Privacy policy

1. Who we are

ShieldKid is a registered non-governmental organisation (registration number 9649800) that helps children stay safe online. In this policy, "we", "us" and "our" mean ShieldKid.

We are responsible for the personal information described here. If you have a question about it, or want to use any of your rights, email hello@shieldkid.com, use our contact form or call +234 902 421 5847.

2. What we collect and why

We only collect what you choose to give us, and we only use it for the reason you gave it.

• Contact form: your name, email address, who you are contacting us as, and your message. We use it to reply to you.
• Volunteer application: your name, email address, phone number if you give it, city or town, how you would like to help and anything you tell us about yourself. We use it to consider your application and arrange volunteering.
• Newsletter sign-up: your email address. We use it to send you new guides and news about our work, until you unsubscribe.
• Downloading a free resource: your name, email address, whether you are a parent, carer, teacher or similar, and which resource you downloaded. We use it to understand who our resources reach. If you tick the box on that form, we also email you when we publish new guides.
• Partnership enquiry: your name, email address, organisation and your idea. We use it to discuss working together.
• A young person asking us for help: see section 3.
• Donations: when online giving is switched on, payments will be handled by a payment provider. We will receive your name, email address and the amount, but never your full card details.
• When you visit the website: our hosting provider, Cloudflare, processes technical information such as your IP address and browser type to deliver the site and protect it from attacks. We use your approximate country to suggest the right emergency numbers on our Get help page. We do not use advertising or tracking cookies.
• Counting visits: to understand how the website is used, we count page visits and a few actions, such as downloads, donate button clicks and links tapped. We record the page, the website or campaign link that brought you, your approximate location (country, region and city), the type of device, browser and connection, time on the page and how fast it loaded. We don't use cookies for this and we don't record your name, email or IP address. To avoid counting the same visit twice, we use a code made from your connection and browser that changes every day and can't be turned back into either. Only totals are shown to our team. We keep these records for up to 25 months. We do this in our legitimate interest in running a useful, safe website, and the records can't be used to identify you.

3. Children's information

Most of this website is for adults, and our forms for adults ask you to confirm you are 18 or over.

The one exception is the form on our Get help page for a young person who has no adult to tell. It asks for a first name or nickname, age, country, what is happening, how to reach them, and, only if it is safe, details of a parent, guardian or other adult. We collect this to help keep the young person safe and to find support where they live. We do not use it for anything else, we never use it for marketing, and only the members of our team who handle these requests can see it.

If we believe a child is in danger, we may share what they told us with people whose job is to protect them, such as a child protection service, a helpline or the police, even without their agreement. We will try to tell the young person first, unless doing so would put them at greater risk.

If we find that a child under 18 has used one of our adult forms, we will delete their details, unless we need them to keep the child safe.

4. Our legal reasons for using your information

• Your consent, for example when you sign up for our newsletter or tick the box to hear about new guides. You can withdraw it at any time.
• Our legitimate interests in running a charity well: replying to messages, considering volunteers and partners, and understanding who our resources help. We only rely on this where it does not override your rights.
• Protecting someone's vital interests, when a young person asks us for help or we believe a child is at risk.
• Legal obligations, where the law requires us to keep or share information.

5. Who we share it with

We never sell your information. We only share it with:

• Service providers who run our systems for us: Google (Firebase), which stores form entries and our downloadable resources, and Cloudflare, which hosts the website. When we switch on online giving and email updates, our payment provider and email service will also be included. They may only use your information to provide their service to us.
• People who can protect a child, as explained in section 3.
• Authorities, where the law requires it.

6. Where your information is stored

Form entries are stored by Google Firebase in data centres in Europe. Our website is delivered by Cloudflare from data centres around the world. This means your information may be stored or processed outside your own country. We only use providers that protect personal information to a high standard and that are bound by data protection terms.

7. How long we keep it

• Messages and partnership enquiries: up to 2 years after our last contact with you.
• Volunteer applications: up to 2 years, or for as long as you volunteer with us and 2 years after.
• Newsletter sign-ups: until you unsubscribe or ask us to remove you.
• Resource download records: up to 2 years.
• A young person's request for help: for as long as we need it to support them and meet our safeguarding responsibilities. We review these records at least once a year.

After that, we delete the information or make it anonymous.

8. Keeping it safe

Only the ShieldKid team can see form entries. The website cannot read them back, and information sent through our forms is encrypted on its way to us. If something ever goes wrong, we will tell the regulator and the people affected as the law requires.

9. Your rights

You can ask us to:

• tell you what information we hold about you, and give you a copy
• correct information that is wrong
• delete your information
• stop or limit how we use it, or object to us using it
• send your information to you or another organisation in a usable format
• stop sending you emails, at any time. Every email we send will include a way to unsubscribe.

To use any of these rights, contact us. We will reply within one month. You can also complain to the data protection regulator: the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (ndpc.gov.ng) or the data protection authority where you live.

10. Information saved in your browser

We don't use cookies for advertising or tracking. To make the site easier to use, we save two small things in your own browser: your name, email and role after you download a resource, so you don't have to fill the form in again, and the country you chose on the Get help page. They stay on your device. You can remove them at any time by clearing your browser's data for this site.

11. Changes to this policy

If we make important changes to how we use your information, we will update this page and, where it makes sense, let you know.

12. Contact

Questions about this policy or your information? Email hello@shieldkid.com, use our contact form or call +234 902 421 5847. We typically reply within 1 to 2 business days.