Privacy Notice
Last updated: July 2026
ABU-SmartSurvey is a research participation platform for the Ahmadu Bello
University community. This notice explains, in plain language, what
information the platform collects and how it is used.
What we collect
- Account information — your full name, username, email
address, faculty, department, and academic level. Respondents may
optionally provide gender and age to help researchers describe their
intended audience.
- Survey responses — the answers you submit to studies
you choose to participate in.
- Participation records — which studies you completed,
when, and the badges you earn.
How your information is used
- Your survey answers are shared with the researcher who owns
that study, together with your name, faculty, and level, for
legitimate research purposes.
- Aggregated, anonymised statistics (e.g. option counts, averages) are
shown to researchers in their analytics dashboards.
- Your name, faculty, badge count, and participation count appear on the
public leaderboard if you are among the top
respondents.
- Your email is used for account recovery and platform notifications —
it is never displayed publicly or sold.
Guest participation
You can answer surveys without an account. Guest responses are stored
without any identity attached — they cannot be traced back
to you, and they earn no leaderboard credit.
How your information is protected
- Passwords are stored only as strong one-way hashes — nobody, including
administrators, can read them.
- All traffic between your device and the platform is encrypted
(HTTPS).
- Every study is reviewed by an administrator before it can collect
responses.
Your choices
- You choose which studies to participate in — participation is always
voluntary.
- You can update your profile details at any time from your
dashboard.
- To request removal of your account or data, contact us using the
address below.
Changes to this notice
If this notice changes in a meaningful way, the "last updated" date above
will change with it.
