Privacy Policy

This policy explains what personal information SamChar collects, why we collect it, who sees it, and what you can ask us to do with it. It applies to everyone who uses SamChar: citizens who answer surveys and the organizations that publish them.

1. Who we are

SamChar ("we", "us") is a citizen-engagement and survey platform operated in Bhutan. We are the data controller for the information described in this policy. You can reach us at samchar.bt@gmail.com.

2. What we collect

Account and profile. Your name, email address, a securely hashed password, your role (citizen or organization), your district and your date of birth. Citizens may also give us a national identity number (CID), a contact number, an organization or affiliation, a social link and a CV. Everything in that second list is optional: you can answer surveys and claim rewards without providing any of it. Organizations give us an organization name and type.

Survey activity. The surveys you open and the answers you submit, how long a response took measured on our server, the quality score we calculate from it, and whether a response was verified or held for review.

Points and rewards. Your points balance, the points ledger behind it, transfers you send or receive, the vouchers you claim and the voucher codes we issue to you. For organizations, wallet transactions including top-ups, survey funding, platform fees and refunds, and the bank journal number you submit to prove a transfer.

Technical. Your IP address, a session cookie, basic device and browser information, and records of security events such as sign-in attempts and password resets.

We do not ask citizens for bank account details, card numbers or any other payment credential, because SamChar never pays a citizen in money.

3. Why we use it

To create and run your account; to check you are old enough to use the service and old enough for a shared dataset; to detect and prevent fraud, multiple accounts and low-effort responses; to deliver surveys and pay the points they promise; to issue the vouchers you claim; to produce anonymous aggregate insights; to send you service messages such as one-time codes, reward notifications and important account notices; and to meet our legal obligations.

We do not sell your personal information, we do not use it to target advertising, and we do not build profiles of you for anyone outside SamChar.

4. Cookies and local storage

We use one essential session cookie to keep you signed in, and an optional "remember me" cookie only if you ask for one. Your browser's local storage remembers whether you prefer the light or dark theme. That is the complete list. There are no third-party advertising cookies, no analytics trackers and no cross-site tracking of any kind on SamChar.

5. Points, rewards and vouchers

Points are the only thing SamChar pays a citizen, and the rewards catalogue is the only place they can be spent. There is no cash payout and no bank transfer to a citizen, so we never collect or hold citizen banking details.

When you claim a voucher we record which reward it was, what it cost in points and when you claimed it, and we store the voucher code we issue to you so you can see it again. To obtain some vouchers we have to pass a limited detail to the issuer, for example a mobile number for a data pack or airtime top-up loaded directly onto a handset. We pass the minimum the issuer needs and nothing more, and we tell you on the reward itself when this applies.

6. Aggregate results and the data marketplace

Organizations may share the combined, anonymous results of a survey with other organizations. The protections are absolute and enforced in the software, not by policy alone: individual answers are never shared or sold; only responses that are both verified and covered by your explicit, separate consent are ever included; any group resting on fewer than five people is withheld to prevent re-identification; and responses from anyone under 18 are never included, whatever consent has been given. Marketplace consent is a separate tick box, it is never bundled into these terms, and you can take any survey without giving it.

7. When we share information

With the organization whose survey you complete, limited to your answers to that survey and the quality score attached to them. With the issuer of a voucher you have claimed, limited to what they need to honour it. With service providers who help us operate SamChar, such as our hosting provider and our email delivery provider, under confidentiality and only for that purpose. With authorities where the law requires it. We will tell you if we are ever compelled to disclose your data, unless we are legally prohibited from doing so.

8. Children and young people

You must be at least 13 to register. We collect date of birth for one reason: to protect minors. Data belonging to anyone under 18 is never included in any dataset that is shared or sold, regardless of consent. If you believe a child has given us information they should not have, contact us and we will delete it.

9. How long we keep it

We keep your account data while your account is open. When you close your account we delete your profile and contact details. We keep the points and voucher ledger, and the audit record of privileged actions, for as long as we need it to resolve disputes, complete a reward already claimed and meet our legal and accounting obligations. Survey answers already included in an anonymous aggregate cannot be pulled back out of it, because that aggregate no longer identifies you.

10. Your rights and choices

You can ask us to give you a copy of your personal data, correct anything that is wrong, delete your account and personal data, withdraw a consent you have given including marketplace consent, or object to a particular use. You can change most of this yourself on your Account page at any time. For anything else, email samchar.bt@gmail.com and we will respond within 30 days. We will never charge you for exercising these rights or treat you differently for it.

11. How we protect your information

Passwords are stored only as salted hashes and are never recoverable, by us or by anyone else. Traffic is encrypted in transit. Every form is protected against cross-site request forgery. Sign-in attempts are rate limited. Every privileged action, such as approving an organization or issuing a voucher, is written to an audit log that cannot be edited from the application. Access to production data is limited to the people who need it. No online service can promise perfect security, but if a breach ever affects your data we will tell you and the relevant authority promptly.

12. Where your data is processed

Your data is hosted with our provider and processed to deliver the service. Some providers, notably email delivery, may process limited data outside Bhutan. Where that happens we require confidentiality and use of the data only for the service they provide to us.

13. Automated checks and human review

Every response is scored automatically for how fast it was completed, repeated or contradictory answers, and failed attention checks. A low score does not reject anything and does not withhold your points on its own: it only flags the response so a person at the organization decides. No decision that affects your points, your rewards or your account is ever made by an automated process alone.

14. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy we will post the new version here with a new version number and date. For any change that materially affects your rights we will notify you before it takes effect, and where the law requires it we will ask for your consent rather than assume it.

15. Contact and complaints

Write to samchar.bt@gmail.com with any question, request or complaint about privacy. If you are not satisfied with how we handle it you may raise the matter with the relevant authority in Bhutan. See also our Terms and Conditions.