Privacy Policy

Last updated: 25 October 2026

In short

We collect what we need to clean, deliver and charge for your laundry, and to answer your messages.
An AI assistant (Claude, made by Anthropic) writes our chat replies. Staff can read the chats and confirm every booking.
The rider who collects your laundry gets your first name, phone number, address and map pin on WhatsApp.
Our main providers are Meta (WhatsApp), Anthropic (AI) and Fly.io (hosting in South Africa).
We keep most records until you ask us to delete them; some backup copies, and order records without your name, are kept longer.
You can ask to see, correct or delete your data. Reply STOP on WhatsApp to stop order updates.

Who we are

This policy covers Wacha Smart Laundry Place, our Harare laundry (its shops, chats and receipts), and Lavo, our laundry software at lavoafrica.com. Both are run by Millennial Ultra Solutions, trading as Wacha Smart Laundry Place, registered address 1 Portal Road, Harare, Zimbabwe ('we'). For Wacha customers, we are the data controller: we decide how your data is used and are responsible for it.

Shops: Shop H, The Waves Plaza, 86 Central Avenue, Harare (Central), and Belvedere, Harare. Email: mmgconsult.africa@gmail.com. WhatsApp chat: +263 79 035 9025. Shop phone: +263 71 409 5210. Business phone: +263 78 372 4399.

For privacy questions and requests, email mmgconsult.africa@gmail.com.

If you are a customer of another laundry on Lavo, that laundry is responsible for your data; please contact it first. This policy does not cover wachasmart.com, which is hosted separately.

What we collect

We need your phone number to take an order; we cannot take one without it. Everything else is optional. We do not ask about your health, religion, political views, gender or age. Never send us ID numbers, bank or card numbers, or passwords.

Who	What we collect, and where it comes from
Customers: contact details	Phone number, WhatsApp or Messenger ID, and name, from you or our staff; if we have no name for you, we use your WhatsApp profile name. Email and address only if you give them, and any pickup address in a WhatsApp booking.
Customers: chats	Your messages and our replies, with the time. A raw copy of each incoming message, with your number, profile name and message ID, so each is answered once. Your language, which we work out from your words, and your chosen branch. When we first told you, on WhatsApp, that an AI assistant writes our replies.
Customers: orders and payments	From you and our staff: items, prices, discounts and their reasons, addresses and suburb, dates, notes, payments (amount, method and reference, such as an EcoCash reference), bookings, recurring pickups and loyalty points.
Customers: message records	From our system and WhatsApp: the first 500 characters of each update, receipt and reply we send you, whether it was sent (on WhatsApp Cloud API, also delivered or read), when you last wrote to us, and whether you replied STOP.
Lavo staff and business owners	From you, your employer and our system: name, username, hashed password, role, branch, last login, and a log of important actions with IP addresses. For businesses: shop details and subscription payments.
Website visitors	From your browser: IP address, page address, previous page, browser and time, in server logs, and home-page visitor counts (see Pulse below).

How we use your data

We use your data only for these purposes (for the legal grounds, see 'Legal references'):

What we do	Why we may do it
Orders, updates, receipts, loyalty points and recurring pickups	You agreed when you handed in laundry or messaged us, and we need these records to run the shop.
Answering your messages, including with our AI assistant	You chose to message us.
Showing orders in progress on a screen in our shops	To run the shop. It shows the order number and your first name and last initial, or your only saved name (which may be your WhatsApp profile name).
Business reports, such as top customers by spend	To run the business. You can object.
Business and tax records	Where the law requires it, and to run the business.
Security, Lavo accounts and billing, visitor counts	To run the service safely. Lavo users also agree at signup.
Promotional messages	We send none at present.

Our WhatsApp assistant

An AI assistant helps answer WhatsApp and Messenger questions. It uses Claude, made by Anthropic. It receives your messages, your first name, and suburb names resolved from shared locations (see 'Who we share data with' for the full list). Booking steps and fees are built by our server. Exact booking pins and saved street addresses are not added to the assistant's customer profile. It answers from our prices, opening hours and common questions, and is told not to invent prices, dates or delivery fees.

On WhatsApp, it can look up your own orders by the number you message from, never other customers' orders.
The system saves a booking summary for you to check. It sends your request only after a separate clear yes or confirm reply. Staff then confirm the time and final price.
If you share a location pin, the assistant receives a suburb label, not the exact coordinates. Exact coordinates stay with your booking draft or booking. Voice notes and photos without captions are held for staff review, not sent to the AI.
It cannot take payments, change prices or give refunds, and it can make mistakes; what staff confirm, and your receipt, are what count. Staff can read your chats to help you and check its answers.
To talk to a person, write "speak to a person" in the chat. If the chat does not reply, call +263 71 409 5210 or visit the shop.

Riders and branch managers

Our riders and branch managers (and, for some alerts, the business owner) get WhatsApp messages from us on their own phones, so they can collect and return your laundry:

The rider assigned to your pickup gets a job message with your first name and phone number, the hand-over contact if someone else hands over the laundry, the pickup address, landmark and area, a map link, the map pin if you shared one, the load, the delivery type and fee, and your booking notes. If the pickup is moved to another rider or cancelled, the rider is told, without your details.
Where driver runs are used, the rider's WhatsApp also shows each stop with the name on your account, your phone number, address and landmark, the hand-over contact and, for a delivery, the order number and any amount still to pay.
A branch manager gets an alert for each new or changed pickup request with the booking number, day and time, area, delivery type and fee, without your name, phone number or street address.
If the chat cannot offer you a pickup or bring-back time and you ask the team to arrange it, an alert goes to that branch's manager, or to the business owner's alert contact if the branch has none. So they can contact you, it carries your name and WhatsApp number and, for a new pickup, the area, the address you typed, the trip (collect only, or collect and bring back) and the load; for an existing pickup or order, its number. Our message log does not keep your number or address from this alert.
Riders may use your details only to collect and return your laundry, and must not keep them or use them for anything else.
Our message log keeps only the booking number and time of a rider's job message, not your details. The copy on a rider's, manager's or owner's phone stays until they delete it, and Meta keeps WhatsApp Cloud API message data up to 30 days. Exact pins are cleared from our system 30 days after the pickup is completed or cancelled.

Who we share data with

We do not share your data with other customers. We share it with the providers below, and with authorities only when the law requires it.

Lavo's platform administrators (Wacha's senior administrators) can download a full copy of the Lavo database, including every laundry's customers, chats and payments.

Who	What they receive	Why	Where
Meta (WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger)	Your number or Messenger ID, profile name, your messages and ours (which can include your name, order number, amounts, receipt link and pickup address), and whether a message was delivered or read.	To carry messages	Meta's data centres. WhatsApp Cloud API message data is kept up to 30 days.
Twilio, which we have used to send WhatsApp messages	Phone numbers, profile name and message text.	To carry messages	Mainly the United States. Kept until we delete it.
Anthropic (Claude AI)	For our assistant: your new message (up to 6,000 characters) and up to 16 earlier messages in your chat, with links, and the street addresses and contact numbers saved for your pickups, taken out; your first name (from the name we hold, which may be your WhatsApp profile name); your saved address labels and suburbs; your usual branch; your pickup requests (number, date, time and status) and any delivery quote (suburb and fees); and our business details. Anything else you type, such as a new phone number, is included. To sort a message first, Claude may also read it (up to 1,000 characters) with our last reply, without those saved details or any phone numbers or email addresses. When managers handle pickups from WhatsApp, their messages (without phone numbers or email addresses), our riders' names and booking numbers are sent too.	To write replies	Stored in the United States; may be processed elsewhere. Deleted within 30 days by default (longer if flagged for misuse). Not used for AI training.
Fly.io (hosting)	Everything in our system, our backups and server logs.	To run our service	Database and our backups: Johannesburg, South Africa. Fly.io's own snapshots, logs and network traffic may be in other countries, including the United States.
Pulse (pulse-sites.com)	Home page only: page address, the site you came from, screen width, IP address and browser details. No cookies.	To count visitors	pulse-sites.com.
Google Fonts	Your IP address and browser details when our pages load the font.	To show our font	Google's servers.

Sending data outside Zimbabwe

Our providers store or process data in South Africa, the United States and other countries, including Meta's and Google's data centres. The table above gives more detail for each provider.

How long we keep data

Today most records are kept until someone deletes them, and you can ask us to delete yours at any time.

Data	What happens now
Chats and message records	Chat history is kept until you ask us to delete it. Completed or reviewed webhook payloads and stored replies are cleared after 90 days by a daily cleanup.
Booking drafts and exact location pins	Drafts expire after 24 hours and are removed by a daily cleanup. Exact booking pins are cleared in the daily cleanup 30 days after completion or cancellation. Older backup copies follow the backup retention below.
Driver custody photos (when driver runs are enabled)	Staff photograph bulky laundry to record its condition and handover, without including people or identity documents. Photos are stored separately from the order database with staff-only access, and removed after 30 days by the cleanup job. They are also removed when an erasure request is completed.
Customer profile	Kept until deleted
Orders, receipts, payments and loyalty points	Kept
Activity log and staff accounts	Kept; staff accounts can be switched off, not deleted
Lavo business accounts and billing	Kept; accounts can be paused, not deleted
Regular backups	A copy every 6 hours, each deleted after about 7 days
Copies made when our system starts or is updated, and copies our administrators download	The latest 3 pre-migration backups are retained. New scheduled and pre-migration production backups are encrypted. Administrators are responsible for protecting and removing any separate downloads.
Fly.io's own volume snapshots	Daily, kept 5 days by Fly.io's default
Server logs	Kept under Fly.io's rules
Customer portal sign-ins and requests	Sign-in links expire after 15 minutes and are single-use; only hashes are stored. Used or expired tokens and expired sessions are cleared daily. Closed or expired portal requests are removed after 30 days; requests awaiting staff remain until handled. Draft portal bookings expire after 24 hours.

How we keep data safe

We protect your data with technical and organisational measures:

Our website accepts only secure HTTPS connections. We back up the database every 6 hours.
Staff use their own logins. Passwords are stored only in hashed form, and repeated wrong passwords pause sign-in for 15 minutes.
Staff roles limit who can change records, and important changes are logged. Each laundry's staff see only that laundry's customers; our platform administrators are the exception.
A public tracking link shows only the shop, branch, order number and status, and expires 30 days after the order closes. New counter tickets and individual payment receipts can be sent as private WhatsApp links, available for 90 days. Anyone holding one of these links can see the order number, items, total and the recorded payment where applicable, but not your name, phone, address or account balance. Keep receipt links private. Correcting a payment or changing the recipient withdraws the affected receipt link.
Where the customer portal is enabled, account receipt pages require sign-in and mask phone numbers and payment references. Older receipt links retire 90 days after the shop's recorded portal launch. Do not forward sign-in links.
We will report a data breach to POTRAZ within 24 hours, and tell you within 72 hours if it is likely to put you at high risk. To report a security problem, email mmgconsult.africa@gmail.com.

Your rights

You have the right to:

be told what your data will be used for. This policy does that.
see the data we hold about you, including a copy of your profile, orders, payments, chats and message records.
object to us using all or part of your data, and to promotional messages, free of charge.
have false or misleading data corrected or deleted. We go further: we erase your personal data whenever you ask. See our data deletion page (/data-deletion).
not be subject to a decision made only by a computer with legal or similar effects on you. We make none about laundry customers. Lavo accounts become read-only automatically 7 days after a subscription ends.
have a parent or guardian act for you if you are under 18.

How to use your rights or complain

Email mmgconsult.africa@gmail.com, message +263 79 035 9025 on WhatsApp, or ask at the shop. We may check that the request comes from the number on your account. Asking is free. We will reply as soon as we can.

If you are unhappy, please tell us first. You can also complain to POTRAZ, the Data Protection Authority: P.O. Box MP 843, Mount Pleasant; 1110 Performance Close, Mt Pleasant Business Park, Harare; phone 0242-333032/48 or 08677333032.

Cookies

Staff sign-in uses connect.sid, which lasts 24 hours. The Lavo console uses lavo.platform.sid, which ends after 30 minutes without use and 8 hours after sign-in. Where the customer portal is enabled, __Host-lavo_c keeps customers signed in separately. Without 'Keep me signed in', it ends when the browser closes or after 12 hours. With that option, it lasts up to 30 days from use, with a 90-day maximum before a fresh sign-in. A temporary __Host-lavo_pre cookie protects the sign-in form and expires after 15 minutes. These cookies are Secure, HttpOnly and SameSite. We use no advertising or tracking cookies. Portal pages do not load analytics or cache personal pages for offline use.

Marketing messages

We do not send promotional messages at present. You can object to promotional messages at any time, free of charge (see 'Your rights').

Replying STOP on WhatsApp stops order updates and receipts. Reply START to restart them. STOP only covers messages we start; you can still message us.

Children

If you are under 18, a parent or guardian can act for you (see 'Your rights').

Changes to this policy

When our service or the law changes, we will post the new version here and change the date at the top.

Legal references

This policy follows the Cyber and Data Protection Act [Chapter 12:07] ('the Act'), Statutory Instrument 155 of 2024 ('SI 155') and the Consumer Protection Act [Chapter 14:44] ('CPA'):

Controller and processors: the Act, sections 3, 17 and 18(5). Purposes: section 9. Legal grounds: consent, implied for adults (section 10(1)-(2)); legal duty (10(3)(b)); legitimate interests (10(3)(e)).
Rights: sections 14, 15(1)(c), 25 and 26; marketing: CPA sections 49 and 54. Security and breaches: sections 18 and 19; SI 155 section 17. Transfers: sections 28 and 29. Children: SI 155 section 10(5).