Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Arandmi is a community platform where people who live in Nigerian neighbourhoods rate two core utilities: power supply and internet quality. Anyone can search an area and see the summary scores. Registered members can read the full written reviews and submit their own.

For the purposes of the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 (NDPA), the data controller for this website is [Registered entity name], operating as Arandmi, of [Registered business address].

If you have a question about anything in this policy, write to privacy@arandmi.com or use the contact page.

2. What we collect

Information you give us

• Account details: the name you choose to display, your email address, and your password (stored only as a hash, never in readable form).
• Where you live: the state, the LGA and the area name you give as your own area, and the dates on which you have changed it. We keep those dates for one reason only: you may change your area twice in any twelve-month period, and we cannot hold to that limit without them.
• Your reviews: the area you are rating, its state and LGA, your power supply and internet quality star ratings, your written comment, and any optional details you add such as your internet provider or typical daily power hours.
• Messages: anything you send us through the contact form, by email, or when you report a review.
• If you sign in with Google: Google tells us your Google account identifier, your email address and whether Google has verified it, and the name on that account. We keep the identifier and the email so the same account finds you next time. We never see your Google password. If an Arandmi account already exists with that email address, we link the two rather than create a second one.

Information we collect automatically

• Technical data: IP address, browser type, device type, operating system, and the pages you visit on this site.
• Anti-spam data: when you submit a review, our anti-spam service records your IP address and submission timing to help detect automated or duplicate ratings.
• Cookies: see section 8.

What we deliberately do not collect

We do not ask for, and you should never include in a review: your exact house address, your phone number, your bank or payment details, government ID numbers, or the name of any individual neighbour, landlord, or agent. Reviews containing these will be rejected or edited in moderation.

We do not track your live location. Your area is one you choose or type yourself, and it is never read from your device.

3. What becomes public

This is the most important section of this policy, so it is worth reading twice.

When you submit a review and it is approved, the following becomes publicly visible on the internet: the display name on your account, the area you rated, your two star ratings, your written comment, any provider or power-hours detail you added, and the date of the review.

One more thing becomes public when you move. If you change the area on your account, the reviews you wrote about the area you left are shown with a Former resident note, so a reader knows it is an account of a place you no longer live in. The note says only that you have moved. It never says where you moved to.

Your email address is never displayed publicly, and neither is your IP address or any other technical data.

If you would rather not be identified, use a display name that is not your full legal name. You can change your display name at any time in your account settings, and the change applies to all of your past reviews.

Approved reviews may be quoted in our blog posts, newsletters, social media, or press coverage, attributed to your display name and the area rated. If you do not want a review used this way, tell us at privacy@arandmi.com and we will exclude it.

4. If a review is about you

Our rules forbid naming an individual in a review, and moderation is meant to catch it before anything publishes. Sometimes something gets through, and sometimes a review describes a business or an estate closely enough to point at a person. If that person is you, this section is yours, and none of it depends on you holding an account with us.

Our lawful basis for publishing it

Where a published review contains your personal data, we rely on our legitimate interest under section 25 of the NDPA in keeping an accurate public record of what power supply and internet quality are actually like in Nigerian neighbourhoods, which is information residents cannot readily get anywhere else. We weigh that interest against your rights and freedoms each time we are asked to, taking account of how identifiable you are, whether the statement concerns your business conduct or your private life, and how much of the area’s record would be lost without it. Where the balance does not fall in favour of publishing, the content comes down. We do not treat our own interest as automatically the stronger one.

What you can ask for

• Access to the personal data of yours that we hold.
• Correction of anything inaccurate.
• Erasure of your personal data from a review, or removal of the review.
• Objection to our publishing it at all, which puts the balancing exercise above squarely in issue.
• A reply: a short response of your own, published alongside the review.

How to ask, and how fast we answer

Write to privacy@arandmi.com, telling us which review it is and what the problem is. We acknowledge within 2 working days and give you a decision within 7 days. That is deliberately faster than the 30 days section 9 allows for other requests: content about somebody who never chose to be on this site should not sit unresolved for a month. We may ask you to confirm your identity first, and we may unpublish the review while we decide.

Nothing in our Terms & Conditions limits any right you have under the NDPA or requires you to give one up, and you may complain to the Nigeria Data Protection Commission at any point, whether or not you have come to us first.

5. How we use your information

• To publish area ratings and calculate the average scores shown across the site.
• To create and manage your account, and to let you log in.
• To moderate submissions by checking for spam, abuse, duplicate ratings, and reviews that appear to be written by someone with a commercial interest in the area.
• To keep the area on your account current, to hold to the twice-a-year limit on changing it, and to mark reviews about an area you have since left.
• To reply to you when you contact us or report a review, including a request under section 4.
• To send you service emails you cannot opt out of while you hold an account, such as password resets and notices that a review was approved or rejected.
• To send you area updates or a newsletter only if you asked for them. Every such email has an unsubscribe link.
• To produce anonymised, aggregated statistics, for example the average power score across Lagos areas, which we may publish or share. These never identify an individual.

Our lawful basis

Under section 25 of the NDPA we rely on: your consent for optional marketing emails and non-essential cookies; performance of a contract for running your account and publishing the reviews you submit; and our legitimate interests for moderation, fraud and spam prevention, security, and improving the service. You may withdraw consent at any time, which will not affect anything done before you withdrew it.

6. Who we share it with

We do not sell your personal data. We do not rent it, and we do not trade it for advertising.

We share limited data with service providers who help us run the platform, and only for that purpose: hosting and infrastructure providers, email delivery providers, analytics and anti-spam providers, and Google, where you choose to sign in with a Google account.

Some of these providers operate servers outside Nigeria. Where personal data is transferred abroad, we do so in line with sections 41 to 43 of the NDPA, transferring only to countries or providers offering an adequate level of protection or bound by appropriate contractual safeguards.

We will also disclose information where we are legally required to, for example in response to a valid court order or a lawful request from a regulator or law enforcement agency, and where it is necessary to establish, exercise, or defend a legal claim, including a defamation claim brought over a review.

7. How long we keep it

• Account data: for as long as your account is open, and for 90 days after you close it, so the account can be restored if closure was a mistake.
• Published reviews: indefinitely, because they form the historical record other residents rely on. See section 9 for what happens to your reviews if you close your account.
• Rejected submissions: 12 months, so we can detect repeat abuse.
• Contact messages: 24 months from your last message.
• Server and analytics logs: typically 12 months.

8. Cookies

We use a small number of cookies:

• Essential cookies keep you logged in, remember your session, and protect forms against cross-site request forgery. The site cannot work without these.
• Preference cookies remember choices such as the last state you filtered by.
• Analytics cookies tell us which pages are used and where people drop off. These are only set if you accept them.

You can clear or block cookies in your browser settings at any time. Blocking essential cookies will stop you from logging in.

9. Your rights

These rights belong to anyone whose personal data we hold, not only to members. If you are not a member and a review concerns you, section 4 sets out the same rights and a faster route to them.

Under the NDPA you have the right to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you, and receive a copy of it.
• Correct anything inaccurate. You can edit your display name and account details yourself at any time, change your area from My reviews when you move, and correct a review you have written from the same page. An edited review goes back through moderation before it publishes again.
• Delete your personal data, subject to the note below.
• Object to or restrict processing in certain circumstances.
• Portability: receive your data in a structured, machine-readable format.
• Withdraw consent for marketing or non-essential cookies at any time.
• Complain to the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) if you believe we have mishandled your data.

Nothing in our Terms & Conditions excludes or limits any of these rights, and no term of ours asks you to waive one.

Deleting your account and your reviews

If you close your account we delete your account record and your email address. Your published reviews are anonymised rather than removed. The display name is replaced with “Former resident” and the review text stays up, because other people have relied on it and because removing it would distort the area’s average.

That is separate from the Former resident note described in section 3, which marks a review whose author has simply moved away while their account is still open.

If you want a specific review taken down entirely rather than anonymised, for instance because it contains something you did not intend to publish, email privacy@arandmi.com and we will remove it.

To exercise any right, email privacy@arandmi.com. We will respond within 30 days and may ask you to confirm your identity first.

10. Security

We protect the platform with encrypted connections (HTTPS) across the whole site, hashed passwords, restricted administrative access, and regular software updates.

No online service can promise perfect security, and we will not pretend otherwise. If a breach occurs that is likely to result in a risk to your rights and freedoms, we will notify the NDPC within 72 hours and notify you directly where the law requires it.

11. Children

Arandmi 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 or submitted a review, contact privacy@arandmi.com and we will remove it.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the platform changes or the law does. The “last updated” date at the top of this page always reflects the current version. If a change materially affects your rights, we will tell registered members by email before it takes effect.

13. How to reach us

For anything relating to your privacy or your data:

• Email: privacy@arandmi.com
• General enquiries: hello@arandmi.com or the contact page
• Postal: [Registered business address]

You may also contact the Nigeria Data Protection Commission directly if you are not satisfied with our response.