Privacy policy

Last updated: 18 October 2026

FIXMATE-SA ("FixMate", "we", "us") runs the FixMate-SA app, website and admin systems. FixMate connects people who need work done ("clients") with independent service providers ("providers") in South Africa. This policy explains what personal information we collect, why we use it, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and your rights under the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA).

1. Who is responsible

FIXMATE-SA, Dani Joubert St, Tzaneen, 0850, is the responsible party. Our Information Officer can be reached at donaldshai96@gmail.com.

2. What we collect

Everyone

• Account details: name, email address, phone and WhatsApp number, password (stored only as a one-way scrambled value), profile photo, and your FixMate ID number (for example FM-USR-000123).
• Address and location: the addresses you type and, when you allow it, your phone's location while you use the app, to show nearby providers and work out distances. We do not track you in the background.
• Jobs: job requests, quotes and their versions, bookings, dates, prices, extra work agreed during a job, contract jobs (phases or repeat visits) and their progress reports, cancellations, disputes, reviews and ratings.
• Photos: photos you add to a job request, a dispute or a contract progress report, and the before, during and after photos a provider takes of the work. Job photos are taken with the in-app camera and stamped with the job number, date and time. If location is switched on, the phone's location when the photo was taken is saved with it. Where there is no signal, the app keeps the photos, the job steps and the client's completion code on the phone until they can be sent; logging out removes anything not yet sent.
• Messages: what you write in FixMate chat and in quotes. Messages are automatically checked for phone numbers, email addresses and links before a job is paid and accepted (see section 3).
• Payments: amounts, dates, references and status of payments, refunds, promotion codes used, and your payment history. Payments are made on the payment provider's own page; FixMate never sees or stores your card number or online banking password.
• Support: what you send us in a support request, with any attachments.
• Device and usage: a notification token so we can send you alerts, basic app usage statistics, and technical logs (such as IP address and error details) that keep the service secure and working.

Identity verification (providers, and clients who choose it)

• Photos of your identity document (South African ID, passport or permit) and the details on it: full name, ID or passport number, date of birth, gender and nationality.
• A live selfie taken with the in-app camera. Before it is sent, your phone checks that a real face is present (for example a blink or a head turn). This check runs on your phone; no face template is sent to us or to anyone else.
• Photos and ID details are special personal information. We process them only with your consent, to confirm you are who you say you are. A trained FixMate staff member compares the selfie with the ID photo; nothing is approved automatically.

Providers only

• Trade and service listings, prices, work area, experience, company registration and VAT details.
• Bank account details for payouts, your FixMate wallet balance, earnings and withdrawals.
• Skills programme records you choose to add (learnerships, apprenticeships, certificates), and, only if you agree, age group, gender, province and similar details used in grouped, anonymous impact statistics.
• Your track record on FixMate: response times, acceptance, completed, cancelled and disputed jobs, and any penalties or warnings.

3. Why we use it

• To provide the service (the contract between you and us): accounts, matching clients and providers, quotes, bookings, contract jobs, chat, notifications, receipts, invoices and earnings statements.
• To take payments and pay providers: money is held until a job (or each phase of a contract) is confirmed, then paid to the provider less the FixMate fee shown before payment.
• To keep FixMate safe: verifying identities, preventing fraud, keeping contact details private until a job is paid and accepted (so people are protected by FixMate's payment and dispute process), investigating reports and disputes, and suspending accounts that break our terms.
• To meet legal duties: keeping financial records, VAT records, and responding to lawful requests.
• To improve FixMate and produce anonymous statistics.

How listings are ordered

The client home screen lists services using a formula that weighs the provider's track record, star rating, distance, whether their identity is verified and whether a listing is new. Listings a provider has paid to boost, FixMate PRO providers, listings chosen by FixMate ("FixMate pick") and listings with an active promotion get extra points; boosted listings are marked as featured. This ordering is automatic, but it never decides on its own whether you can use FixMate. Decisions about accounts, verification, disputes and suspensions are made or reviewed by a person, and you can ask us to explain or reconsider them.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not show third-party advertising.

4. Who we share it with

• The other person in a job: clients and providers see each other's name, photo, rating, FixMate ID and the job details. An approximate area is shown before a job is accepted; the exact address and contact details are shared only once the job is paid and accepted. A provider's identity documents are never shown to clients, only a "Verified" badge.
• Payment providers: Paystack (card payments, refunds and payouts to providers) and, when FixMate uses it, Stitch (pay by bank and card). They receive what they need to process a payment, such as the amount, your name and email address.
• Address search: the words you type in an address field and the place you pick are sent from our server to Geoapify or Google Maps (whichever FixMate uses) to suggest addresses and find their location. Your phone may also use its own built-in map service to turn your location into an address.
• Google Firebase: push notifications and app usage statistics.
• AI providers (Anthropic, OpenAI or Google, whichever FixMate uses at the time), only when FixMate's AI helpers are switched on: the words you type or say to the job description helper or the voice assistant, and the photos you choose to send with "Snap the problem", are sent to that company to find the right service and write a clear description. Photos are made smaller and their hidden details (such as GPS location) are removed first; FixMate does not keep them. Your name, ID number, documents, selfies and bank details are never sent. Short text copies of these questions and answers (not the photos) are kept for 90 days so FixMate can check the helpers work properly.
• Your phone's speech service (for example Google on Android or Apple on iPhone): when you use the microphone in the voice assistant, your phone turns your speech into text before anything reaches FixMate. FixMate does not record or keep your voice.
• Our hosting and email providers (Hostinger), which store FixMate's data and send our emails.
• Skills programme partners (for example SETAs, TVET colleges or government programmes) receive only grouped, anonymous statistics, never names, contact details or ID numbers. Breakdowns of fewer than five people are combined, and money figures for a group of fewer than five people are never shown.
• A training programme you join with its code sees results for its own group: how many people joined, found paid work and are still working 3, 6 and 12 months later, and what the group earned in total. You agree to this when you join, and you can leave the group at any time in the app (Profile → Training programme).
• Authorities, when the law requires it, or to protect someone's safety.

Some of these service providers store or process data outside South Africa. We only use providers that are bound to protect personal information to a standard comparable to POPIA.

5. FixMate staff

Only authorised FixMate staff can see your information in the admin dashboard, and each staff member only sees the areas their role needs (for example, a support agent cannot see payouts). ID numbers are shown masked in lists and exports. Every change to settings, every manual decision and every data export is recorded in an audit log.

6. How long we keep it

• Account details: while your account is open.
• Identity documents and selfies: while your account is open and verified. Documents from a rejected or replaced verification attempt are deleted after 90 days.
• Bookings, payments, invoices, refunds and reviews: five years, because tax law requires financial records. After you delete your account they are kept without your name.
• Chat, job photos and contract reports: while the related job is open and for as long as needed to handle a dispute or complaint about it.
• Technical logs: a short period, for security and troubleshooting.

When you delete your account we immediately remove your name, contact details, photo, address, location, date of birth, gender, bank details, notification tokens, identity documents, selfies and skills certificates, and hide your listings.

7. Security

All traffic uses encrypted HTTPS. Passwords are stored with a one-way hash. Identity documents and selfies are stored encrypted and can only be opened through short-lived private links by you or authorised staff. Payment webhooks are checked with the payment provider's signature, and payments are confirmed directly with the payment provider before a booking is marked as paid. Login details on your phone are kept in its encrypted storage. If a security breach affects your information, we will tell you and the Information Regulator as POPIA requires.

8. Your rights

You may see and correct your details in the app (some identity details are locked once verified; ask support to correct them), ask us what information we hold about you and who has received it, object to how we use it, withdraw a consent you gave (for example for identity verification or impact statistics), and delete your account at any time, in the app (Profile → Delete account) or at /delete-account. An account cannot be deleted while a job is under way or while your wallet holds money. Contact donaldshai96@gmail.com for anything else.

You may complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa): inforegulator.org.za.

9. Children

FixMate is for people aged 18 and older. We do not knowingly collect information from children.

10. Changes

If we change this policy, we will update the date above and tell you in the app when the change is important.