Privacy Policy

1Introduction

AniSense is an Android app developed as an academic research project, “Mobile-Based Crop Market Monitoring System Using Predictive Analytics for Local Farmers”, by Bachelor of Science in Computer Science students of the University of the East – Manila, College of Computer Studies and Systems: Oliver Baldeo, Marc Nathaniel Bawalan, John Ruzly Macatula, Ivan Ronan Pestañas and Christian Addison Tiburcio.

It helps farmers and buyers in Nueva Ecija follow crop prices, see where prices may go, keep track of farm expenses and sales, and buy and sell crops directly. The study focuses on four crops: rice, garlic, onion and calamansi. The app also gives weather forecasts and farming advisories.

This Privacy Policy explains what information AniSense collects, why, who can see it, where it is kept and for how long, and how you can see, correct or delete it.

We follow the Philippine Data Privacy Act of 2012 (Republic Act No. 10173), its Implementing Rules and Regulations, the issuances of the National Privacy Commission, and Google Play's policies.

Application: AniSense. Developer: AniSense Research Team, University of the East – Manila, College of Computer Studies and Systems. Privacy contact: Ruzly Macatula, Manila, Philippines. Email: AniSense2026@gmail.com.

2Scope of This Privacy Policy

This policy covers the AniSense Android app, the servers and services behind it, and the AniSense website, including its account deletion page.

Survey questionnaires and other information collected for the academic research are handled separately, as described in Section 12.

3Information We Collect

What we collect depends on the features you use. Some of it you give us; some is created as you use the app.

3.1 Your account and profile

• Your full name, and whether you are a farmer or a buyer.
• Your Gmail address or mobile number, and a password. The password is stored scrambled; nobody at AniSense can read it.
• Where you are: for a farmer, the barangay and town of the farm; for a buyer, the province and city or town, and the barangay if you choose to give it.
• For farmers: how many years you have farmed, the crops you grow, and the number buyers can call.
• A profile photo, if you add one. It appears on your Profile and your member ID.
• Your member number, which AniSense gives every account.

3.2 Listings, orders, reports and blocks

• Listings a farmer posts: the crop, a description, the price per kilo, the quantity, the place and a photo.
• Orders: what was bought, how much and at what price, between which buyer and farmer, the amounts agreed and paid as the farmer records them, and the rating the buyer gave.
• Reports: when you report a listing or a farmer, who sent the report, what it is about, the reason chosen, any words added, and when. When the AniSense team acts on it, what was done (the listing removed, the account put on hold, or the report dismissed), by which team member, and when.
• Blocks: the farmers you have blocked, and when.

3.3 Farm records

A farmer can keep expenses (seeds, fertilizer, labor, equipment, irrigation and others), sales, plantings, price alerts and expected harvests. They are used to work out costs, profit and reminders, and they are private: see Section 7. Please do not write personal details about other people in description boxes.

3.4 Sign-in codes

When you create an account or reset your password, we send a 6-digit code to your Gmail or mobile number. We keep your Gmail address or number with a scrambled copy of the code, and count how many codes were sent and how many wrong tries were made, so that nobody can guess a code. The record is deleted once the code has been used. An unused code stops working after 10 minutes.

3.5 Location

We do not use GPS or your phone's location. Your location is the barangay, town, city or province you pick from a list. The town on a listing can be seen by other users. If a future version ever uses your phone's location, we will say so here and ask your permission first.

3.6 Technical information

Like any online service, our servers and our website host keep short logs of requests, such as your internet address and the time, to keep the service working and safe. The app has no analytics, advertising or crash-reporting tools, and collects no advertising or device identifiers.

3.7 What stays on your phone

• Your language choice.
• A saved copy of prices, forecasts and your records, so the app works without signal. It stays on the phone until you delete your account or remove the app, and it is never copied into the phone's backups or moved to a new phone, your sign-in included.

3.8 What we do not collect

• Your GPS location, contacts, text messages or call history.
• Any photos other than the ones you choose for a listing or your profile.
• Payment details. No payment is made in the app; the buyer and the farmer arrange it themselves.

4How We Use Information

We use your information only to run AniSense:

• To create your account, sign you in and keep it secure, including sending sign-in codes.
• To show crop prices, their history, forecasts and your price alerts.
• To give sell-or-wait advice for the crops you grow.
• To let farmers post listings, and buyers find them, order and call the farmer.
• To keep a farmer's expenses, sales and plantings, and work out costs and profit.
• To show the weather and farming advisories for a farmer's town.
• To show sellers' ratings, and feature the best-rated farmers to buyers.
• To keep the marketplace safe: to review reports, remove listings and put on hold accounts that break the Terms of Service, and hide blocked farmers from the person who blocked them.
• To answer your messages and requests, fix problems, and keep AniSense working.
• To meet our legal obligations.

We do not use your information for advertising. We will not use it for a different purpose without telling you first and, where the law requires it, asking for your consent.

5Legal Basis for Processing

We process personal information only when the Data Privacy Act of 2012 allows it:

• To provide the service you signed up for: your account, listings, orders and records.
• With your consent, for anything optional, such as a profile photo.
• For legitimate interests that do not override your rights, such as keeping the service secure, stopping misuse of sign-in codes, and acting on reports to keep the marketplace safe.
• To comply with the law.

Where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time. This does not affect what was done before you withdrew it.

We collect only what is adequate, relevant and necessary for these purposes.

6Data Storage and Retention

Your information is kept on the servers of Supabase, our hosting provider, in Singapore, which is outside the Philippines. Supabase keeps it under its data processing terms and only to run AniSense.

How long we keep it:

• Your account, profile, listings, orders and farm records: for as long as you have an account. When you delete it, they go as described in Section 10.
• Copies in routine backups: removed within 30 days of being deleted.
• Sign-in codes: deleted once used. An unused code stops working after 10 minutes.
• Blocks: until you unblock the farmer, or either account is deleted.
• Reports, and what was done about them: kept so the team can recognize repeated problems. When the person who sent a report, or the person it is about, deletes their account, the report stays without that account linked to it.
• Server and website logs: kept by our providers for a short time, days rather than months.
• The copy on your phone: as described in Section 3.7.

Prices saved on your phone may be out of date while you have no signal; the app shows when they were last updated.

7Data Sharing and Disclosure

We do not sell or rent your information to anyone.

7.1 Other AniSense users

• A farmer's name, profile photo, town, years of farming, crops, rating, phone number and listings can be seen by anyone signed in. That is how buyers find and call farmers.
• A buyer's name, profile photo, phone number and location can be seen only by the farmers that buyer has ordered from.
• Expenses, sales records, plantings, price alerts and expected harvests are never shown to other users.
• Reports and blocks are never shown to other users. A farmer is not told who reported or blocked them.
• Nothing can be seen without signing in, photos included. A listing or profile photo is shown only to someone signed in who may see that listing or profile, through a link that stops working after a few hours.

7.2 The AniSense team

A small number of authorized team members run AniSense from an administrator website. To keep the marketplace safe and help members, they can see members' names, roles, member numbers, locations, Gmail addresses and phone numbers, profile photos, when accounts were made and last signed in, listings, orders and ratings. Of a farmer's records they see only how many there are and their totals, never the entries. They also see the reports members send, as described in Section 3.2, so they can act on them; they do not see who has blocked whom. Administrator accounts are kept apart from member accounts and cannot be used in the app.

7.3 Service providers

Companies that help us run AniSense, each only for its own task:

• Supabase: the database, sign-in and photo storage, on servers in Singapore.
• Brevo: sends our emails. When you sign up or reset your password with Gmail, your Gmail address is sent to it only to deliver your code.
• Semaphore, an SMS provider in the Philippines: when text-message codes are switched on, your mobile number is sent to it only to deliver your code.
• Open-Meteo: the weather forecast, as described in Section 11.
• Google Fonts: the typefaces in the app and on our website. Like any internet request, this shows Google your internet address.
• Vercel: hosts our website.

7.4 Agricultural data sources

Market prices come from sources identified in the research, including the Department of Agriculture, the PhilRice Data Analytics Center, RiceLyTics and the Philippine Statistics Authority. Information comes from them to AniSense; your personal information is never sent to them.

7.5 When the law requires it

We disclose information to the authorities only when the law requires it or on a valid and lawful order, and then only what is required.

8Security Measures

We protect your information with organizational, physical and technical measures, including:

• Encrypted connections only. The app refuses unencrypted connections and trusts only the security certificates built into Android, and our website accepts HTTPS only.
• Rules inside the database that decide who can see what, so they hold even if the app is tampered with. Photos follow the same rules: they are kept private and shown only through links that expire.
• Passwords and sign-in codes stored scrambled, with limits on how many codes can be sent and how many wrong tries are allowed.
• Changing your password signs your account out on your other phones.
• Administrator access only for authorized team members, on separate accounts.
• Backups kept by our hosting provider.

No system is perfectly safe. If a breach puts your information at risk, we will tell you and the National Privacy Commission as the law requires.

9User Rights and Choices

Under the Data Privacy Act, and subject to its conditions, you have the right to:

• Be informed about how your personal information is processed.
• Access your personal information.
• Have wrong or incomplete information corrected.
• Object to certain processing.
• Have information blocked, erased or destroyed where the law allows.
• Withdraw your consent where consent is the basis.
• Receive your information in a portable form where this applies.
• File a complaint with the National Privacy Commission.
• Seek the remedies Philippine law provides.

Most of your profile can be corrected in the app, in Profile, and a farmer can edit or delete records where they are kept. For anything else, write to AniSense2026@gmail.com. We may ask you to confirm the account is yours first, and we will answer within 30 days.

10Account Deletion

In the app, go to Profile and, under Manage account, tap “Delete my account”. Without the app, use the account deletion page on our website, anisense.site/delete-account, or write to AniSense2026@gmail.com.

What happens when you delete your account:

• Your profile, profile photo, listings and their photos, farm records and blocks are deleted right away.
• Orders stay in the other person's history, because they are that person's record of the sale too, but with your name removed.
• Reports you sent, and reports about you, stay with the AniSense team without your account linked to them.
• The copy kept on your phone is cleared.
• Copies in routine backups are removed within 30 days.

11Weather Services and Other External Integrations

AniSense uses Open-Meteo (open-meteo.com) for weather forecasts. To find a farmer's town on the map, the app sends Open-Meteo the town's name, then that town's map coordinates to get the forecast. Buyers see the weather for Nueva Ecija. Your name, number and account are never sent. Like any internet request, this shows Open-Meteo your internet address.

The other services AniSense uses are listed in Section 7.3. If we add another, this policy will be updated first.

12Academic Research and Survey Data

AniSense was developed as part of an academic research project. Questionnaires and respondent information collected to evaluate the system are separate from the information the app handles.

The study uses online Google Forms questionnaires, and paper questionnaires for participants who need another way. Responses may cover agricultural market practices, digital literacy, how easy the app is to use, and its perceived impact.

The research team will:

• Obtain informed consent before collecting survey responses.
• Make participation voluntary.
• Allow participants to skip questions or withdraw from the study, following the research procedures.
• Limit access to research records to authorized research team members.
• Store digital research records in a password-protected Google Drive account with restricted access.
• Store paper questionnaires securely until they are processed and disposed of.
• Remove or code personal identifiers where appropriate.
• Report results in aggregate form where possible.
• Keep and dispose of research records according to institutional and ethical requirements.

Research information is used only for the approved academic research and is not added to the app's user database.

Requests about research participant records may be sent to the research team using the contact information in Section 15.

13Predictive Analytics and Farming Advisories

AniSense forecasts prices with two models trained on monthly retail prices since 2021: ARIMA looks three months ahead and gives the sell-or-wait advice, and LSTM looks twelve months ahead and draws the price charts. The app shows how far off each one was when tested, and gives no advice when that is more than 20%.

Forecasts are made from market data only, never from your personal information.

Actual prices may differ because of changes in supply, demand, weather, government policies and other market conditions. AniSense does not guarantee future crop prices, profits or harvests. Consider local conditions and use your own judgment before deciding when to sell, plant or harvest.

14Children's Privacy

AniSense is for adults. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you believe a child has created an account, write to us and we will delete it.

15Contact Information

For privacy questions, requests to see or correct your information, account deletion, research participant requests, or any other concern about your personal information, contact:

• Application: AniSense.
• Developer: AniSense Research Team (Oliver Baldeo, Marc Nathaniel Bawalan, John Ruzly Macatula, Ivan Ronan Pestañas and Christian Addison Tiburcio).
• Institution: University of the East – Manila, College of Computer Studies and Systems.
• Privacy contact and app operator: Ruzly Macatula, Manila, Philippines.
• Email: AniSense2026@gmail.com.
• Website: anisense.site.

For more about the Philippine Data Privacy Act, visit the National Privacy Commission at privacy.gov.ph.

16Changes to This Privacy Policy

We will update this policy when AniSense's features, the information it handles, its service providers or the law change. Each new version carries a new date, here and in the app.

If we change what we collect or how we use it, we will tell you in the app before the change takes effect, as the law and Google Play's policies require.

17Acknowledgment

By using AniSense, you acknowledge that this Privacy Policy has been made available to you.

Where a particular use of your information needs your separate consent, the app will ask for it first.

You may choose not to give optional information, although some features may not work without the information they need.