Privacy Policy

Who we are

Kusa Connect Ltd is a UK representation company for African travel businesses. We are registered in England and Wales under company number 13722074, with our registered office at 32 Goetre Bellaf Road, Dunvant, Swansea, SA2 7RP.

For the data described here, Kusa Connect Ltd is the data controller. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office under registration number ZB543537. If you want to reach us about anything on this page, email gw@kusaconnect.com — it goes to Graeme Watson directly.

What this covers

This policy applies to:

• kusaconnect.com, including the mirror published at kusaconnect.x
• the Kusa Connect app for iOS and Android
• email and messages you send us directly

It does not cover other companies’ websites we link to, or the lodges, camps and operators in our portfolio. They are separate businesses and handle your data under their own policies.

The short version

We are a small business, not an advertising company. We do not sell personal data, we do not buy it, and we do not build advertising profiles. The app has no accounts and no sign-up, so you can browse the entire portfolio without telling us who you are.

The data we do hold is mostly the obvious kind: if you send us an enquiry, we keep the enquiry so we can answer it.

The website

When you send us an enquiry

The contact form asks for your name, company, email address, phone number, a subject and your message. We use it for one thing — to reply to you and to carry on the conversation that follows. The form is delivered to us as an email through Postmark; nothing from it is written to a database on this site.

Lawful basis: our legitimate interests in responding to a business enquiry you chose to send us, and, where the conversation turns into work, taking steps at your request before entering a contract.

When you simply read the site

This site is hosted by Vercel, which keeps short-lived server logs including IP addresses, for security and to keep the site running. We also use two analytics services: Google Analytics 4, configured to anonymise IP addresses, and Vercel Web Analytics and Speed Insights, which measure page performance. We use these to understand which pages are useful and which are slow — not to identify you.

Lawful basis: consent for analytics cookies, and our legitimate interests in keeping the site secure and working.

The app

The Kusa Connect app is a browsing tool for travel advisors. There is no account and no login, so we do not hold a name, an email address or a profile for you.

What we do not collect

We do not collect your name, email address or phone number through the app. The “WhatsApp enquiry” and “Email us” buttons hand you over to WhatsApp or your own mail app with a message ready to write — whatever you send is composed and sent there, and Kusa Connect never sees it.

The app also asks Android for permission to use the microphone. Nothing in the app uses it: the permission arrived with a speech-recognition component that was never wired up to anything. No audio is recorded, transmitted or stored. We are removing the permission at the next release; until then you can decline it and lose nothing.

Content you browse

Property, lodge and itinerary content is fetched from our database, hosted by Supabase. That is us sending information to you rather than collecting information about you, though as with any internet request your device’s IP address is visible to the server handling it.

On your device

The app stores some information locally on your phone — things like your preferences and anything you have saved. That data stays on the device and is removed when you uninstall the app.

Analytics, and what it can tell

The app checks for over-the-air updates through Expo, which means your device asks for an update matching its app version. It also sends usage events to Mixpanel, on their European servers: when the app is opened, which property pages are viewed, and when a resource is opened. Those events carry a random per-install identifier, not a name.

Two things worth being straight about. That identifier is the same one used to remember which brands you follow, so those two records sit alongside each other. And although the app never asks for your location and declares no location permission, Mixpanel works out an approximate location from the network address your request arrives on — roughly the town or region, never a precise position. We count that as collecting it, which is why it is listed here and on our Google Play data safety entry.

Notifications

If your device asks whether the app may send you notifications and you agree, your device is issued a push token by Apple or Google so that a notification can be delivered to it. A push token identifies a device, not a person, and declining costs you nothing else in the app.

Cookies and similar technologies

Cookies set by Google Analytics on this website are not essential to it working, so they should only be set with your consent. Vercel’s analytics do not use cookies to track you across sites.

You can clear or block cookies in your browser settings at any time. Blocking analytics cookies does not affect anything you can read or do here.

Who else sees your data

We do not sell personal data or share it for anyone else’s marketing. We do use a small number of service providers who process data on our behalf, under contract:

• Vercel — hosting for this website
• Supabase — the database behind the app and the portfolio pages
• Postmark — delivering contact form enquiries to us by email
• Google — website analytics, and Android notification delivery
• Apple — iOS notification delivery
• Expo — app updates and push token handling
• Mixpanel — app usage analytics

We will also disclose information where the law requires it, or where we need to establish or defend a legal claim.

Where your data goes

Several of the providers above are based in, or store data in, the United States. Where personal data leaves the UK we rely on the UK’s adequacy regulations or on the International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum, so the protection travels with the data.

How long we keep it

Enquiries and the correspondence that follows are kept for as long as there is a live business relationship, and then for six years — the period we have to keep business records for tax and accounting, and the limitation period for most contract claims.

Website analytics are retained for the standard retention period set in Google Analytics. Server logs are short-lived. Data held on your own device lasts until you delete the app.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you can ask us to:

• give you a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• correct it if it is wrong
• delete it
• restrict or stop how we use it
• give it to you, or to someone else, in a portable form

You can also object to processing we carry out on the basis of legitimate interests, and withdraw consent for analytics at any time — withdrawing it does not affect anything done before you did.

Email gw@kusaconnect.com and we will respond within one month. There is no charge.

If we get it wrong, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113. We would rather you came to us first so we can put it right.

Children

This website and the app are made for travel trade professionals. They are not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect data about anyone under 13. If you believe a child has sent us personal data, tell us and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

If what we collect changes, this page changes with it and the date at the top moves. For anything significant we will say so on the site rather than expecting you to notice.