Legal

Privacy Policy

This describes what Biodaraja actually collects and does with it.

What this policy covers

This applies to biodaraja.com and everything on it: browsing the site, creating an account, submitting an application to the Application Tracker, using the Skills Gap Test, registering for a webinar, subscribing to the newsletter, submitting an opportunity listing, and the High School Track. It doesn't cover other organizations' websites that our opportunity listings or resource links point to, once you leave biodaraja.com, their own privacy practices apply.

Information we collect

What we collect depends on what you actually use:

Account information. Name and email address when you create an account or sign up for the newsletter.
Documents you upload. Your CV, and optionally a statement of purpose, when you use the Skills Gap Test, an application tracker document if you attach one, and a poster or PDF if you submit an opportunity listing.
Application Tracker data. Whatever you choose to log: organizations, roles, deadlines, notes, and any help request you send us.
Payment details. We never see or store your card details. Payments for the Skills Gap Test are handled entirely by our payment processor, see the Payments section below.
High School Track data. Date of birth, a guardian's name and contact details if you're a minor, experiment answers, and photos of your results, only if you use that feature. See the Children section below, this data gets extra care.
Webinar and event data. Name, email, phone number, and course/year of study when you register, and any questions you submit during a session.
Technical data. An anonymous visitor identifier and your approximate location (country and city, from our hosting provider's network, not GPS or precise location), recorded when you click an outbound link on the site, see Cookies and analytics below.

How we use it

To run the account, feature, or service you're actually using.
To generate your Skills Gap Test report, your CV (and statement of purpose, if provided) is sent to the analysis service we use to produce it. It is used only to produce your report, not to train any model, and not shared with any other Biodaraja user.
To send you transactional email: your report and payment receipt, a webinar confirmation, a response to a help request, a guardian consent request.
To send newsletter or opportunity-alert email, only if you've actually subscribed, and only until you unsubscribe.
To understand which opportunity listings and resources are actually useful, via the anonymous click data described below, this is never tied back to your name or account.

We don't sell your data, to anyone, ever. It's shared only with the service providers that make the site work, each processing it only on our instructions:

Our database and account provider, which stores your account, files, and application data.
Our hosting provider, which runs the website itself.
Our analysis service, which generates Skills Gap Test reports from your uploaded CV/statement of purpose, as described above.
Our payment processor, for payment processing, see Payments below.
Our email delivery provider, for transactional and newsletter/opportunity-alert email.

We may also disclose information if genuinely required by Kenyan law, or to protect the rights, safety, or property of Biodaraja, our users, or the public.

Payments

Skills Gap Test payments are processed entirely by our payment processor. We receive confirmation that payment succeeded and a reference number, we never receive or store your card or mobile money details. Our payment processor's own privacy policy governs how it handles your payment information.

Children and the High School Track

The High School Track is built for students, many of whom are minors under Kenya's Data Protection Act, 2019. Reading the experiments and protocols requires no account and collects nothing. Submitting your own results (photos and answers) requires signing in and, if you're under 18, a parent or guardian's confirmed consent before anything is processed, we email your guardian directly for this and it can be withdrawn at any time from your profile. A separate, more specifically worded consent is required before another student can ever see your submission photos, checking the general consent box does not enable this by itself.

Cookies and analytics

We use a small number of cookies: one to keep you signed in, one to remember if you've dismissed a site banner, and one anonymous identifier (bd_vid) set when you click an outbound link (an opportunity's application link, a scholarship's portal, and similar). That identifier, together with your approximate country and city from our hosting provider's network, lets us see how many people clicked a given link and roughly where from, it is never linked to your name, email, or account. We don't use third-party advertising trackers.

How long we keep it

We keep your data for as long as your account exists and the service is actively useful to you. Deleting your account removes your profile and everything tied to it (applications, submissions, consent records) through our database's own cascading deletion, this happens immediately and can't be undone. Opportunity listings are automatically removed once their application deadline passes.

Your rights

You can ask to see what we hold about you, correct it, or delete it, most of this you can already do yourself from your profile or dashboard (edit your details, withdraw consent, delete your account). You can unsubscribe from any newsletter or recurring email at any time using the link in that email. For anything else, or if you're a guardian acting on a minor's behalf, reach out on the Contact page.

Security

We rely on our providers' security infrastructure (encrypted connections, access-controlled databases) and restrict who on our team can see what, based on role. No system is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable, active steps to protect your information and will tell you directly if something affecting your data goes wrong.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes in a way that meaningfully affects how your data is used, we'll update this page and, where appropriate, tell you directly by email.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your data: use the Contact page.