Privacy Policy

Cartero is a Shopify application operated by Gocode Informática SpA ("Cartero", "we", "us"). It lets a merchant send WhatsApp messages to their own customers to recover abandoned carts and confirm orders.

This policy explains what data Cartero handles, why, who it is shared with, and how to have it deleted. It covers the Cartero app and the website at carteroapp.com.

1. Our role, and the merchant's

Two different relationships matter here:

• Merchants. For the account data of the merchant who installs Cartero, we act as the data controller.
• Shoppers. For the personal data of a merchant's own customers, the merchant is the data controller and Cartero is a data processor. We process shopper data only on the merchant's instructions, to deliver the messages that merchant has configured. We do not use shopper data for our own purposes.

If you are a shopper who received a WhatsApp message and want your data removed, the fastest route is to contact the store that messaged you. You can also write to us at privacy@carteroapp.com and we will act on it — see section 7.

2. Data we collect

Merchant and store data

Retrieved from Shopify when the app is installed:

• Store name, myshopify domain and Shopify store ID
• Store email and contact email, phone number
• Company name, country, city, timezone, currency and locale
• Shopify plan, and whether the store is a development store
• A Shopify API access token, stored encrypted

Shopper data

Retrieved from the merchant's Shopify store, limited to abandoned checkouts and orders:

• First and last name
• Phone number — this is the field the service depends on, since it is the WhatsApp destination
• Cart total and currency, and the Shopify recovery URL for the cart
• The Shopify customer and order identifiers
• Whether the shopper accepted marketing communications
• Timestamps for when the cart was created, abandoned or completed

We do not collect shopper email addresses, postal addresses, payment details, or card data. Cartero never sees payment information.

Message records

• The text of each message sent, the automation step it belonged to, and when it was sent
• Delivery and error status returned by Meta

WhatsApp connection data

• WhatsApp Business Account ID, phone number ID and the display phone number the merchant connected
• A Meta access token, stored encrypted

Website and technical data

Server logs containing IP address, user agent and requested URL, kept for operational and security purposes. We use a session cookie strictly necessary for the app to work inside the Shopify admin. We do not use advertising or analytics cookies.

3. How we use data

We do not sell personal data, and we do not use shopper data for advertising or to train machine-learning models. We do not message shoppers on our own behalf — every message is sent on behalf of, and configured by, the merchant.

4. Who we share data with

• Meta Platforms — to deliver messages through the WhatsApp Business Cloud API we transmit the shopper's phone number and the message content. Meta processes this under its own terms. The merchant's WhatsApp Business Account belongs to the merchant, and Meta bills the merchant directly for messages.
• Shopify — the source of store and cart data, and the processor of subscription billing.
• Our hosting provider — DigitalOcean, LLC, where the application and database run.
• Email providers — Namecheap, which forwards mail sent to our addresses; Google (Gmail), where our support and privacy mailboxes are kept; and Amazon Web Services (Amazon SES), which sends our replies. They only handle what is in the correspondence, such as a merchant's contact details or the phone number a shopper includes in a deletion request.
• Legal requirements — where we are required by law to disclose data, or to protect our rights or the safety of others.

We use no other third-party processors, and we do not share data with advertising networks or data brokers.

5. Legal bases

Where the GDPR applies, we rely on: performance of a contract, for merchant account data; legitimate interests, for security and service operation; and, for shopper data, the legal basis established by the merchant as controller — typically consent for marketing messages, or contract performance for transactional order confirmations. It is the merchant's responsibility to hold a valid legal basis for messaging their customers (see our Terms of Service).

6. Retention

We keep personal data only as long as it is useful for the purpose it was collected for. Concretely:

• Identifying shopper data — name, phone number, Shopify customer ID and cart recovery URL are erased 90 days after the cart was created. A cart has no recovery value long before that: our attribution window is 72 hours and message sequences run over a few days.
• Anonymous cart statistics — once a cart has been stripped of the fields above it is no longer personal data, and we keep the amount and the dates so merchants can see their recovery history over time.
• Message records — the text of each message is erased on the same 90-day schedule, since it contains the shopper's name.
• Store and merchant account data — erased when we receive Shopify's shop/redact webhook, which Shopify sends 48 hours after a merchant uninstalls the app.
• Access tokens — deleted immediately on uninstall, or when the merchant disconnects their WhatsApp account.
• Server logs — retained for up to 90 days.

An earlier deletion request under section 7 overrides all of the above.

7. Your rights, and how to delete data

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, export, restrict or delete your personal data, to object to processing, and to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority.

Merchants. Uninstalling Cartero from your Shopify admin starts deletion of your store's data. To request access or immediate deletion, write to privacy@carteroapp.com.

Shoppers. Contact the store that messaged you, or write to privacy@carteroapp.com naming the store and the phone number that received the message. We honour Shopify's mandatory privacy webhooks (customers/data_request, customers/redact and shop/redact), so a request made through the merchant's Shopify admin reaches us automatically.

We respond to requests within 30 days.

8. Security

All traffic is encrypted in transit with TLS. Shopify and Meta access tokens are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM, using a key held outside the database. Every database query in Cartero is scoped to a single store, so one merchant cannot read another merchant's data. Access to production systems is restricted to personnel who need it.

No system is perfectly secure. If we become aware of a breach affecting personal data, we will notify affected merchants and the relevant authorities as required by law.

9. International transfers

Our servers are located in New York, United States (DigitalOcean, NYC1 region). Meta, Shopify and our email providers may process data in other countries under their own transfer mechanisms. Where the GDPR applies, transfers rely on Standard Contractual Clauses or an adequacy decision.

10. Children

Cartero is a business tool and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 16.

11. Changes

We may update this policy. Material changes will be announced in the app and the date above will be updated. Continuing to use Cartero after a change means you accept the revised policy.

12. Contact

Gocode Informática SpA
privacy@carteroapp.com