Privacy policy

The Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association (“KWCA”, “we”, “us”) is the national membership body representing community and private wildlife conservancies in Kenya. This policy explains what personal data we collect through this website and in the course of our work, why we collect it, how long we keep it, who we share it with, and what you can ask us to do about it.

KWCA is the data controller for the personal data described in this policy. Our processing is governed by Kenya’s Data Protection Act, 2019 and the regulations made under it, and is overseen by the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC). Where we handle personal data of people in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom — for example international donors, partners and website visitors — we also aim to meet the standards of the EU and UK General Data Protection Regulation.

This policy applies to this website and to the personal data we collect through it: contact and enquiry forms, newsletter sign-ups, membership applications and grant enquiries, and job and consultancy applications. It also covers the donor details we receive when you give through our donation platform or by M-Pesa, and the website analytics we run.

It does not cover third-party websites and services we link to, including the donation platform at donate.kwcakenya.com, partner sites, our social media pages, and the ArcGIS mapping service used to display the conservancy map. Those services operate under their own privacy policies.

Information you give us. When you complete a form on this site we collect what you enter in it. Depending on the form, that may include:

• your name, email address and telephone number;
• your organisation, role and location;
• the content of your message, enquiry or application, and any documents you attach;
• for membership applications and grant enquiries, information about your conservancy or organisation.

Submissions to our contact, membership application and newsletter forms are stored in our website database and emailed to our team at info@kwcakenya.com. Documents you upload with a membership application are stored with your submission.

Newsletter sign-ups. When you sign up on this website, your details are added automatically to our mailing list, which is managed in Mailchimp (Intuit Mailchimp), a third-party email service that stores subscriber data on its own servers, including outside Kenya. Our team also receives an email notification of your sign-up. Like most email services, Mailchimp may record whether our emails are opened and which links are clicked. You can unsubscribe at any time using the unsubscribe link in any newsletter email, or by contacting info@kwcakenya.com.

Information we collect automatically. We use Plausible Analytics, a privacy-friendly analytics service. It does not use cookies, does not collect or store personal data such as IP addresses, and does not track you across other websites. Visits are counted using a daily-rotating anonymised identifier that cannot identify you. Plausible gives us aggregate statistics only, such as the pages viewed, referring sites, device type and country. Plausible’s data is hosted in the European Union.

Information we receive from others. When you give through our donation platform at donate.kwcakenya.com, it passes us the details we need to receipt and record your gift, such as your name, email address and the amount and date of your gift. If you give by M-Pesa, the Paybill confirmation shows us details such as your name, mobile number, the amount and the transaction reference. We may also receive your details from a partner organisation or landscape association where you have asked them to put us in touch.

We do not deliberately collect sensitive personal data (such as health, ethnicity, religious or political information) through this website. Please do not include it in a form unless we have specifically asked for it and explained why.

Under section 30 of the Data Protection Act, 2019 we must have a lawful basis for processing your personal data. The bases we rely on are:

• Consent — for newsletter and mailing-list communications. You can withdraw consent at any time using the unsubscribe link in any newsletter or by emailing info@kwcakenya.com.
• Performance of a contract, or steps towards one — to record and receipt a donation, administer membership, assess a grant application, or handle a job or consultancy application.
• Legitimate interests — to respond to your enquiry, to keep the website secure and working, to understand how the site is used, through aggregate, non-identifying statistics, so we can improve it, and to keep proper records of our work. Where we rely on legitimate interests we balance them against your rights and expectations.
• Legal obligation — to meet accounting, audit, tax, donor-reporting and regulatory requirements that apply to us in Kenya.

This site sets only a small number of cookies and equivalent local-storage items:

• Strictly necessary — session and security items needed for the site to work and, if you are a member of staff, for logging in to the site.

We do not use cookies for analytics — Plausible Analytics works without them — and we do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies. You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings; strictly necessary items cannot be switched off without breaking parts of the site. Most browsers also offer a “Do Not Track” setting, and you can restrict what is stored by using private browsing.

Pages that embed third-party content — such as the ArcGIS conservancy map, or an embedded video — may set their own cookies when that content loads, and so may the donation platform at donate.kwcakenya.com when you visit it. Those are controlled by the provider, not by us.

KWCA does not take payments on this website. Card gifts are made on our donation platform at donate.kwcakenya.com, and M-Pesa gifts are sent directly from your phone to our Paybill number, 247 247.

When you give by card, you enter your payment details on the donation platform, not on this website. Those details are handled by the platform and its payment provider under their own privacy terms, and never pass through, or are stored on, this website. Monthly card gifts are set up and managed on the donation platform. When you give by M-Pesa, the payment is handled by Safaricom under its own terms.

The donation platform passes us the donor details we need, such as your name, email address and the amount and date of your gift; for M-Pesa gifts, the Paybill confirmation shows us your name, mobile number, the amount and the transaction reference. We use this information to thank you, to issue receipts, to keep our accounts and to meet audit and reporting obligations.

We do not sell, rent or exchange donor data.

We share personal data only where it is necessary, and only with:

• Service providers acting on our instructions — our website host (Rocket.net, which delivers the site through the Cloudflare network), our email and email-delivery providers, our email newsletter service (Mailchimp), our website analytics service (Plausible Analytics, hosted in the EU), and IT support. They may access personal data only to provide their service to us, and are required to keep it confidential and secure.
• Partners, funders and landscape associations — where you have asked us to put you in touch, where you are applying for a grant or opportunity that a partner co-administers, or where a funder requires reporting. We tell you at the point of collection where this applies.
• Professional advisers, auditors and regulators — where we are required to, or where it is necessary to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.
• Law enforcement or public authorities — where we are legally obliged to disclose.

We never sell personal data, and we do not share it for third-party advertising.

Some of our service providers — notably our website hosting and content-delivery network, our email tools, our email newsletter service (Mailchimp, which stores data in the United States), and our website analytics service (Plausible Analytics, hosted in the EU) — are based outside Kenya, so your personal data may be transferred to and stored in another country. Where we transfer personal data out of Kenya we do so on the conditions set out in sections 48 and 49 of the Data Protection Act, 2019: that appropriate safeguards are in place, or that the transfer is necessary for the performance of a contract or another permitted ground. You can ask us for details of the safeguards that apply to a particular transfer.

We keep personal data only as long as we need it for the purpose we collected it, and then delete or anonymise it. As a guide:

• Enquiries and contact-form submissions — up to 24 months after our last exchange with you, unless the enquiry has become an ongoing relationship.
• Newsletter subscribers — until you unsubscribe or ask us to remove you.
• Donation and financial records — for the period required by Kenyan accounting, tax and audit rules, and by our funders’ reporting requirements.
• Membership and grant records — for the duration of the relationship and for as long afterwards as we need them for reporting, audit and institutional memory.
• Unsuccessful job and consultancy applications — up to 12 months after the recruitment closes, unless you ask us to delete them sooner.
• Website analytics — Plausible holds aggregate, non-identifying statistics only, which we keep for trend analysis.

This site is served over encrypted HTTPS connections. Access to the website’s administration and to personal data held in it is restricted to staff and contractors who need it, and is protected by individual accounts. Our forms use technical measures to filter out automated spam. Donations are made off-site, so card and mobile-money payment details are handled by the donation platform, its payment provider or Safaricom and never reach this website. No system is perfectly secure, but if a personal data breach occurs that is likely to result in a real risk to your rights and freedoms, we will notify the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner and, where required, you.

Under the Data Protection Act, 2019 you have the right to:

• be informed of how your personal data is being used;
• access the personal data we hold about you;
• ask us to correct data that is inaccurate, out of date or incomplete;
• ask us to delete data we no longer have a lawful reason to keep;
• object to or ask us to restrict processing, including direct marketing — you can unsubscribe from our emails at any time;
• ask us to transfer your data to you or to another provider in a usable format, where that applies;
• withdraw consent at any time where consent is our basis for processing;
• not be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing where it significantly affects you. We do not make such decisions.

To exercise any of these rights, email info@kwcakenya.com or write to us at the address below. We will respond as soon as we can and in any event within the period allowed by law. We may need to verify your identity before we act on a request. Exercising your rights is free of charge.

If you are not satisfied with how we have handled your personal data or your request, you can complain to us at complaints@kwcakenya.com or on +254 708 418522. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner of Kenya.

This website is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from children through it. Where our programmes involve children — for example conservation education or bursary work — personal data is collected offline with the consent of a parent or guardian, in line with section 33 of the Data Protection Act, 2019. If you believe a child has given us personal data through this site, contact us and we will delete it.

We may update this policy as our work, our tools or the law change. The date at the top of the page shows when it was last revised. Where a change materially affects how we use personal data we already hold, we will take reasonable steps to tell you.

For any question about this policy, or to make a data protection request:

Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association
Magadi Tenting Centre, Karen
P.O. Box 1038 – 00517, Uhuru Gardens
Nairobi, Kenya

Telephone: +254 (20) 251-8211
Email: info@kwcakenya.com
Complaints: complaints@kwcakenya.com or +254 708 418522

You can also use our contact form.