The short version. We collect what we need to get you on the bus and into the bed: your name, your phone number, and — for cross-border journeys only — your nationality and identity document, because immigration requires it. We show the bus's position, never yours. We do not sell your information, we run no advertising trackers, and you can ask for a copy or ask us to delete it.
1. Who is responsible
EAGO Uganda Ltd is the data controller for bookings sold in Uganda, and EAGO Rwanda Ltd for bookings sold in Rwanda. This policy covers eastafricago.com, the EAGO app, and bookings made through an EAGO agent or counter.
We handle personal data under Uganda's Data Protection and Privacy Act 2019 and, in Rwanda, Law No. 058/2021 on the protection of personal data and privacy.
2. What we collect
| What | When |
|---|---|
| Name and phone number | Every booking. The phone number is how we send your ticket and reach you if the bus changes. |
| Email address | Only if you give one, to send the ticket by email. |
| Name of each traveller or guest | Where a booking covers more than one person. |
| Nationality, document type and document number | Cross-border journeys only. Immigration at Katuna/Gatuna requires a manifest naming every passenger and their document. |
| Date of birth | Only where an operator or immigration requires it for a particular journey. |
| Booking details | Route, date, seats, luggage, boarding and drop-off points, stay dates and guests, and any note you add. |
| Payment details | The network (MTN or Airtel), the merchant code you paid, the transaction ID, and the amount. We never see or store a PIN, and we do not store card numbers. |
| Names and phone numbers you add for family updates | Only those you enter yourself. |
| Messages you send us | Support chats, complaints, and feedback or ratings after a trip. |
| Technical information | Your IP address and browser type in server logs, kept to keep the service running and secure. |
We do not ask for, and do not want, information about your health, religion, politics or anything similar. Please do not put such details in a free-text note.
3. Why, and on what basis
- To perform the contract with you — taking the booking, taking payment, issuing the ticket, getting you on the bus or into the property, handling cancellations and refunds.
- To comply with the law — the border manifest, tax and accounting records, and responding to a lawful request from an authority.
- Our legitimate interests — preventing fraud and payment abuse, keeping the service secure, investigating complaints, and improving the service using aggregated figures.
- Your consent — where you choose to share a tracking link, add family numbers, or opt into anything optional. You can withdraw consent at any time.
Giving your name, phone number and, for cross-border travel, your document details is necessary to make a booking. Without them we cannot sell you the journey.
4. Who else sees it
We do not sell personal data, and we do not share it for advertising. We share only what each of these needs:
| Who | What they get, and why |
|---|---|
| The transport operator | The passenger manifest for your journey: names, seat numbers, and — on cross-border runs — nationality and document details. They need it to carry you and to clear the border. |
| Immigration authorities | The manifest at the border crossing, as the law requires. |
| Your host | For a stay: your name, the dates, the number of guests, and your phone number, once the booking is paid, so they can let you in. |
| Partner portals (makaug.com, turebe.com) | Where you book a room listed by a partner, we send them the booking: name, phone, email, dates, guests and amount — so the room is not sold twice. |
| Mobile Money networks (MTN, Airtel) | They process the payment. We receive the transaction reference; they hold the payment record. |
| Messaging providers | WhatsApp (Meta Platforms) and our SMS provider deliver your ticket and trip updates. They receive your phone number and the message. |
| Email provider | If you give an email address, our email provider delivers the ticket to it. |
| OpenFreeMap | The live map is drawn in your browser from OpenStreetMap data, served by OpenFreeMap. They receive the tile request as they would for any embedded map, and the map shows their copyright line. A deployment may instead use Google Maps, or another tile host named in its configuration. We do not send this traffic to the public OpenStreetMap tile server. |
| Anthropic | Only if you use the in-app chat assistant, and only the text of that conversation plus your booking context. It is not used to train models. If this feature is switched off, nothing is sent. |
| Hosting and database | Our hosting provider stores the application and database on our behalf. |
| Food vendors and transfer drivers | Only where you place an order or book a transfer: your first name, the order, and a contact number. |
| Authorities, insurers and advisers | Where the law requires it, to establish or defend a legal claim, or to handle an insurance claim you have made. |
If EAGO is ever sold or merged, booking data may transfer with the business. You would be told, and this policy would continue to apply until replaced by one no less protective.
5. Location and tracking
This is the part people most often ask about, so plainly:
- The map shows the bus. The position comes from a tracker on the vehicle, a phone the crew carry for that trip, or — only if a boarded passenger agrees — that passenger's phone while the trip is running. Those passenger points are combined into one bus position, used only for that trip, and deleted when the trip ends.
- The app asks before it uses your phone's location. You can stop sharing at any time. Closing the page stops it too. We do not collect your location for anything else.
- If you are a driver or conductor using the crew tracking page, that page reports that vehicle's position while you have it open, and you can stop it at any time by closing the page or pressing stop.
- A tracking link you share shows the vehicle's position, the route and your first name to anyone who holds it. You control who gets it, and you can change who receives updates from your booking page.
6. Messages we send
We send you booking confirmations, payment confirmations, departure reminders, changes and cancellations, and — if you ask — trip updates to family numbers you have given. These are service messages about a booking you made, not marketing.
We do not send marketing without your consent. If we ever do, every message will carry a way to stop them.
By giving us a family member's number you confirm you have their agreement to receive updates about your trip. Anyone can ask us to stop messaging them.
7. Cookies
EAGO uses cookies only to keep you signed in and to remember your choices. There are no advertising cookies, no analytics trackers and no third-party tracking scripts on our site or in our app — which is why you are not being asked to dismiss a cookie banner.
- A sign-in cookie, so you stay signed in — 90 days for travellers, 14 days for staff. It is HttpOnly and cannot be read by scripts.
- Local storage on your own device for your language, recent bookings and a cached copy of your ticket so it opens offline. This stays on your device. Account has “Forget my saved details”, which clears that copy from this phone. Cached tickets are dropped 30 days after the bus arrives. A document number is kept on the phone only if you tick “Remember my document on this phone”.
8. How long we keep it
- Bookings, payments and tickets — seven years, as tax and accounting law requires.
- Border manifest details (nationality and document number) — kept with the booking for as long as the law requires, then deleted from records we no longer need.
- Tracking positions — 90 days, then deleted. Aggregate timing data with no personal details may be kept longer to improve estimates.
- Messages — the text is removed after 90 days. The delivery record (that a message was sent, and whether it went) is deleted after two years.
- Support conversations — two years, then deleted.
- Sign-in codes and sessions — deleted once they have expired.
- Server logs — request logs stay with the host that runs the app. They are not copied into the booking database, and this policy does not set a separate deletion date for them.
- Family contact numbers — deleted when you remove them, or with the booking.
9. Your rights
You can ask us to:
- Show you what we hold about you, and give you a copy.
- Correct anything wrong — a misspelled name, a wrong number.
- Delete what we hold, where we are not required to keep it. We must keep payment and tax records for seven years, and we will tell you what we have kept and why.
- Stop or restrict a particular use, or withdraw consent you gave.
- Object to a use we base on our legitimate interests.
- Receive the information you gave us in a portable form.
Email privacy@eastafricago.com with your booking number or the phone number you booked with. We answer within 30 days, free of charge. We may ask you to confirm your identity first — usually a code to the number on the booking — so that nobody else can get your details by asking.
To ask EAGO to delete your account, use Delete your EAGO account. The page lists the steps, takes the booking reference and the phone number on the booking, and says what is removed and what is kept.
10. Security
Traffic to EAGO is encrypted in transit. Passwords are stored hashed, never in plain text. Access to booking data in the back office is limited by role, and every change a member of staff makes is recorded in an audit log. Booking links use long random tokens that cannot be guessed, and identity document numbers are masked on tickets and manifests except where immigration requires them in full.
No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your personal data we will tell you and the relevant regulator as the law requires.
11. Children
EAGO is not intended for use by anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly create accounts for them. A child may travel on a booking made by a responsible adult, in which case we hold the child's name — and, for a cross-border journey, their document details — as part of that booking. If you believe a child has given us information directly, contact us and we will delete it.
12. Sending data abroad
Some of the providers above are outside Uganda and Rwanda, so your data may be processed abroad — our hosting is in the European Union, and our messaging and email providers operate internationally. Where that happens we rely on contractual protections with each provider and take reasonable steps to ensure a comparable standard of protection.
13. Changes
We may update this policy. The date of the last change is at the top. If a change materially affects how we use your information, we will tell you before it takes effect.
14. Contact and complaints
Privacy questions and requests: privacy@eastafricago.com. Everything else: support@eastafricago.com.
If you are not satisfied with our answer, you may complain to the Personal Data Protection Office in Uganda, or to the National Cyber Security Authority in Rwanda.