Privacy

Who we are

aiyoo is run by the aiyoo team, an independent group in Sri Lanka. It isn’t a government service. For anything on this page, email buildsbywess+aiyoo@gmail.com.

What we collect

• Your complaint. What happened, where, and any voice note, photos, videos or documents you add.
• A phone number or email, only if you give one. We don’t ask for your name. Please don’t put your NIC number or other people’s details in the complaint unless they’re needed.
• An account, only if you sign in. Your email address (and your name, if you sign in with Google), so you can sign in and see your complaints and their progress on any device. Two cookies keep you signed in; they’re needed for signing in and aren’t used for tracking or ads.
• A private code on your phone. When you send a complaint from the app without signing in, the app keeps a private code on your phone so it can show you that complaint’s progress. We keep only a scrambled copy of it, which can’t be turned back into the code.
• A quick bot check. Before you send, Cloudflare Turnstile looks at your browser to tell people from bots.
• Basic records. Our host, Cloudflare, keeps standard security records such as the time and your internet address.
• An activity log. To keep the service safe and to show who did what if a report is ever challenged, we keep a private record of actions on aiyoo: a complaint sent, a sign-in or sign-out, a wrong sign-in code, a team member opening a complaint or a file, a review decision, a role change. Each line has the time, the account that did it (or “not signed in”), what it was about (a reference number or an account), the country, the kind of browser and phone system (for example “Chrome · Android”), and a scrambled code made from your internet address that can’t be turned back into the address. It never holds passwords, sign-in codes or links, what you wrote, your phone number or email, or where a photo was taken, and we don’t record people reading public pages. Only aiyoo admins can see it.
• Cookies, only if you say yes. If you tap Accept on the cookie notice, we use Google Analytics and the Meta Pixel to count visits and see which pages help people. They set cookies, and Google and Meta receive details such as the pages you open, your device and your rough location. They never receive what you write or upload in a complaint. If you tap No thanks, they don’t load at all. You can change your choice any time with “Cookie settings” at the bottom of every page.

Where a photo was taken. Phones often save the exact spot where a photo or video was taken. When one arrives, we read that spot and keep it privately, for the aiyoo team only, so we can check where the problem is. Then we take it out of the file before it’s stored, so the file itself no longer shows it. We never post the exact spot. A post names the place in words, such as the road and town, and its dot on the map is either the district or the area rounded to about 100 metres. Complaints still being checked appear on the map only as a number for each district, never as a dot.

What else a file says about itself. Photos and videos often also record when they were taken, the phone or camera model, and any editing app used. We read these details too, along with a fingerprint of each file (so we can spot the same picture sent twice), and keep them for the aiyoo team only, to help check a report. They don’t prove a report is true, and we never post them.

The aiyoo camera. If you take a photo with the camera inside aiyoo, we also record the time and place your phone reports at that moment, and how accurate the place is. You can allow or refuse location for the camera; the photo still records the time. Phones’ clocks and locations can be wrong or changed, so we treat these as helpful details, not proof.

What we use it for

• To assess the information supplied, seek independent corroboration when possible and decide whether any safe, qualified publication is appropriate. We cannot confirm every report.
• To prepare moderated public summaries or map entries only where appropriate, after a separate review decision. Submission does not guarantee publication.
• To contact you, if you left a phone number or email: to ask a question, tell you when it’s posted, or ask whether it’s been fixed.
• To stop spam or abuse, investigate corrections and respond to lawful requests or legal claims concerning submitted material.

What becomes public

Only a moderated summary may be published, with a carefully chosen location and public agency where appropriate. Supporting files can contain misleading or sensitive information: reviewers must assess provenance, relevance and possible identification. We do not automatically publish attachments or raw voice notes. If the team chooses to show a photo with a post, the public copy has its location, camera model, dates and serial numbers removed; the post may say on which day the photo was taken. A “Still not fixed” photo added to a post is reviewed the same way before it appears on the post’s timeline. We seek to redact faces, plates and identifying material before publication, but redaction can fail and cannot guarantee anonymity. Contact details are not intentionally displayed publicly.

Who else handles it

Only the aiyoo team can read complaints. We use three companies to run the site: Cloudflare (website, bot check and file storage), Supabase (the database and sign-in, on servers in India) and Brevo (sends sign-in emails). They store the data for us and can’t use it for anything else. This means your data is kept outside Sri Lanka. If you accept cookies, Google and Meta also receive the visit details described above, under their own privacy policies.

Social media platforms receive only material we choose to publish. We do not sell reporter contact details or routinely give them to the office concerned. Where required by applicable law, valid legal process, or reasonably necessary to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim, limited complaint records or contact information may need to be disclosed to the appropriate recipient. We assess the scope of requests and disclose only what is necessary. We aim to notify affected people when permitted and appropriate, but cannot guarantee advance notice in every case.

How long we keep it

• Phone number or email: deleted 12 months after your complaint is closed, either because it’s fixed or because we’ve stopped following it.
• Complaints we don’t post, and the files sent with them: deleted 12 months after we decide not to post.
• Where a photo was taken: deleted together with the photo.
• The activity log: each line is deleted after 12 months. If you delete your account, its lines stay until then but no longer point to you.
• Your account: until you delete it (in the app: Profile, then Delete my account) or ask us to. Deleting it removes your sign-in and email; complaints you sent stay but are no longer linked to you.
• Posted complaints stay public as part of the record of what was reported and what was fixed. The private parts are deleted on the same schedule.

Your choices

You can ask us to show you what we hold about you, correct it, or delete it. You can withdraw a complaint before it’s posted, and ask us to take down anything in a post that identifies you. Email us with your reference number if you have it, and we’ll reply within a month.

We offer these choices ourselves, today. Sri Lanka’s Personal Data Protection Act, No. 9 of 2022, is coming into force in stages: most of what it asks of organisations like us starts on 1 January 2027, and the part that gives you these rights in law (Part II) starts on a date the government hasn’t announced yet. We follow the Act now. If you’re unhappy with how we handle your data, you can contact the Data Protection Authority of Sri Lanka. To ask for a correction or a takedown, use the corrections page.

Keeping it safe

Complaints and files are kept in private storage that the public website can’t read. Only named members of the aiyoo team, signed in to their own accounts, can open them. Every time one of them opens a complaint or a file, and every change they make, is written to the activity log. Everything you send travels over an encrypted connection.

Changes

If we change this page, we’ll update the date at the top. If a change affects complaints you’ve already sent, we’ll tell you, as long as you left a way to reach you.