Privacy Policy - Roote PR System

1. Who we are

Roote PR System operates a public-relations platform and a consumer research panel in Tanzania. For the personal data described below, we are the data controller. We handle it in accordance with the Personal Data Protection Act, 2022 and its regulations.

2. Panelists

A panelist is a member of the public who has chosen to answer short paid questions on their own phone.

What we collect

Your phone number. It is how you reach us, how we know it is you, and how airtime is sent. It is the only direct identifier we require.
Where you are, roughly. Your ward and region, so a study can ask about the right area. Not continuous location, and not your address.
What kind of handset you use — whether it can send photographs — so we only invite you to studies you can actually complete.
Your answers, and any photograph you take when a study asks for one (for example, a shop shelf).
Quality and reward records: how long a response took, checks it passed or failed, what you have earned and what has been paid.

Why, and on what basis

We rely on your consent, which you give when you join and can withdraw at any time. We use the data to invite you to studies you qualify for, to check answers are genuine, to pay you, and to produce aggregated findings for the organisation that commissioned the study.

What we never do

We do not sell your phone number. We do not pass it to the businesses that commission studies. We do not add you to anyone’s marketing list, and we do not use your answers to advertise to you.

Leaving

You can stop at any time from the panel menu on your phone, or by contacting us. Any reward already earned remains payable. On leaving, we remove your number and profile; anonymised answers already used in a delivered study stay in that study’s results, because a finding cannot be un-published from a report a client has already received.

3. What the organisation commissioning a study sees

They see findings: totals, percentages, breakdowns by ward, and individual responses stripped of anything identifying you — no number, no name.

Photographs you submit are shown to them as evidence, so do not photograph people, yourself, or anything private. Studies only ever ask you to photograph a product, a shelf or a price.

Under our Terms of Service, subscribers are contractually forbidden from trying to identify or contact any panelist.

4. Subscribers and their teams

If you use the dashboard, we hold your name, email address, phone number if you give one, your organisation, your role, and records of your activity and billing. We use it to run your account, to provide support, to invoice you, and to keep the Platform secure.

Product marketing email is optional and off unless you tick it. You can unsubscribe from any such email. Service messages about your own account are not marketing and continue regardless.

5. Data your organisation uploads

Campaigns, clients, journalist and influencer contacts, coverage and evidence you put into the Platform are yours. Where those records contain other people’s personal data — a journalist’s email address, for example — your organisation is the controller and we process it on your instructions. You are responsible for having a lawful basis to hold it.

6. Who we share data with

We do not sell personal data. We share it only with:

Mobile network operators and messaging providers, to deliver USSD sessions, WhatsApp messages and SMS, and to send airtime. They receive the phone number needed for delivery and nothing more.
Infrastructure and email providers that host the Platform and send its mail, under contract and bound to confidentiality.
Authorities, where the law requires it. If we are compelled to disclose data, we will tell the person affected unless we are prohibited from doing so.

7. Where data is kept

Panelist data is stored on infrastructure we control and is not transferred outside Tanzania except where a service provider named above requires it to deliver a message or a payment. Where a transfer is necessary, it is limited to the data needed for that purpose and made under the safeguards the Act requires.

8. How long we keep it

Panelist profiles: while you are on the panel, and removed after you leave.
Individual responses: anonymised once a study closes, and retained as part of that study’s findings.
Reward and payment records: kept as long as tax and accounting law requires.
Subscriber accounts: while the account is open, and for 30 days after closure so data can be exported.

9. Security

Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Access is limited to staff who need it for their work and is logged. Each subscriber’s workspace is isolated from every other, and the panel is deliberately held apart from all of them so that no subscriber can reach it.

10. Your rights

Whether you are a panelist or a subscriber, you may ask us to give you a copy of your data, correct it, delete it, or stop a particular use of it, and you may withdraw consent at any time. Write to privacy@roote.co.tz and we will respond within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Personal Data Protection Commission of Tanzania.

11. Children

The panel is for adults. We do not knowingly enrol anyone under 18, and the Platform is not directed at children. If we learn that a panelist is under 18, we remove them and delete their data.

12. Changes and contact

If we change this policy in a way that materially affects you, we will tell you before it takes effect — by email for subscribers, and on the panel menu for panelists.