Privacy notice
Last updated 10 September 2026. This notice covers the AfriAnnotate reference cloud at afriannotate.waraka.org and the desktop and mobile apps when they are linked to it. It is linked from the sign-up consent line and the app footer.
This page describes the reference cloud. If you run your own instance you are the operator of your users' data: copy this page, change the operator, hosting region and email provider to yours, and point Platform → Settings → External links → Privacy notice at it. See Host your own.
Who operates the platform​
The reference cloud is operated by the AfriAnnotate project team: HausaNLP at Bayero University Kano (Nigeria) and EthioNLP at Bahir Dar University ICT4D (Ethiopia), under the Waraka community. Questions, requests and complaints about personal data go to afriannotate@gmail.com; the support address shown in the app footer also reaches the team.
Organisations that create projects on the platform decide what data their projects collect and how it is used. For that data they are the controller and we process it on their behalf; their consent templates, which you sign before you annotate, describe their purposes.
What we collect​
| Data | When | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Account: email address, name, optional phone number, avatar, password (stored only as a PBKDF2 hash) | You create a cloud account or link a device-only account | To run your account and sign you in |
| Cloud-storage consent record | Sign-up, and linking a device account | To prove you agreed before anything was stored; it is written to the audit log |
| Passkeys (public key and a device name) | You add a passkey | Passwordless sign-in; the private key never leaves your device |
| Your work: annotations, drafts, comments, review decisions, and for recording projects your voice or video recordings | You annotate, record or review | The purpose of the platform: building datasets for the projects you join |
| Speaker profile (age band, gender, language varieties), all optional | You fill it in on your profile | Attached to recordings only if you tick the separate sharing consent, which you can withdraw |
| Consent signatures: template and version, typed name, optional country of residence and age attestation, timestamp, IP address, browser identifier | You sign or withdraw a project consent | To keep a legally meaningful, tamper-evident record for you and the project |
| Audit log: action, time, IP address, your email as it was at the time | Security-relevant actions (sign-in, password and email changes, role changes, consents, tokens, deletions) | Security and accountability; the log is append-only |
| Contribution and payment records: validated units, rates the project declares, amounts, currency, payout status | Projects that pay contributors | Your statement and receipts; we do not store bank or mobile-money details |
| Third-party tokens: a Hugging Face access token if you add one | You connect Hugging Face | Import and push datasets on your behalf; stored encrypted, never shown back |
| Feedback and test reports: your message, the page you were on, optional screenshot | You use Send feedback or the testing programme | Improving the platform; test reports become issues in the project's GitHub repository |
| Technical: session cookie, sign-in tokens in browser storage, interface language, offline copies of the projects you download on your own device | Using the app | Keeping you signed in, showing your language, letting you work offline |
We do not run advertising or tracking cookies. Usage analytics are off on the reference cloud. Crash reporting to Sentry is only enabled if the operator sets it up, and then it receives error traces, not your annotations.
Why we may use it and on what basis​
- To provide the service you asked for (account, projects, annotation, sync, exports, statements): performance of a contract.
- With your consent: storing your account on the cloud (the sign-up box), attaching your speaker profile to recordings, each project's data-use terms, appearing on leaderboards. You can withdraw each of these separately.
- Legitimate interests: keeping the platform secure (rate limits, the audit log, passkeys), preventing abuse, fixing bugs, and answering your requests.
- Legal obligations: keeping consent and deletion records so that what happened to your data can be shown later.
Where it is kept​
The reference cloud runs on Google Cloud (Cloud Run, Cloud SQL PostgreSQL and Cloud Storage) in the United States (us-central1). Traffic is HTTPS only; the database and file storage are encrypted at rest by the provider; uploaded files are served through short-lived signed links. Transactional email (verification, receipts, digests) is sent from no-reply@label.afriannotate.org through Brevo. The full security model is documented at Security model.
Because the servers are outside Africa and the European Economic Area, your data is transferred internationally when you use the cloud. If your project cannot accept that, the platform can be self-hosted in a region of your choice, and the desktop app can work fully offline with a device-only account that never sends anything to us.
Who can see it​
- People in your organisation with the right role. Project owners, managers and reviewers see your annotations and consent receipts for their projects. Organisation owners, admins and managers see the members list; owners and admins also see the organisation's activity feed and payout records. Contributors who join a public project see only their own work. Every database row is scoped to its organisation; members of other organisations cannot see your data.
- Platform staff can administer accounts and organisations. They cannot open another organisation's project data unless a superuser grants that per person, and every such access is written to the audit log by default.
- Processors that handle data for us: Google Cloud (hosting), Brevo (email). GitHub receives test reports only while the testing programme is switched on and only when you file one. Hugging Face receives a dataset only when a project owner pushes it, under the project's licence and consent summary; your speaker demographics are included only in aggregate and only if you consented.
- Nobody else. We do not sell or rent personal data. We would disclose it only if the law required us to.
How long it stays​
- Your account: until you delete it. Deletion detaches or removes your work as your organisation's policy requires and the account is hard-purged after 30 days.
- Consent signatures and withdrawals: kept, because they record what you agreed to and when; your withdrawal is added next to the original signature, never over it.
- Audit log entries: kept indefinitely. After your account is deleted they show your email as it was at the time and no longer link to a user.
- Project data: for as long as the organisation keeps the project. Organisations can set a retention window; the platform warns the owner at 30, 7 and 1 days and then purges tasks, annotations, recordings and exports.
- Export snapshots: per the organisation's policy, or until the project is deleted.
- Offline copies on your device: under your control; remove them from Offline storage (mobile) or Cloud sync (desktop).
Your rights and how to use them​
You can do most of this yourself from your profile; for anything else, email afriannotate@gmail.com and we will answer within 30 days.
| Right | How |
|---|---|
| See what we hold | Profile (Info, My consents, Analytics, Earnings); consent receipts as PDF; your contribution statement as CSV |
| Correct it | Edit profile; change email (re-verified); manage passkeys |
| Delete it | Profile → Delete account; an organisation admin can do it for a removed member |
| Withdraw consent | Profile → My consents → Withdraw; untick speaker-profile sharing; leave leaderboards |
| Take it with you | Export your statements and receipts; project owners export the datasets you contributed to |
| Object or complain | Email afriannotate@gmail.com; you may also complain to the data-protection authority in your country |
Withdrawing a project consent stops further processing under it; work already collected stays with the project under its own retention policy, as the project's consent template explains.
Children​
Projects that need it can require an age attestation before you sign their consent. Do not create an account for someone under 18 without the consent handling your project's ethics protocol requires.
Security​
Passwords are hashed, transport is HTTPS only, sessions and tokens
expire, sensitive tokens are encrypted, the audit log cannot be edited
or deleted at the database level, and consent records are hash-chained.
Report a security concern to afriannotate@gmail.com; the disclosure policy is
in the repository's SECURITY.md.
Changes to this notice​
We update this page when the platform changes what it collects. The date at the top is the version; the full history is in the docs repository.