Privacy Policy
About the law. Belize's Data Protection Act, 2021 (Act No. 45 of 2021) comes into force only on a day the Minister appoints by Order (s.97), and we have found no such Order. When it does, it exempts small businesses with annual turnover of BZ$3,000,000 or less (s.3(3)). Ryde makes the commitments in this policy voluntarily, and will follow the Act where it applies.
Plain-language summary. We collect what we need to get you a ride or a rental, and to run Ryde. We do not sell your data and we do not use it for advertising aimed at you. Some of it is handled by other companies listed in section 6, on servers outside Belize.
1. Who is responsible
Ryde Tech, trading as Ryde, decides how your data is used. This policy covers ryde.bz and Ryde's apps for iPhone and Android: Ryde (riders and rental companies) and Ryde Driver (taxi drivers). Principal place of business: San Pedro Town, Belize, C.A. Head office: Orange Walk Town, Belize, C.A. Contact: [email protected] or WhatsApp +501 613 5737.
2. What we collect, and why
| What | Why | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Name, email, phone | Create your account; let drivers and rental companies reach you | Contract |
| Sign-in details: a password hash, a one-time code sent to your email, or the name, email and photo Google or Apple gives us (if you choose Apple's Hide My Email, we only get an address Apple forwards to you) | Sign you in | Contract |
| Profile photo (optional) | So the driver or company knows who they are meeting | Consent |
| Bookings and trips: pickup and drop-off points, times, amounts, who is riding and how many, the vehicle, extras chosen | Provide, price and support your ride or rental | Contract |
| Someone you book for: their name and phone | So the driver can find and call them | Contract |
| Device location, only while the app is open | Set your pickup, show a driver's position, and once a day note the village or town you are in, in words (for example "San Jose Village, Orange Walk"); the exact spot is never kept for this | Consent |
| Trip route, recorded while a driver is on a trip | Safety, fare accuracy, disputes | Legitimate interest and consent |
| A driver's position while online | Offer rides to the nearest taxi, and show the rider their taxi coming | Contract |
| Rental licence number and expiry (renters), and for a motorcycle that the licence covers motorcycles | Proof the company checked the licence. We do not store a photo of a renter's licence. | Contract |
| Handover and return records: fuel, damage, cash collected, deposit kept and why | The record both sides rely on if they disagree | Contract |
| A company's notes about its renters, the renters it records itself at its counter, and the name and phone of a customer it holds a vehicle or tour places for | The company's own records, kept in Ryde for it | The company's legitimate interest |
| Partner documents (drivers, companies and tour operators): photos of driving licence, a taxi's certificate of title, vehicle licence and insurance stickers, insurance, trade licence, registration, tour operator licence and vehicle papers; what was read from each photo; who at Ryde checked it and when | Check a partner is entitled to operate, and that each paper says what it is said to say | Legal obligation and legitimate interest |
| An application to join Ryde, saved as you go, and the reason if it was not approved | So you can stop and finish later on any phone, and know what to fix | Contract |
| Someone a Ryde administrator invites to join: the name and WhatsApp number the administrator types, and an application filled in with them in person | Send the invitation and keep their application ready for them | Legitimate interest |
| Partner payout details: bank, account name and number | Pay drivers and companies what Ryde holds for them | Contract |
| Payment records (amounts, status, references). Never card numbers. A card you save is kept as Belize Bank's token with its brand, last four digits and expiry | Payments, accounting, the financial ledger | Legal obligation |
| Ratings you give and get | Keep service good on both sides | Legitimate interest |
| Notifications and the in-app inbox | Deliver messages, and keep them for 60 days | Contract |
| If you allow notifications on a phone or browser: the address your phone or browser gives for them (a code from Apple, Google or Mozilla, not your phone number) | Send notifications to that phone or browser, even when the app is closed | Consent |
| Error reports you choose to send: app version, role, screen, device, recent errors | Fix problems | Consent |
| Errors the app runs into, sent on their own: which app and version, the screen, the error's first line (long numbers and e-mail addresses removed) and phone or computer. Never your name, account or a device number | Find and fix what breaks | Legitimate interest |
| Visits to ryde.bz and the Ryde apps: a random number kept in your browser or the app, the day and how many times you opened Ryde, the site or link that sent you, phone or computer, whether you use the installed app, the town you chose, the village or town your phone was in that day in words (only if you allowed location), the country your internet address is in (not the address itself), and which booking steps you reached that day (looked for a ride or rental, saw prices, asked to book) | Count visitors, learn which posts and partners bring people to Ryde, and see where booking gets hard | Legitimate interest |
| Sponsored cards (riders and drivers): which card was shown and tapped, by day, spot and town, counted against the same random number (never your name), at most a few times a day for each card | Tell a business how many people saw its card, without telling it who | Legitimate interest |
3. Reading your documents with AI
A partner gives Ryde each paper as a photo. The photo is sent to a Cloudflare AI service, which reads the number, the dates, the name, the licence classes or the insurer, and the form is filled in from what it reads. If it cannot read a photo after a second try, the partner may send it for a person at Ryde to read instead. A person at Ryde looks at every paper's photo before it counts, and has the stored photo read again to compare it with what was filled in. The AI service is also used to suggest the details of a vehicle from its photo, to fill in a rental company's vehicles and prices from a photo of its price list and a tour operator's tours from its brochure (the company checks every line before anything is posted), and, if a partner chooses, to fill in their payout details from a screenshot of their banking app: it reads the bank, the account number and the account name, never a balance, and the screenshot is not kept. The service reads the photo for Ryde and is not given anything else about you.
Your driver's licence in Wallet: if you scan it, the photo is sent to Ryde's reader (Cloudflare Workers AI) to fill in the fields and is not stored. The licence details stay on your phone.
4. Who can see your information
- A rental company sees bookings for its own vehicles, and each renter's name and phone. People the company adds to its delivery team see the same bookings, to hand over and collect vehicles. A delivery link the company sends shows one booking's details to whoever holds it, until a day after that booking ends.
- A driver sees pickup, drop-off, name and phone for a ride they have accepted, the rider's recent no-shows when a request is offered to them, and the passenger's name and phone when someone books for another person.
- A rental company that is not on Ryde yet (one Ryde has listed and that has not taken over its page): when you ask to book it, a person at Ryde passes the company your request on WhatsApp (your name, your phone, the vehicle and the dates) so it can say yes or no, and Ryde gives you its answer in the app. Nothing else about you is passed on.
- Riders see drivers, taxis, companies, vehicles and prices, not other riders.
- A business with a sponsored card sees how many times it was shown and tapped. It never sees who.
- Ryde administrators see marketplace activity, accounts and partners' uploaded documents, to run, support and keep the Service safe. Ryde staff who help them (with support, partners or payments) see only what that job needs. What an administrator changes is recorded.
- The police or a court get the records we hold about a ride, a rental or an account when the law requires it, or when it is needed to report or stop a crime, to protect someone's safety, or to recover a stolen vehicle.
- Access limits are enforced by the database itself, not only by the app.
5. What we do not do
We do not sell your data, use it to target advertising at you, or send marketing messages you did not ask for. Sponsored cards are shown to everyone in a town alike; a tap opens the business's own website, which learns only that the visit came from Ryde.
6. The companies that handle your data
| Company | What for | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Database, sign-in, file storage | Outside Belize |
| Cloudflare | Hosting, DNS, email forwarding for Ryde's addresses, and the AI document reader | Outside Belize |
| Resend | Sending account emails (sign-up, password reset, sign-in link) from [email protected] | Outside Belize |
| Apple | Optional Sign in with Apple, and forwarding Ryde's emails to you if you chose Apple's Hide My Email | Outside Belize |
| Optional Google sign-in; maps, place search and directions (pickup and drop-off points, and what you type in a search, are sent to Google) | Outside Belize | |
| OpenStreetMap Foundation, FOSSGIS (Valhalla), komoot and the OSRM project | The free map, naming a spot on the map, place search, and the road between two points (those points, and what you type in a search, are sent) | Outside Belize |
| Belize Bank | Card payments, and cards you choose to save (kept as the bank's token). The bank handles card numbers. We never see them. | Belize |
| Apple, Google (Firebase Cloud Messaging) and Mozilla push services | Delivering notifications to your phone or browser: the notification address and the message | Outside Belize |
| Expo | Delivering updates to the Ryde apps: the app asks for a newer version, which tells Expo the app, its version and your phone's internet address | Outside Belize |
| WhatsApp (Meta) | Only when you choose to message a driver, a company or Ryde on WhatsApp; Ryde fills in the message and you send it | Outside Belize |
| Namecheap | Domain registration (ryde.bz, privacy on) | Outside Belize |
Our data is stored with these providers outside Belize. The Data Protection Act expressly allows transfer abroad for cloud storage without consent (s.23(2)). We choose providers that commit to protecting data and we share only what each needs.
7. How long we keep it
| Data | Kept |
|---|---|
| Account details | While your account exists |
| Notification inbox | 60 days |
| Visit counts and sponsored card counts | 13 months |
| Bookings and trip records, with their routes | While your account exists, then as long as tax, accounting or a dispute needs them (section 8) |
| Partner documents, including papers that were replaced by a renewal or sent back | While the partner is with Ryde; deleted within 12 months of the partner leaving, unless the law or a dispute needs them |
| An application you started | With your account; deleted when you delete your account |
| An invitation an administrator made for you | Until an administrator removes it |
| Partner payout details | While the partner is with Ryde |
| Financial ledger | 7 years |
8. Deleting your account
You can delete your account in the app. Your sign-in, profile, saved places, settings and any application to join that you started are deleted at once. Trips and bookings you took part in stay on record, with the name and phone given for them, because the driver or company was part of them and the books must still add up. The financial ledger is append-only: rows cannot be changed or deleted. Ask us at [email protected] and we will remove your name and phone from your past trips and bookings wherever no tax, accounting or open dispute needs them.
9. Your rights and choices
We promise to tell you what we hold, to correct it, and to delete it where we have no good reason to keep it, and you may withdraw consent at any time. These are Ryde's own commitments to you. You can edit your name, phone and photo in Account; refuse location permission (you will then pick your pickup point by hand); in the Ryde apps, allow or refuse location, camera, photos and notifications in your phone's settings (the apps ask before using each one, and never use the microphone); and switch off notification categories such as requests, payments and partner applications. Messages about your own trips and bookings cannot be switched off, because you need them to ride or rent.
To ask for a copy of your data or its deletion, email [email protected]. We will reply within 30 days.
10. Children
The Service is for people 18 or over. We do not knowingly collect children's data.
11. Security and breaches
We use access controls enforced by the database, encryption in transit, private storage for documents, and a record of what administrators change. A suspended account cannot sign in. If a breach puts your data at risk we will tell you without undue delay, and tell the Data Protection Commissioner once the Act applies to Ryde (the Act sets 72 hours, s.61).
12. Changes and complaints
We will show notice in the app before a material change. If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, tell us first at [email protected]; once the Data Protection Act applies to Ryde, you may also complain to the Data Protection Commissioner.