Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how the African Observatory on Responsible AI (African Observatory) obtains, uses and discloses your personal information. The African Observatory is committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring that your personal information is collected and used properly, lawfully and transparently in compliance with South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (“POPIA”).

Who we are

The African Observatory on Responsible Artificial Intelligence (“African Observatory”) is a project funded by the International Development Research Centre and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency as part of their Artificial Intelligence for Development Africa program. Research ICT Africa functions as the African Observatory’s lead organisation. The African Observatory conducts multidisciplinary research focusing on realising a future where Africans across all regions create and use artificial intelligence to lead healthier, happier and greener lives. As a multi-stakeholder project, the African Observatory brings together a number of partners and regional collaborators that will work together to promote African voices, experiences and value systems in global debates around responsible AI.

Our physical address is Workshop 17 Watershed, 17 Dock Road, Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, Cape Town, South Africa, 8002.

The Principal Investigator for the African Observatory is Dr Rachel Adams.

The information we collect

The African Observatory’s work requires us to keep our partners, clients, friends, and website visitors informed of our work, as well as to monitor engagement which is needed for reporting to our funders and stakeholders. We collect and process your personal information mainly to contact you to keep you informed of African Observatory events, activities and research. This information is collected primarily through the African Observatory mailing list as well as through the contact form on our website. For the mailing list we may collect contact details including your name, organisation, institutional affiliation and website.

We collect information directly from you where you provide us with your personal details. Where possible, we will inform you what information you are required to provide to us and what information is optional.

Website usage information may be collected using “cookies” which allows us to collect standard internet visitor usage information.

This website also uses Google Analytics to collect information about users of our website. The information collected by us includes your Internet Protocol (IP) address, your geographic location, the device and browser you use, the language of your browser, your browsing activity (use of and engagement with) the African Observatory website including time spent on the website, the pages visited and links clicked on. We also collect information about the Google searches that you used to end up on the African Observatory website.

How we use your information

We will use your personal information only for the purposes for which it was collected and agreed with you. The purposes include your personal information being used for our mailing list and contact database as well as for analytics in order for us to gain insights on the visitors of our website. The information about website usage is used for our own insights, as well as aggregated to report to funders and stakeholders.

Disclosure of information

Your information may also be shared with MailChimp if you sign up to the African Observatory mailing list. We need your contact information to contact you and send our newsletter to you. Your information is only shared with MailChimp if you sign up for our newsletter/mailing list. MailChimp’s privacy policy can found at https://mailchimp.com/legal/privacy/.

Your information may also be accessible and shared with our web host Webflow. Webflow’s privacy policy can be found here: https://webflow.com/legal/privacy.

We may disclose your personal information to our service providers who are involved in the delivery of products or services to you. We have agreements in place to ensure that they comply with the privacy requirements as required by POPIA.

We may also disclose your information:

where we have a duty or a right to disclose in terms of law or industry codes; and/or
where we believe it is necessary to protect our rights.

Cookies

We may set and access cookies on your computer, which are small files that reside on your computer's hard drive that generally contain an anonymous unique identifier and are accessible only by the website that placed them there and not any other sites. You can choose to enable or disable cookies in your web browser. By default, your browser will accept cookies, but this can be altered. In addition, you may delete cookies that have already been placed on your hard drive. For further details please consult the help menu in your browser. Disabling or deleting cookies may prevent you from using the full range of services available on the Website.

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

Contact forms

If you submit a response to the contact form in our website, we will capture your name and e-mail address in order to respond to your enquiry. We do not use the information submitted through the contact form for marketing purposes.

Mailing list

If you subscribe to our mailing list, we will capture your name and e-mail address in order to respond to your enquiry. We do not use the information submitted through the contact from for marketing purposes. We will share the information with MailChimp, as we need their service to run our mailing list.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on the website may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited those other website.

These websites may: collect data about you; use cookies; embed additional third-party tracking; and monitor your interaction with that embedded content (including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website).

Analytics

Your information may be shared with Google (Google Analytics and Google Search Console) which we use for the purpose of gathering visitor information. Google’s privacy policy can be found at https://policies.google.com/. We use Google Analytics to track engagement with our content, as well as to report engagement metrics to our funders and donors. Any engagement metrics shared with third parties (other than Google) are aggregated and stripped of personal information before being shared.

Information Security

We are legally obliged to provide adequate protection for the personal information we hold and to stop unauthorised access and use of personal information. We will, on an on-going basis, continue to review our security controls and related processes to ensure that your personal information remains secure.

Our security policies and procedures cover:

Physical security;
Computer and network security;
Access to personal information;
Secure communications;
Security in contracting out activities or functions;
Retention and disposal of information;
Acceptable usage of personal information;
Governance and regulatory issues;
Monitoring access and usage of private information; and
Investigating and reacting to security incidents.

When we contract with third parties, we impose appropriate security, privacy and confidentiality obligations on them to ensure that personal information that we remain responsible for, is kept secure.

We will ensure that anyone to whom we pass your personal information agrees to treat your information with the same level of protection as we are obliged to.

Your rights: access to information

You have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you. To do this, simply contact us at the numbers/addresses as provided on our website and specify what information you require. We will need a copy of your ID document or passport to confirm your identity before providing details of your personal information. Please note that any such access request may be subject to a payment of a legally allowable fee.

Correction of your information

You have the right to ask us to update, correct or delete your personal information. We will require a copy of your ID document to confirm your identity before making changes to personal information we may hold about you. We would appreciate it if you would keep your personal information accurate.

Definition of personal information

According to POPIA ‘‘personal information’’ means information relating to an identifiable, living, natural person, and where it is applicable, an identifiable, existing juristic person.

Updates or changes to our privacy policy

We will do our best to ensure that you are informed via the mailing list and website of any changes to our privacy policy that may occur.

How to contact us

If you have any queries about this notice; you need further information about our privacy practices; wish to withdraw consent; exercise preferences or access or correct your personal information, please contact us at info [at] researchictafrica [dot] net (for the attention of the African Observatory). You can also contact us by phone at +27 21 447 6332. Our website address is: https://africanobservatory.ai.

Revisions

We may revise this Privacy Policy at any time by amending this page. You are expected to check this page from time to time to take notice of any changes we make, as they are binding on you. Some of the provisions contained in this Privacy Policy may also be superseded by provisions or notices published elsewhere on our Website.