Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy ("Policy") governs your use of AfricaVotes' digital services. AfricaVotes prioritizes data security through stringent privacy protections detailed below.

This Policy applies to all AfricaVotes properties including AfricaVotes.com, AfricaVotes.org, AfricaVotes.net, AfricaVotes.online (the "Website"), along with all associated products, services, and features collectively termed "AfricaVotes Services".

AfricaVotes provides a secure global voting platform enabling organizers to conduct transparent fan-based elections for events of all scales.

AfricaVotes is built to collect only the information needed to run voting, ticketing, organizer, payment, and live participation features safely and reliably.

• Social Sign-In Data:When users authenticate through supported social providers such as Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, or similar services, we generally collect the email address made available by that provider for session creation, account recognition, and security checks.
• Phone Number Data:We collect phone numbers where needed for security, identity verification, payment-related communication, fraud prevention, ticketing flows, or important service notifications.
• Organizer and Team Data:Organizers or team members may provide names, emails, phone numbers, payout details, business details, project details, and support information needed to manage workspaces and services.
• Transaction and Service Data:We may collect payment references, ticket order details, vote selections, boost selections, project references, device/session references, and similar operational records needed to deliver a service correctly.
• No Password Collection From Social Accounts:AfricaVotes does not request, store, or access your social provider passwords through the normal social authentication flow.
• Integrity and Abuse Prevention:We retain voting and participation metadata only to protect election integrity, prevent duplicates and fraud, verify transactions, investigate disputes, and support platform security.

AfricaVotes follows a limited-retention approach designed to balance user privacy with fraud prevention, chargeback defense, election integrity, support handling, and dispute resolution.

• Standard Retention Window:Personal data connected to voting sessions is generally retained for up to 7 days after the relevant session or activity where that retention is needed for verification and support purposes.
• Automatic Cleanup:After the applicable retention period, identifiable personal data is scheduled for deletion, cleanup, or removal from operational records, subject to technical processing and legal or financial exceptions.
• Analytics Preservation:Aggregated or anonymized usage metrics that do not identify a person may be retained for reporting, platform improvement, fraud pattern analysis, and service analytics.
• Transaction Exceptions:Where payment, chargeback, refund, organizer finance, tax, legal, or abuse investigations require it, some transaction-related records may be retained longer than 7 days to satisfy operational or legal obligations.
• Security and Abuse Exceptions:Suspicious, disputed, duplicate, blocked, or risky activity may be retained longer where necessary to protect the platform, organizers, users, and payment systems.

AfricaVotes uses standard technical tools to keep sessions working, improve performance, detect abuse, and remember essential user state across pages and devices.

• Cookies and Session Storage:We use cookies, local storage, session storage, and comparable technologies to maintain secure sessions, remember preferences, preserve checkout state, manage logins, and support essential platform flows.
• Security and Traffic Data:We may log IP addresses, browser details, device details, referral data, operating system details, timestamps, and request patterns to detect fraud, abuse, suspicious traffic, duplicate activity, and technical issues.
• Performance and Delivery:Technical data may be used to optimize page loading, rate-limit traffic, deliver dynamic privacy-legal-content, validate sessions, and troubleshoot errors affecting voting, ticketing, live streams, or dashboards.
• Authentication Support:Technical identifiers may be linked with account data where necessary to verify social login, payment state, ticket state, or voting session integrity.
• Third-Party Integrations:Some cookies or technical events may be created by payment providers, analytics tools, streaming services, or social authentication providers when their services are used through AfricaVotes.
• User Controls:Users may restrict cookies through browser settings, but doing so may affect login reliability, voting flow continuity, payment steps, ticket access, or other essential features.

AfricaVotes relies on selected third-party providers for services such as social login, card and mobile money payments, email delivery, analytics, maps, media delivery, and live stream support.

• Independent Policies:Third-party services operate under their own privacy notices, terms, security rules, data retention rules, and user settings.
• Limited Sharing:We share only the data reasonably needed for the relevant service, such as payment references, callback data, login identifiers, ticket details, or security signals required to complete a transaction or authentication flow.
• Organizer and External Links:Projects, events, organizer pages, sponsor links, embedded privacy-legal-content, and other outbound resources may take users to services that AfricaVotes does not control.
• No Full Control:AfricaVotes is not responsible for how third parties store, process, or further use data once a user interacts directly with those services outside our controlled environment.
• User Responsibility:Users should review third-party privacy terms before completing payments, using social authentication, joining external streams, or following organizer-linked resources.

AfricaVotes does not knowingly provide services to children under 16 where such participation is prohibited by this Policy or applicable law.

• No Knowing Collection From Minors:If we learn that a child under 16 has provided personal data in violation of this Policy, we will take steps to disable the relevant access and remove the data where appropriate.
• Organizer Responsibility:Organizers are responsible for ensuring that participant data, nominee data, contestant data, and event participation comply with age-related laws, guardian requirements, and consent requirements applicable to their projects.
• Parent or Guardian Contact:Parents or guardians who believe a child has submitted personal information to AfricaVotes may contact votesafrica@gmail.comfor review and action.
• Case-by-Case Review:Where a project or event lawfully involves minors under organizer-controlled consent rules, AfricaVotes may require additional safeguards, approvals, or documentation before allowing that data to remain active.

AfricaVotes may update this Privacy Policy as our services evolve, as legal requirements change, or as we introduce new voting, payment, organizer, ticketing, analytics, or live stream features.

• Policy Updates:We may revise this Policy to reflect operational improvements, new features, legal obligations, payment provider requirements, fraud controls, or data handling changes.
• Effective Timing:Unless a later date is stated, policy changes take effect when published on the Website.
• Material Changes:Where practical, material changes may be highlighted through platform alerts, updated page dates, support notices, or other visible notices.
• User Review:Users should review this Policy periodically, especially before using new services or features that may involve different data flows.