Effective 1st January 2019
We want you to understand how and why Group Kenya (“we” or “us”) collects, uses, and shares information about you when you use our websites, mobile applications, widgets, and other online products and services (collectively, the "Services") or when you otherwise interact with us or receive a communication from us. This Privacy Policy applies to all of our Services.
What We Collect
Information You Provide to Us
We collect information you provide to us directly when you use the Services. This includes:
Account information: To create an account, you must provide a username and password. Your username is public, and it doesn’t have to be related to your real name. You may also provide an email address or phone number. We also store your user account preferences and settings.
Content you submit: We collect the content you submit to the Services. This includes your posts and comments including saved drafts, your messages with other users (e.g., private messages, chats, and mail), and your reports and other communications with moderators and with us. Your content may include text, links, images, and videos.
Actions you take: We collect information about the actions you take when using the Services. This includes your interactions with content, like reacting, saving, hiding, and reporting. It also includes your interactions with other users and channels, such as following, friending, joining and blocking.
Transactional information: If you purchase products or services from us or sign up on Group Kenya Business, we will collect certain information from you, including your name, address, email address, and information about the product or service you are purchasing. Payments are processed by third-party payment processors, so please refer to the applicable processor’s terms and privacy policy for more information about how payment information is processed and stored.
Other information: You may choose to provide other information directly to us. For example, we may collect information when you fill out a form, participate in our sponsored activities or promotions, apply for a job, request customer support or otherwise communicate with us.
Information We Collect Automatically
When you access or use our Services, we may also automatically collect information about you. This includes:
Log and usage data: We may log information when you access and use the Services. This may include your IP address, user-agent string, browser type, operating system, referral URLs, device information (e.g., device IDs), pages visited, links clicked, the requested URL, hardware settings, and search terms.
Information collected from cookies and similar technologies: We may receive information from cookies, which are pieces of data your device stores and sends back to us when making requests, and similar technologies. We use this information to improve your experience, understand user activity, personalize content and advertisements, and improve the quality of our Services. For example, we store and retrieve information about your preferred language and other settings.
Location information: We may receive and process information about your location. For example, with your consent, we may collect information about the specific location of your mobile device (for example, by using GPS or Bluetooth). We may also receive location information from you when you choose to share such information on our Services, including by associating your content with a location, or we may derive your approximate location from other information about you, including your IP address.
Information Collected from Other Sources: We may receive information about you from other sources, including from other users and third parties, and combine that information with the other information we have about you. For example, we may receive demographic or interest information about you from third parties, including advertisers, and combine it with our own data using a common account identifier such as a hash of an email address or a mobile-device ID. You can control how we use this information to personalize the Services for you by adjusting your account preferences.
Linked services: If you authorize or link other services (e.g., third-party apps or websites) to access your Group Kenya account, we receive information about your use of that service when it uses that authorization. Linking services may also cause the other service to send us information about your account with that service. To learn how information is shared with linked services, see “How Information About You Is Shared” below.
Information collected from integrations: We may receive information about you, including log and usage data and cookie information, from third-party websites that integrate our Services, including our embeds, buttons, and advertising technology. For example, when you visit a website that uses Group Kenya embeds, we may receive information about the web page you visited. You can control how we use this information to personalize the Services for you by adjusting your preferences here.
How We Use Information About You
We use information about you to:
How Information About You Is Shared
When you use the Services, certain information may be shared with other users and the public. For example:
When you submit content (such as a post or comment or public message) to the Services, any visitors to and users of our Services will be able to see that content, the username associated with the content, and the date and time you originally submitted the content. We allow other websites to embed public Group Kenya content via our embed tools. We also allow third parties to access public Group Kenya content via the Group Kenya API and via other similar technologies. Although some parts of the Services may be private or quarantined, they may become public (e.g., at the moderator’s option in the case of private channels) and you should take that into consideration before posting to the Services.
When you send private messages or private chats, the recipients of those messages will be able to see the content of your message, your username, and the date and time the message was sent. Keep in mind that additional users may be invited to join a private chat after you send a message.
You may elect to have mails forwarded to your email accounts and, as a result, any mail received by you will be subject to the terms and policies of the your email provider.
When other users and the public view your profile, they may be able to see information about your activities on the Services, such as your username, prior posts and comments, status, and how long you have been a member of the Services.
We offer social sharing features that let you share content or actions you take on our Services with other media. Your use of these features enables the sharing of certain information with your friends or the public, depending on the settings you establish with the third party that provides the social sharing feature. For more information about the purpose and scope of data collection and processing in connection with social sharing features, please visit the privacy policies of the third parties that provide these social sharing features.
Please note that, even when you delete your account, the posts, comments and messages you submit through the Services may still be viewable or available on our servers. For more information, see “Your Choices” below.
Otherwise, we do not share, sell, or give away your personal information to third parties unless one of the following circumstances applies:
With linked services: If you link your Group Kenya account with a third-party service, Group Kenya will share the information you authorize with that third-party service. You can control this sharing as described in "Your Choices" below.
With our partners: We may share information with vendors, consultants, and other service providers (but not with advertisers and ad partners) who need access to such information to carry out work for us. The partner’s use of personal data will be subject to appropriate confidentiality and security measures.
To comply with the law: We may share information in response to a request for information if we believe disclosure is in accordance with, or required by, any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request, including, but not limited to, meeting national security or law enforcement requirements. To the extent the law allows it, we will attempt to provide you with prior notice before disclosing your information in response to such a request. Our Transparency Report has additional information about how we respond to government requests.
In an emergency: We may share information if we believe it's necessary to prevent imminent and serious bodily harm to a person.
To enforce our policies and rights: We may share information if we believe your actions are inconsistent with our user agreements, rules, or other Group Kenya policies, or to protect the rights, property, and safety of ourselves and others.
With our affiliates: We may share information between and among Group Kenya, and any of our parents, affiliates, subsidiaries, and other companies under common control and ownership.
With your consent: We may share information about you with your consent or at your direction.
Aggregated or de-identified information: We may share information about you that has been aggregated or anonymized such that it cannot reasonably be used to identify you. For example, we may show the total number of times content has been viewed without identifying who the viewers were.
Ads and Analytics Partners
We may partner with third-party advertisers, ad networks, and analytics providers to deliver advertising and content targeted to your interests and to better understand your use of the Services. These third parties may collect information sent by your computer, browser, or mobile device in response to a request for content, such as unique identifiers, your IP address, or other information about your computer or device. For example:
Advertisers and Ad Networks: Our ad partners and ad networks may use cookies and related technologies to collect information when ads are delivered to you on our Services, but we do not link to or provide them with your actual Group Kenya account details. This means that we do not share your individual account browsing habits with advertisers. We cannot see advertisers’ cookies and advertisers will not see Group Kenya's cookies.
Analytics Partners: We use analytics partners to help analyze usage and traffic for our Services. As an example, we may use analytics partners to analyze and measure, in the aggregate, the number of unique visitors to our Services.
Your Choices
As a Group Kenya user, you have choices about how to protect and limit the collection, use, and disclosure of information about you.
Other Information
Information Security: We take measures to help protect information about you from loss, theft, misuse and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction. For example, we use HTTPS while information is being transmitted. We also enforce technical and administrative access controls to limit which of our employees have access to non-public personal information.
Data Retention: We store the information we collect for as long as it is necessary for the purpose(s) for which we originally collected it. We may retain certain information for legitimate business purposes or as required by law.
International Data Transfers: We are based in Kenya and we process and store information on servers located in Kenya. We may store information on servers and equipment in other countries depending on a variety of factors, including the locations of our users and service providers. By accessing or using the Services or otherwise providing information to us, you consent to the processing, transfer and storage of information in and to the Kenya and other countries, where you may not have the same rights as you do under local law.
Additional Information for EEA Users
Users in the European Economic Area have the right to request access to, rectification of, or erasure of their personal data; to data portability in certain circumstances; to request restriction of processing; to object to processing; and to withdraw consent for processing where they have previously provided consent. These rights can be exercised using the information provided under “Your Choices” above or using the contact information provided at the end of this document. EEA users also have the right to lodge a complaint with their local supervisory authority.
As required by applicable law, we collect and process information about individuals in the EEA only where we have legal bases for doing so. Our legal bases depend on the Services you use and how you use them. We process your information on the following legal bases:
Children: Children under the age of 13 are not allowed to create an account or otherwise use the Services. Additionally, if you are in the EEA, you must be over the age required by the laws of your country to create an account or otherwise use the Services, or we need to have obtained verifiable consent from your parent or legal guardian.
Changes to This Policy: We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we do, we will let you know by revising the date at the top of the policy. If we make a change to this policy that, in our sole discretion, is material, we will provide you with additional notice. We encourage you to review the Privacy Policy whenever you access or use our Services or otherwise interact with us to stay informed about our information practices and the ways you can help protect your privacy.
By continuing to use our Services after Privacy Policy changes go into effect, you agree to be bound by the revised policy.
Contact Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us on info@groupkenya.com.