What does this policy cover
- This policy applies only to U-Report's global platform. Other country-specific U-Report platforms are subject to their own policies.
- Taking care of your information is important for U-Report. This Privacy Policy sets out how we collect, use and store your personal information and the steps we take to protect your information.
- Please read our Privacy Policy carefully before connecting through any of our U-Report channels and refer to it regularly to check for updates. Remember, by accessing and using U-Report, you agree to all provisions of this Privacy Policy.
- If you are under 16 years old, we encourage you to discuss your use and engagement with this platform with your parents or guardian and make sure that they consent to your sharing of information with us through the U-Report platform, its app and website.
- We remind you not to share information that could help others to identify you on any of our channels or social media, such as your full name, physical address or place of residence, school name or address, phone number, email address, and social media account details.
- Please note that any personal information you post publicly on U-Report social media can be viewed by others. We are not responsible for what others might do with such information, so please remember to be careful with what you post. If you post such personal information on our social media accounts, we will see to its prompt removal.
- As used in this Privacy Policy, "we"," "us," and "our" refers to UNICEF. The terms "you," "your", "yours", and "user" refer to you as the individual accessing or using U - Report.
What is not covered by this policy
- The personal and non-personal information captured by messaging platforms and social media accounts you use to interact with U-Report. Their collection, use and processing of your information is governed by those apps' privacy policy.
- Third-party sites linked to the U-Report platform, apps, and website are not covered by this Privacy Policy. Their privacy policy governs the collection, use and processing of your information on such sites.
- We strongly encourage you to review and make sure you are comfortable with the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy of third-party sites, apps, and platforms before engaging with them.
How do we protect your personal information?
We are committed to collecting minimal personal information. The aim of U-Report is to be helpful to you and make you feel safe as you use it and interact with its content and features.
- We will not use your personal information other than for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.
- We will not sell your personal information.
- We will not keep your Personal Information for longer than is necessary for the stated purposes except to the extent required by regulations.
- We will take all reasonable and necessary technical and organizational measures to protect your Personal Information.
- Where we use third parties to host U-Report information or to provide services to us, we have implemented contractual arrangements to ensure the confidentiality and security of the information.
What kind of information does U-Report collect about you?
For the purpose of this Privacy Policy, "Personal Information" means any information that enables us to identify an individual, directly or indirectly, by reference to an identifier such as name, identification number, location data, online identifier or one or more factors specific to the individual.
When you register for U-Report
A. Information we ask from you as part of the registration process
The registration process to U-Report will not ask you for any personal information. The registration process will ask you about the country you are in now, your age, and your gender to allow UNICEF and partners to understand the general demographic characteristics of the users that engage with U-Report and focalize information relevant to you.
B. Information collected automatically as part of the registration process or any engagement with the platform.
When you register or interact with U-Report, the U-Report platform will automatically record the following personal information:
- phone number (if you use SMS) or
- social media ID (if you use WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and other digital messaging platforms).
This information allows U-Report to support ongoing communications, invite you to participate in polls and chatbots, and send information relevant to you. U-Report managers will not know your identity as part of this communication. Your phone number or social media handle will not be accessible to them. These attributes will be stored in the backend of the platform, not accessible to anyone, as part of normal U-Report operations.
Please note that if you use Facebook Messenger to connect with U-Report, given this channel requires creating a Facebook Page that will identify and store from which Facebook Account the message is being sent, the name of your account will be visible to U-Report managers, but they will not use this information to identify you.
We also collect and process the information you provide through U-Report channels, including:
- Responses to poll questions
- Interactions with chatbots
- Other unsolicited messages sent to the platform
This information will not include any personal attributes unless you include such information. Therefore, we strongly discourage you from providing any personal information when you interact with U-Report.
Information we collect by automatic means as part of the operations of U-Report:
A. When you access and use U-Report Website
- When you use our website, our third-party service providers and we may collect information about you and your device through automated means, such as cookies and web server logs. Cookies are small text files that identify your computer, phone, and other devices to our server. By using this site, you consent to the placement of cookies and similar technologies in your browser in accordance with this Privacy Policy. The information collected in this manner includes your IP address, network location, what browser you are using, device IDs and characteristics, operating system version, language preferences, referring URLs, and information about the usage of our site.
- If you do not want information collected using cookies, most browsers allow you to automatically decline cookies or be given the choice of declining or accepting the transfer to your computer of a particular cookie (or cookies) from a particular site. You may also wish to refer to http://www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/index.html for more general information about cookies.
- We use this information in the aggregate to manage our site, such as to ensure that the website functions properly, to determine how many users have visited certain pages, or to prevent fraud. We use IP address information to derive your approximate location. We also work with analytics providers, such as Google Analytics which use cookies and similar technologies to collect and analyse information about use of the site and report on activities and trends.
B. When you access and use U-Report App
On the app, we collect information on the device you use to access the U-Report app, such as the model, operating system, language, location, and the session's duration.
How is my information stored?
We use a trusted third party – RapidPro - to host your answers to polls, interaction with chatbots and information collected during registration. RapidPro providers are under contractual obligation to have in place data protection and privacy safeguards similar to ours and is permitted to handle your information only for specific and necessary purposes following our instructions.
Please note that your answers can also be stored in the channel you use, e.g., in a Facebook or WhatsApp conversation. If you participated in a poll on a sensitive topic, you might consider deleting the conversation to prevent someone else from taking your phone and accessing the conversation.
How long does U-Report keep my information?
We will only use and store your personal information for so long as it is required for the purposes it was collected for. We use your personal information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements and rights.
How and why U-Report may share your personal information
Keeping your information confidential is important to us. We will generally only share non-personal and aggregate information captured through the U-Report platform, app, and website. Circumstances where we may share non-personal information include:
- To the UNICEF partners and UNICEF Country Offices as aggregated information like general poll results to support youth engagement and inform decision-making, local projects, initiatives, and campaigns.
- To third-party service providers who provide services to us, such as website hosting, data analysis, information technology and related infrastructure provisions, analytics providers to deliver content targeted to your interests and to help us to better understand how you use our site, email delivery, and other services. However, we will never sell your information to a third party.
The limited personal information we hold may be shared only in exceptional circumstances, and only for specific and necessary purposes. We may share personal information:
- With your permission. For instance, if you need urgent assistance. We may seek your permission through direct messages with U-Report.
- To fulfil a legal requirement, enforce our Terms of Use, or protect anyone's rights, privacy, safety, or property and for other lawful purposes.
Any third party that obtains access to personal information is under contractual obligation to have data protection and privacy safeguards similar to ours. They are permitted to handle the personal information they have access to only for specific and necessary purposes following our instructions. This also holds in situations where personal information is transferred internationally.
How secure is my information processed by U-Report?
We use many reasonable measures – physical and electronic – to protect your Personal Information against unauthorised access and disclosure. However, it is always possible that third parties may unlawfully intercept or access your Personal Information or private communications. So, although we work extremely hard to safeguard your information, we cannot guarantee that your information or communications will always remain private.
We also ask that you do your part to safeguard your Personal Information.
- Activate a unique PIN or password code to access your phone or device. Make it personal and not easy for others to guess. Do not use your date of birth or your name, for example.
- Use a strong password to connect to the channels you use to send messages to U-Report. Do not share this password with anyone.
- Be careful about connecting to U-Report, using insecure Wi-Fi. Public Wi-Fi, for example, is inherently insecure — so be cautious.
- Set up a feature that will allow you to erase all the data from your device if it's lost or stolen.
What are my rights as a user of U-Report?
- You have the right to request your personal information stored on the U-Report server. You can change it, delete it, and refuse its use. To do this, send MYDATA through any of the U-Report channels.
- You have the right to be informed about your rights in the use of U-Report.
- You have the right to request deletion of your registration and stored data at any time. To do this, send DELETEME through any of the U-Report channels.
- You have the right to decide whether to participate in the polls we will make available.
How do I stop being a U-Reporter and delete my information?
You have the right to request deletion of your registration and stored information at any time. To do so, send QUIT to any of the U-Report channels (Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, or Viber). We periodically remove contacts that opt out of the platform.
Notifications of Changes to the Privacy Policy
We review our security measures and our Privacy Policy, and we may modify our policies as we deem appropriate. If we change our privacy policies, we will post a notification to our website alerting that the Privacy Policy has been amended. Such changes will be effective immediately upon posting them to our site. For this reason, we encourage you to check our Privacy Policy frequently. The "Last Updated" date at the bottom of this page indicates when this Privacy Policy was last revised. Your continued use of our site following these changes means that you accept the revised Privacy Policy.
Contact Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or U-Report, please get in touch with us at ureportglobalteamrapidpro@unicef.org
Last Updated: 24 November 2021