Privacy Policy

VoteInsta processes personal data in compliance with the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 (NDPA) and the Nigerian Data Protection Regulation (NDPR) principles: lawfulness and transparency, purpose limitation, data minimisation, accuracy, storage limitation, security, and accountability.

This policy explains what we collect, why we collect it, how long we keep it, and the rights you can exercise. VoteInsta is the data controller for platform accounts and voting records; where an organizer processes contestant data for their own contest purposes, the organizer is a separate controller for that processing.

Voters — deliberately minimal: the email address (and, for free contests, phone number) used to vote, the votes recorded against those details, and payment status records. We do not ask voters for accounts, addresses, or identity documents, and we do not publish who a voter supported.

Contestants — the profile submitted for a contest: full name, biography, photo, the contest and category entered, and where nominations are paid, the payment status and reference of the nomination fee. Optional contact details (such as an email address on a nomination form) are used to reach the candidate about their application.

Organizers and community partners — account and profile details (name, email, company details where the organizer is a company), payout details (bank account name and number) required for settlement, referral and earnings records for community partners, and records of contests created, contests run, and withdrawal requests.

Technical records — security and audit logs of significant actions on the platform (logins, contest changes, vote recordings, settlement events, withdrawal approvals), and basic browser session identifiers used for duplicate-vote checks on free contests.

To record and certify votes, and to let voters confirm the votes recorded against their email or phone number.

To operate contests: displaying contestant profiles and live leaderboards, processing nominations, and closing contests on schedule.

To collect and settle payments: processing vote payments and nomination fees through Paystack, calculating platform commission, crediting organizer wallets, and paying verified withdrawals.

To prevent fraud and manipulation: duplicate-vote checks, invite-only access-code verification, and anti-bot monitoring.

To provide support: handling inquiries and disputes against our transaction and audit records.

To meet legal and regulatory obligations, including tax and accounting records and lawful requests from authorities.

Our legal bases are chiefly the performance of a contract with organizers (and at the voter's request), our legitimate interest in operating a secure and fraud-resistant platform, and legal obligation.

All payment card details are handled by Paystack, our payment gateway. VoteInsta never receives or stores raw card numbers; Paystack processes the payment and returns a verification result and a transaction reference, which we store so votes and payouts can be audited.

Because payment details never touch our systems, card data is not stored by VoteInsta at all. What we keep is the transaction outcome: the amount, the reference, the associated votes or nomination, and the settlement path.

Payout bank details entered by organizers are used only to pay verified withdrawals to that account.

Data is stored on managed database infrastructure with encryption in transit. Access to personal data inside VoteInsta is controlled by role-based permissions: organizers can only reach their own contests, contestants and settlement records; administrators reach platform data only as needed for oversight; voters have no accounts and no access to others' data.

Sensitive operations — vote recording, settlement, wallet changes, withdrawal approvals and admin actions — run through verified server code and are written to audit trails, so significant actions can be reconstructed and reviewed.

We review access and security practices regularly, and we ask staff and contractors who may access data to keep it confidential. No system is perfectly secure; if a personal data breach is likely to harm you, we will notify affected individuals and the Nigeria Data Protection Commission as required by law.

Paystack — to process payments and payouts. Paystack processes card data as an independent controller under its own privacy terms.

Hosting and infrastructure providers — to run the platform, under contract and on our instructions.

Contest organizers — contestants' profiles they host and the vote data for their own contests, so they can run and verify their contest.

Authorities — where the law requires or permits it, such as lawful requests or fraud investigations. We do not sell personal data, and we do not share voter data with contestants or advertisers.

We keep data only as long as needed for the purposes above: contest and vote records are retained for accounting, dispute resolution and result certification; audit trails for the periods applicable to financial and transaction records; organizer account data for as long as the account is open plus the retention required by law.

Voter email addresses and phone numbers are kept with their vote records so status lookups and dispute resolution remain possible. You can ask us to remove or redact details associated with your votes where the law allows — noting that some transaction records must be kept for legal reasons.

VoteInsta uses browser local storage and essential cookies to keep signed-in users authenticated and to power duplicate-vote checks on free contests. We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

Under the NDPA you have rights over your personal data, including: access to your data; correction of inaccurate data; deletion of data we no longer need; restriction of or objection to certain processing; data portability where applicable; and withdrawal of consent where processing is based on consent.

You can also lodge a complaint with the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC).

To exercise any right, contact us through the contact page or at support@voteinsta.com. We will verify your identity where necessary (for voters, verification is typically the email or phone number used to vote) and respond within the timeframes the NDPA provides.

We may update this policy as the platform evolves. The current version is always published on this page, and material changes will be announced on the platform.