Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

Citizen Social Contract (CSC) is a civic education and public accountability organisation working across Africa. CSC ("we", "us", "our") is the data controller responsible for the personal information processed through this website and our civic programmes.

You can contact our team at any time at contact@citizensocialcontract.org.

2. Information We Collect

We only collect personal information that you voluntarily provide, or that is strictly necessary to operate the platform. This includes:

• Contact details — name, email address, organisation and message content when you write to us, request a partnership, apply to volunteer or subscribe to civic updates.
• Donation information — name, email and donation amount. Card and bank details are processed directly by our regulated payment provider (Stripe) and are never stored on CSC systems.
• Programme participation data — workshop registration, volunteer applications, research submissions, citizen reports and pilot programme requests.
• Civic Assistant interactions — questions submitted to the CSC Civic Assistant. We do not require you to sign in and we do not link assistant conversations to your identity.
• Technical data — minimal information such as device type, browser, language and approximate region, used to keep the platform secure and accessible.

We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. Where workshops involve young learners, consent is obtained through their school, guardian or partner organisation.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use personal information only for clear, civic-mission purposes:

• To respond to inquiries, partnership requests, media questions and donor correspondence.
• To deliver civic education programmes, workshops, training and community engagement activities.
• To process donations, issue receipts and report on the impact of supporter contributions.
• To send civic updates, programme news and impact reports — only to people who have explicitly opted in.
• To improve the platform, our publications and the Civic Assistant.
• To comply with legal, regulatory and donor-reporting obligations.

We do not sell, rent or trade personal information. We do not run advertising on this site and we do not use behavioural advertising trackers.

4. Legal Basis for Processing

Where data protection law (including the EU/UK GDPR and Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023) applies, we rely on the following legal bases:

• Consent — newsletter subscriptions and optional analytics.
• Contract — processing donations, volunteer agreements and partnership commitments.
• Legitimate interest — responding to inquiries, protecting platform security and improving civic content.
• Legal obligation — meeting tax, accounting and donor-reporting requirements.

5. Donor Privacy

CSC follows recognised donor-privacy standards. Specifically:

• We do not share, sell or exchange donor lists with any third party.
• Donors may give anonymously and may request that their name be excluded from any public acknowledgements.
• Donors can ask, at any time, to be removed from communications or to have their record deleted, subject to legal record-keeping obligations.
• Aggregate, anonymised donation figures may appear in impact reports; individual gifts are never disclosed without explicit consent.

6. Service Providers

We rely on a small set of carefully selected service providers to operate the platform. They process data only on our instructions and under appropriate data-protection agreements:

• Stripe — donation and payment processing.
• Supabase — secure database and authentication infrastructure.
• Cloudflare — hosting, content delivery and security.
• Resend — transactional email delivery (receipts, confirmations, civic updates).
• AI model providers — used by the Civic Assistant. Conversations are processed to generate answers and are not used to train third-party models.

7. International Data Transfers

Because CSC operates between Africa and Europe, some personal information may be transferred to, and processed in, countries other than your own. Where this happens, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as Standard Contractual Clauses or equivalent legal mechanisms.

8. Data Security

Personal information is stored on infrastructure that uses encryption in transit (TLS) and at rest, role-based access controls and continuous security monitoring. Access is strictly limited to authorised CSC team members operating under confidentiality obligations. We review our security practices regularly.

9. Data Retention

We retain personal information only for as long as needed to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected or to meet legal obligations:

• Inquiry and contact records: up to 24 months after the last interaction.
• Volunteer and contributor records: for the duration of engagement plus 24 months.
• Donation records: for the period required by applicable tax and accounting law (typically up to 7 years).
• Newsletter records: until you unsubscribe, then promptly removed from active lists.

10. Cookies and Analytics

We use only essential cookies required to operate the platform (for example, to remember language preferences and keep authenticated sessions). We use minimal, privacy-respecting analytics to understand which civic content is most useful. We do not use advertising trackers, cross-site profiling cookies or third-party marketing pixels.

11. Your Rights

Subject to applicable law, you have the right to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you.
• Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete information.
• Request deletion of your information ("right to be forgotten").
• Object to or restrict certain processing activities.
• Withdraw consent at any time, where processing is based on consent.
• Receive a portable copy of your data in a structured, machine-readable format.
• Lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

To exercise any of these rights, contact contact@citizensocialcontract.org. We aim to respond within 30 days.

12. Children

CSC's civic content is intended for a general audience. Where programmes engage children — for example, school workshops or educational games — we work only through schools, guardians or accredited partner organisations who are responsible for obtaining appropriate consent.

13. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology or the law. Material changes will be communicated on this page and, where appropriate, by email to subscribers.

14. Contact Us

For privacy questions, data requests or complaints, please contact:

Citizen Social Contract (CSC)
Website: citizensocialcontract.org
Email: contact@citizensocialcontract.org