Privacy Policy

Your privacy matters, especially when it comes to your vote and your political views. This Privacy Policy explains what personal data elect.ng collects, why we collect it, how we protect it and the choices and rights you have. We process personal data in line with the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 (NDPA) and the regulations of the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC).

1. Who we are

elect.ng is the data controller for the personal data described in this policy. You can reach our Data Protection Officer at solitech@elect.ng (subject: "Data protection").

2. The data we collect

Information you give us

• Account details: your name, username, email address, phone number, password (stored only in encrypted, hashed form), date of birth and gender if you choose to add them.
• Profile: your photo, cover image, bio, links, account type (for example voter, candidate or journalist) and any party affiliation (or neutral stance) you choose to add.
• Location you choose: your state, local government area, ward and polling unit.
• Identity verification: the ID you choose (National Identity Number, passport number or Voter Identification Number), your name, date of birth, a photo of the ID and a selfie, used only to confirm your identity.
• Badge applications: documents that prove your role, such as INEC nomination forms, press cards or registration certificates.
• Content and messages: posts, comments, polls, questions, private messages, result-sheet uploads and incident reports.
• Payments: wallet top-ups, ad purchases and donations, including the donor declarations the law requires. Card details go directly to our payment providers; we never see or store your full card number.
• Support: anything you send us when you contact support.

Information collected automatically

• Device and log data: IP address, browser and device type, pages viewed and the date and time of your visits.
• Security data: sign-in history, approximate location derived from your IP address and suspicious-activity signals.
• Cookies: see section 9.

3. Sensitive personal data

Under the NDPA, information that reveals your political opinions is sensitive personal data, and identity numbers need strong protection. We treat it with extra care:

• Your party affiliation, or your choice to stay neutral, is private by default and only appears on your profile if you choose to show it.
• Which parties and candidates you follow is not shown publicly.
• Your answers in polls are never shown next to your name.
• Your ID number (NIN, passport number or VIN) is stored only as an encrypted, one-way reference and is never shown to anyone, including other users, candidates or advertisers.
• Your verification selfie and ID photos are seen only by trained staff and are permanently deleted within 30 days after review.

We process sensitive personal data on the basis of your explicit consent, which you can withdraw at any time, or where the data has been made public by you.

4. How we use your data and why

Purpose	Lawful basis under the NDPA
Create and run your account, show your content and deliver messages	Performance of our contract with you
Verify your identity or badge and prevent duplicate or fake accounts	Your consent; our legitimate interest in a trustworthy platform
Show you elections, candidates and results for your area	Performance of contract; your consent for precise location
Process payments, ads and donations and keep financial records	Performance of contract; legal obligation (tax, electoral and anti-money-laundering laws)
Keep the Service safe, detect fraud and enforce our rules	Legitimate interest; legal obligation
Maintain the public, auditable record of election results	Public interest; legitimate interest
Send you service and security emails and text messages	Performance of contract; legitimate interest
Send newsletters and optional notifications	Your consent (you can switch these off in Settings)
Measure and improve the Service with analytics	Your consent through the cookie banner

5. Advertising

Advertisers on elect.ng can target ads by broad attributes such as state, age range and gender. They never receive your name, contact details or any personal data. We do not use your political opinions, the parties you follow or your poll answers to target ads. If Google AdSense is enabled, Google may use cookies to show ads, but only if you accept all cookies.

6. Who we share data with

We do not sell your personal data. We share it only with:

• Service providers who help us run the Service, under contracts that require them to protect your data: web hosting, email and SMS delivery, payment processing (Paystack, Flutterwave), identity verification and, with your consent, analytics (such as Google Analytics). Our in-site assistant runs on our own servers; your questions to it are not sent to any outside AI service.
• Candidates you donate to, who receive your name and the amount where the law requires them to record donors, unless you choose to give anonymously where allowed.
• Authorities, such as INEC, law enforcement or regulators, when the law requires it, to respond to valid legal process, or to protect someone's life or safety.
• A successor organisation if elect.ng is merged or sold, in which case this policy will continue to protect your data.

Everything you post publicly, such as public posts, comments and your public profile, can be seen by anyone.

7. International transfers

Some of our service providers, including our hosting provider, store data on servers outside Nigeria. When we transfer personal data abroad, we do so only as the NDPA allows, for example to countries with adequate data protection or under contracts with appropriate safeguards.

8. How long we keep data

• Account data: for as long as your account is open. When you delete your account, we delete or anonymise your personal data within 30 days.
• Verification photos: deleted within 30 days after review. The encrypted ID reference is kept while your account is open to stop the same ID, or the same person, being used to verify twice.
• Payment and donation records: kept for at least six years, as Nigerian tax and financial laws require.
• Result submissions and incident reports: kept as part of the public election record, with your name removed when your account is deleted.
• Security logs: sign-in history is kept for 180 days.

9. Cookies and similar technologies

• Essential cookies keep you signed in, protect forms against attack and remember your cookie choice. The Service cannot work without them.
• Analytics cookies help us understand how the Service is used. They load only if you choose "Accept all".
• Advertising cookies from Google AdSense, if enabled, load only if you choose "Accept all".

You can change your choice at any time by clearing your browser's cookies for elect.ng, which will show the cookie banner again.

10. How we protect your data

We use encryption in transit (HTTPS) and at rest for sensitive fields, hashed passwords, optional two-factor authentication, role-based staff access, and an audit log of staff actions. Only trained staff can see verification documents. If a personal data breach is likely to put your rights at risk, we will notify the NDPC within 72 hours and tell you without undue delay.

11. Your rights

Under the NDPA you have the right to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you and get a copy of it;
• Correct data that is wrong or incomplete;
• Delete your data, subject to the exceptions in section 8;
• Restrict or object to certain processing, including processing based on legitimate interest;
• Data portability: receive your data in a common, machine-readable format;
• Withdraw consent at any time, without affecting processing that has already happened; and
• Not be subject to decisions based solely on automated processing that significantly affect you.

You can download your data and delete your account yourself in Settings. For anything else, email solitech@elect.ng. We will reply within 30 days. If you are unhappy with our response, you can complain to the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (ndpc.gov.ng).

12. Children

The Service is not intended for anyone under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child has created an account, please tell us at support@elect.ng and we will delete it.

13. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the Service or the law changes. We will tell you about significant changes by email or on the Service before they take effect. The date at the top of this page shows when it was last updated.

14. Contact us

Data Protection Officer and privacy questions: solitech@elect.ng
Help with your account: support@elect.ng