01
Controller and contact
Ethiopia Rights Evidence Centre is the controller of personal information submitted through the general enquiries form. This public identity protects the privacy of individual contributors and does not change our responsibility for the information we collect.
To ask a privacy question or exercise a data-protection right, use the contact form and begin the message with “Privacy request”. Include only the information needed for us to identify the relevant submission. Do not include confidential evidence or sensitive personal data.
02
Information we collect
- First name and last name.
- Email address and, if you choose to provide it, a phone number.
- The text of your message.
- The time the message was received and its internal review status.
The application does not intentionally attach your IP address or device information to the saved contact record. Website hosting and security providers may process limited technical logs, such as an IP address and request time, to operate and protect the service.
We obtain this information directly from you. First name, last name, email address, message and the safety confirmation are required so that we can receive and assess an enquiry. A phone number is optional. If required information is not provided, the form cannot be submitted.
03
Purposes and lawful bases
| Purpose | Lawful basis |
|---|---|
| Receive, assess and respond to general, editorial, media, research and correction enquiries. | Legitimate interests in communicating with readers and maintaining an accurate public record. |
| Protect the form and website from spam, misuse and security threats. | Legitimate interests in operating a secure and reliable service. |
| Respond to a privacy request or a binding legal requirement. | Compliance with a legal obligation where one applies; otherwise legitimate interests in handling the request responsibly. |
We balance these interests against your rights and use only the information reasonably necessary for each purpose. We do not rely on the checkbox as consent to process your information; it is a required safety acknowledgement.
We do not use contact submissions for advertising, profiling, automated decision-making or mailing lists.
04
Do not submit sensitive personal data
This form is not a confidential evidence channel. We do not ask for or intend to collect special-category or similarly sensitive information, including racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade-union membership, genetic or biometric data, health information, sex life or sexual orientation. Do not include criminal allegations, survivor or witness identities, testimony, evidence, safety information or another person’s identifying details.
If such information is submitted despite these warnings, access will be restricted and the material will be deleted as soon as it is identified, unless a binding legal duty requires limited temporary retention. We will not use it for the ordinary purposes of the contact form.
06
Retention and deletion
Accepted contact-form submissions are kept for no longer than 90 days from receipt. Automated retention checks remove expired messages from the live database, and authorised administrators can permanently delete a message sooner when it is no longer needed or when a valid deletion request applies.
Invalid and obvious automated submissions are not intentionally saved. Limited technical security logs and disaster-recovery copies, where created by an infrastructure provider, follow that provider’s restricted operational deletion cycle and are not used as an active contact record.
07
Your rights
Depending on the law that applies, you may have the right to ask for access to your personal information, correction of inaccurate information, deletion, restriction of use, or to object to processing based on legitimate interests. Data portability may apply in limited circumstances. You also have the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing that produces legal or similarly significant effects; we do not make such decisions.
Use the contact form and start the message with “Privacy request”. We may need proportionate information to confirm identity before acting. We normally respond without charge and within the period required by applicable law.
If UK data-protection law applies and you are dissatisfied with our response, you may complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office. You may also contact the data-protection regulator available where you live.
08
Changes to this notice
We will update this page if the contact form, its purposes, recipients or retention rules materially change. The effective date at the top shows when this version took effect.
Read the ICO’s guidance on the right to be informed, special-category data and storage limitation.