Optional Poll Follow-up: Consent and Privacy Notice
Terms version: poll-follow-up-v1
Sigmanox NG Limited (NGScholars). 46 Alhaja Abass, Ogudu, Lagos State, Nigeria.
1. Who is responsible
Sigmanox NG Limited, operating NGScholars at i.ngscholars.net, is the data controller for this optional follow-up. Our business address is 46 Alhaja Abass, Ogudu, Lagos State, Nigeria. For privacy requests, contact admin@ngscholars.com or use the site's Contact page. This notice supplements the site's Privacy Policy and applies to the existing single-question polls, not the separate Outcomes questionnaire or research survey library.
2. Your choice, eligibility and lawful basis
Phone follow-up is optional and available only to adults aged 18 or older. Do not provide a number if you are under 18. You may submit the poll without providing contact details or agreeing to follow-up; declining has no effect on your answer or access to results. We rely on your specific, affirmative consent under the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023. Confirm that you are 18 or older, choose your permitted channels and separately agree to this notice. Provide only a number you are authorised to use. Age and phone ownership are self-declared, not independently verified. This does not constitute identity verification.
3. What we collect and why
If you opt in, we collect your phone number, your selected channels (call, SMS or WhatsApp), your adult confirmation, the time and version of consent, a copy of this notice, an expiry date and a hashed private deletion reference. A pseudonymous poll/respondent reference links this contact record to your submitted poll answer so authorised staff can clarify that answer or invite you to an interview about this same poll. We do not request a name, date of birth or identity document for this feature. Contact details are stored separately from poll answers. Linked responses are confidential, not completely anonymous. Do not put contact details or other identifying information in your poll's free-text answer.
4. Limits on contact and disclosure
We may use your number only for follow-up about this poll and only through the channels you select. This is not consent to newsletters, advertising, fundraising, unrelated surveys, automated marketing calls or messages. There is no guarantee that we will contact you, and opting in provides no admission, scholarship or other benefit. Follow-up should first confirm the intended person before discussing an answer. Only authorised platform administrators can access these records. Numbers are not published in results or included in standard poll exports and are not sent by this feature to AI models or advertising/analytics services. We do not sell these contact records. We will seek separate consent before attributing a quotation or publicly identifying you.
5. Service providers and international processing
Hosting and database providers process information to operate the service. If you choose calls, SMS or WhatsApp, the relevant communications providers necessarily process information needed to deliver that contact, under their own privacy practices. Service-provider processing may occur outside Nigeria. Applicable contractual, security and cross-border transfer requirements must be assessed and met before an overseas disclosure; this opt-in is not blanket consent to every international transfer or every provider's processing. This feature does not automatically send messages or transfer phone numbers to a messaging provider.
6. Security and retention
Phone numbers are encrypted in the application's database, with access restricted to platform administrators; public results contain only aggregate findings. No system can guarantee absolute security. Follow-up permission expires 90 days after you opt in, regardless of whether the poll remains open or is later reopened. Expired contacts are immediately excluded from administrator access. Expired contact records, including their consent metadata and answer link, are automatically removed on the next cleanup cycle while the service is running, or when it next starts or handles a contact request. Withdrawal or an administrator's deletion removes the active contact record sooner. Disaster-recovery backups may retain older copies until the hosting provider's normal backup rotation; they are not a source for outreach, and expired records must be removed following a restore. This retention policy is for contact records, not the separate poll answers used for analysis.
7. Withdrawal, requests and complaints
You can withdraw consent without affecting the lawfulness of earlier consent-based processing. Use the private deletion reference shown after submission in the withdrawal form on this page; this deletes the contact record without deleting or changing your poll answer. This browser can also save the reference locally for convenience. Keep a copy if you want to withdraw from another device; do not share it because anyone holding it can delete that contact opt-in. If the reference is lost, you want to correct your number or change channels, or you have an access, deletion or other privacy request, contact admin@ngscholars.com. Requests require appropriate verification; do not send identity documents unless specifically requested through an appropriate secure process. You may complain to the Nigeria Data Protection Commission at ndpc.gov.ng. Your rights and any lawful exceptions are governed by applicable data protection law.