Privacy Policy

Who we are and what this covers

MAIYO RESEARCH INSTITUTE (MRI) Ltd is a private company limited by guarantee registered in Rwanda. We operate free research, educational and citizen-science services from Kigali, Rwanda. In this policy, “Maiyo Research Institute”, “we” and “us” mean the company and its websites and services under maiyoinstitute.org.

Information we handle

• Google account details used to sign in, such as your name, email address, profile image and provider identifier.
• Account and session information, including session timestamps, IP address and browser user-agent information used for security.
• Bird Quiz activity, such as attempts, answers, scores, progress and timestamps.
• Technical and usage information collected through site analytics, including pages viewed, events, device and browser information.
• Information you include when contacting us by email.

You can browse public research pages without creating an account. We do not currently offer a feature for visitors to upload their own files.

Why we use it

We use this information to provide sign-in and account features, save quiz progress and results, secure the services, understand usage, improve reliability, respond to enquiries and maintain public research services.

We do not sell personal information. We do not use Google account data for advertising.

Service providers

We use service providers to host and operate the services, including Cloudflare for hosting, storage, databases and network security; Google for authentication; PostHog for product analytics; and Zoho for organizational email. These providers process information only as needed to provide their services to us.

Providers may process information in countries where they operate. Their processing is governed by their own terms and privacy documentation as well as our instructions and applicable law.

Retention and deletion

We keep information only for as long as it is reasonably needed for the purposes described here, security, legal obligations and reliable backups. Session records expire according to our service configuration. You may request access to or deletion of account-related information by emailing privacy@maiyoinstitute.org.

Some records may remain temporarily in protected backups after deletion. We do not promise immediate erasure from every backup system, but we will remove information from active systems within a reasonable period.

Your choices and rights

Subject to applicable law, you may ask us to access, correct, delete or provide a copy of personal information we hold about you. You may also object to or ask us to restrict particular processing. To make a request, email privacy@maiyoinstitute.org from an address we can use to verify the request.

Analytics and cookies

We use essential cookies and session storage to operate the platform. We also use PostHog to understand how the site is used and to identify reliability problems. You can block cookies through your browser settings; some account features may then stop working. We do not use analytics to sell advertising profiles.

Children

Accounts are intended for people aged 16 or older. Public pages may be viewed without an account. If you believe a child has provided personal information to us, contact privacy@maiyoinstitute.org so we can review and remove it where appropriate.

Security and changes

We use reasonable technical and organizational safeguards for the information we handle. No online service can guarantee absolute security. We may update this policy as the services change and will update the date shown above. Material changes will be highlighted on the relevant site where practical.

Contact

For privacy questions or requests, email privacy@maiyoinstitute.org. For general enquiries, email contact@maiyoinstitute.org. Maiyo Research Institute’s registered office is in Kagarama, Kicukiro, Kigali, Rwanda.