This document is available in English only for now. The English version is the official one; French and Arabic translations are being prepared.
This Privacy Policy explains how Sawt صوّت ("Sawt", "we", "us", or "our") collects, uses, stores, and protects your personal data when you use our website and application (the "Platform"). It is written to be read and understood by everyone, not only by lawyers.
Sawt is a free, non-partisan civic platform. Our role is to inform, not to influence. We collect the minimum amount of data needed to run the Platform fairly and to protect the integrity of the opinions recorded on it.
This Policy is governed by Lebanese Law No. 81/2018 on Electronic Transactions and Personal Data. By using the Platform, you consent to the practices described here. This Policy forms an integral part of our Terms of Use.
1. Who we are
Sawt is operated by its founders as the entity responsible for your data (the "data controller"). You can contact us at any time at contact@sawtlb.com regarding this Policy or your personal data.
2. What data we collect
We collect only the data described below.
Information you give us when you create an account:
- Email address
- Full name
- Date of birth (used to confirm you meet the minimum age to participate)
- Gender (optional; you may choose not to say)
- Region in Lebanon (optional; you may choose not to say)
- Password (stored only in encrypted form by our authentication provider; we never see or store your password in readable form)
Information you give us if phone verification is enabled and you choose to verify:
- Phone number (used only to confirm you are a real person and to help limit duplicate or fraudulent participation)
Information created as you use the Platform:
- Your responses to polls and votes
- Comments and suggestions you submit
- Messages you send to our support system
- Limited activity records used to operate features such as participation counts, streaks, and achievements
Information collected automatically:
- Basic technical data needed to operate the service securely, such as your authentication session and limited usage signals used to prevent abuse. We do not build advertising profiles, and we do not sell data to anyone.
We do not collect your political affiliation, religion, or sect. We never ask for this, and we deliberately do not record it.
3. Why we collect it (purpose)
We collect data only for these specific purposes:
- To create and secure your account
- To confirm you are eligible to participate (for example, that you meet the minimum age)
- To protect the integrity of votes and polls, including limiting duplicate or fraudulent participation
- To show you civic content, polls, and results
- To let you consult your own participation history
- To respond to your support requests
- To understand, in aggregate form, how citizens engage with civic questions
We will not use your data for any new purpose without telling you first.
4. How your votes are handled
We want to be precise about this, because it is the most sensitive data on the Platform.
Your vote is recorded in association with your account. We need this in order to make sure each account votes only once on a given question, and in order to show you your own voting history inside the app.
Your vote is never published in a form that identifies you. Public results show aggregate totals only. No other user can see how you voted. We do not disclose individual voting data to any third party, and we never share it with political parties, candidates, or advertisers.
You control your own history. You can delete your voting history at any time from within the app, and all voting records associated with your account are erased when you delete your account.
Limits we are honest about. Because your vote is stored in association with your account, it is not technically anonymous in the way an anonymous ballot is. We could be compelled to disclose it under a valid order from a competent Lebanese authority, and no system can be guaranteed against every security incident. We describe our security measures in Section 7.
5. The legal basis for processing
Under Law No. 81/2018, we process your data on the basis of:
- Your consent, which you give when you create an account and agree to this Policy; and
- The legitimate operation of the service you have asked to use.
You may withdraw your consent at any time by deleting your account (see Section 9).
6. Where your data is stored, and international transfer
Sawt is built on Google Firebase, a service provided by Google. This means your data is stored and processed on secure servers operated by Google, which may be located outside Lebanon.
We rely on Google's security infrastructure and contractual protections to keep your data safe during this storage and transfer. By using the Platform and agreeing to this Policy, you consent to your data being stored and processed outside Lebanon for the purposes described in this Policy, as permitted under Law No. 81/2018.
7. How we protect your data
We apply reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your data, including:
- Encrypted transmission of data between your device and our servers
- Encrypted storage of passwords by our authentication provider
- Access rules that restrict who and what can read or write data
- Server-side checks that limit abuse and unauthorised access
No system can be guaranteed to be perfectly secure. We take the protection of your data seriously and work to keep these measures up to date, but we cannot warrant that a security incident will never occur.
8. How long we keep your data, and what happens when you delete your account
We keep your account data for as long as your account is active.
When you delete your account:
- Erased: your account and profile, your voting records and personal voting history, your saved progress, and any support requests you have sent us.
- Retained in anonymized form: comments and citizen suggestions you have published. The text remains visible on the Platform, but the link to your account is severed and cannot be restored. We do this so that public discussions and proposals other people have responded to do not disappear.
- Not recalculated: aggregate results and statistics that already include your participation. These are stored as historical totals and do not identify you.
Deletion is irreversible. You can delete your account from within the app, or by writing to contact@sawtlb.com.
We may retain limited records where the law requires it, or where necessary to establish, exercise, or defend a legal claim.
9. Your rights
Under Law No. 81/2018, you have the right to:
- Be informed about how your data is used (this Policy)
- Access the personal data we hold about you
- Correct data that is inaccurate or incomplete
- Object to or restrict certain uses of your data
- Delete your account and your personal data
You can exercise most of these rights directly in the app through your profile settings, including deleting your voting history and deleting your account. For any request you cannot complete in the app, contact us at contact@sawtlb.com and we will respond within a reasonable time.
10. Minimum age
You must be at least 18 years old to create an account and participate on Sawt. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under that age. If we learn that we have collected data from someone below the permitted age, we will delete it.
11. Sharing your data
We do not sell your personal data. We do not share it with political parties, candidates, or advertisers.
We share data only:
- With our service providers (such as Google Firebase) strictly to operate the Platform
- Where required by Lebanese law, or by a valid order from a competent Lebanese court or authority
12. Content you publish
Comments and suggestions you publish are visible to other users of the Platform. Please do not include personal information in them that you would not want to be public.
As explained in Section 8, this content is retained in anonymized form if you delete your account.
13. Cookies and local storage
The Platform uses your device's local storage to keep you signed in and to store limited information (such as a record that you have already voted, your display preferences, or cached content) so the app works quickly and reliably. This information stays on your device and is not used for advertising.
14. Changes to this Policy
We may update this Policy from time to time. If we make a significant change, we will update the "Last updated" date and, where appropriate, notify you in the app. Continued use of the Platform after a change means you accept the updated Policy.
15. Contact
For any question about this Policy or your personal data, contact us at:
contact@sawtlb.com sawtlb.com
This Policy is provided in English, French, and Arabic. In the event of any discrepancy between versions, the [LANGUAGE TO BE CONFIRMED WITH LAWYER] version prevails.