Privacy Policy

Last updated: 27 September 2026

1. Who is responsible

The controller under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is:

William Payne
Aachener Straße 43
66115 Saarbrücken
Germany
Email: info@ghanachild.com

GhanaChild.com is a non-profit community project. We are not required to appoint a data protection officer. For any privacy question, email us at the address above.

2. Summary

• We only collect what we need to run GhanaChild, and we never sell your data.
• We use no tracking or analytics cookies. The only cookie is the one that keeps you logged in.
• Your profile and posts are visible to logged-in members. Nothing becomes public on the open web unless you choose it, for example by ticking "Show in the public directory" on a business.
• You can see, correct, export or delete your data at any time. Just email us.

3. Hosting and server logs

Our website and database are hosted by IONOS SE, Elgendorfer Str. 57, 56410 Montabaur, Germany, on servers in Germany. We have a data processing agreement with IONOS (Art. 28 GDPR).

Whenever you visit a page, the server automatically records technical information: your IP address, the date and time, the page requested, your browser and operating system, and the referring page. We need this to deliver the website and to protect it against attacks. These logs are kept for a short period and then deleted.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (our legitimate interest in a secure, working website).

4. Waitlist

If you join the waitlist, we store your email address (required), and, if you provide them, your phone number and country, together with the date you signed up. We use them only to tell you about the launch of GhanaChild and send related updates.

To stop automated spam signups, we briefly store a one-way scrambled (hashed) version of your IP address for up to 10 minutes. It cannot be turned back into your IP address.

Legal basis: your consent, Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR, given with the checkbox. You can withdraw it at any time by emailing akwaaba@ghanachild.com, and we will delete your entry.

5. Member account and profile

To create an account we need your email address and a password. We never store your password itself, only a secure one-way hash of it. You can optionally add a phone number.

In your profile you can choose to add: first and last name, display name, hometown, current city and country, ethnic group ("tribe"), languages, a short bio, year of birth, gender and a profile photo. All of these are optional. Some of them, such as your ethnic group, can reveal sensitive information (Art. 9 GDPR). By adding them, you explicitly consent to us storing them and showing them to other logged-in members. You can remove them at any time.

We also record when you last logged in.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (providing the membership you signed up for). For optional and sensitive profile details: your consent, Art. 6(1)(a) and Art. 9(2)(a) GDPR.

6. Family tree, listings, messages and other content

• Family tree: the relatives you add (name, relationship, and optionally birth year, birthplace, ethnic group and a short note). Please only add information about living relatives that they would be comfortable with, and remove it if they ask you to.
• Business ideas and marketplace listings: the title, description, price, location, website, contact details and images or videos you post.
• Comments, discussions and messages: what you write, who it is addressed to and when. Private messages are visible only to you and the person you are writing to (and to us, where needed to investigate abuse reports).
• Saved businesses, notifications and page views: which listings you save, the notifications you receive, and, when you are logged in, which business pages you have viewed. We use this to show business owners how many members have seen their listing. We do not record the IP addresses of these views.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (providing the features you use).

7. Public Business Directory

If you tick "Show in the public GhanaChild Business Directory" on a business listing, that listing's name, description, city, image or video and website become visible to everyone on the internet, including search engines such as Google. Your email address and phone number are never shown publicly. You can untick the box at any time, and the listing becomes members-only again. Search engines may take a little while to update their results.

Legal basis: your consent, Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR.

8. Email notifications

When someone comments on one of your listings, we can send you an email from notifications@ghanachild.com. You can switch these emails off in your profile settings. The emails are sent through our host IONOS.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR, and our legitimate interest in keeping members informed, Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR.

9. Sign in with Google

You can log in with your Google account instead of a password. If you do, Google sends us your name, email address and Google account ID. We use them only to create and recognise your account. The provider is Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland. Google may transfer data to the USA; Google LLC is certified under the EU–US Data Privacy Framework. For how Google handles your data, see Google's privacy policy.

Legal basis: your consent (clicking "Sign in with Google"), Art. 6(1)(a), and Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR.

10. Cookies

We use a single, technically necessary session cookie (PHPSESSID). It keeps you logged in and protects our forms against misuse. It is deleted when you close your browser or log out. We do not use tracking, advertising or analytics cookies, so there is no cookie banner. If that changes (see section 12), we will ask for your consent first.

Legal basis: § 25(2) no. 2 TDDDG (strictly necessary), Art. 6(1)(b) and (f) GDPR.

11. Fonts, videos and external services

• Fonts: the fonts "Playfair Display" and "Inter" are hosted on our own server. Your browser does not connect to Google or any other font provider when you visit our pages.
• YouTube videos: some business listings contain an embedded YouTube video. We use YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode (youtube-nocookie.com), so YouTube only receives data once you press play. Provider: Google Ireland Limited.
• External links: links to other websites (for example government pages in our guides) are only followed when you click them. From then on, the other website's privacy policy applies.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (a consistent, working design), and, for videos, your action of pressing play.

12. Advertising and support links

GhanaChild is non-profit. To cover running costs and support charitable initiatives, we may in future:

• show advertising, for example Google AdSense. Advertising services may use cookies and similar technologies. Before any such service is switched on, we will add a consent banner, ask for your permission, and update this policy.
• link to support platforms such as Patreon. These are ordinary links: no data is sent to them until you click, and from then on their privacy policy applies.

At the time of this update, no advertising is shown on GhanaChild.

13. How long we keep data

• Waitlist: until the launch updates are no longer needed, or until you unsubscribe.
• Account, profile and your content: as long as your account exists. If you ask us to delete your account, we delete your profile and content within 30 days, unless the law requires us to keep something.
• Server logs: a short period for security purposes, then automatically deleted.
• Anti-spam data (hashed IP): up to 10 minutes.

14. Your rights

Under the GDPR you have the right to:

• access the data we hold about you (Art. 15)
• correct inaccurate data (Art. 16)
• have your data deleted (Art. 17)
• restrict how we process it (Art. 18)
• receive it in a portable format (data portability, Art. 20)
• object to processing based on our legitimate interest (Art. 21)
• withdraw consent at any time, with effect for the future (Art. 7(3))

Just email info@ghanachild.com. We will reply within one month.

You also have the right to complain to a data protection authority. Ours is the Unabhängiges Datenschutzzentrum Saarland, Fritz-Dobisch-Straße 12, 66111 Saarbrücken (datenschutz.saarland.de). You can also contact the authority where you live.

15. Security

All connections to GhanaChild are encrypted (HTTPS). Passwords are stored only as secure hashes. Our forms are protected against cross-site attacks, and the admin area is locked after repeated failed login attempts. No system is 100% secure, but we work hard to protect your data and to fix problems quickly.

16. Children

GhanaChild is not intended for children under 16 without the consent of a parent or guardian. If you believe a child has given us personal data without that consent, please contact us and we will delete it.

17. Changes to this policy

We update this policy when GhanaChild changes, for example before introducing advertising. The date at the top always shows the latest version. See also our Impressum (legal notice).