Iskana Privacy Policy
Version 1.0 Effective date: September 19, 2026 Last updated: September 19, 2026
1. Introduction
Iskana ("we," "our," or "us") is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect when you use the Iskana mobile application ("App") and the website iskana.app, how we use it, who we share it with, and your rights as a data subject under Philippine law.
This Policy is issued in compliance with Republic Act No. 10173, the Data Privacy Act of 2012 ("DPA"), and its Implementing Rules and Regulations ("IRR"), as administered by the National Privacy Commission ("NPC") of the Philippines.
If you are a grocery store or supermarket using the Grocerwise business platform, please refer to the separate Grocerwise Privacy Policy at grocerwise.ph/privacy.
2. Who This Policy Applies To
This Privacy Policy applies to everyone who uses the Iskana mobile app or the account pages on iskana.app.
3. Personal Information We Collect
3.1 Information you provide
| Information | When collected |
|---|---|
| Full name | Account registration |
| Email address | Account registration |
| Password (stored only as an Argon2id hash — never in plaintext) | Account registration |
| Record of your acceptance of the Terms and this Policy (version and time) | Account registration |
| Trip data: the store, when the trip started and finished, each item you scan or type in (name, barcode, price, quantity, time scanned), the trip total, any name you give the trip, and the Points it earned | During shopping trips |
| Trip budget amounts | When you set a budget for a trip |
| Your monthly grocery budget, default trip budget and budget alert level | When you set them |
| Receipt photos | When you submit a receipt for Points verification |
| Your settings (notification choices, whether near-store downloads are on) | When you change them |
| Support communications | When you contact us |
3.2 Information collected automatically
| Information | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Your phone's operating system and version, stored with each signed-in device | So you and our support team can tell your sign-ins apart |
| Crash and error reports: what went wrong, the screen or request involved, device model, operating system and app version | Fixing bugs and keeping the App stable |
| Your IP address | Used briefly to limit repeated sign-in attempts and other abuse. We don't store it with your account; our hosting and error-monitoring providers may keep it in their logs for a short time |
| The time of your last sign-in and any failed sign-in attempts | Locking out password guessing |
| A log of any action Iskana staff take on your account | Security and accountability |
We do not use analytics or advertising tools, and we do not track which screens you view.
3.3 Location information
Finding nearby stores. When you tap Find nearby stores, the App reads your device's location once and sends those coordinates directly to Grocerwise, the store platform that provides Iskana's store and product information (see Section 6.2), to get a list of nearby stores. The request identifies you only by a random code, not by your name or email. Grocerwise uses the coordinates to answer that request and does not store them. Iskana's own servers never receive your location.
Downloading products near stores (optional, off by default; currently on iPhone only). If you turn this on in Profile → Location and allow "Always" location access, the App sends your current coordinates to Grocerwise to find the nearest participating stores (up to 20). It then asks your phone's operating system to tell it when you come within about 2 kilometres of one of them. It checks again, and sends your coordinates again, when you open the App after moving about 5 kilometres. When you come near a store, the App downloads that store's product list from Grocerwise, so scanning works even with a weak signal. That download does not include your coordinates, but it does tell Grocerwise, under your random code, that your device asked for that store's list at that time. Iskana's servers record only whether this setting is on or off. Your phone keeps the last position it used, so it can tell when you have moved.
You may turn off location access at any time in your device settings, or turn off "Download products near stores" in Profile → Location, which stops the monitoring and deletes the stored position from your phone. You can always choose a store manually instead.
3.4 Receipt photos
When you submit a receipt photo for Points verification, the image is uploaded to our servers and sent to our AI provider, which reads the total, the store name and the date printed on the receipt. Receipt photos are:
- Deleted automatically ninety (90) days after upload, or straight away if you delete your Account;
- Used only to verify your trip for Points: to check the total and the store against your trip, to detect duplicate or altered receipts, and, if a trip is flagged or the photo could not be read, for review by authorised Iskana staff. Every staff view is logged; and
- Not shared with the store or with Grocerwise. They are stored by our storage provider (Cloudflare) and read by our AI provider (OpenAI), both acting only on our instructions.
The details read from the receipt (total, store name, date, and how closely they matched your trip) stay with the trip in your history until you delete your Account.
Please photograph only the receipt. Anything printed on it, such as a member name or the last digits of a card, is part of the image we store and send to our AI provider.
3.5 Information we do not collect
- Payment card or bank details. There are no in-app purchases yet; when Iskana Pro goes on sale, payment will be handled entirely by Apple or Google
- Bank account or e-wallet transaction data
- Contacts, photos from your library, or other data from your device beyond what you explicitly submit. The App uses the camera to scan barcodes and photograph receipts, and never reads your photo library
- Audio recordings
- Advertising identifiers
4. How We Use Your Personal Information
| Purpose | Lawful basis |
|---|---|
| Creating and managing your Account | Performance of a contract |
| Barcode scanning and price lookup | Performance of a contract |
| Recording and displaying your trip history | Performance of a contract |
| Showing your grocery spending against your budget | Performance of a contract |
| Reading receipt photos with AI to verify trips and award Points | Performance of a contract |
| Sending account emails (email verification and password reset) | Performance of a contract |
| Reporting trips to Grocerwise under a random code, so participating stores get statistics about shopping at their branches (see Section 6.2) | Legitimate interest |
| Preventing fraud and abuse of the Points system | Legitimate interest |
| Fixing crashes and errors | Legitimate interest |
| Complying with legal obligations | Compliance with legal obligation |
We do not use your personal information for advertising, and we do not sell it.
5. AI Processing
The App uses an AI service provided by OpenAI for one feature:
| Feature | What is sent to the AI | What comes back | What is not sent |
|---|---|---|---|
| Receipt verification | The receipt photo and fixed instructions | The total, store name and date | Your name, email, account ID, location, or the items in your trip |
We do not send your name, email, account ID or location to OpenAI, except anything printed on the receipt itself. OpenAI does not use data sent through its API to train its models, and it may keep requests for up to thirty (30) days to monitor for abuse before deleting them.
Other AI features (product information, spending insights, the Iska companion) are not yet available. We will update this section before any of them launches.
6. Information We Share
We do not sell your personal information. We share it only as follows.
6.1 Service providers
| Provider | Purpose | Data involved |
|---|---|---|
| Railway | Hosting for our API, database and cache | All account, trip, Points and budget data |
| Vercel | Hosting for iskana.app (including the account deletion, password reset and email verification pages) and our staff dashboard | Information you enter on those pages |
| Expo | Building the App | None — app code only |
| Cloudflare (R2) | Receipt photo storage | Receipt photos (deleted after 90 days) |
| OpenAI | Reading receipt photos | The receipt photo only (Section 5) |
| Resend | Sending account emails | Your name and email address |
| Sentry | Crash and error reports | Error details, device model, operating system and app version. We configure it not to receive passwords, sign-in tokens, email addresses, request contents or receipt photos |
Providers may process data only to provide their services to us.
6.2 Grocerwise
Iskana gets its store, product and price information from Grocerwise, a store platform run by the same company as Iskana. To provide the App, the App and our servers send Grocerwise:
- your location when you search for nearby stores or turn on near-store downloads (Section 3.3), which Grocerwise does not store;
- the store names you search for, the barcodes you scan and the store you are in;
- requests for a store's product list; and
- a report of each trip: the store, when it started and finished, whether it was finished, the number of items, how many you typed in by hand, the total, and any barcodes you scanned while offline.
None of this includes your name, email or Iskana account ID. Instead, it carries a random code that Grocerwise uses to limit request rates and to count how many different and returning shoppers a store has. Grocerwise shows stores only anonymous trip statistics and never shows them your code. Grocerwise also sees your device's IP address when the App contacts it directly.
When you delete your Account, we tell Grocerwise to remove your code from every trip it holds. The trip statistics remain, with nothing linking them to you. If you discard a trip, Grocerwise still knows a trip was started.
6.3 Aggregated and anonymized data
We may share aggregated, anonymized or de-identified data (for example, "the average basket size for shoppers in Cebu City is ₱850") with third parties for research or business purposes. This data cannot be used to identify you, and is separate from the trip reports described in Section 6.2.
6.4 Legal requirements
We may disclose personal information if required by law, court order, or government authority.
6.5 Business transfers
In the event of a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, your personal information may be transferred to the acquiring entity under equivalent privacy protections, and you will be notified.
7. Storage on Your Device
The App stores on your phone: your basic profile (name, email, plan), the trip in progress and any trip updates waiting for a connection, your settings, store product lists you have downloaded, and, if near-store downloads are on, the last location used to choose nearby stores. Sign-in tokens are kept in your phone's secure storage (iOS Keychain / Android Keystore).
This data is not accessible to other apps. Signing out removes everything except downloaded store product lists, which contain no personal data. Uninstalling the App, or clearing its data in your device settings, removes everything.
The iskana.app website does not use cookies or keep you signed in.
8. Cross-Border Data Transfers
Iskana is operated from the Philippines. Some of our service providers process data in other countries, including the United States. We ensure that cross-border transfers comply with the DPA and NPC Circular No. 16-01.
9. Data Retention
| Data type | Retention period |
|---|---|
| Account information | Until account deletion |
| Trip data and budgets | Until account deletion |
| Details read from receipts (total, store, date) | Until account deletion |
| Receipt photos | 90 days from upload, or until account deletion if sooner |
| Points history | Until account deletion. Unused Points expire after 12 months, or 24 months for Points earned on Pro (see the Terms of Service) |
| Records of your signed-in devices | Until account deletion (a sign-in stops working when you sign out, or after 60 days without use) |
| Crash and error reports | Up to 90 days, at Sentry |
| Server request logs (no request contents) | A limited period set by our hosting provider |
| Support communications | 3 years |
| Encrypted backups of the above | Up to 12 months, then overwritten |
When you delete your Account — in the App (Profile → Delete account) or at iskana.app/delete-account — we immediately delete your account, trips, receipt details, Points and budgets, delete your receipt photos, and ask Grocerwise to remove your random code from its trip records. This is completed within thirty (30) days at the latest.
Some records remain after deletion: a log of any actions Iskana staff took on your account (without your name or email), kept for security and accountability; our record of trip reports already sent to Grocerwise, which carry only the random code; anonymous trip statistics held by Grocerwise; crash reports held by Sentry until they expire; and copies in our encrypted backups for up to twelve (12) months until those backups are overwritten. Backups are used only to restore our systems after a failure; they are not used to reactivate your Account or for any other purpose.
10. Data Security
We protect your personal information using the following measures:
- All data transmitted between the App, the website and our servers is encrypted using TLS/HTTPS
- Passwords are stored only as Argon2id hashes — we cannot see your password
- Sign-in uses short-lived access tokens and refresh tokens that change on every use, kept in your phone's secure storage (iOS Keychain / Android Keystore)
- Receipt photos are stored in a private cloud bucket — not publicly accessible. Staff can open a receipt only through a link that expires after five minutes, and every view is logged
- Role-based access controls restrict who at Iskana can access your data
- Dependency updates and security reviews
- Fraud monitoring for Points abuse
If we detect a personal data breach that is likely to cause harm, we will notify the NPC within seventy-two (72) hours and notify you without undue delay.
11. Children's Privacy
The App is intended for users 18 years of age and older. Users between 13 and 17 may use the App only with parental consent and supervision. We do not ask for your age, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we learn that we have collected information from a child under 13 without parental consent, we will delete it promptly. If you believe your child has provided us with personal information without consent, contact us at privacy@iskana.app.
12. Your Rights Under the Data Privacy Act
As a data subject, you have the following rights under the DPA:
| Right | What it means | How to exercise it |
|---|---|---|
| Right to be informed | Know what data we collect and why | Read this Privacy Policy |
| Right of access | Request a copy of your personal data | Email privacy@iskana.app |
| Right to rectification | Correct inaccurate data | Change your name in Profile → Edit profile. To change your email, contact us |
| Right to erasure | Request deletion of your data | Delete your account in the App (Profile → Delete account), at iskana.app/delete-account, or by emailing us |
| Right to object | Object to processing based on legitimate interest | Email privacy@iskana.app |
| Right to data portability | Receive your data in a portable format | Email privacy@iskana.app |
| Right to file a complaint | Complain to the NPC | www.privacy.gov.ph |
To exercise any of these rights, contact:
Email: privacy@iskana.app Subject line: "Data Privacy Request — Iskana"
We will respond within fifteen (15) working days. We may verify your identity before processing your request.
13. Data Protection Officer
Iskana has designated a Data Protection Officer (DPO) to oversee compliance with the DPA.
Data Protection Officer Iskana Email: privacy@iskana.app
14. Third-Party Links and Services
The App and website may include links to third-party websites or services, such as store websites. This Privacy Policy does not apply to those third-party services. We encourage you to review their privacy policies before providing any personal information.
15. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy as the App evolves. We will notify you of material changes through the App or by email at least fourteen (14) days before changes take effect. The current version of this Policy is always available in the App under Profile → Privacy and at iskana.app/privacy.
16. Contact Us
If you have questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or how we handle your personal information:
Iskana Email: privacy@iskana.app Website: iskana.app/privacy National Privacy Commission: www.privacy.gov.ph
This Privacy Policy was last updated on September 19, 2026. Version 1.0.