Privacy Policy
LAST UPDATED: AUGUST 2026
Welcome to Borrow Nearby ("we", "our", or "us"). We are committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring transparency about how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your personal information when you use our mobile application and related services (collectively, the "Service").
🔒 Summary: We collect only necessary information to enable peer-to-peer neighborhood sharing, verified item bookings, and safe transactions. We do not sell your personal data or track your browsing activity across other apps.
1. Information We Collect
A. Information You Provide Directly
- Account Information: When you register, you provide your name, phone number, and optional profile photograph. We use phone numbers for SMS-based one-time password (OTP) authentication and account verification.
- Listing Information: When creating an item listing, you provide titles, descriptions, categories, rental rates, security deposit requirements, item condition notes, and item photographs.
- Rental & Handover Evidence: During item handover and return, you take and upload verification photos to document item condition and enter numeric one-time security codes.
- Communications: In-app messages exchanged between borrowers and item owners regarding booking coordination, pickup scheduling, and dispute resolution.
- Customer Support: Information and screenshots provided when submitting support requests or incident reports.
B. Information Collected Automatically
- Location Data: When granted permission, we collect geographical coordinates to calculate distance to available items and display nearby listings within your chosen search radius (e.g. 1 km, 3 km, 5 km). We do not track your location in the background when the app is closed.
- Device & Diagnostics Information: Device model, operating system version, app version, IP address, and pseudonymous device identifiers.
- Crash & Performance Metrics: We use Firebase Crashlytics and Firebase Analytics to collect anonymized crash reports and app interaction metrics to maintain app reliability.
2. How We Use Your Information
- Facilitating peer-to-peer item listings, rental requests, approvals, and returns.
- Calculating proximity and filtering search results based on your selected neighborhood radius.
- Authenticating user identity via phone OTP and Google Sign-In.
- Enabling real-time in-app chat between borrowers and owners.
- Processing security deposits and rental transactions securely.
- Investigating disputes, preventing fraudulent activity, and enforcing our Terms of Service.
- Diagnosing crashes and improving application performance.
3. How We Share Your Information
We do not sell, rent, or monetize your personal information. Information is shared only in the following limited contexts:
- With Other Community Members: Your public profile name, avatar, rating score, reviews, and approximate neighborhood location are visible to other verified members. Exact street addresses are only revealed for confirmed bookings when explicitly shared.
- Service Providers: Trusted third-party infrastructure providers who perform services on our behalf (e.g., SMS OTP delivery, cloud database hosting, crash diagnostics).
- Legal Compliance: When required by applicable law, court order, or governmental regulation, or to protect the safety of our users.
4. Data Security & Retention
We implement industry-standard encryption protocols (HTTPS/TLS 1.3 for data in transit), encrypted storage for authentication tokens on devices, and secure cloud database access controls.
5. Your Rights & Data Deletion
You maintain full control over your personal data:
- Access & Edit: You can view and update your profile details directly within the app.
- Permissions: You can revoke device permissions (Location, Camera, Photos) at any time in device settings.
- Account Deletion: You can delete your account within the app or via our Account Deletion Page.
6. Contact Us
If you have any questions or privacy-related requests, please contact us:
