WobSongo Privacy Policy​

This policy explains, in plain words, what happens to your information when you use WobSongo. It is written so that young people can read it themselves. Some parts are for parents and teachers, and some parts are the full legal detail. If something is not clear, ask an adult you trust, or write to us. Our contact details are at the end.

There is also a short spoken version in Mooré and Dioula.

Section 1: The basics

Who are we?

We are WobSongo, a project run by KAIROS and ImpactScope in Burkina Faso. We built a chatbot that helps you check whether health information you see online is true, especially about sexual and reproductive health.

You send us a link or a question. We compare it with health documents that doctors and researchers have approved. Then we send back a simple answer: a red, orange or green light, and one short sentence.

What is this policy for?

It tells you what information we collect about you, what we do with it, who else can see it, how long we keep it, and what you can ask us to do. Nothing here is hidden in small print.

Personal data? What is that?

Personal data is any information that can be used to know who you are. Your name is personal data. So is your phone number. So are the messages you send us, because they are connected to your number.

Section 2: Your information

What information do we collect?

• Your phone number. WobSongo works on WhatsApp, and your number is how your messages reach us.
• The messages you send us, the links you share, and the answers we give you.
• Simple technical information: the time of your message, the language you write in, and whether the answer worked.
• If you choose to tell us: your age range, whether you live in a town or in the countryside, and similar general information. This part is optional and you can skip it.

We do not ask for your full name, your address, your school, or a photo. Please do not send us those. If you send them by accident, you can ask us to delete them.

How do we get this information?

Almost all of it comes straight from you, when you write to WobSongo. We do not buy information about you from anyone, and we do not follow you around other websites or apps.

Why do we need it?

Mainly to answer you. We cannot reply to your question if your message does not reach us.

We also count things, so we can make WobSongo better: how many questions people ask, which topics come up most often, whether our answers were clear, and whether something broke. When we count, we are not looking at who you are. We are looking at numbers.

So can you use my information for anything you want?

No. We can only use it for the reasons written in this policy.

There is one thing we will never do without asking you first: using your messages to train our artificial intelligence. If we want to do that, we will ask you separately, and you can say no. Saying no does not stop you from using WobSongo.

Section 3: How WobSongo works, and artificial intelligence

Is a real person reading my messages?

Most of the time, no. The answers are produced automatically. Sometimes a member of our team looks at conversations to check that the tool is working properly and is not giving dangerous answers. When they do, they see the messages, not your name.

Do you use artificial intelligence?

Yes. Artificial intelligence helps WobSongo understand your question and find the right information in our approved health documents. The health information itself does not come from the artificial intelligence; it comes from documents that doctors and researchers have checked.

Will you use my messages to train it?

Only if you say yes, in a separate question. Before we could use them, we take away your phone number and everything that shows the messages were yours.

We want to be honest about one consequence. Once that is done, we can no longer tell which messages were yours, so we would not be able to find them and delete them one by one. That is why we ask you separately, and why you can say no.

Section 4: Who else can see my information

Do you share my messages?

Your messages stay inside our project team. We never publish them with your name.

Do you sell my information?

No. Never. Not to advertisers, not to anyone.

Does anyone outside your team touch my information?

Some technical companies help us run the service, for example the companies that host our system and the company whose language technology helps read and answer messages. They are only allowed to use your information to make WobSongo work, and for nothing else. They cannot use it for their own purposes.

WhatsApp is not part of our project. It belongs to another company and has its own rules, which we do not control.

Would you ever tell my parents or my school what I asked?

No. What you ask WobSongo stays between you and WobSongo.

Section 5: Keeping and deleting

Do you keep my information forever?

No. We keep it only as long as we need it, and then we delete it or remove everything that could identify you.

Can I ask you to delete it?

Yes, at any time, and you never have to explain why. Write to us using the contact details at the end. We will delete your information within two weeks and tell you when it is done.

The one exception is the artificial intelligence part explained in Section 3: if you agreed to that and we have already removed everything identifying you, those messages can no longer be linked to you, so we cannot pick them out to delete them.

Section 6: Keeping your information safe

How do you protect it?

• Your information is encrypted, which means it is scrambled so other people cannot read it, both while it travels and while it is stored.
• Only the people in our team who need access have it, and they each have their own account.
• We check regularly that this is still true.

What if something goes wrong?

If someone gets access to personal information when they should not, we will tell the people affected and the Commission de l’Informatique et des Libertés quickly, and within 72 hours of finding out. We will also explain what happened and what we are doing about it.

Section 7: Your rights

What can I ask you to do?

• Ask us what information we have about you.
• Ask us to correct it if it is wrong.
• Ask us to delete it.
• Change your mind about something you agreed to.
• Ask us to stop using your information.
• Stop using WobSongo whenever you want, without telling us why.

How do I do that?

Write to Stephanie Nama, whose contact details are at the end of this policy. You can write in French. You do not need to use special words: just tell us what you want.

What if I am not happy with your answer?

You can complain to the authority whose job is to make sure organisations look after people’s information properly. In Burkina Faso, that is the Commission de l’Informatique et des Libertés. You do not need our permission to contact them.

Section 8: If you are under 18

You can use WobSongo. We built it for young people, because young people are the ones who see this kind of information every day.

Do I need my parents’ permission?

No. We think you have the right to get honest health information, and asking for permission first would stop many young people from asking at all. So we do not ask your parents, and we do not tell your family what you asked.

How do you protect me?

• We collect as little information about you as we can.
• We never ask questions that would let someone identify you.
• We keep what you ask confidential.
• We never show you advertising, and nobody pays us to give you a particular answer.

What if I do not understand something here?

Ask an adult you trust to read it with you, or write to us and we will explain it in simpler words. You can also listen to the short spoken version.

What if a question worries me?

WobSongo is not a doctor and cannot examine you. If you are worried about your health, or if someone is hurting you, go to the health centre and talk to someone there. Our answers will tell you when you should.

Section 9: For parents, guardians and teachers

WobSongo is a health information verification service on WhatsApp, designed for adolescents and young adults in Burkina Faso. It responds to a real risk: young people receive a large amount of false health information through social media, and that misinformation leads to real harm, including early pregnancy, unsafe practices and school dropout.

Our approach follows internationally recognised guidance on children’s data, in particular UNICEF’s Industry Toolkit on children’s online privacy and freedom of expression, and age-appropriate design guidance. In practice that means:

• The best interests of the child come first in every decision we make about their data.
• We respect children’s evolving capacities: as young people grow, they are more able to make their own decisions.
• Do no harm: we minimise what we collect, and we avoid creating records that could expose a young person.
• Privacy information must reach children in a form they can actually use, which is why Sections 1 to 8 are written the way they are, and why we provide spoken versions in French, Mooré and Dioula.

On parental consent we have made a deliberate choice. Requiring parental permission before a young person can ask a question about sexual and reproductive health would, in practice, prevent the young people who most need the information from asking for it. This is consistent with the recognised right of adolescents to access sexual and reproductive health information. We therefore protect young users through data minimisation, confidentiality and safe answers, rather than through a consent barrier.

WobSongo does not diagnose and does not replace a health professional. Every answer that touches a risk directs the young person to the health centre.

If you have questions or concerns, please contact us using the details at the end.

Section 10: The legal detail

Who is responsible for your data?

KAIROS, together with ImpactScope, decides how and why your personal data is processed. The person responsible for data protection questions in the project is Stephanie Nama (contact details at the end).

Legal basis

We process your personal data on the basis of your consent, which you give at your first interaction with the chatbot. Where we process data to keep the service safe and working, we rely on our legitimate interest in providing an accurate and safe service, always in a form that minimises identification. For any use of data to train or improve our models, we rely on a separate, explicit consent as described in Section 3.

Explicit consent for training our models

We will only use activity data to train or improve our models where the user has given explicit and separate consent confirming that: (a) we may anonymise their data; (b) we may use the anonymised data to train and improve our models; and (c) they understand that once the data is anonymised it can no longer be linked back to them, and therefore cannot be individually retrieved or deleted. This consent is not a condition of using the service, and it can be refused or withdrawn at any time for data that has not yet been anonymised.

Retention periods

• Identifiable data, including the link to a phone number, is kept only as long as necessary for the purposes described, and is then deleted or anonymised.
• Deletion requests are completed within two weeks of the request.
• Anonymised data used to improve our models cannot be individually deleted, because it can no longer be linked to a person.

Processors and transfers

Limited technical providers process data on our behalf strictly to operate the service, including cloud hosting, database services and the provider of the language technology used to read and answer messages. They act as processors only, under contractual safeguards, and may not use the data for their own purposes. Where data is processed outside Burkina Faso, we take steps to ensure it remains protected to the standard described in this policy.

Jurisdiction, supervision and ethics

This policy is intended to comply with the data protection rules applicable in Burkina Faso. The supervisory authority is the Commission de l’Informatique et des Libertés. Research activities involving identifiable data are carried out with the approval of the health research ethics committee (Comité d’éthique pour la recherche en santé).

Changes to this policy

If we make important changes, we will tell you through the service before they take effect, and we will say what changed in plain words. The version and date are shown at the top of this document.