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Privacy policy

Last updated: 20 October 2026

Civi is Lexi Software’s corporate social investment (CSI) initiative. We are independent and are not affiliated with, endorsed by or acting on behalf of the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC), any government body or any political party.

Civi is operated by Lexi Software. Contact us at hello@civiapp.co.za.

What we process and why

We process information needed to show public civic records, resolve the ward you request, review voluntary contributions, answer messages and protect the service. You choose whether to provide a location or contribution; without a location we cannot resolve your ward, and without the relevant contribution details we cannot investigate that submission. Optional analytics requires a separate choice.

  • Public records: candidate names, party associations, public statements, manifesto positions and linked sources obtained from public sources. These describe public records, not your political beliefs.
  • Location: an address search is sent to Google Maps/Places. A selected point is sent to Civi to identify a ward; manual map use also processes map bounds and selected coordinates. We do not include your address or precise coordinates in product analytics.
  • Contributions and messages: the links, text, supporting files and any contact information you choose to provide are processed to review evidence, handle corrections or respond. Avoid sensitive or unnecessary personal information. Submission receipts and review records may be stored.
  • Service and security: hosting, database and security providers process request information such as IP addresses, browser headers, timing and abuse-prevention signals to deliver and protect the service. Where enabled, Google reCAPTCHA processes signals when you submit evidence or report an accuracy issue. These service requests are separate from optional analytics.

Optional analytics and browser storage

Analytics stays off until you select “Accept analytics”. Rejecting has no effect on access to Civi. Use “Analytics settings” in the footer to accept or reject later. Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control override an accepted choice. We do not interpret browsing civic information as political affiliation, support or voting intention.

With your permission, we collect analytics data to understand how Civi is used and improve what we offer. This includes visits, features used, campaign links followed, the public civic information viewed, approximate location and browser or device information. Random codes help us recognise a returning browser and connect activity within a visit; we also record when activity happened and which version of Civi was used.

Analytics does not include entered addresses, precise coordinates, contribution contents, full page addresses or referrers. We do not record your screen or create personal user profiles. Our analytics service receives your IP address and browser information when your browser connects. It may use this to estimate your city, region or country and retain browser details. We send analytics requests to a service in Europe, but processing or access may also take place elsewhere.

We save your analytics choice in your browser so we can remember it. If you accept, we also save the random browser and visit codes there. No analytics cookies are used. Your comparison selections may be saved separately so you can return to them.

Rejecting or withdrawing stops future analytics and clears the analytics codes in this browser. It does not delete data already collected. Contact us for access or deletion requests, preferably before clearing your browser’s code so we can locate relevant records. Saved browser data lasts until removed by you, the browser or Civi; the saved visit code normally disappears when the tab closes. If your browser blocks storage, your choice may last only while the page remains open. We ask again when no saved choice is available.

Providers, sharing and international processing

Providers used for service delivery include Vercel for hosting, our configured database/storage services, Google for maps and enabled anti-abuse checks, and an analytics service for optional analytics. They receive information relevant to their service and may process it outside South Africa. Processing outside South Africa remains subject to applicable data-protection requirements. Contact us for information about providers and safeguards relevant to your request. We do not sell your personal information or provide analytics identities to political parties for targeting.

External source links take you to other sites with their own practices. See Google’s privacy policy and Vercel’s privacy policy.

Retention and security

We retain contributions, correspondence and operational records for the review, service, security or legal purpose for which they are needed, then delete or de-identify them where applicable. Provider retention and backups can differ from browser storage; clearing your browser does not delete server or provider records. Contact us for the retention applicable to a particular record. We limit access and use reasonable safeguards, but no online system can be guaranteed completely secure.

Your rights and contact

Under applicable law, including South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), you may ask for access to your personal information, correction or deletion, object to processing or withdraw consent. Email hello@civiapp.co.za with enough information to identify the request. We may need proportionate verification before disclosing or changing records. Do not send identity documents unless we explain why they are needed and how to send them securely. Withdrawal does not undo processing that was lawful before withdrawal.

You can also lodge a complaint with South Africa’s Information Regulator. We will update this notice when processing changes and show the revision date above; material changes to optional analytics will require a renewed choice.