PRIVACY NOTICE

1. Introduction

Data Science Nigeria ("African Voice", "We", "Us" or "Our") is the operator of Africanvoice.io, through the generous contributions of The Gates Foundation, including any application, online platform, website, mobile or tablet application, cloud infrastructure, or digital environment used to provide our services (the "Platform").

African Voice provides a secure, scalable and inclusive data hosting and management solutions platform for organisations and individuals (the "Services").

This Privacy Notice describes how we collect, use, store, protect, and share your personal data when you access or use our Platform. Your privacy, security, and digital rights are important to us, and we are committed to protecting your information in line with best practices and applicable laws.

2. Personal Data That We Collect and Process

Personal data means any information about an individual from which that person can be directly or indirectly identified. While using the Platform, we may ask you to provide us with certain personal data directly to contact or identify you, and some automatically for our application to function effectively. We also collect personal data through your use of our services, individuals, entities or from third-party sources. The personal data we obtain include but are not limited to:

• Contact Information: name, email address, phone number, business or home address
• User Profile Information: preferred language, accessibility preferences, organisation or workspace details, authentication methods
• Technical and Device Information: IP address, Browser type and version, Device identifiers, Operating system, Login and security logs
• Usage and Activity Data: Access logs, Timestamps, Feature usage metrics, File access and sharing records
• Geolocation Information (where enabled)
• Financial and Billing Information: Payment methods, Billing history, Transaction records
• Communications: Chat logs, Email correspondence
• Data stored, uploaded, hosted, or processed via the Platform

3. Cookies

We currently do not use cookies on our Platform. If we decide to implement cookies or similar tracking technologies, we will provide a clear and accessible Cookie Notice and obtain consent where required.

4. Purpose and lawful basis for processing your data

We collect your data:

We may process your data for additional purposes where required by law or based on your explicit consent.

5. Your rights as a data subject

As a data subject, the law vests you with certain rights—they include the right to:

• • access personal data we hold about you by requesting a copy of the personal data we hold about you;
• • rectify such information where you believe it to be inaccurate;
• • restrict the processing of your data in certain circumstances;
• • object to the processing of your data where we intend to process such data for marketing purposes;
• • not to be subject to a decision solely based on automatic processing of data except as allowed under the relevant law;
• • where feasible, receive all personal data you have provided to us—in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format—and transmit the information to another data controller;
• • request the erasure of your data (also known as the right to be forgotten);
• • withdraw your consent to the processing of your personal data; and
• • lodge a complaint with a relevant authority, where you have reason to believe that we have violated the term(s) of this Privacy Notice. (You may complain or seek redress from us within 30 days from the time you first detected the alleged violation).

You may seek to exercise any of the above rights at any time by sending us an email at: contact@africanvoices.io or support@africanvoices.io

The regulatory authority is the Nigeria Data Protection Commission and complaints can be sent via email at dpo@ndpc.gov.ng

6. Who We Share Your Data With

We may share personal data with:

• • Subsidiaries, affiliates or authorized partners who support service delivery.
• • Cloud infrastructure providers, data centers, and security vendors.
• • Payment processors and financial service providers.
• • Third-party integration partners (e.g., APIs, analytics, enterprise tools).
• • Google: because we use various Google APIs and services on our application/website.
• • Legal and Regulatory Authority – We disclose your data if we believe it is reasonably necessary to comply with a law, regulation, order, subpoena, investigation, audit, or to protect the safety of any person, to prevent fraud, security or technical issues.

We do not sell personal data to third parties.

7. Data Retention

Your personal data or any other information collected will be stored for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes described in this Policy. However, we will also retain data subject to relevant provisions of applicable laws, resolve disputes, and enforce our legal agreements and policies. We delete your data for targeted marketing purposes once you unsubscribe from our marketing communications.

Please note that your data may be retained for a more extended period, notwithstanding your request to remove your data, where there is a legal requirement to do so.

8. How your data is stored

We protect your data using physical, technical, and administrative security measures to reduce the risks of loss, misuse, unauthorised access, disclosure and alteration. Some of the safeguards we use are firewalls and data encryption, physical access controls, and information access authorisation controls.

Where there is an actual or suspected data breach capable of causing harm to your rights and freedoms, we will notify you without undue delay and use our best effort to remedy the violation within one (1) month from the date we notify you.

9. International transfer of data

To achieve the purposes described in this Policy, we may transfer your data to countries that may not offer an adequate protection level or are not considered to have sufficient law by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA). Where personal data is to be transferred to a country outside Nigeria, we shall put adequate measures to ensure data security.

Our data transfers to countries that do not offer an adequate protection level are subject to the conditions under the Nigeria Data Protection Act (NDPA). We will therefore only transfer Personal Data out of Nigeria on one of the following conditions:

• • Your consent has been obtained;
• • The transfer is necessary for the performance of a contract between Us and you or the implementation of pre-contractual measures taken at your request;
• • The transfer is necessary to conclude a contract between Us and the third party in your interest;
• • The transfer is necessary for reasons of public interest;
• • The transfer is for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims;
• • The transfer is essential to protect your vital interests or other persons, where the Data Subject is physically or legally incapable of giving consent.

To obtain any relevant information regarding any transfers of your Personal Data to third countries (including the appropriate transfer mechanisms), please contact us.

10. Marketing and Communications

We only send marketing communications with your consent. You may opt out at any time by clicking unsubscribe or contacting us directly. Important service-related notifications (security alerts, account updates) cannot be opted out of.

11. Security of your Data

We are very particular about preserving your privacy and protecting your data. We deploy all reasonable and appropriate technical and organizational measures to keep your data safe. However, we cannot completely guarantee the security of any information you transmit via our application as the internet is not an entirely secure place. We are committed to doing our best to protect you.

12. Complaints

If you are concerned about an alleged breach of privacy law or any other regulation by us, you can contact the Data Protection Officer (DPO) via support@africanvoices.io. The DPO will investigate your complaint and provide information about how your complaint is handled.

Please be informed that you may complain to the relevant data protection authority where your complaints are not satisfactorily addressed.

13. Changes to this Notice

We update our privacy notice from time to time. We will notify our users when we change it, and visitors will know this by checking the last date of update on this page whenever you visit.

14. Contact Us

If you have any questions relating to this Notice, you can reach us at: contact@africanvoices.io