Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy ("Policy") describes how Ruzzen ("we," "us," "our," or "the Platform") collects, uses, stores, shares, and protects information when you access or use the website located at ruzzen.com, its subdomains, mobile applications, APIs, and any related services (collectively, the "Services").

By accessing or using our Services, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to the practices described in this Policy. If you do not agree with any part of this Policy, you must discontinue use of our Services immediately.

This Policy applies to all users of our Services, including but not limited to: casual visitors, registered users, newsletter subscribers, political candidates who claim profiles, advertisers, data partners, media organisations, and any other individual or entity interacting with our platform.

Ruzzen is a political intelligence and data analytics platform. We are NOT a political party, campaign organisation, government entity, or news organisation. We operate independently and are not subject to editorial direction from any political actor, government body, or commercial interest.

The data controller responsible for your personal data is:

Ruzzen
Registered in Nigeria
Email: talk@ruzzen.com
Website: https://ruzzen.com

For all privacy-related inquiries, complaints, or data access requests, contact us at talk@ruzzen.com. We will respond within 14 business days.

3.1 Information You Provide Directly

• Email address (newsletter subscription, contact form)
• Full name (contact form, profile claim requests)
• Phone number (optional, contact form)
• Message content (contact form, feedback submissions)
• Inquiry type and subject (contact form categorisation)

3.2 Information Collected Automatically

• IP address (hashed using SHA-256 with salt for anonymisation — we do NOT store raw IP addresses)
• Browser type, version, and language preferences
• Device type, operating system, and screen resolution
• Pages visited, time spent, and navigation patterns
• Referring URL and search terms used to find our site
• Approximate geographic location (country/region level only, derived from IP)

3.3 User-Generated Content

• Prediction votes cast on state/party races (stored anonymously with hashed IP for deduplication only)
• Questions submitted to The Oracle AI system

3.4 Information We Do NOT Collect

• We do NOT collect passwords (we have no user account system)
• We do NOT collect financial or payment information
• We do NOT collect government-issued identification numbers (NIN, BVN, voter card numbers)
• We do NOT collect political party membership information from users
• We do NOT collect biometric data
• We do NOT collect precise geolocation (GPS coordinates)

Direct collection: When you submit forms, subscribe to our newsletter, cast prediction votes, or interact with The Oracle.

Automated collection: Through server logs, analytics tools, and cookies when you browse our platform.

Public sources: We collect publicly available political data from INEC (Independent National Electoral Commission) records, official government gazettes, public filings, court records, verified news reports, and other publicly accessible sources. This data relates to political candidates and office holders — NOT to private citizens.

We process personal data for the following purposes:

• Delivering newsletter content ("The Ruzzen Brief") to subscribers
• Responding to contact form submissions and inquiries
• Processing candidate profile claim requests
• Preventing abuse through rate limiting (using hashed IP addresses)
• Deduplicating prediction votes to ensure data integrity
• Generating aggregate, anonymised analytics to improve our Services
• Ensuring platform security and preventing malicious activity
• Complying with applicable laws and regulations

We do NOT use personal data for political targeting, voter profiling, campaign messaging, micro-targeting, or any form of political advertising directed at individuals based on their personal characteristics or political views.

We process personal data on the following legal grounds under the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 (NDPA) and the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR):

• Consent: Newsletter subscription, contact form submission, prediction voting
• Legitimate Interest: Platform security, abuse prevention, analytics, service improvement
• Legal Obligation: Compliance with Nigerian law, court orders, and regulatory requirements
• Public Interest: Publication of political data that serves the democratic process and public accountability

We do NOT sell, rent, trade, or otherwise commercially distribute your personal data to any third party.

We may share limited data with the following categories of service providers, strictly for operational purposes:

• Hosting provider (Vercel Inc.): Infrastructure and content delivery
• Database provider (Turso/LibSQL): Data storage
• Email delivery (Resend): Newsletter dispatch
• AI provider (Google Gemini): The Oracle question processing (questions are sent without identifying user information)
• Analytics (Plausible Analytics): Privacy-focused, cookieless analytics — no personal data transferred

All third-party service providers are contractually bound to protect your data and use it only for the specified purposes.

Law enforcement disclosure: We will only disclose personal data to Nigerian law enforcement, courts, or regulatory bodies when compelled by a valid court order or statutory requirement. We will resist overbroad or politically motivated requests to the fullest extent permitted by law. See Section 16 for our detailed policy on government requests.

We implement industry-standard security measures to protect your data:

• All data transmitted to and from our platform is encrypted using TLS 1.2+ (HTTPS)
• IP addresses are hashed using SHA-256 with a unique salt before storage — raw IPs are never persisted
• Database access is restricted and authenticated
• Content Security Policy (CSP), HSTS, X-Frame-Options, and other OWASP-compliant security headers are enforced
• Input sanitisation is applied to all user-submitted data to prevent injection attacks
• Rate limiting is applied to all API endpoints to prevent abuse
• CSRF protection via origin/referer validation
• Regular security reviews of our codebase and infrastructure

Despite these measures, no system is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security of your data and are not liable for breaches resulting from sophisticated attacks, zero-day vulnerabilities, or acts beyond our reasonable control.

• Newsletter subscribers: Retained until you unsubscribe or request deletion
• Contact form submissions: Retained for 24 months, then deleted
• Prediction votes: Retained for the duration of the election cycle they pertain to, then anonymised or deleted
• Oracle questions: Session-cached only — not persisted beyond your browser session
• Server logs: Retained for 90 days, then purged
• Hashed IP data: Retained for rate-limiting purposes for 24 hours maximum

Under the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 and applicable international frameworks, you have the following rights:

• Right of Access: Request a copy of all personal data we hold about you
• Right to Rectification: Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data
• Right to Erasure: Request deletion of your personal data (subject to legal retention requirements)
• Right to Restrict Processing: Request that we limit how we use your data
• Right to Data Portability: Request your data in a structured, machine-readable format
• Right to Object: Object to processing based on legitimate interest
• Right to Withdraw Consent: Withdraw previously given consent at any time (e.g., unsubscribe from newsletter)

To exercise any of these rights, email talk@ruzzen.com with the subject line "Data Rights Request." We will respond within 14 business days and fulfil valid requests within 30 days.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) if you believe your data rights have been violated.

Ruzzen uses minimal cookies and tracking technologies:

• Essential cookies: Required for basic platform functionality (session management, security)
• Analytics (Plausible): Cookieless, privacy-focused analytics that does not use cookies or track individual users
• Session storage: Used to cache Oracle responses and track question limits during your session — cleared when you close your browser

We do NOT use advertising cookies, social media tracking pixels, fingerprinting technologies, or any form of cross-site tracking.

Our Services are intended for users aged 16 and older. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under the age of 16. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has provided personal data to us, contact us immediately at talk@ruzzen.com and we will delete such data.

Our infrastructure providers (Vercel, Turso) may process data in locations outside Nigeria. Where such transfers occur, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place, including contractual protections consistent with the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 and applicable international data transfer frameworks.

Ruzzen uses artificial intelligence (Google Gemini) to generate political analysis, prediction narratives, daily articles, and responses through The Oracle feature. Important disclosures:

• Intelligence-generated content is clearly labelled or contextually indicated as such
• AI outputs are based on publicly available data and historical patterns — they are NOT insider information
• Ruzzen predictions are probabilistic assessments, NOT guaranteed outcomes
• Questions submitted to The Oracle are processed by Google Gemini. We strip all identifying information before transmission — only the question text and relevant political context is sent
• Intelligence-generated content does not constitute political advice, endorsement, or recommendation to vote for any candidate or party
• We are not responsible for decisions made based on Intelligence-generated content

Ruzzen maintains strict political neutrality. This means:

• We are not affiliated with, funded by, or operationally connected to any political party, candidate, campaign, or government entity in Nigeria or any other country
• Our data, predictions, and analysis are generated independently using publicly available information and algorithmic models
• No political actor has editorial control, approval authority, or influence over our content, predictions, or platform operations
• Candidate profile claims (free and premium) do not influence prediction scores, rankings, or analytical outputs
• We reserve the right to publish political intelligence that may be unfavourable to any party, candidate, or government — this is protected speech under Section 39 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria

Ruzzen takes the following position on government and law enforcement requests for user data:

• We will only comply with requests accompanied by a valid court order issued by a court of competent jurisdiction in Nigeria
• We will NOT comply with informal requests, verbal instructions, or demands from security agencies that lack proper judicial authorisation
• We will resist requests that we reasonably believe are politically motivated, overbroad, disproportionate, or intended to identify anonymous users for the purpose of political retaliation
• We will challenge any request that we believe violates the fundamental rights guaranteed under Chapter IV of the Nigerian Constitution, including the right to privacy (Section 37), freedom of expression (Section 39), and freedom of the press
• Where legally permitted, we will notify affected users of government requests for their data
• We will publish transparency reports detailing the number and nature of government data requests received, where legally permitted to do so

Note to government actors: Ruzzen is a lawful platform that publishes publicly available political data for the purpose of democratic accountability. Attempts to compel disclosure of user data for purposes of political surveillance, intimidation, or suppression of lawful political expression will be vigorously resisted through all available legal channels.

We may update this Policy from time to time. When we make material changes, we will:

• Update the "Last Updated" date at the top of this page
• Post a notice on our homepage for at least 7 days
• Notify newsletter subscribers of significant changes via email

Continued use of our Services after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Policy.

For privacy-related inquiries, data requests, or complaints:

Email: talk@ruzzen.com
General: talk@ruzzen.com
Website: https://ruzzen.com/contact

If you are unsatisfied with our response, you may lodge a complaint with the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) at https://ndpc.gov.ng.