Privacy Policy

AscendVote is operated by Ascend Technologies. An organisation that creates an election chooses its electorate, election rules and the member information it provides. The organisation is responsible for having authority to use that information and for giving voters any notices required by law. Ascend Technologies processes organisation-provided election and member information to operate the service and uses account, support and technical information to maintain and protect the platform.

For questions about an organisation's voter list or election, contact that organisation first. You can also contact us at support@ascendtechgh.com.

• Organisation and account information: organisation name and settings, administrator name and account email, assigned role, and account activity.
• Voter and eligibility information: the name, member reference, optional email and external ID supplied by an organisation, and the elections for which that person is eligible. PIN verification data is stored separately from the ordinary member record.
• Voting records: a participation record identifies that an eligible member voted and records the minute of participation. Ballot choice records do not contain the member ID or a ballot timestamp; they are stored separately and the application provides aggregate results rather than ordinary access to raw ballot rows. Small electorates or detailed turnout information can still create a risk of inference, so organisations should consider this when configuring and reporting an election.
• Technical and security information: device category, coarse region where provided by the hosting request, page/event type, request duration and success, a keyed hash of the network address for abuse prevention, login-attempt records, and short-lived voter-session data. A temporary browser session key may be used for voter-flow protections.
• Public election content: an organisation may publish election details, candidate names or photos, and its logo so voters can identify an election.

Information is used to:

• create and administer accounts, organisations, voter eligibility and election settings;
• authenticate voters, accept eligible ballots, prevent duplicate voting and calculate results;
• show election status, turnout and results to authorised users;
• maintain audit and security records, detect misuse, enforce platform rules and troubleshoot faults; and
• respond to support requests and meet applicable legal obligations.

AscendVote does not sell personal information or use it for targeted advertising. Necessary browser storage may be used for authentication and temporary security functions. The application source does not include advertising trackers.

The application uses Supabase for authentication, database and storage services, and the repository is configured for Netlify static hosting. These providers process information to deliver their services. Account confirmation and recovery messages may be sent by the email service configured for the Supabase project. Providers may process information in locations outside the country where a voter or organisation is located; the actual locations depend on the production provider configuration.

We may disclose information when necessary to operate the service, respond to a valid legal request, protect users or the platform, or investigate suspected misuse. We do not make voter lists public. Public election content is visible according to the election's publication settings.

An organisation may configure a member-data retention period from 30 to 3,650 days. If configured, the automated process removes private voter credentials and replaces member names with “Removed member,” while clearing member email and external ID and archiving the member. The process waits until the organisation has no draft, scheduled, open or paused elections and its elections are outside the configured retention window. If no retention period is configured, this automatic member-data purge does not run for that organisation.

The retention process preserves ballots, participation and election results; it also deletes traffic-event records older than 90 days, voter login-attempt records older than 30 days, and voter sessions that expired more than one day ago. The cleanup is scheduled when the database's scheduler is available and enabled. Account profiles and administrative audit records do not currently have a comparable fixed automatic deletion period in the application. They are retained for service, security and election-record purposes until deletion is appropriate under the organisation's instructions and applicable law.

The platform uses role-based access controls, database row-level security, protected credential handling, voter-session controls and separated participation and ballot records. No online service can guarantee absolute security. Organisations should restrict administrator access, protect voter PINs and report suspected account or election compromise promptly.

You may ask the organisation that ran an election to explain, access or correct information it supplied, or to consider a deletion request. We will assist the organisation where appropriate. Depending on the circumstances and applicable law, you may also have rights to access, correct, object to or request deletion of personal information, and to complain to the relevant supervisory authority. Ghana's Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843) may apply to processing in Ghana. A request can be sent to support@ascendtechgh.com. We may need to verify identity and may not be able to delete records that must be retained for election integrity, security or legal reasons.

Organisations determine who is eligible to participate. If an election includes children or people requiring additional safeguards, the organisation must establish the lawful basis, notices and any required authorisation before uploading their information.

We may update this policy when the service or applicable requirements change. The effective date above will be updated when a revised policy is published. For privacy questions, contact Ascend Technologies at support@ascendtechgh.com.