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Privacy Policy

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This policy explains what personal data LiveFTA handles, why, who it is shared with, how long it is kept, and the rights you have. It covers people who use the LiveFTA platform and people whose public posts on YouTube appear in the broadcast record LiveFTA keeps.

1. Who we are

LiveFTA is a product of Datalytics, a subsidiary of Saracen Marketing Group, based in Nairobi, Kenya ("Datalytics", "we", "us"). Datalytics is the data controller for the personal data described in this policy.

You can reach us about privacy, including to exercise any of your rights, through the contact details published at datalyticsafrica.com.

2. What LiveFTA does

LiveFTA records the publicly available YouTube live simulcasts of free-to-air television channels in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. It turns that record into audience figures, summaries of public reaction and reports for broadcasters, advertising agencies, media buyers and researchers.

LiveFTA is built to report on audiences in aggregate. It is not designed to monitor, profile or make decisions about any individual person.

3. Personal data we handle

3.1 If you have a LiveFTA account

  • Account details: your email address, whether and when you confirmed it, and when your account was created and updated.
  • Sign-in credentials: if you set a password, we store only a one-way cryptographic hash of it, never the password itself. Sign-in links we email you are single use and expire after a short time.
  • Session records: records that keep you signed in, including which email address a sign-in or email-change link was sent to and when you last authenticated.
  • Technical data: like any web service, our servers process your IP address and basic request information to deliver pages and protect the service.

3.2 If you post publicly on a channel LiveFTA tracks

LiveFTA collects publicly available information about the broadcasts it tracks, including audience counts and the text of messages and comments that people have chosen to post publicly in live chat or under videos on those channels. It collects this through YouTube API Services.

  • We do not store commenters' display names, profile pictures or other profile details.
  • Some comments may be stored with a pseudonymous identifier supplied by YouTube, used only so the same person's comments are not counted twice. We never display these identifiers.
  • Message text is analysed automatically to measure the overall mood of an audience and to write short summaries of what drove it. Summaries paraphrase themes and never quote or name an individual.
  • Results are only reported in aggregate, per channel and period. We do not build profiles of individual commenters or use this data to make decisions about anyone.

3.3 If you only visit this website

The public LiveFTA website does not use advertising or analytics trackers. Our servers process your IP address and request information to deliver the page and keep the site secure.

4. Why we use personal data, and our legal basis

  • To provide your account and the platform (sign-in, email confirmation, security notices): necessary to perform our contract with you or your organisation.
  • To produce aggregate audience and public-reaction analysis from public posts: our legitimate interest, and that of our clients, in understanding broadcast audiences. We limit this processing to what the analysis needs, do not identify individuals, and report only in aggregate.
  • To keep the service secure and working (logging, abuse prevention, troubleshooting): our legitimate interest in operating a reliable, secure service.
  • To meet legal obligations, where the law requires us to keep or disclose information.

5. Cookies

LiveFTA uses only cookies that are strictly necessary for the service to work: a session cookie that keeps you signed in and protects forms against cross-site request forgery, and, if you choose to stay signed in, a cookie that remembers you for up to 14 days. We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

6. Who we share data with

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

  • Service providers who host and operate the platform on our behalf, deliver our emails, and provide automated language processing used to analyse public messages. They may only use the data to provide their service to us.
  • Saracen Marketing Group companies, where needed to run and support the service.
  • Authorities or other parties where the law requires it, or where needed to protect our rights, users or the public.
  • A successor if Datalytics or LiveFTA is reorganised, merged or sold, subject to this policy.

Clients see aggregate figures, summaries and reports. They do not receive commenter identifiers.

7. International transfers

Some of our service providers process data outside Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Where they do, we rely on appropriate safeguards required by applicable data protection law, such as contractual protections, and we transfer only what the service needs.

8. YouTube API Services

LiveFTA uses YouTube API Services. By using LiveFTA you also agree to be bound by the YouTube Terms of Service. Information collected through YouTube API Services is also subject to the Google Privacy Policy. LiveFTA does not ask for access to your own YouTube or Google account.

9. How long we keep data

  • Account data: for as long as your account is active. When an account is closed we delete or anonymise it, except where we must keep information to meet legal obligations or resolve disputes.
  • Sign-in and session records: expire on a short schedule, and sessions end after at most 14 days.
  • Audience readings: kept indefinitely as a historical record. These are counts, not personal data.
  • Public messages, comments and summaries: kept as part of the historical broadcast record. Detailed summaries are condensed into coarser ones on a schedule rather than kept at full detail forever. If you would like a message you posted removed from our record, contact us and we will consider the request under applicable law.

10. Security

We protect personal data with measures appropriate to the risk, including encrypted connections, hashed passwords, single-use expiring sign-in links, verified email addresses, and access to the platform restricted to authenticated users.

11. Your rights

Depending on where you are, including under Kenya's Data Protection Act, 2019, Uganda's Data Protection and Privacy Act, 2019, and Tanzania's Personal Data Protection Act, 2022, you have the right to:

  • be informed about how your personal data is used;
  • access the personal data we hold about you;
  • have inaccurate or misleading data corrected;
  • have data deleted where it is no longer lawfully needed;
  • object to or restrict processing, including processing based on legitimate interests;
  • receive your data in a portable format where applicable.

To exercise a right, contact us using the details in section 1. We may need to verify your identity, and for public comments we may ask you to point us to the message. We will respond within the time the law allows.

You may also complain to a data protection authority: in Kenya, the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner; in Uganda, the Personal Data Protection Office; in Tanzania, the Personal Data Protection Commission.

12. Children

The LiveFTA platform is a business service and is not intended for anyone under 18. We do not knowingly create accounts for children.

13. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as LiveFTA changes. We will change the date at the top of this page, and where changes are significant we will tell account holders by email before they take effect.