Privacy Policy

Who we are

MAIYO RESEARCH INSTITUTE (MRI) Ltd is a private company limited by guarantee registered in Rwanda. We operate free research, educational and citizen-science services across East Africa from Kigali, Rwanda. “Maiyo Research Institute”, “we” and “us” mean the company and its websites and services under maiyoinstitute.org.

Information we handle

• Google account details used to sign in, such as your name, email address, profile image and provider identifier.
• Account and session information, including timestamps, IP address and browser user-agent information used for security.
• Bird Quiz activity, such as attempts, answers, scores, progress and timestamps.
• Technical and usage information collected through site analytics, including pages viewed, events, device and browser information.
• Information you include when contacting us by email.

You can browse public research pages without creating an account. We do not currently offer a feature for visitors to upload their own files.

Why we use it

We use information to provide sign-in and account features, save quiz progress and results, secure the services, understand usage, improve reliability, respond to enquiries and maintain public research services. We do not sell personal information or use Google account data for advertising.

Service providers

We use Cloudflare for hosting, storage, databases and network security; Google for authentication; PostHog for product analytics; and Zoho for organizational email. These providers may process information in countries where they operate, subject to their own terms and privacy documentation and our instructions.

Retention and deletion

We keep information only for as long as reasonably needed for the purposes described here, security, legal obligations and reliable backups. You may request access to or deletion of account-related information by emailing privacy@maiyoinstitute.org. Some protected backups may retain information temporarily after deletion.

Your choices and rights

Subject to applicable law, you may ask us to access, correct, delete or provide a copy of personal information we hold about you. You may also object to or ask us to restrict particular processing. We may verify requests before acting on them.

Analytics and cookies

We use essential cookies and session storage to operate the platform. We also use PostHog to understand usage and identify reliability problems. You can block cookies through your browser settings; some account features may then stop working.

Children

Accounts are intended for people aged 16 or older. Public pages may be viewed without an account. If you believe a child has provided personal information to us, contact privacy@maiyoinstitute.org.

Security and changes

We use reasonable technical and organizational safeguards, but no online service can guarantee absolute security. We may update this policy as the services change and will update the date shown above.

Contact

MAIYO RESEARCH INSTITUTE (MRI) Ltd
Kagarama, Kicukiro
Kigali, Rwanda
privacy@maiyoinstitute.org