Privacy policy
What Shellati is
Shellati is a record-keeping app for money pooling between people who know each other: rotating savings circles (gam'eya), one-off pools and help cases. Shellati never holds, moves, lends or processes money. Members pay each other directly, outside the app, and record what happened.
What we collect
| Data | Why | Who can see it |
|---|---|---|
| Phone number (verified once by code) | Your identity in the app; one account per person | Members of circles you are in |
| Name, nickname, photo, city, job, country and language | So people who invite or vouch for you can recognise you | Members of circles you are in or are being invited to |
| Email (if you sign in with email or a Google / Microsoft / Apple / Facebook account) | Sign-in and account recovery | Nobody else |
| Circles, pledges, "paid" and "received" entries, contracts, signatures, decisions | The record of what the circle agreed and did | Members of that circle |
| Reputation (commitments honoured, late, unpaid, guarantees) | So circles can decide whom to trust | Circles you are in or are invited to |
| Circle chat messages | Communication within the circle, kept as part of the record | Approved members of that circle |
| Payment screenshots you attach | Proof for the person confirming receipt | Members of that circle, for 90 days |
| Device push token | Reminders and notifications | Nobody else |
We do not collect your contacts, your location, or anything from other apps. We do not read your messages outside Shellati. There are no advertising trackers.
Amounts
In a gam'eya every member pays the same amount, so it is visible to the circle. In pools and help cases the amount you pledge is visible only to you and the organizer; other members see your name, whether you have paid, and the total.
The record and evidence
The contract, the ledger of entries and the circle chat are kept in a form that cannot be edited after the fact (each entry is chained to the previous one). By joining a circle you agree that this record, including the chat, may be used as evidence between members if there is a dispute. Members can export it. We release it to anyone else only under a valid legal order, and then only the contract and the ledger.
How long we keep things
- Contract, ledger and chat: five years after the circle closes, then deleted.
- Payment screenshots: 90 days after the payment is confirmed, then deleted.
- Your profile and reputation: as long as your account exists.
- If you delete your account, your profile is removed. Entries in circles you were part of stay in those circles' records, under your name, because they are the other members' record too.
Where it is stored
On Supabase infrastructure in Frankfurt, Germany, encrypted in transit and at rest. Notifications are delivered through Expo's push service and, for sign-in codes, an SMS provider. These providers process data on our behalf and are not permitted to use it for anything else.
Your rights
You can see and correct your profile in the app, export the record of any circle you are in, and delete your account from Settings. You can ask us to confirm what we hold about you, to correct it, or to delete what we are not required to keep. Write to privacy@shellati.com. If you are in Egypt, the Personal Data Protection Law (151/2020) applies; if you are in the European Union, the GDPR applies; residents of other places have the rights their law gives them, and we honour the same requests everywhere.
Children
Shellati is for adults. We do not knowingly create accounts for anyone under 18.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that matters, the app tells you before the change applies.