Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

The app is provided by Kiarutara Dairy Co-operative Society ("the Society", "we", "us"). The Society is responsible for your personal information.

• Address: P.O. Box 59-01013, Gatura, Kenya
• Phone: 0758 392 469
• Email: kiarutaradairysociety@gmail.com

The app is built and maintained for the Society by Brian Arani, who works on the Society's instructions.

2. Who can use the app

KDCS Farmer is for registered members of the Society only. You cannot create an account in the app. The Society sets up your account and gives you a username (your member number, for example KDCS-22) and a starting password.

3. Information the app uses

a) Your account

• Your username and password.
• Your password is stored on our server only in an encrypted (scrambled) form that cannot be read back. It is never saved on your phone.
• Whether you have changed the starting password.

b) Membership details the Society already holds about you

• Your name, member number, phone number, email address, ID number and location.
• How you are paid: your bank name and account number, or Cash / M-Pesa.

c) Your milk deliveries

• The date, time and shift (morning or afternoon) of each collection, the weight in kilograms, the collector who received it, and the receipt reference.

d) Your payments

• Monthly payslips: kilograms delivered, the rate per kilogram, gross pay, deductions and net pay.
• Deductions can include salary advances, feeds loans, veterinary services, office maintenance, transport, Cash / M-Pesa charges, and balances carried forward from earlier months.
• Salary advances and their status.

e) Feeds

• Feeds you have bought (cash or on loan), loan balances and repayments.
• If you place feed orders through the app, the details of those orders.

f) Requests you send

• If you ask for a password reset, we send your username to the Society's office so it can help you.

g) Security records on our server

• When you sign in, our server records the time and your device's internet (IP) address. This helps protect your account and investigate misuse.
• We also keep technical error logs so we can fix problems.

h) Information kept on your phone

• A sign-in key, so you don't have to sign in every time. It expires after 30 days.
• Your name, username, phone number and email, used to show your profile.
• Your chosen language (English, Kiswahili or Gĩkũyũ).
• Any payslip PDF you choose to download.

What we do not collect

• The app does not access your location, contacts, photos, camera or microphone.
• The app has no advertising and does not use advertising or tracking tools.
• We do not sell your information.

4. How we use your information

We use your information to:

• Show you your milk deliveries, payslips, salary advances, feeds purchases, loans and repayments.
• Calculate and explain your payments and deductions.
• Keep your account secure: sign-in, password changes, and detecting misuse.
• Respond to your requests, such as a password reset.
• Contact you about your account, payments or Society matters, including through messages in the app and by SMS.
• Meet the Society's legal, accounting and audit obligations.
• Keep the app working properly and improve it.

5. Our legal basis

Under Kenya's Data Protection Act, 2019, we use your information because:

• It is needed to run your membership and pay you for your milk.
• We have legal and accounting obligations to keep records.
• We have a legitimate interest in keeping accounts and the app secure.

Where the law requires your consent, we will ask for it.

6. Who can see your information

• Society staff who need it for their work, such as the office, payroll staff, milk collectors and the feeds store.
• Service providers that host our systems or send messages for us, such as our web hosting provider and SMS provider. They may only use your information to provide their service to the Society, and must keep it confidential.
• Banks and mobile-money providers, so that you can be paid.
• Government authorities, when the law requires it.

Google Play: Google Play may collect some information about app installs and crashes under Google's own privacy policy.

We never sell your personal information or share it for advertising.

7. How we protect your information

• Information sent between the app and our server is encrypted in transit (HTTPS).
• Passwords are stored only in encrypted form.
• Only authorised people can see member records, and each farmer can see only their own records in the app.
• Your sign-in expires after 30 days. Signing out removes your sign-in details from the phone.
• New members are asked to replace their starting password the first time they sign in.

No system is perfectly secure. Please keep your password private and never share it with anyone, including people who say they are from the Society.

8. How long we keep information

• While you are a member, we keep your records.
• After you leave, we keep them for as long as the law and the Society's accounting and audit duties require [e.g. 7 years], and to settle any questions about payments. After that, we delete them or make them anonymous.
• On your phone, information is removed when you sign out or uninstall the app. Any downloaded payslip PDFs stay on your phone until you delete them.

9. Your rights

Under the Data Protection Act, 2019, you have the right to:

• Be told how your information is used.
• See the personal information we hold about you.
• Have wrong or incomplete information corrected.
• Ask us to delete your information, unless we are required by law to keep it.
• Object to, or ask us to limit, some uses of your information.
• Receive a copy of your information in a usable format.

To use any of these rights, contact the Society office using the details in section 1. We will respond within [30] days.

If you are not satisfied, you can complain to the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) at www.odpc.go.ke.

10. Closing your account and deleting your data

Your account is created and managed by the Society. To close your account or ask for your data to be deleted:

• Email kiarutaradairysociety@gmail.com, call 0758 392 469, or visit the Society office.
• Give your name and member number.

We will confirm your request and close your app account within [30] days. We will delete your personal information, except records the law requires us to keep, such as payment and accounting records. Those are deleted when the required period ends (see section 8).

Uninstalling the app removes the information stored on your phone. It does not close your account.

11. Children

The app is for registered members of the Society, who must be adults. We do not knowingly collect information from children.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. When we do, we will change the effective date at the top. If the changes are significant, we will also tell you in the app.

13. Contact us

For questions about this policy or your information, contact: