Privacy Policy | DacareGH

Last updated: 17 July 2026

DacareGH ("DacareGH", "we", "us", "our") is a nonprofit initiative operating in the Republic of Ghana. We respect your privacy and handle personal data in accordance with the Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843) of Ghana and applicable good practice. This Privacy Policy explains what we collect, why we collect it, how we use it, and the choices you have.

By using this website or making a donation, you confirm that you have read and understood this Policy.

Who we are and how to contact us

DacareGH is based in Accra, Ghana. For any privacy question, request, or complaint, write to privacy@dacaregh.org. We aim to acknowledge within seven working days.

What data we collect

We only collect what we need to serve you. Depending on how you use the site, this may include:

Identity and contact data: first and last name, email address, phone number, and country. Provided when you donate, subscribe to updates, volunteer, light a candle, contact us, or sign in as an administrator.
Donation and payment data: donation amount, currency, cause selected, transaction reference, payment status, and receipt number. Card details are handled entirely by our payment processor (Paystack) and never touch our servers.
Donor wall opt in: an optional public display name, a short message, and an optional photo, only if you tick the box asking to appear on the donor wall.
Account and security data: for administrators, sign in logs, one time codes sent over SMS or email, device fingerprints, session tokens, and multi factor authentication state.
Technical data: IP address, browser type, device type, referring page, pages viewed, and diagnostic logs. Used strictly for security, abuse prevention, and improving reliability.
Cookies and similar technologies: see our Cookie Notice at /legal/cookies for the full list and your controls.

We do not knowingly collect data from children under 16. If you believe a child has provided us data, email privacy@dacaregh.org and we will delete it.

Lawful bases for processing

We rely on the following lawful bases under Act 843:

Consent for marketing emails, donor wall appearances, and non essential cookies.
Performance of a contract or your request to process a donation, issue a receipt, or respond to a form you submitted.
Legal obligation to keep financial and tax records, comply with anti money laundering and charity reporting rules, and respond to lawful requests from public authorities.
Legitimate interests in operating the website, preventing fraud, securing accounts, and communicating with donors about their own donations. These interests are balanced against your rights.

How we use your data

To process donations, issue tamper evident PDF receipts, and confirm delivery.
To send transactional messages such as receipts, thank you notes, and event confirmations.
To send newsletters, updates, and campaign appeals only if you subscribed. Every marketing email carries a one click unsubscribe link.
To operate the donor wall and public tributes only for opted in donors.
To secure the platform, detect fraud, investigate abuse, and defend legal claims.
To meet financial reporting, audit, tax, and regulatory obligations.
To improve the website using aggregate and anonymised analytics.

We do not sell personal data. We do not rent, trade, or share your data for the marketing purposes of any third party.

We share data only with the following categories of recipients, and only to the minimum needed:

Payment processor: Paystack, which processes card and mobile money payments and returns a transaction status. Paystack acts as an independent controller for card data.
Email and SMS providers: used to send receipts, one time codes, and transactional messages.
Infrastructure providers: cloud hosting, database, storage, and backup services that host the website and its data.
Professional advisors: auditors, accountants, and lawyers, under confidentiality.
Public authorities: where we are required by Ghanaian law, a valid court order, or a lawful regulatory request.
Successor entities: in the unlikely event of a merger, restructuring, or transfer of the initiative to another nonprofit, subject to equivalent protections.

We require every processor to keep your data confidential and to use it only for the purpose we specify.

International transfers

Some of our processors operate servers outside Ghana. Where personal data is transferred outside Ghana, we take reasonable steps to ensure a comparable level of protection, including contractual safeguards with the recipient.

How long we keep data

Donation and receipt records: retained for at least six years to satisfy financial, tax, and audit obligations, and longer where the law requires.
Donor contact details: retained while you remain an active supporter and for a reasonable period afterwards, unless you ask us to erase them earlier.
Newsletter subscribers: retained until you unsubscribe, then removed from active lists.
Administrator sign in logs and security events: retained for up to 24 months for security and audit.
Website analytics: retained in aggregated form only.

After the applicable period, data is deleted or irreversibly anonymised.

Security

We apply industry standard controls, including encryption in transit, encryption at rest for sensitive fields, role based access control, row level security in the database, multi factor authentication for administrators, cryptographic receipt signing, and regular backups. No system is perfectly secure. If you believe your account or data has been compromised, contact privacy@dacaregh.org immediately.

Your rights

Subject to Act 843, you have the right to:

Access the personal data we hold about you.
Correct data that is inaccurate or incomplete.
Request deletion where the data is no longer needed and no legal basis requires us to keep it.
Object to or restrict processing in defined circumstances.
Withdraw consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of prior processing.
Lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Commission of Ghana (dataprotection.org.gh).

To exercise a right, email privacy@dacaregh.org from the address on file and describe your request clearly. We may verify your identity before acting. We will respond within a reasonable period and, where the law sets a deadline, within that deadline.

Some rights are limited. For example, we cannot delete records we are legally required to keep, such as donation and receipt records within the statutory retention window.

Cookies

See the Cookie Notice at /legal/cookies. You can change your cookie preferences at any time from the "Cookie preferences" link in the footer.

Automated decisions

We do not make decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects about you using solely automated processing.

Third party links

The site may link to third party websites. We are not responsible for their privacy practices. Review their policies before providing data.

Changes to this policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. The "Last updated" date at the top will change. Material changes will be announced on the site. Continued use of the site after an update means you accept the revised Policy.

Contact

DacareGH, Accra, Ghana. privacy@dacaregh.org.