Data & Privacy

1. Who we are

Cordelia is a field operations platform operated from Lagos, Nigeria. This policy explains what personal data we collect, why we collect it, and what rights you have over it. It is written to align with the Nigeria Data Protection Act and the NDPR.

For anything in this policy, contact admin@cordelia.com.ng.

2. What we collect

Information you give us

• Name, email address, phone number and password.
• For merchants: company name, industry, address and bank details.
• For agents: location, skills, bank details and, where you choose to complete verification, an identity document.
• Anything you type into a report, survey response, research submission or contact form.

Information captured automatically

• Location when you file a report, check in, or submit research on a campaign that requires it.
• Device and browser information, IP address, and pages visited.
• Photographs and files you upload as evidence.

We do not collect payment card numbers. Card payments, where enabled, are handled by our payment provider and we never see the full card details.

3. Location data — the detail

Location is the most sensitive data Cordelia handles, so we are specific about it.

• Location is captured only when you actively file a report, check in, or submit research on a campaign that requires it. Cordelia does not track you in the background.
• Raw coordinates are converted into a street, LGA and state. Both the coordinates and the resolved address are stored against that submission.
• To resolve an address we send the coordinates to a mapping provider — OpenStreetMap by default, or Google if the platform operator has configured it. We send only the coordinates, never your name or account.
• Resolved addresses are cached so the same place is not looked up repeatedly.
• The merchant who commissioned the work can see the location on submissions made to their campaign. Other merchants cannot.
• You can decline location access in your browser. Where a campaign requires it, you will not be able to submit to that campaign.

4. Why we use it

• To run the service — creating accounts, matching agents to campaigns, processing reports and paying out. Lawful basis: performance of a contract.
• To verify work — confirming that field work happened where and when it was claimed. Lawful basis: legitimate interest in preventing fraud.
• To pay you — moving money between wallets and to bank accounts. Lawful basis: performance of a contract.
• To communicate — service notifications, campaign invitations and support replies.
• To improve the platform — anonymised, aggregated analysis. Lawful basis: legitimate interest.
• To meet legal obligations — record keeping and responding to lawful requests.

5. Who we share it with

We do not sell your personal data. We share it only in these circumstances:

• With the merchant whose campaign you work on — your name, performance and the reports and locations you submit to that campaign.
• With service providers — our hosting, email and mapping providers, each processing data only on our instructions.
• With payment providers — where you fund a wallet or withdraw earnings.
• Where the law requires it — in response to a valid legal request.

6. How long we keep it

• Account data: for as long as your account is open, and up to six years afterwards to meet accounting and tax record-keeping obligations.
• Reports, submissions and their location data: for the life of the campaign and six years afterwards, as financial records supporting payments made.
• Contact form messages: three years.
• Cached address lookups: six months, then refreshed or discarded.
• Server logs: 90 days.

7. How we protect it

• All traffic is served over HTTPS.
• Passwords are stored as bcrypt hashes and are never recoverable in plain text.
• Database access uses prepared statements throughout, preventing SQL injection.
• Administrative access is restricted, and every impersonation session is logged with a reason and an audit trail.
• Uploaded files are validated by content type, not just by filename.

No system is perfectly secure. If we become aware of a breach affecting your personal data, we will notify you and the relevant authority as the law requires.

8. Your rights

Under Nigerian data protection law you have the right to:

• Ask what personal data we hold about you and receive a copy.
• Have inaccurate data corrected.
• Ask us to delete your data, where we are not required to keep it.
• Object to processing based on legitimate interest.
• Withdraw consent for marketing at any time.
• Ask for your data in a portable format.
• Complain to the Nigeria Data Protection Commission.

To exercise any of these, email us. We respond within 30 days. Note that deleting an account does not remove financial records we are legally required to retain.

9. Cookies

Cordelia uses a small number of cookies:

• Session cookie — keeps you signed in. Essential; the platform does not work without it.
• Affiliate attribution cookie — remembers which agent referred you to a storefront, so their commission is credited. Expires after the window set by the platform operator, by default 30 days.
• Site analytics cookies (cd_vid, cd_sid) — set on our public pages to tell visits and sessions apart, so we can see which pages are read, how visitors arrive and which pages lead to a sign-up, enquiry or order. They hold a random identifier, not your name or contact details. We also keep a daily-rotating, one-way hash of your connection and browser details to count visits and spot crawlers; your IP address itself is not stored. Analytics records are deleted after 18 months. Signed-in areas of the platform are not part of this analytics.

We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

10. Children

Cordelia is not intended for anyone under 18 and we do not knowingly collect data from children. If you believe a child has given us personal data, contact us and we will remove it.

11. Price Board, market checks, verified vendors and website tracking

These public tools handle a little extra data. Here is exactly what, and for how long.

Price Board and receipt photos

• When you report a price you can attach a photo of the receipt as proof. Receipt photos are private evidence. They are not shown on any public page and the merchant or buyer pages never display them.
• The photo is deleted as soon as the price is accepted or rejected. If a price is still waiting after 14 days, the photo is deleted anyway.
• A published price shows the product, market, price range and how many different people reported it. It does not show your name.
• We keep the price itself, the market it was for and the date, so that price history and charts stay accurate.

Sending prices by WhatsApp

• Your WhatsApp number is a required part of a Price Board profile. It is how you send prices by text message, and how we make sure each number belongs to one person. We confirm it when you tap a button that opens WhatsApp with a short code, and it is never shown on any public page or shared with businesses.
• When you message Cordelia's WhatsApp number we receive your number, the text you send and the time. If you send a location pin, we keep it only roughly (rounded to about one kilometre) with the price it belongs to. We do not read photos, voice notes or documents sent there.
• The text of messages you send us is kept for up to 90 days so we can fix problems and stop abuse, then deleted. The prices you report follow the same rules as any other price.
• WhatsApp (Meta) carries the messages and has its own privacy policy. You can stop at any time by withdrawing your Price Board consent, which also removes your WhatsApp number from your profile.

Market checks (“Ask the Market”) and Verified Vendors

• When a business orders a market or vendor check, a verified Cordelia field agent visits in person. The agent's report, photos (for a vendor check, a photo of the signboard) and the GPS location of the visit are stored against that check.
• The business that ordered the check sees the result. Nobody else does, except where the result is a Verified Vendor listing.
• A Verified Vendor page only ever says that a business was visited and found trading, with the date and area. We do not publish accusations, phone numbers, street addresses or open reviews. A listed business can ask us to remove its page at any time by emailing us.

Website tracker

• A merchant can install the Cordelia tracker on their own website to count visits and results that come from an agent's tracked link. The tracker sets a first-party cookie and a local-storage entry on the visitor's browser to remember which link they arrived from.
• We store the page events the merchant asked to count and a shortened, one-way hash of the visitor's IP address, used only to limit abuse. We do not store the raw IP address for this purpose and we do not use the tracker to follow people across other websites.
• The merchant who installs the tracker is responsible for telling their own visitors about it in their own privacy notice.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. The date at the top of the page shows when it last changed, and material changes are notified by email or in the dashboard.