UniConnect Privacy Notice

Last updated: September 28, 2026 · Version 2026.09.28

Who operates UniConnect

UniConnect is owned and operated by Vinci Alexandro Armas as a sole proprietorship. UniConnect is not currently operated by a limited liability company; the planned ASE LLC has not been formed. Any future change of operator will be identified in an updated notice.

The operator is responsible for the personal-information practices described here.

For support, privacy requests, moderation appeals, or non-emergency safety concerns, contact UniConnect, operated by Vinci Alexandro Armas, at UniConnect.space@gmail.com. You do not need a UniConnect account or access to a suspended account to contact us. This is a UniConnect business contact, not university support or emergency services, and is not monitored continuously. Do not email passwords, full payment-card details, or bank-login credentials.

Information collected

UniConnect collects account identity, university affiliation, profile, listing, message, ride, route, service request, service booking, service scope, scheduling, completion, dispute, transaction, device, safety-report, and support information needed to operate and secure the service. Approximate location or route coordinates are collected when a user supplies them for a trip, listing, or service appointment. Stripe processes payment credentials under its own privacy notice; UniConnect does not store full card numbers.

When tax-aware checkout is enabled, UniConnect retains the agreed pickup address, reviewed item classifications, frozen calculations, and payment and refund references for reconciliation and required records. With self-managed calculation, UniConnect calculates tax using reviewed rules. The seller's listed pickup location is matched to a reviewed physical address and shown to the buyer before payment; the buyer cannot substitute a billing address. The pickup address is also shown in Stripe Checkout. If Stripe Tax is used instead, the pickup address, item tax classifications, and transaction amounts are sent to Stripe Tax. Stripe processes the checkout payment in either case.

Ride seat reservations For current rides, signed-in active UniConnect users can see reserved seat numbers and the reserving student's first name and last initial. New reservations are limited to one seat per account per trip. For older multi-seat reservations, the booker's name identifies the reservation, not every passenger. Pending payment holds show as held without a name. Blocked or suspended users' names are hidden from the seat map. The map does not publish email addresses, payment details, or live locations. Numbered spaces are reservation labels, not a guarantee of a particular physical vehicle layout. Internal seat records may be retained for support under this notice's retention rules.

Message previews and online status

While UniConnect is open and visible, incoming messages may appear in a brief in-app banner showing the sender's abbreviated name and a message preview. These are not lock-screen push notifications. A banner does not mark a message as read; read receipts still depend on opening the visible conversation.

People who share a conversation with you can see whether UniConnect is open and visible on one of your devices. You can turn off Show online status in Profile settings. Blocked and suspended accounts cannot receive your status through this feature. Status is approximate: connections, background tabs and device sleep can delay an update, and an abandoned online signal expires after about seventy seconds. We do not share a last-seen timestamp or build an activity-history log. Short-lived per-tab heartbeat records are overwritten and expired records are removed during subsequent activity updates; routine infrastructure backups may retain earlier snapshots under the retention practices below.

Optional driver pickup location

Posting a ride does not enable GPS. A driver may separately opt in and grant browser permission to share this device's precise pickup location with current confirmed riders. Sharing is limited to one hour before the posted departure through thirty minutes afterward, and requires a current confirmed paid booking or free seat reservation. It is not available through public ride-share links or to unbooked viewers. It does not add tracking to informal, unreserved rides or commuter routes. Free seat reservations are operational records, not paid receipts; they appear in My rides only through the pickup window and may be retained internally for safety and support under this notice's retention rules.

The browser applies Kalman smoothing to GPS readings before sending the latest point, reported accuracy, and timestamp to UniConnect's hosted database. We do not build a route-history log for this feature. Smoothing is an estimate, not a verified location or safety guarantee. Map tiles come from OpenStreetMap; viewing the map sends tile requests and ordinary network information to its tile servers, which can indicate the area displayed. Precise pickup points are not sent to AI moderation providers by this feature.

Drivers can stop sharing at any time. Leaving the page, hiding it, or locking the phone stops this page's location watcher; browsers and networks may also interrupt updates. Stopping clears the active point when the request reaches the server; if it cannot, points become unavailable to riders in under a minute without fresh readings. Cancelled, refunded, blocked, suspended, or completed participants cannot continue viewing. The latest stored point is overwritten by each accepted update; expired sharing rows are removed by the daily ride-cleanup job. If cleanup is delayed, expired coordinates remain inaccessible to riders. Routine infrastructure backups may retain earlier database snapshots under the general retention practices below. Riders can remember or copy a location they have already seen; stopping cannot recall those copies. Keep the page visible while sharing and operate it only while safely parked.

Legal and transaction evidence

For regulated or unclear service offers, UniConnect collects private proof of licensing, permits, registrations or documented exemptions, including the provider name, issuing authority, credential reference, covered work and validity dates. Active providers can view their own proof; authorized active administrators can review it. Proof is not public and is not sent to AI screening by this feature. Do not upload unrelated identity or financial documents; redact unnecessary details. Credential evidence and review records are retained as reasonably needed for approval, renewals, disputes, fraud prevention and legal obligations under the retention practices below. Ask the operational contact above for correction or deletion, subject to necessary record retention.

If you request a textbook tax exemption, UniConnect collects the required course/book evidence, enrollment evidence, and online-purchaser identification, which may include your name, address, student ID number, and institution name/address. Submit these only through the private tax-review form, never in public listings or messages. Authorized human tax reviewers can access the evidence, and their document access is recorded. This evidence is not submitted to AI providers by the textbook-review feature. An approved evidence reference is associated with the transaction; private documents are not disclosed to other buyers or marketplace sellers. Exemption evidence is retained for at least three years after the relevant sales-tax return's due date or filing date, whichever is later, and longer when legally required. Approval expiry does not delete legally required historical evidence.

For legal acceptance and paid activities, UniConnect records the document identifier, version, content hash, acceptance context, timestamp, account, and request evidence such as a hashed IP address and user agent. New signup age confirmations also record the 18+ declaration policy, confirmation time, and signup method; this check does not collect a birth date or identity document. Transaction records may include payment-provider identifiers, pricing inputs, refund state, payout state, and reconciliation exceptions.

Use, disclosure, and retention

Information is used to provide features, prevent fraud, moderate content, enforce rules, support users, reconcile money, and meet legal obligations. Access is limited by role. Information may be shared with service providers, transaction counterparties where needed to complete an activity, lawful authorities, or others when reasonably necessary to protect rights and safety. Evidence is retained for as long as reasonably necessary for service, legal, fraud, accounting, and safety purposes, then deleted or de-identified where practicable.

AI-assisted maintenance, security, and content checks

When Jev listing screening is enabled, submitted listing or service text is sent to TypeSafe AI (Jev) for scam-signal and policy screening. This integration does not send private chat history, account history, photos, payment credentials, or private textbook-tax evidence. Do not put sensitive personal information in listings. Flagged or uncertain submissions may need revision or human review before publication; a model score is not proof of fraud. Enabled NSFWJS photo screening runs on UniConnect's hosting infrastructure rather than sending photos to Jev. It screens sexual-content categories, not weapons or drugs, and may miss prohibited content or flag harmless content. A failed safety check may temporarily prevent a submission or photo upload.

UniConnect integrates AI-assisted tools and agents into its development and operational workflows. We use them to help prepare software updates, test features, investigate bugs and reported problems, and review security issues and suspicious activity. This includes authorized, task-based security reviews; it does not mean that an AI agent continuously watches every account, message, or transaction. AI-assisted checks may also be used to screen submitted text or images for violations when that feature is enabled.

Depending on the task, information processed by an authorized tool may include relevant software and configuration details, diagnostic logs and device information, account or transaction references, reports or feedback, and the specific user content needed to investigate an issue. We aim to use test, redacted, or de-identified information where it is sufficient and limit access and inputs to the task. Passwords, authentication secrets, full card numbers, and bank-login credentials are not intended inputs to AI tools. Do not include these details in suggestions, bug reports, messages, or listings.

When a third-party AI provider processes information for these purposes, that is a disclosure to a service provider. Its processing location, retention, and handling also depend on the provider and the applicable service terms and settings; this notice does not promise zero retention or that every provider excludes all submitted information from model improvement. UniConnect does not authorize unrelated use of personal information through this notice. A materially different purpose requires the notices and permissions applicable to that change.

Automated checks may flag or reject content and can be wrong. You can request review by the UniConnect team through Suggestions & bugs or the email contacts above, including if you cannot sign in. AI-assisted security and moderation do not guarantee detection of every problem and are not emergency services. Use Public Safety or emergency services for urgent safety concerns.

Changes to this notice

The current version and effective date appear with this notice. Material updates are presented through UniConnect's legal-acceptance flow for affected activities; previous acceptance records are preserved. An updated notice is not retroactive permission for a different use of previously collected information.

Choices and requests

Users may manage available profile and communication settings and may contact UniConnect through in-app support or the email contact above to request applicable access, correction, deletion, or other privacy rights. Signing in is not required to make an email request. We may need to verify your identity before disclosing or changing personal information. Some records must be retained despite a request when required for security, transactions, disputes, or law.

Related policies: UniConnect Terms of Use · UniConnect Community Guidelines · Driver Shared-Expense Agreement · Seller Rules · Ride Cancellation and Refund Rules · Ride Risk and Shared-Expense Disclosure · Service Provider Rules · Service Cancellation and Dispute Rules