; we do not use privacy copy to reveal enforcement details to third parties.

Public job share links, where available, show only information you published for that Job.

Hanwok may access chat and payment content as described in section 4 for disputes, fraud, safety, Terms enforcement, and legal process.

6. How we share personal data

We share personal data only as needed for the purposes in section 4.

7. Push notifications, OTP, and email/SMS

• • Service messages (OTP, security, Deal/chat, Invoice/payment notices) are sent as needed to operate your account.
• • We only send service-related notifications (OTP, security, chat, Recommend, and payments); push requires OS permission.
• • Device tokens are used to deliver notifications, not sold as an audience list.

OTP: In production, one-time codes are delivered through messaging providers. Hanwok staff tools are not intended to expose human-readable OTPs to operators; internal logs should use masked or metadata-only records where logging is needed.

8. International processing

Personal data may be processed outside Nigeria by cloud, payment, messaging, push, search, and similar vendors. Where we use such vendors, we do so under contracts and safeguards appropriate to the service. Using Hanwok means this cross-border processing may occur. We do not claim that all data remains only in Nigeria unless we separately publish a specific residency commitment for a named system.

9. Retention

We keep personal data only as long as needed for the purposes in this Policy, including:

We may delay or limit deletion while disputes, outstanding balances, chargebacks, investigations, or legal holds exist.

10. Your rights and choices

Subject to the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 and applicable exceptions, you may have the right to:

• • Access personal data we hold about you
• • Correct inaccurate data
• • Delete or request erasure (subject to section 9 limits)
• • Withdraw consent where processing is consent-based (for example optional GPS or marketing push) without affecting processing that must continue to run your account or meet legal duties
• • Object to certain processing where the law allows
• • Lodge a complaint with the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) if your concern is not resolved

How to request: email hello@hanwok.com from the phone or email on your account, or with enough information for us to verify you.

Account closure: You may close your account using the Delete account (or equivalent) feature in the app, subject to eligibility rules (for example open payment or dispute obligations). Closure generally removes sign-in identities and profile visibility; some records (especially payment, ledger, and dispute data) may be retained as described in section 9 and in the in-app closure disclosure.

We will not promise that "everything disappears instantly" if payment, tax, or dispute records must be kept.

You can also revoke OS permissions (location, notifications) in device settings

11. Security

We use administrative, technical, and organizational measures appropriate to the risk (access controls, encryption in transit where standard for our systems, least-privilege practices). No method of transmission or storage is completely secure. Please protect your device and do not share OTP codes.

12. Third-party links and services

The Services may link to third-party sites or open payment checkout hosted by a payment processor. Their privacy practices are governed by their own policies. This Policy applies to Hanwok's processing only.

13. Changes to this Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. We will post the updated version with a new effective date and, where required by law, provide additional notice or obtain renewed acceptance. Continued use after the effective date means you accept the updated Policy, except where the law requires a different approach.

14. Contact

Hanwok

Quick summary

(This summary is for convenience only and is not a substitute for the Policy.)