Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

NearAfrica is a business discovery and directory platform designed to help people discover businesses, services, opportunities, and other useful information across Africa.

This Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal information when you visit or use NearAfrica, submit information, interact with listings, submit reviews or reports, claim a business, or otherwise communicate with us.

2. Information We Collect

Depending on how you use NearAfrica, we may collect different categories of information.

Information you provide

• Name or business contact name.
• Email address.
• Telephone or WhatsApp number.
• Business name and business contact information.
• Business address, city, state, country, latitude, and longitude.
• Website and social-media information submitted for a business listing.
• Business descriptions and other listing details.
• Reviews, comments, ratings, and responses.
• Reports, complaints, correction requests, and removal requests.
• Information submitted during a business claim.
• Information submitted when contacting NearAfrica.
• Images, logos, and other material that you voluntarily submit where applicable.

Information collected through use

We may also collect technical and usage information associated with your interaction with the platform, such as pages visited, basic device or browser information, approximate usage information, timestamps, and technical information needed to maintain security and functionality.

3. Business Listing Information

NearAfrica may contain information about businesses obtained from business owners, authorized users, public sources, user submissions, discovery systems, or other lawful sources.

A business listing may contain information such as the business name, category, location, telephone number, website, social-media links, description, opening information, images, and other business information.

Some business information may be publicly visible because it is intended to help people discover or contact a business.

If you believe a listing contains incorrect, outdated, private, or otherwise inappropriate information about you or your business, you may contact us using the details provided below.

4. Automatically Collected Information

When you access NearAfrica, certain technical information may be processed automatically.

This may include:

• IP address or network-related information.
• Browser type and version.
• Device type or operating-system information.
• Pages or resources requested.
• Date and time of requests.
• Basic security and diagnostic information.
• Business listing views and related usage information.

We may use this information to operate the platform, diagnose technical problems, improve performance, understand usage, prevent abuse, and maintain security.

5. How We Use Information

We may use information collected through NearAfrica for purposes including:

• Providing and operating the NearAfrica platform.
• Creating and managing business listings.
• Processing business submissions.
• Processing business claims and verification requests.
• Publishing reviews and business information where appropriate.
• Processing reports, complaints, and correction requests.
• Responding to support or contact requests.
• Maintaining security and preventing fraud, abuse, spam, or unauthorized activity.
• Improving the functionality and reliability of NearAfrica.
• Maintaining administrative records and audit trails.
• Complying with applicable legal obligations.

6. Legal Basis for Processing

Where applicable, NearAfrica will process personal information in accordance with a lawful basis recognized under applicable data-protection law.

Depending on the circumstances, processing may be necessary for purposes such as providing a requested service, responding to a request, complying with a legal obligation, protecting legitimate interests, maintaining security, or obtaining consent where consent is required.

We aim to process personal information in a fair, lawful, and transparent manner and to apply appropriate privacy safeguards.

7. When We Share Information

We do not sell personal information simply because it has been submitted to NearAfrica.

Information may nevertheless be shared or disclosed where reasonably necessary for operating the service, protecting users, complying with law, or handling a legitimate request.

This may include sharing information with:

• Service providers that help operate NearAfrica.
• Hosting, database, storage, security, analytics, or infrastructure providers.
• Technical providers used to process submitted images or other platform content.
• Professional advisers where reasonably necessary.
• Law-enforcement, regulatory, judicial, or other authorized government bodies where legally required or permitted.
• Parties involved in protecting NearAfrica, its users, or the public from fraud, abuse, security threats, or unlawful activity.

We aim to limit disclosures to information reasonably necessary for the relevant purpose.

8. Third-Party Services

NearAfrica may use third-party technology providers to provide hosting, databases, storage, security, analytics, maps, communications, or other technical functions.

These providers may process information according to their own privacy policies and applicable agreements.

Examples of technologies that may be used by NearAfrica include cloud infrastructure, database services, image storage, mapping services, and security services.

Third-party services may change as NearAfrica develops. Where appropriate, this Privacy Policy may be updated to reflect material changes.

9. Cookies and Similar Technologies

NearAfrica may use cookies, local storage, session storage, or similar technologies where necessary for website functionality, security, preferences, analytics, or other legitimate purposes.

Some third-party services used by the website may also use their own cookies or similar technologies.

You can usually control cookies through your browser settings. Disabling certain technologies may affect some website functionality.

10. Data Retention

We retain information for only as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, to provide the relevant service, maintain legitimate business and administrative records, resolve disputes, enforce agreements, prevent abuse, or comply with legal obligations.

Different categories of information may therefore be retained for different periods.

When information is no longer reasonably required, we may delete, anonymize, or otherwise securely dispose of it, subject to applicable legal or legitimate record-keeping requirements.

11. Data Security

We take reasonable technical and organizational measures designed to protect personal information against unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, loss, misuse, or destruction.

Security measures may include access controls, authentication, server-side protections, restricted administrative access, secure transmission where appropriate, monitoring, and other technical safeguards.

12. Your Privacy Rights

Subject to applicable law and any lawful limitations, you may have rights relating to personal information processed by NearAfrica.

These may include rights to:

• Request access to personal information we hold about you.
• Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete personal information.
• Request deletion of personal information where applicable.
• Object to or request restriction of certain processing where applicable.
• Request portability of personal information where the applicable legal requirements are satisfied.
• Withdraw consent where processing is based on consent, subject to applicable limitations.
• Make a complaint regarding the handling of your personal information.

These rights are not absolute and may be subject to legal exceptions, security requirements, legitimate interests, contractual obligations, or other lawful limitations.

To exercise an applicable privacy right, contact us using the details in the Contact section.

13. Corrections, Removal, and Listing Requests

If personal information connected to a NearAfrica listing is inaccurate, outdated, improperly published, or should otherwise be reviewed, you may contact us.

Depending on the circumstances, NearAfrica may:

• Correct inaccurate information.
• Update outdated information.
• Review a request to remove information.
• Request reasonable information needed to verify a request.
• Restrict or remove content where appropriate.

We may need to balance privacy requests against legitimate legal, security, public-interest, contractual, or record-keeping requirements.

A request does not automatically guarantee immediate removal or deletion.

14. Children and Young Users

NearAfrica is a general business-discovery platform and is not designed specifically to collect personal information from children.

We encourage young users to avoid submitting unnecessary personal information, particularly information such as home addresses, private contact information, passwords, identity documents, or other sensitive information.

If you believe a child has provided personal information to NearAfrica in circumstances where collection was inappropriate, please contact us so that we can review the situation.

15. International Processing

Some technical service providers used by NearAfrica may process or store information outside Nigeria.

Where personal information is transferred or processed outside Nigeria, we aim to use appropriate safeguards and comply with applicable data-protection requirements.

Because third-party infrastructure may change, the countries or locations in which technical information is processed may also change over time.

16. Changes to This Privacy Policy

NearAfrica may update this Privacy Policy when our services, technology, legal requirements, or data practices change.

When we make changes, we may update the “Last updated” date shown at the beginning of this policy.

Your continued use of NearAfrica after an updated Privacy Policy becomes available means that you acknowledge the updated policy to the extent permitted by applicable law.

17. Contact NearAfrica

If you have a privacy question, data-access request, correction request, removal request, complaint, or other concern about how NearAfrica handles personal information, contact us.

When making a privacy request, please provide enough information for us to understand and verify the request. We may request reasonable additional information where necessary to protect personal information from unauthorized disclosure.