Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how AfricaCrowdFund (AfricaCrowdFund.com, “ACF”, “we”) handles personal data when you browse the marketplace, create an account, verify a business, run or back a campaign, or contact us. It reflects the platform as it operates today and will be updated as features — including paid backing — are introduced.

Depending on how you use ACF, we may collect:

• Account data — your email address, name, authentication credentials (handled by our authentication provider) and sign-in metadata.
• Profile data — optional details you add such as your name, province, district or town, country and your avatar. AfricaCrowdFund does not ask for education, employment or interest information; a small number of older accounts may still hold such legacy profile details from an earlier version of the platform, which remain private and can be cleared on request.
• Founder and business verification data — business identity and registration details, representative contact details, authority and beneficial-ownership declarations, and verification documents you upload. Verification documents are stored privately, separate from public campaign media, and are accessible only to the review team.
• Campaign data — campaign text, story, funding target, rewards, updates, images and video you submit for publication.
• Pledge data — the campaign and reward you select, your intended pledge amount, any note you add, and your pledge status (for example active or withdrawn). While payments are disabled, pledges are non-binding intentions and we do not collect payment card or banking details.
• Reports and moderation data — campaign reports you file and the moderation history of content or accounts you are involved with.
• Notification data — in-app notifications generated for you, such as updates from campaigns you back, and their read state.
• Technical data — standard service logs (such as timestamps, browser and device information) needed to operate, secure and debug the platform.

• To create and secure your account and authenticate you.
• To operate the marketplace: publishing campaigns, recording pledges, delivering notifications and enabling founder–backer communication through campaign updates.
• To verify founders and businesses and to moderate content for trust and safety, including reviewing reports and preventing fraud and abuse.
• To respond to your messages and support requests.
• To maintain, monitor and improve the platform, including aggregated, non-identifying usage analysis.
• To meet legal, regulatory or law-enforcement obligations where these arise.

We do not sell your personal data.

• Public — published campaign content, business trading names shown on campaigns, and campaign updates are visible to everyone.
• Restricted — verification documents, representative contact details and beneficial-ownership information are private and visible only to the ACF review team.
• Private to you — your pledge list, saved items, notifications and profile details are visible to you and, where needed for operations or safety, to authorised platform staff.

ACF currently uses only essential browser storage — primarily to keep you signed in (your authentication session) and to remember interface preferences. We do not run advertising or third-party behavioural trackers on the platform. If analytics or additional cookies are introduced, this section will be updated before they are enabled.

ACF runs on cloud infrastructure providers that supply hosting, database, authentication, file storage and related services. These providers process data on our behalf under their own security and confidentiality obligations, and may process data in data centres outside your country. We choose reputable providers and limit what each one can access to what it needs to operate the service.

We keep personal data for as long as your account is active and as long afterwards as is reasonably needed for the purposes above — including safety, dispute handling, audit integrity and legal obligations. Moderation and audit records are kept as an append-only history so that administrative actions remain accountable. When data is no longer needed, we delete or anonymise it within a reasonable period.

We apply access controls, row-level security in our database, private storage for sensitive documents, and role-restricted administrative tools so that data is reachable only by the people and processes that need it. No internet service can promise absolute security; if we become aware of a breach affecting your data we will respond in line with our obligations and good practice.

You can review and edit much of your profile data in your account dashboard, withdraw pledges, and manage notification read state yourself. You may also contact us to:

• request a copy of the personal data we hold about you,
• ask us to correct inaccurate data,
• ask us to delete your account and associated personal data, subject to records we must retain for safety, audit or legal reasons,
• object to or ask us to restrict particular uses of your data.

Depending on the country you live in, you may have additional statutory privacy rights. We aim to honour the substance of those rights for all users wherever practical. Send requests to hello@africacrowdfund.com and we will respond within a reasonable time.

ACF is not directed at children. Accounts, campaigns and pledges are intended for users who are at least 18 years old or otherwise have legal capacity, as described in our Terms & Conditions. If you believe a child has provided us personal data, contact us and we will remove it.

We may update this Privacy Policy as the platform evolves — for example, when paid backing opens and payment-related data begins to be processed by our payment provider. Material changes will be shown on this page with an updated date. Continued use after an update means you accept the revised policy.

Privacy questions and requests: hello@africacrowdfund.com.