Legal, Privacy, and Support

This page combines Wanyama Watch's key legal terms, privacy notice, support contact details, and safety guidance in one place.

Terms of Service

1. Service role

Wanyama Watch is a wildlife incident reporting, ranger coordination, and moderation platform. It helps people submit wildlife incident reports and helps vetted ranger and administrator accounts review, route, assign, moderate, and manage those reports.

Wanyama Watch is a coordination and reporting tool. It is not a public emergency dispatch service, not a wildlife rescue guarantee, and not a substitute for directly contacting the Kenya Wildlife Service or another competent authority where immediate action is required.

Unless expressly stated otherwise in writing, Wanyama Watch is not the Kenya Wildlife Service, not a government agency, and not an official public emergency dispatch platform. References to wildlife authorities or official hotlines are provided for safety and escalation only.

The platform does not promise or guarantee rescue, dispatch, response times, case acceptance, intervention, field attendance, treatment, transport, release, enforcement action, compensation, or any specific outcome.

2. Kenyan legal and wildlife context

Wildlife use, handling, conservation, enforcement, and access in Kenya are governed by Kenyan law, including the Wildlife Conservation and Management Act (Cap. 376), as amended. Wanyama Watch operates as a private reporting platform within that legal context.

• The platform does not grant any right, permit, licence, authority, or official status to capture, handle, transport, sedate, treat, or otherwise interfere with wildlife.
• Users remain personally responsible for complying with all applicable Kenyan laws, permit requirements, reporting duties, and directions issued by competent authorities.
• Where a report involves immediate danger, unlawful wildlife activity, or urgent field intervention, users should contact the Kenya Wildlife Service or another competent authority directly.

3. Reporter use

• Reporters must submit truthful incident information to the best of their knowledge.
• Reports should only be used for real wildlife-related situations.
• Abusive, misleading, unlawful, or spam submissions are not permitted.
• Obscene, sexually explicit, hateful, threatening, harassing, or otherwise inappropriate content is not permitted.
• Reporters must not upload content they do not have a lawful right to share.
• Reporters should avoid including unnecessary personal data about themselves or other people in photos or descriptions.
• The service may not be used for personal advertising, solicitation, lead generation, fundraising, side-business promotion, or any unrelated commercial purpose.
• Reporters must not use the platform to encourage unsafe wildlife interactions or unauthorized intervention in the field.

4. Ranger and admin access

• Ranger and admin access is restricted to vetted accounts approved by the service operator.
• Access is intended only for persons the operator has reviewed and approved for an operational or administrative role, based on credentials, approvals, experience, or other suitability information available to the operator.
• Users with ranger or admin access are responsible for keeping their credentials secure.
• Admin accounts may manage ranger access, profile data, routing data, reported-message moderation, and operational case controls.
• Ranger and admin users must not use report data, contact details, or platform access for private commercial gain, unauthorized fundraising, off-platform solicitation, personal publicity, or any unrelated business activity.
• Ranger and admin users must not exploit wildlife incidents, reporters, or report data for personal benefit, harassment, intimidation, or unlawful disclosure.
• The operator may suspend, restrict, revoke, or refuse ranger or admin access at any time where safety, legal, moderation, operational, or verification concerns arise.

5. No field authority, agency, or employment

Use of Wanyama Watch does not create any employment, partnership, agency, joint venture, volunteer appointment, rescue undertaking, or governmental mandate between the operator and any reporter, ranger, administrator, authority, or third party.

The operator supplies the platform and moderation layer. Real-world decisions, travel, intervention, handling, enforcement, treatment, and other field actions are outside the operator's direct control.

6. Content, moderation, and logging

Report photos, descriptions, and activity-log updates may be reviewed for operational, safety, and moderation purposes. Abusive or unsafe content may be hidden, restricted, removed from active view, or escalated for review.

The operator may log platform activity, moderation events, assignment activity, report changes, routing actions, and account actions for safety, audit, operational improvement, incident review, abuse prevention, and public-interest analysis.

Moderation actions do not constitute a finding of fact, a legal determination, or an admission of liability. The operator may preserve reports, activity-log entries, moderation records, and related metadata where reasonably necessary for safety review, legal compliance, claims handling, abuse prevention, evidence preservation, or requests from competent authorities.

7. Location, communications, and lawful sharing

Wanyama Watch uses location information to route reports and support ranger operations. Assigned rangers can post updates to a report's activity log, and reporters can view those updates while their access remains valid. Wanyama Watch does not currently send reports through WhatsApp or accept replies from reporters.

Report data, account data, and operational logs may be disclosed to assigned rangers, administrators, hosting and technical service providers, and competent wildlife, public, regulatory, or law-enforcement authorities where necessary for platform operations, safety, moderation, legal compliance, public-interest functions, or statistical and scientific analysis, in each case subject to applicable law.

By submitting a report, you acknowledge that report photos, location, descriptions, and activity-log updates may be made available to the assigned ranger, the operator's administrators, and technical service providers required to run the platform.

8. Fees and commercial position

The platform is currently offered without a paid consumer pricing model. No user should interpret the service as creating any obligation to provide commercial rescue, insurance, compensation, or guaranteed support.

9. Availability and acceptable use

• The service may change, be interrupted, or be unavailable from time to time.
• You may not attempt to misuse, disrupt, reverse engineer, or gain unauthorized access to the service.
• The operator may suspend or remove access when misuse, abuse, or security risk is identified.

10. Grounds for restriction, suspension, or removal

Without limiting any other rights available under law or these terms, the operator may restrict content, restrict report access, suspend access, revoke vetted access, refuse future use, or preserve and disclose relevant records where reasonably necessary in response to:

• false, misleading, malicious, or repeated bad-faith reporting;
• obscene, sexually explicit, hateful, threatening, harassing, exploitative, or otherwise inappropriate content;
• spam, impersonation, doxxing, unlawful disclosure, or misuse of another person's data;
• commercial solicitation, side-business promotion, private lead generation, or attempts to monetise reports or platform access without written authorisation;
• unsafe wildlife conduct, encouragement of unlawful handling, wildlife exploitation, trafficking-related content, or interference with competent authorities;
• credential sharing, unauthorised account access, security abuse, scraping, or other platform misuse;
• breach of these terms, legal obligations, moderation instructions, or operational safety rules.

The operator may take action with or without prior notice where immediate safety, abuse-prevention, legal, or security concerns justify it.

11. Disclaimers and limitation of liability

Wanyama Watch is provided on an "as available" and "as is" basis. To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, the operator disclaims warranties of availability, fitness for a particular purpose, uninterrupted service, accuracy, response quality, outcome, or field performance.

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, the operator will not be liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, special, exemplary, or punitive losses, or for injury, death, property loss, wildlife loss, enforcement outcomes, delayed response, failed response, third-party conduct, authority action, communication failure, platform downtime, or user misuse arising out of or relating to the platform or real-world events connected to it.

Nothing in these terms excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded under applicable Kenyan law.

12. User responsibility and indemnity

You remain responsible for your own conduct, decisions, uploaded content, legal compliance, and field actions. To the fullest extent permitted by law, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless the operator from claims, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses arising from your unlawful, negligent, abusive, misleading, unauthorized, or unsafe use of the platform.

13. Governing law, severability, and changes

These terms are governed by the laws of Kenya. If any clause is found unenforceable, the remaining clauses continue to apply to the fullest extent permitted by law.

Subject to any mandatory rights or complaint procedures available under Kenyan law, disputes relating to these terms or the platform shall be addressed in the courts of Kenya.

These terms may be updated from time to time. Continued use of the service after an update means you accept the revised terms.

Privacy Policy

Members of the public can submit wildlife reports without creating an account. We do not ask public reporters for a name or email address. Reports can still contain personal data through their location, photos, descriptions, and technical records. Ranger accounts require identity, contact, profile, and operational location data.

Data we collect

Wildlife reports

We process the animal type, report time, location, photos, description, status, and shared activity log. Photos and descriptions may contain personal data about the reporter or other people.

Ranger accounts

We process ranger names, phone numbers, password hashes, profile details, work areas, base and recent device locations, assignment history, and push-notification tokens.

Security and device data

We process session identifiers, per-report access credentials, IP-derived rate-limit identifiers, access times, and security events. The app stores recent report access information on the reporter's device.

How we use this data

We use this data to:

• Create and route wildlife incident reports
• Give reporters access to case status and ranger updates for 30 days
• Support ranger assignments, shared activity logs, and notifications
• Operate, secure, moderate, and troubleshoot the service

Data minimisation

Public reporters are not asked for a name or email address, but reports are not guaranteed to be anonymous. Locations, photos, descriptions, and technical records may identify the reporter or another person. Do not include personal data that is not needed to describe the wildlife incident.

Service providers and sharing

We use hosting, database, bot-protection, and push-notification providers to run the service. Web verification uses Cloudflare Turnstile. Ranger notifications use Expo and device-platform push services and may include the animal type, report description, report ID, and coordinates.

We may also share report data with assigned rangers, administrators, and competent authorities when needed for operations, safety, or legal compliance, subject to applicable law.

No guarantee of response

Wanyama Watch does not guarantee that reports will be received or acted upon. Users should contact official authorities directly in urgent situations.

Independent platform

Wanyama Watch is not affiliated with the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) or any government authority.

User responsibility

Users must not approach, handle, or attempt to treat wildlife themselves.

Legal basis and handling

We process personal data for service delivery, security, moderation, legal compliance, and public-interest wildlife coordination. We aim to handle personal data in line with applicable Kenyan data-protection requirements, including fairness, lawful use, relevance, and reasonable security safeguards.

Depending on the context, our legal basis may include your consent where requested on-device, steps you ask us to take by submitting a report or using a ranger account, legitimate interests in running and securing the platform, compliance with legal obligations, protection of vital interests, and public-interest or research-related processing permitted by law.

Where personal data is hosted, backed up, or accessed outside Kenya, we aim to use lawful transfer mechanisms, appropriate safeguards, or consent where required under Kenyan law.

Retention and deletion

Reporter access expires 30 days after a report is submitted. Ranger dashboards and the mobile reporter history show report cards from the last 30 days. These limits control access and visibility; they do not delete the underlying record.

We may retain reports, assignments, moderation records, and audit logs for operations, safety review, abuse prevention, legal claims, evidence preservation, or compliance with applicable law.

When a ranger deletes an account, we revoke active sessions and push tokens, remove the account from routing, and unassign its reports. We replace the active profile with a deleted-account record. The database retains the previous phone number in an internal deleted-account field, along with operational audit records.

Your choices

• Photo library and camera permissions are requested on-device when you attach a report photo.
• Location permission is requested on-device and can be changed in system settings.
• Rangers can update their profile and delete their account in-app.
• Reporters can reopen report details and shared ranger updates for 30 days using a per-report access token stored on their device. Keep tracking links private.

Your privacy rights and complaints

Subject to applicable Kenyan law, you may request information about the personal data we hold about you, ask us to correct inaccurate data, object to certain processing, or request restriction, deletion, or portability where those rights apply.

We may ask for reasonable information to verify identity and locate the relevant report or account record before acting on a request.

If you believe your privacy rights have been infringed and we do not resolve the matter, you may also contact the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner in Kenya.

Children and data minimisation

The service collects wildlife incident reports, not personal profiles about children or other vulnerable people. Avoid including unnecessary information about children or other third parties. Children should use the service with help from a parent or guardian where possible.

Support

Wanyama Watch lets people report wildlife incidents and gives vetted rangers tools to review, claim, reassign, and update cases.

Need help with the app, ranger access, a report, its activity log, privacy, or legal questions? Email contact@wanyama.watch.

Wanyama Watch is an independent reporting and coordination platform. We are not the Kenya Wildlife Service and cannot promise a field response or rescue outcome.

What we can help with

• Problems creating or logging into a vetted ranger account
• Issues uploading photos or sharing location in a report
• Questions about who a report was assigned to
• Requests to review or remove abusive activity-log content
• Questions about privacy, data retention, or account deletion

If a privacy concern remains unresolved, you may also contact the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner in Kenya at www.odpc.go.ke.

Safety and emergency notice

Wanyama Watch is for incident reporting and ranger coordination. If a person is in immediate danger, contact local emergency services first.

For urgent wildlife matters, contact the Kenya Wildlife Service through its official channels, including the toll-free line 0800 597 000 or the nearest wildlife office.