Vamo Privacy Policy

Effective date: 1 October 2026 · Last updated: 21 October 2026

Who we are

Vamo is a mobile app for booking water taxis, tours, package delivery and food delivery in Bocas del Toro, Panama. It has passenger, captain and restaurant modes. Vamo is operated by Jesse Stephens, the developer of Vamo, based in Bocas del Toro, Panama ("we", "us"). If you have questions about this policy or your data, contact us at support@usavamo.com.

Information we collect

• Account information: your email address, a password (we never see or store your actual password — our authentication provider stores only a hash of it), your first and last name, and your preferred language.
• Phone number (optional): stored separately from your public profile. We only show it to the other party in a booking — the passenger or the captain, for example — while a trip or order is active, so they can reach you.
• Profile photo (optional): a photo you take with your camera or choose from your photo library, stored in our file storage. You can remove it at any time from your profile.
• Location: If you are a passenger, we collect location only while the app is open and in use, to set your pickup point and show you nearby docks and places. If you are a captain, we also collect your boat's position while the app is in the background, but only while you are online or on a trip: your phone shows that this is happening (a blue indicator on iPhone, a persistent notification on Android), and it stops the moment you go offline or finish the trip. If you are a captain, while you are online and free to take a ride, an approximate position for your boat (rounded to an area about 150 metres across) is shown on the map as an available boat to nearby people signed in to Vamo; your exact live position is shared only with the passenger of a trip you have accepted (or the customer whose order you are delivering), so they can see you approaching, and with Vamo operations; we store recent positions briefly to run the service, then discard them.
• Diagnostics: if the app crashes or hits an error, it sends a crash report to Sentry (Functional Software, Inc.), a processor we use to find and fix bugs. A report contains the device model, operating system and app version, what the app was doing, a technical trace, and your user ID so we can look into your case. It never contains your location, messages, phone number or payment details. You can switch crash reports off in Settings at any time.
• Trips, bookings and orders: pickup and destination points, times, prices and price offers, the identity of the other party to the booking, ratings you give and receive, in-app messages between passenger and captain, routes you save, and any emergency contacts you add on the Safety screen.
• Verification documents and payout details (captains and couriers only): photos or PDFs of your ID, licences and other papers, a selfie, and how you want to be paid. See "Verification documents and payout details" below.
• Notifications (optional): if you allow notifications, we store a push token for your device (an identifier Apple or Google issues for the Vamo app on that device, used only to deliver notifications to it), the device platform (iOS or Android), the language the app is showing, the app version, and when the app last checked in. We also keep a short history of the notifications we send (the type of event, plus small details such as names, place names, prices and order codes — never phone numbers, addresses, message text or documents) for 7 days, then delete it.
• Technical information: we do not use analytics or advertising SDKs. On Android, Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging delivers notifications; it is a delivery service only, and we do not use Google Analytics or any other part of Firebase. On iPhone, notifications go through Apple's push notification service, with no third-party SDK. Our hosting providers keep standard server logs, such as your IP address and request timestamps. Map tiles are loaded from OpenFreeMap, which — like any web server — sees your IP address when it serves a tile.

Verification documents and payout details

This section applies only if you work on Vamo as a captain or courier. Passengers are never asked for any of it.

• Verification documents: to confirm who you are and that you may legally do the job, we ask you to upload photos or PDFs of your government ID (cédula or passport, plus your residency or work permit if you are a foreigner), a selfie taken with your camera at that moment (it cannot be chosen from your photo library), and the papers for your role. Captains: your boat captain's licence, your boat's navigation licence showing its hull number, the national safety certificate, a photo of your boat with the hull number visible, and, optionally, liability insurance and a police record. Couriers: your MINSA food-handling card and, optionally, your driving licence and vehicle registration.
• Review details: with each document we keep its type, its review status (pending, approved, rejected or expired), the document or licence number, the issue and expiry dates, and any note from the reviewer explaining a rejection. Documents expire and must be renewed; we send you a reminder notification about 14 days before an approved document expires.
• Payout details: to pay you the money Vamo owes you, we store how you want to be paid: either a Yappy phone number, or bank transfer details (bank name, account type, account number, the account holder's name and the holder's ID number). Payouts are sent outside the app, by Yappy or bank transfer; the app only stores the details you give us.

Who can see them: documents are kept in private file storage with no public link, and can be opened only by you and by the Vamo administrators who review them, through short-lived links. Payout details are stored apart from your public profile and can be read only by you and by Vamo administrators. Other people, including passengers, restaurants and other captains, never see either. We use documents only to verify you and keep the service safe, and payout details only to pay you; we do not sell them or use them for anything else. Photos are re-saved without hidden metadata, such as the GPS location where a photo was taken. Files must be JPEG or PDF and no larger than 5 MB.

If you delete your account, we delete your verification documents (the files and their records) and your payout details. We keep the records of money Vamo paid you, in anonymized form, for accounting and legal reasons. We cannot delete an account while Vamo still owes you a payout, so that we can pay you first, or while you have a trip or order in progress; the app tells you if that is the case.

How we use your information

We use your information to run the service: matching passengers with captains, restaurants and drivers, calculating prices, and letting both sides of a trip or order communicate and find each other. We also use it for safety and fraud prevention, to provide customer support, and to meet our legal obligations. We do not sell your personal data, and Vamo does not show ads.

If you allow them, we send notifications about your own activity in Vamo: trip status and price offers, new messages (the notification says who wrote, never what they wrote), order and booking status, new ride, package and delivery requests while you are online as a captain or courier, new orders for restaurant staff, results of document reviews and verification changes, payouts, reminders (such as an upcoming tour or an expiring document), a notice if you are set offline after a long time without opening the app, and a test notification when you ask for one. We never send marketing notifications. Notifications are optional: the app works without them, you can switch each kind off in Settings > Notifications, and you can turn them off completely in your phone's settings.

Who we share it with

• The other party to your trip or order: they see your first name, your photo, your rating, and — during an active trip — your live location (if you are a captain, and the passenger may also pass it on by link, see the next point) and your phone number (both sides).
• People you choose to share a trip with: as a passenger you can create a link to a taxi or package trip and send it to anyone. Whoever opens it sees the trip's route, your captain's first name and boat name, the boat's live position while the trip is under way, and whether the trip has ended. The link needs no account, so share it only with people you trust. It stops working one hour after the trip ends, and it never shows your name, your phone number or the price.
• Package recipients: if you send a package, the recipient's name and phone number and any note you add are shown only to you, to the captain who accepts the package (from then until 24 hours after the trip is completed or cancelled), and to Vamo operations. Other captains never see them.
• Other people signed in to Vamo: while a captain is online and free, an approximate position for their boat (rounded to an area about 150 metres across) is shown on the map as an available boat, so nearby passengers can see boats around them. The exact position is never shown to them.
• Service providers who act on our behalf: Supabase, which hosts our database, authentication and file storage; Resend, which sends account emails such as password resets; OpenFreeMap, which supplies map tiles; Sentry, which receives crash reports; Cloudflare, which hosts our website, controls access to our admin dashboard and routes email sent to support@usavamo.com; and Apple and Google, for app distribution and for delivering notifications (Apple's push notification service on iPhone, Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging on Android). To deliver a notification, Apple or Google receives your device's push token and the notification text.
• Authorities, when required by law.

Payments

Vamo does not currently process payments in the app. If we add in-app payments, they will be handled by a licensed payment provider, and Vamo will never store your card number. We will update this policy before that happens.

Retention and deletion

We keep your data while your account is active. Settings > "Delete my account" removes your name, phone number and photo, deletes your photo files, deletes your verification documents and payout details if you are a captain or courier, deletes your device push tokens and notification settings, and marks your profile deleted. Trip and order records are kept in anonymized form for accounting and legal reasons. A device's push token is also deleted when you sign out on that device, or when Apple or Google reports that the token no longer works (for example, because the app was removed). Notification history is deleted after 7 days. To request that we erase anything remaining, email support@usavamo.com.

Your rights

You can access, correct, delete or export your data, and you can withdraw location, camera, photo-library and notification permissions at any time in your phone's settings. Panama's Law 81 of 2019 on Personal Data Protection applies to Vamo. If you live elsewhere, we honor the equivalent rights under your local law.

Children

Vamo is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their information.

Security

All traffic between the app and our servers is encrypted (HTTPS). Database access is restricted per user with row-level security, and passwords are stored only as hashes.

Changes

If we change this policy, we will post the update here with a new effective date.