How we handle your information
This notice explains what FursaPoa collects about farmers and partner staff, why, who can see it, and how you can see, restrict or erase your own record. It is written to match what the platform actually does.
Governed by the Data Protection Act, 2019 (Kenya).
- We hold your name, phone number, location and what you plan to farm — because that is what lets us connect you to seed, buyers and advice.
- Your name and phone number are never given to seed companies, buyers or donors. They see counted totals for an area, not people.
- No money passes through FursaPoa, so we never hold bank, M-Pesa or card details.
- You can stop the messages, see your own record, or ask us to delete you at any time — by SMS, for free.
- We never sell your data.
1. Who is responsible for your data
The registered details of the data controller are still to be confirmed and will appear here before this notice is published.
FursaPoa is operated for Kenya's Youth & Women Quality Centres (YWQC). Each participating organisation — a YWQC hub, a seed company, a buyer, a county department — is responsible for how it uses what it can see, within the limits described in section 4.
2. What we collect
We collect only what the coordination work needs. In practice that is:
| Who you are | First and last name; phone number; gender; whether you are 35 or under. |
|---|---|
| Where you are | Your county, your nearest YWQC hub, and your farmer group if you belong to one. |
| What you farm | Your crop, your preferred seed variety, and your acreage if you tell us. |
| How you joined | Whether you registered by USSD, SMS, the web, or through a coordinator at a field day — and the date. |
| Your consent choices | What you agreed to, when, and through which channel — including whether you allowed your data to count towards anonymised partner reports. |
| What you plan to plant | Your answers to each season's planting-intention question. |
| Seed you reserve | Pre-orders you place with an agro-dealer. These are promises to buy, not payments. |
| Deliveries and problems | Deliveries recorded against your name, and any issue you report — including seed-quality complaints, which may be linked to the specific seed batch. |
| Messages | The SMS, USSD and WhatsApp messages sent to and received from your number, their content and delivery status, and your USSD menu sessions. |
For partner staff with a login, we also hold a name, email, username, optional phone number and the organisation and role the account belongs to.
3. Why we collect it, and our lawful basis
Each item above exists for one of these purposes:
- Coordination — matching what farmers intend to plant with the seed, advice and buyers available, and getting information to the right phones.
- Contacting you — sending prices, offers, planting-window advice and alerts.
- Resolving problems — following up an issue you report, including with a regulator where seed quality is involved.
- Anonymised insight — counting participation and demand trends for counties, researchers and donors. This is optional and happens only if you allowed it.
Our lawful basis is your consent, recorded when you register and withdrawable at any time. Consent for coordination and consent for anonymised partner reports are held separately, so you can withdraw the second and stay registered for the first.
4. Who can see it
Visibility is enforced by the software, not by policy alone. Every record belongs to one organisation, and a login can only read its own organisation's records.
| Your YWQC hub coordinator | Your full record — they registered you and they support you. |
|---|---|
| Seed companies and agro-dealers | Counted demand for a variety in an area, and pre-orders placed with them. Not your name or number, unless you placed a reservation with that dealer. |
| Buyers, processors and aggregators | Planned volumes and deliveries. Not your name or number, unless a delivery is recorded to them. |
| Advisory and service providers | The fact that a group of farmers in an area grows a given crop, so advice can be targeted. Not your name or number. |
| Regulators (e.g. KEPHIS, KALRO) | Seed-quality complaints and the batch they relate to, so a failing batch can be traced. |
| Counties, researchers and donors | Anonymised totals only — never a farmer row, name or number — and only for farmers who allowed it. |
| Service providers we use | The mobile network or messaging gateway that delivers your SMS necessarily handles your number, and our hosting provider stores the database. |
5. What we never do
- We never handle money. No payment passes through FursaPoa, so we hold no bank, M-Pesa, card or wallet details. When you buy seed you pay the dealer directly, offline.
- We never sell your personal data, and we do not use it for advertising.
- We never give your name or phone number to a partner for insight purposes. Partner reporting is aggregated and anonymised.
- We do not require you to have a smartphone, an app, an email address or a password.
6. Messages we send you
We message you about prices, seed availability, planting windows, buyer links and
problems you raised. Every broadcast tells you how to stop it, and stopping is
free — reply ACHA. Stopping broadcasts does not delete your record;
see section 7 for that.
7. Your rights, and how to use them
Under the Data Protection Act, 2019 you may:
- be told what we hold about you, and get a copy;
- have it corrected if it is wrong or incomplete;
- object to how it is used, or ask us to restrict it;
- withdraw consent you previously gave;
- ask us to delete it.
By SMS — free, and no login needed
Text any of these to our shortcode from the number on the record:
MIMI | Sends you a copy of your own record. |
|---|---|
DATA | Explains what your data is used for. |
ACHA | Stops all broadcasts to your number. |
FUTA | Removes you from partner reports (you stay registered for coordination). |
RUHUSU | Allows partner reports again. |
On the web
Use the data request form to ask us to send you a copy, stop the messages, withdraw partner-report consent, or erase your record entirely.
Erasure is carried out by a person, not automatically — otherwise anyone who knew your phone number could delete your record. We may need to confirm you are the owner of the number before we act, and we will respond within the time the Act allows.
8. How long we keep it
We keep your record while you are a participating farmer, and for as long as the seasons it relates to are still being reported on. When you ask for erasure, we remove your name, phone number and any other detail that identifies you.
Counted totals that no longer identify anyone — "so many farmers in this ward planted this variety" — may be kept after that, because they are no longer personal data and removing them would corrupt past-season records. Message logs are kept for a limited period for delivery troubleshooting and dispute handling.
9. How it is protected
- The site is served only over an encrypted connection (HTTPS).
- Access needs a password-protected account, and each account sees only its own organisation's records.
- Roles that can see personal data are granted by an administrator, never by self-registration.
- Partner-facing reporting is aggregated before it leaves the system, so there is no raw farmer list to leak.
No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your data we will notify you and the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner as the Act requires.
10. Children
FursaPoa is for adult farmers. "Youth" here means 35 or under — it does not mean children. We do not knowingly register anyone under 18. If you believe we hold a child's data, tell us using the data request form and we will remove it.
11. Changes, and how to complain
If we change this notice we will update the effective date above, and announce material changes on the platform.
If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, please tell us first. You also have the right to complain to the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC), Kenya — odpc.go.ke.