Veri CoVeri Co Privacy Policy
Veri Co is the app that staff of Veridien Connect Ltd ("Veridien", "we") use to buy cocoa from farmers. Purchasing clerks register farmers and record each purchase at the depot; District Managers and the Ops Manager look after cash, trucks and receipts. This policy explains what the app records, why, where it goes and the choices people have.
Only Veridien staff use the app. Farmers and truck drivers never use it, but information about them is recorded in it, so this policy is for them too.
1. Who is responsible
Veridien Connect Ltd is responsible for the information recorded in Veri Co and on Veri Co's server. Veridien decides what is recorded and how it is used.
2. What the app records
Staff
Your name, role, staff code, district and depot, set up by Veridien head office. Your PIN is never stored as you type it: the phone and the server keep only a scrambled (hashed) form, used to check it when you sign in or approve a purchase. The app records which staff member made each record and when.
Farmers
- Full name, phone number, COCOBOD farmer ID, society and farm size.
- Mobile money wallet number or bank details, so the farmer can be paid.
- The farm's location (a GPS point, or its boundary for farms over 4 hectares) and the farmer's home location, with short address codes made from them. These are recorded to show where the cocoa was grown, as the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) requires.
- A photo of the farmer, if the clerk takes one.
Purchases
The receipt number, bags, weights, grade, moisture, price and amount; how the farmer was paid (cash, mobile money or bank) and the payment reference; and three evidence photos (the farmer, the bags and the scale). The app also records how long each purchase and each farmer registration took.
Cash and trucks
Cash floats handed to clerks. For each truck: its registration number, the driver's name and phone number, the bags and weight loaded, photos, and the place and time it was loaded and arrived at port.
About the phone
A device ID created by the app, the phone model, the app version, and whether each record has been sent.
Location
The app uses the phone's location only when a staff member captures it: a farm, a home, a truck loading or a port arrival, with the app open. It does not track anyone in the background.
Photos
Photos are taken with the phone's own camera app. The app then saves a smaller copy over the original, which also removes the information stored inside the image file, including any location the camera added.
SMS receipts
A clerk can send the farmer a short receipt by SMS. The app opens the phone's own messages app with the text filled in, and the clerk sends it. The app cannot read or send messages itself.
What the app does not collect
Contacts, messages, call logs, calendars, files outside the app, browsing history or a list of installed apps. The app has no ads, no advertising ID, and no analytics or crash-reporting services.
3. How it is used
- To record and pay for cocoa purchases, and to give farmers a receipt.
- To keep receipts honest: each receipt is sealed to the one before it, so a changed or missing receipt shows up.
- To show where cocoa was grown, as the EUDR requires.
- To manage cash floats, trucks and deliveries to port.
- To report purchases to COCOBOD, when that link is switched on (see section 4).
- To prevent fraud, and to keep the service working and secure.
We do not sell personal information and do not use it for advertising.
4. Who can see it
- Veridien staff, according to their role, on the phones and on head office's dashboard.
- Our hosting provider, which runs Veri Co's server and photo storage for us, only to provide that service: DigitalOcean, in London, United Kingdom.
- COCOBOD. In this version of the app nothing is sent to COCOBOD. When the link to COCOBOD's system is switched on, purchase and farmer records will be sent to it, and this policy will be updated first.
- When the law requires it.
5. Storage and security
On the phone, records are kept in an encrypted database (AES-256), with its key held in the phone's secure key store. Photos are kept in the app's private storage, which other apps cannot open. Records travel to Veri Co's server only over encrypted connections (HTTPS). Each phone signs in to the server with its own key, and head office can sign a lost phone out.
We keep records for 7 years. A staff member's account is kept while they work for Veridien, then switched off.
6. Your choices and rights
- Staff can refuse the location permission in the phone's settings. Capturing a location then won't work.
- Farmers and drivers can ask the clerk or Veridien head office what is recorded about them, and ask for it to be corrected.
- Under Ghana's Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843), you can ask to see the information we hold about you, to correct it, or to have it deleted where we don't need to keep it. Some records, such as receipts, may have to be kept by law. Email info@snoocode.com, or ask the purchasing clerk at your depot.
7. Children
Veri Co is for adult Veridien staff and is not directed at children.
8. Changes
We will update this page when the app changes what it records, and change the date at the top.
9. Contact
Veridien Connect Ltd · info@snoocode.com