Privacy and data use

Who is responsible

Lamu Opportunity Intelligence is operated by Afrigender Analytics Limited, an independent economic research and data consultancy registered in Kenya and based in Mokowe, Lamu County. Questions about this statement, or about information we hold, should go to info@afrigenderanalytics.co.ke.

Browsing without an account

You do not need an account to search the directory, read an opportunity, take the skills assessment or complete the pathway questionnaire.

When you browse, we record coarse usage counts:

• which pages were viewed, and which opportunities were opened;
• which searches and filters were used;
• whether a pathway or assessment was started and finished.

We do not store your IP address. To count visits without tracking people, we combine your connection details with a secret that changes every day and keep only the resulting hash. That makes it possible to say "roughly this many people looked at this page today" and impossible to follow the same person from one day to the next.

If you complete the pathway questionnaire without an account, your answers are stored against a random key that your browser generates. That key is not linked to your identity, and clearing your browser storage disconnects you from it permanently.

If you create an account

An account holds:

• your email address and a password, stored only as a cryptographic hash;
• a name you choose to be called — a first name or nickname is fine;
• an age bracket, never a date of birth;
• your county, sub-county and, if you give it, your ward — never a street address;
• education level, field of study and current situation;
• skills, interests, goals and access constraints you enter;
• opportunities you save and application statuses you record yourself.

Every field except the email address and password is optional. Blank fields mean less precise recommendations, not a refused service.

Why we ask what we ask

Each question earns its place by changing what we can recommend. We ask about device and internet access because it is pointless to recommend an online course to someone who has to pay for time at a cyber café. We ask how far you can travel because an in-person programme two sub-counties away is not an opportunity, it is a frustration. If a question would not change what you are shown, it is not on the form.

Two separate consents

Platform use. Needed to hold an account and give you the service. Without it we cannot keep your profile or your saved opportunities.

Research use. Entirely separate, off by default, and revocable at any time from your account. If you turn it on, your information may be included in aggregate analysis Afrigender publishes about youth opportunity in Lamu.

We do not quietly convert service information into research data. If you have not turned research use on, your information is not in the research figures.

How research use actually works

Operational data (what runs the service) and research data (what analysis reads) are kept separate in the system. Research analysis reads a view that contains a random pseudonymous key instead of your account, and coarse attributes instead of detailed ones. It has no access to names, email addresses or free-text fields.

Published figures are aggregates. Where a group is too small to publish safely, the figure is withheld rather than shown. We would rather publish less than publish something that lets someone be identified in a county this size.

If you are under 18

The public directory is open to everyone. If you are under 18 and want an account, a parent or guardian needs to agree first, and we record that they did.

Information from users under 18 is never included in research analysis, regardless of what is ticked. We also do not ask under-18s for anything beyond what an account needs to function.

Sensitive information

We do not ask for, and you should not send us, information about health, disability, ethnicity, religion, political views, or any other sensitive personal characteristic. The platform has no field for it and no use for it. If such information reaches us in a free-text box or an email, we remove it.

Who else sees your information

Afrigender staff see only what their role requires. Administrators can manage accounts; research analysts see pseudonymised research data; opportunity editors see opportunity records, not youth profiles. Every administrative action is recorded in an audit log.

We share information with technical service providers only to the extent required to run the site — website hosting, the database and, where AI features are enabled, the model provider. When an AI feature runs, it receives a minimal summary of your stated position — for example "secondary education, interested in data, limited internet access". It does not receive your name, your email address or anything you typed in a free-text box.

We do not sell information to anyone, for any purpose.

How long we keep things

• Account and profile — until you delete it, or until three years after your last sign-in.
• Anonymous questionnaire answers — up to two years, then removed.
• Usage counts — kept as aggregates; no per-person record survives beyond the day it was made.
• Audit logs — retained for accountability, and hold staff actions rather than youth information.

Getting your information changed or removed

You can edit your profile at any time, delete your profile while keeping the account, or delete the account entirely — which removes the profile, saved opportunities, pathways and matches with it. You can also withdraw research consent at any time, which excludes you from analysis thereafter.

One honest limitation: aggregate figures already published are not recalculated when someone later withdraws. Removing an individual from a published aggregate is not possible after the fact, which is exactly why the consent is asked for separately in the first place.

To ask for something to be corrected or removed, write to info@afrigenderanalytics.co.ke.

Security

Passwords are hashed, never stored in readable form. Sessions use cookies that scripts on the page cannot read. Access to administrative functions is checked on the server for every single request, not merely hidden in the interface. Credentials for the database and any AI service exist only on the server and are never sent to your browser.

No system is perfectly secure. If you believe you have found a vulnerability, please write to us rather than publishing it, and we will respond.

Changes to this statement

If we change how information is used in a way that matters, we will say so on the site and ask again for consent where consent was the basis for what we were doing.

This statement describes the platform as built. It is written to be honest and readable rather than to be legally exhaustive, and it should be reviewed against the Kenyan Data Protection Act 2019 and any other applicable requirements before the platform accepts real user accounts.