KnownAfrique data protection notice

Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how KnownAfrique collects, uses, shares, protects, and retains personal data across customer and lawyer web clients and native Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows apps.

Last updated
June 6, 2026
Applies to
Customers, lawyers, web, Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows

KnownAfrique processes account, contact, location, consultation, payment, notification, support, device, and security data to operate the platform.

Lawyer professional details are processed for verification, approval, discovery, customer matching, subscriptions, payouts, and compliance.

Consultation messages, documents, call metadata, recordings where enabled, and support attachments are treated as sensitive platform content.

Data may be shared with matched customers or lawyers, payment providers, realtime call infrastructure, storage providers, notification providers, maps, app stores, and regulators where needed.

Users can request access, correction, deletion, objection, restriction, portability, or in-app account deletion subject to legal, safety, accounting, dispute, and professional obligations.

1. Scope And Controller

This policy applies to KnownAfrique customer and lawyer accounts, public web pages, authentication flows, consultations, services on the go, wallet and subscription features, support cases, notifications, private calls, and native desktop or mobile apps.

KnownAfrique determines why and how most platform data is processed. Lawyers may also act as independent professional controllers for legal advice, case records, and professional obligations arising from their work with customers.

2. Personal Data We Collect

  • Account and identity data: name, email, phone, country, role, password-derived credentials, OTP/MFA state, session identifiers, approval status, and account settings.
  • Lawyer verification data: practice number, law firm name, specialties, availability, approval review data, service offerings, subscription status, payout records, and professional profile information.
  • Consultation and service data: request details, legal topic, location context, matched parties, status history, prices, accept/decline actions, call links, chat messages, documents, media, and recordings where enabled.
  • Payment data: M-Pesa phone numbers, payment prompts, provider references, wallet ledger entries, subscription receipts, escrow state, refunds, reversals, payout records, and reconciliation metadata. KnownAfrique does not need your mobile money PIN.
  • Location and map data: approximate or precise location when you allow it, place labels, service areas, nearby-lawyer matching inputs, and map-search context.
  • Device and technical data: IP-derived security signals, user agent, app platform, device token or FCM token, crash and error details, realtime connection state, rate-limit signals, and audit logs.
  • Support and communications data: case messages, attachments, feedback, notification preferences, email/SMS/push delivery metadata, and administrative notes needed to resolve issues.
  • Cookies and local storage: web session metadata, theme preferences, security tokens handled through HttpOnly cookies where applicable, and similar data needed for authentication, security, and usability.

3. How We Collect Data

  • Directly from you when you register, sign in, request help, create a lawyer profile, upload documents, send chat/support messages, make payments, set availability, or change settings.
  • Automatically from your device, browser, app, payment callbacks, realtime calls, notification providers, security controls, and logs.
  • From other platform users when a customer or lawyer interacts with you in a consultation, service request, message thread, payment flow, or support case.
  • From service providers such as payment processors, maps, messaging, storage, app stores, and infrastructure providers that support platform delivery.

4. Why We Use Data

  • To create and secure accounts, authenticate users, issue and refresh sessions, process OTP/MFA checks, and prevent unauthorized access.
  • To match customers and lawyers, coordinate consultations, support services on the go, enable location-assisted discovery, and maintain active call recovery.
  • To process payments, subscriptions, escrow holds, refunds, reversals, receipts, wallet balances, lawyer payouts, provider callbacks, accounting, and fraud prevention.
  • To host documents, messages, media, recordings, support cases, and profile photos in a secure and recoverable way.
  • To send transactional notifications about security, consultations, calls, services, payments, support, lawyer approval, and policy changes.
  • To operate, debug, monitor, improve, scale, and protect the platform, including rate limiting, incident response, analytics, quality assurance, and abuse prevention.
  • To comply with law, professional requests, tax, accounting, court, regulator, law-enforcement, data-protection, app-store, and payment-provider obligations.

5. Legal Bases And Consent

Depending on the context, KnownAfrique processes personal data because it is needed to perform the platform agreement, because you consented, because processing is necessary for legitimate platform safety and operations, because we must comply with legal obligations, or because processing is needed to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.

Where a platform feature asks for device permission, such as location, camera, microphone, photos, notifications, or files, you can control that permission through your device or browser settings. Some features will not work without the relevant permission.

6. Sharing And Recipients

  • Matched customers and lawyers receive the information needed to handle the consultation, service request, message thread, call, document exchange, payment context, or dispute.
  • Authorized KnownAfrique administrators and support staff may access limited data needed for safety, support, payments, lawyer approval, disputes, compliance, and platform operations.
  • Payment providers may receive transaction details needed to initiate prompts, reconcile callbacks, prevent fraud, reverse payments, and complete payouts.
  • Infrastructure providers may process data for hosting, object storage, realtime calls, TURN connectivity, notifications, email/SMS delivery, maps, crash reporting, and observability.
  • App stores and operating-system providers may process device, install, purchase, notification, crash, or privacy disclosure data according to their own policies.
  • Regulators, courts, professional bodies, law enforcement, auditors, tax authorities, or payment schemes may receive data where required by law, professional rules, or valid process.
  • If KnownAfrique is involved in a merger, financing, reorganization, or sale, data may be transferred under confidentiality and continuity safeguards.
  • KnownAfrique does not sell personal data, and consultation content is not used for advertising.

7. International Transfers

KnownAfrique may use service providers or infrastructure located outside Kenya. Where personal data is transferred internationally, KnownAfrique aims to use safeguards such as contractual protections, provider due diligence, access controls, encryption, data minimization, or consent where required.

8. Security

  • KnownAfrique uses security controls such as encrypted transport, secure session storage, HttpOnly cookies where applicable, access controls, role-based authorization, upload-origin validation, bounded file limits, rate limiting, audit logging, and operational monitoring.
  • No system is perfectly secure. You should keep your device updated, protect your credentials, use MFA where available, and report suspected account compromise promptly.
  • Do not send mobile money PINs, national secrets, unnecessary third-party personal data, or unrelated sensitive material through KnownAfrique.

9. Retention

KnownAfrique keeps personal data only as long as needed for the purposes described in this policy, including account operation, consultation continuity, legal and professional recordkeeping, payment reconciliation, tax and accounting, dispute handling, fraud prevention, security, backups, and compliance.

After an account deletion request is accepted, KnownAfrique deletes or de-identifies data that is no longer needed and limits retained records to the purposes that still require them.

Consultation, payment, payout, audit, security, dispute, tax, accounting, legal, and professional records may need to be retained for longer. Backups and logs may expire on separate operational schedules.

10. Your Choices And Rights

  • You may update profile details, notification preferences, security settings, account deletion, and device permissions through the app or your device settings where supported.
  • You may request access to personal data, correction of inaccurate data, deletion, objection to certain processing, restriction, portability, or information about processing.
  • Some rights may be limited by legal, professional, accounting, payment, fraud-prevention, security, or dispute obligations.
  • To exercise privacy rights, contact privacy@example.com. You may also contact the relevant data-protection authority where applicable.

11. Account Deletion

If you created an account, you may request account deletion from Settings > Account > Delete account in supported web and native apps, or through support or privacy channels where the in-app route is not available.

Submitting the in-app request creates an authenticated account case and signs the requesting device out. KnownAfrique may need to verify your identity, settle pending payments or payouts, resolve active consultations or disputes, and preserve records required for tax, accounting, fraud prevention, security, professional complaints, legal claims, or regulatory duties.

Once required checks are complete, KnownAfrique deletes or de-identifies account and profile data that is no longer needed. Retained records are limited to the purposes described in this policy and are protected by access controls.

Account deletion may close active sessions, remove profile visibility, disable notifications, and limit access to historical consultations, documents, receipts, messages, or recordings except where retention is legally or operationally required.

12. Children

KnownAfrique is intended for adults and authorized representatives. Minors should use the platform only through a parent, guardian, or legally authorized representative. If you believe a minor has created an account without appropriate authority, contact KnownAfrique.

13. Automated Matching And Decision Support

KnownAfrique may use rules and ranking signals such as location, availability, specialization, request status, service offering, approval state, and payment state to route requests or display options. KnownAfrique does not use these signals to replace a lawyer's professional judgment or guarantee a legal outcome.

14. Policy Updates And Contact

KnownAfrique may update this Privacy Policy as platform features, providers, laws, or security practices change. Material updates will be communicated through reasonable channels. For privacy questions, contact privacy@example.com; for account or support questions, contact support@example.com.