Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

FUTABallot is a secure digital election platform operated by Marvlosphere Technologies(CAC Business Name Registration No. 9652069), providing online voting infrastructure for Nigerian university student unions.

2. Information We Collect

We collect only the information necessary to conduct a secure election:

• Matric number, full name, department, level, and phone number (provided by the electoral committee from official university records)
• IP address and user agent (collected automatically during authentication attempts, for security purposes)
• Vote submissions (recorded anonymously — individual votes cannot be traced back to specific voters)
• WhatsApp phone number (only if a student initiates a message to our WhatsApp Business number)

3. How We Use Your Information

• To verify your eligibility to vote using your matric number and one-time token
• To send your voting token via SMS or WhatsApp
• To prevent duplicate voting and unauthorized access
• To maintain an audit trail for election integrity purposes
• To display aggregate results and turnout statistics

4. Vote Anonymity

Individual votes are stored without any link to the voter's identity. Once a vote is submitted, it is not possible — even for system administrators — to determine which specific candidate a particular voter chose. Only aggregate totals are accessible.

5. WhatsApp Messaging

If you send a message to our WhatsApp Business number, your phone number is recorded solely to enable us to reply with your voting token. This information is not used for any other purpose and is not shared with third parties. Your 24-hour messaging window is tracked only to determine whether your token can be sent at no cost to the electoral committee.

6. Data Sharing

We do not sell, rent, or share your personal data with third parties. We use the following services to operate the platform: Supabase (database hosting), Vercel (web hosting), Cloudinary (candidate photo storage), and WhatsApp Business API / SMS providers (token delivery only). Each of these operates under their own privacy policies.

7. Data Retention

Voter registration data, votes, and audit logs are retained for the duration of the election and a reasonable period afterward for verification purposes. Data is cleared before the next election cycle at the discretion of the electoral committee.

8. Security

All data is transmitted over HTTPS. Access to voter data requires administrator authentication. Row-level security policies are applied at the database level. Geographic and network-level access controls are in place to prevent unauthorized access from outside Nigeria.