Privacy policy

Last updated 4 November 2026

ElectAI (electai.co.za) helps South Africans read party manifestos, find who is on their ballot and follow election results. You don’t need an account. This policy explains what personal information is involved and your rights under the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA).

Who is responsible

The responsible party, and the information officer, is Josiah Thobejane, based in South Africa. Contact: me@josiahthobejane.com.

What we collect and why

• Visiting the site. Your IP address, browser and device details, the pages you view, and a random analytics ID stored on your device. We use these to run and protect the site, limit abuse and see which features are used. If you look up a ward, it can appear in the page address, which our analytics record. We can’t identify you by name from this.
• Questions you type. These go to our server, and to the AI services below, to find and explain relevant manifesto passages. We don’t save them in a database and we take steps to keep them out of analytics. A question stays in your page address and browser history, so please don’t include personal details.
• Your location, only if you tap “Use my location”. It is sent once to find your ward and isn’t stored. Your browser asks your permission first.
• Your saved ward and quiz. “This is my ward” is kept on your device only. Your quiz priorities are sent to our server to work out your results and aren’t stored. The parties in a coalition sum are in the page address, which reaches our server and hosting provider when the page loads, but we don’t record them.
• Submitting a manifesto (parties and independent candidates). Your South African cellphone number, verified by SMS, the party or candidate name, your files and, if you choose, an email address. We use these to check who is submitting, prevent abuse, review the manifesto and tell you the outcome. A rejected attempt is logged with the phone number used.
• Advertising. Google may show an ad on some pages and use cookies or similar technology to select and measure ads, as Google explains here. We don’t load ads on addresses that name a ward, a question or a coalition sum, or in widgets on other sites.

We don’t ask who you support or how you voted. Your questions, quiz answers or ward could suggest your political views, which POPIA treats as special personal information. We don’t use them to build a profile of you or link them to your name.

Our lawful basis, and what’s optional

We rely on our legitimate interest in running a secure, useful, non-partisan public service (POPIA section 11(1)(f)). For a manifesto submission, and for location, we also rely on your consent. Using most of the site requires no information from you beyond what any website receives. Location, an email address and saving a ward are optional, and the site works without them. A manifesto can’t be submitted without a verified cellphone number. Analytics start when a page loads, with no prompt. See “Your rights” for how to object.

Who receives it

We don’t sell personal information. Service providers process it on our behalf, only for these purposes:

• hosting, security and storage;
• usage analytics;
• cellphone verification for manifesto submissions;
• AI processing of questions and of the text of submitted manifestos;
• advertising.

Some of these providers process information outside South Africa, including in the European Union and the United States, whose laws may differ from POPIA. We share only what each service needs and rely on the provider’s data protection terms (POPIA section 72). We may also disclose information where the law requires it.

How long we keep it

We keep submissions for as long as we need them to review and publish a manifesto and handle questions about it, and attempt logs for as long as needed to prevent abuse. Analytics data is kept according to each provider’s retention settings. Information saved on your device stays until you clear your browser’s site data.

How we protect it

We use encrypted connections, restricted access to stored submissions and rate limits. If we have reasonable grounds to believe your personal information has been accessed without authority, we’ll notify the Information Regulator and, where we can identify you, you.

Children

The site is meant for voters and isn’t aimed at children. Manifesto submissions are for parties and candidates. If you think a child has given us personal information, contact us and we’ll remove it.

Your rights

Under POPIA you can:

• ask whether we hold your personal information and for a copy of it;
• ask us to correct or delete it;
• object to our processing it on reasonable grounds;
• withdraw consent you gave, without affecting what was done before;
• complain to the Information Regulator.

To use these rights, email me@josiahthobejane.com. Because analytics and ads don’t identify you by name, we may need details to find your data. You can also limit them yourself: block cookies or site data in your browser, use a tracker blocker, or change your Google ad settings.

The Information Regulator

Information Regulator (South Africa), Woodmead North Office Park, 54 Maxwell Drive, Woodmead, Johannesburg, 2191. Phone: 010 023 5200. Enquiries: enquiries@inforegulator.org.za. Complaints: POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za. Website: inforegulator.org.za.

Changes

We’ll update this page when our practices change and show the new date at the top.