Privacy policy

HeyNaija is not a registered organisation yet (the governance page says what is planned). It is run by its founders, who are together the “data controller” under the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023. For anything about your data, write to [email protected].

Public to anyone, signed in or not: your posts and replies, any images on them and their descriptions, the communities they are posted in, your handle, display name, bio and profile photo, the date you joined, and how many posts, followers and followings you have. Anyone can see and copy what is public.

Private: your email address, your age (and date of birth, if you gave one), your bookmarks, who you mute and block, your notifications, and the reports you make. Moderators see who made a report; the person reported does not.

Your account

Your email address, handle, and the invite you joined with. If you sign in with Google, Google tells us your email address. If you sign in with Apple in the iPhone app, Apple tells us your email address, or a relay address that forwards to it if you choose to hide yours, and we keep a token from Apple that lets us end HeyNaija’s access to your Apple Account when your account is erased.

Your age

That you confirmed you are 18 or older when you joined, kept apart from your account. If you gave a date of birth while we asked for one, we keep it with your age (see Age). We do not ask for any identity document to join.

Your profile

Display name, bio and profile photo, when you add them.

What you post

Posts, replies and images. Images are re-encoded when you upload them, which removes location and camera data stored inside the file.

What you do

Likes, bookmarks, follows, mutes, blocks, communities you join, reports and appeals, and your votes on the ideas board.

Problem reports

When you report a problem on the ideas board: the page you reported it from, your browser’s description of itself and the version of HeyNaija that was running. Only you and Building HeyNaija’s moderators see these; the report itself is a public post.

Push notifications

If you turn them on in a browser: the address its push service gave it, the keys that encrypt what is sent there, and when it last got one. In the Android app: the token Google’s Firebase Cloud Messaging gave it, the key the app made to encrypt what is sent there, and when it last got one. In the iPhone app the same, with the token Apple’s push service gave it. Turning push off, or signing out there, deletes them.

Technical data

When you were last active, when weekly highlights were last sent to you, and the short-lived logs our servers and Cloudflare keep to run the service and protect it, which include IP addresses.

• To run HeyNaija: show posts, deliver notifications, sign you in.
• To keep it safe: rate limits, moderation, and checking images against lists of known child abuse material.
• To email you sign-in codes and account messages, and, if notification emails are on for you, a short email when there is something new for you (grouped, at most about twice an hour). Every one has a link that turns them off.
• If weekly highlights are on for you and you have not opened HeyNaija for a few days: at most one message a week with a few conversations you missed, chosen by published rules. It comes as a push notification where you turned those on, otherwise as an email if notification emails are on. It has its own switch in Settings and its own link that turns it off. To judge whether these are worth sending we keep when we last sent you one; we do not track whether you open it or what you tap. We send no advertising or marketing.
• If you turn on push notifications in a browser or the app, to show your notifications there as they happen. What reaches you that way is not emailed as well.

Latest and Following are in time order. Discover ranks recent posts by published rules, using only public activity (replies, quotes, reposts and like counts), who you follow and which communities you joined. We do not record what you read, rank posts by guessing what you will engage with, show advertising, or sell or rent your data to anyone.

These companies handle data for us, only to provide their service:

• Cloudflare: the network in front of the site, security, and storage of images (R2). Its abuse-material scanning tool checks images served through it.
• Resend: sends the emails with your sign-in codes, your notification emails and weekly highlights.
• Your browser’s push service, only if you turn on push notifications: Google for Chrome and most Android browsers, Apple for Safari, Mozilla for Firefox, Microsoft for Edge on Windows. It carries them to your device encrypted, so it cannot read them, but it does see when they are sent.
• Google’s Firebase Cloud Messaging, only if you allow notifications in the Android app, and Apple’s push service, only if you allow them in the iPhone app: each carries them to your phone, encrypted with a key only the app and HeyNaija have, so it cannot read them either, but it does see when they are sent.
• netcup: the servers HeyNaija runs on, in Germany.
• Google: only if you choose to sign in with Google.
• Apple: only if you choose to sign in with Apple in the iPhone app.

So your data is processed outside Nigeria: by netcup in Germany, under the European Union’s data protection law (the GDPR), and by Cloudflare, Resend, Google, Apple and the push services, mainly in the United States and Europe, each under its own data protection terms. It is encrypted on its way to each of them.

• hn_session: keeps you signed in, for up to 14 days.
• hn_invite: holds your invite code while you sign up, for up to an hour.
• hn_age: holds that you confirmed you are 18 or older while you sign up, until your account exists, and for up to an hour.
• A security cookie from our sign-in service, which stops other sites submitting forms as you.
• hn_feed: which tab you last chose on Home (Discover, Latest or Following), so Home opens on it, for up to a year.
• hn_deletion: the date your account will be erased, shown to you once you ask for it to be deleted, for an hour.
• hn_data: whether you chose to save data (Automatic, Save data or Always load), so pictures can be held back until you tap them, for up to a year.
• Your light or dark theme is saved in your browser, not sent to us.

• Your account, profile and age (with your date of birth, if you gave one): for as long as you have an account.
• Posts you delete leave every page at once, but the record is kept for 90 days so moderation decisions can be checked (longer while a report about the post is still open). Then its text is deleted.
• Images that were never posted: removed within a few hours.
• Images moderators take down are moved out of public view and kept privately as evidence for a year (longer while a report about them is still open). Then they are deleted.
• Backups of our two databases (HeyNaija’s, and the sign-in service’s): kept for 30 days, encrypted. Something deleted stays in them until they age out.
• Copies of the emails our sign-in service sends you, such as sign-in codes: 7 days.
• Server logs: about two weeks. The web server keeps its logs for 14 days; the service’s own logs are capped in size, the oldest deleted first.

When you delete your account, it leaves HeyNaija at once and is erased 14 days later. Erasing removes your email address and the ways you sign in (and ends HeyNaija’s access to your Apple Account, if you signed in with Apple), your name, bio and photo, the text and images of your posts and replies, your likes, reposts, bookmarks and votes, who you follow, block and mute, your community memberships and notifications, and your age record. What stays:

• A blank placeholder, shown as @deleted-…, in place of your account, so other people’s conversations and reports still make sense. Your handle is held for 30 days so nobody can take it straight away.
• Other people’s replies to your posts. Your posts show as no longer available.
• Posts of yours that were reported or taken down, out of public view, as the record of moderation decisions, for the period above, and the reports and decisions themselves.
• A record that you declared you were 18 or older, and when, linked only to that placeholder, for two years.
• The record that you asked for your account to be deleted, and when it was done, for two years after it was done. So is the record of any other request you make about your data.

• See your data: download it any time from Settings → Your data.
• Correct it: change your name, bio, photo, email or handle in Settings.
• Delete your account: in Settings → Delete your account. It leaves HeyNaija at once and is erased after 14 days; until then you can sign in and keep it. What is kept.
• Anything else, or if you cannot use Settings: write to [email protected] from the address you sign in with. We answer within 30 days.
• Complain: to us first, and if we do not resolve it, to the Nigeria Data Protection Commission.

HeyNaija does not collect NINs, NIN slips or photos of identity documents, and identity verification is switched off. Nothing on the site asks for them.

The draft constitution proposes optional NIN verification through an authorised NINAuth provider, for people who want a green identity tick or to activate voting as eligible legal members. Formal association admission is separate; verification does not grant membership. It would be opt-in, and HeyNaija would keep only the result: the status, its dates, an over-18 result where the provider may share one, and a private key that stops one person holding two voting memberships. Never the NIN itself. How it would work.

Before it could start, all of these must be done, and this section rewritten to match:

• A privacy impact review: a data protection impact assessment of identity processing, reviewed by Nigerian privacy counsel.
• The provider authorised, with its data-sharing terms and any transfers outside Nigeria confirmed.
• The lawful basis, exactly what is collected, and how long it is kept, which the privacy impact review will set.
• A security review of the integration.

During the invite-only beta, accounts are for people aged 18 or older. When you join, you confirm that you are; accounts for anyone younger are not allowed yet. See the rules for what happens if an account seems to belong to someone under 18.

This is a temporary restriction for the beta, not a permanent one. If accounts open to younger people later, this policy will first say how ages are checked, what parental or guardian consent the law requires and how it is given, what is collected from a parent or guardian, and how children’s data is protected.

We keep your age apart from your account, from identity verification and from voting membership: an age band (under 18, or 18 or older), how it was established (you said so, or a check confirmed it), and when. Moderators see at most whether an account is an adult. Your age is never shown on your profile, and it is deleted with your account.

For a short time in November 2026, HeyNaija asked for a date of birth instead, at signup and once from members already here. We no longer ask. If you gave yours then, we keep it with your age, so that if an age in the rules changes your band can be worked out again without asking you, and so a later age check can be compared with what you said. Only you can see it, in your data export; it is never logged, never shown on your profile, and deleted with your account. To correct it, write to [email protected].

We will announce changes to this policy on the governance page before they take effect.