Privacy Policy

The Africa Digital Health Academy (ADHA) is a digital-health training academy based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This policy explains what personal data we collect on adha.edu.et and lms.adha.edu.et (our learning platform), why, where it is stored, and your rights. ADHA is responsible for this data. For any privacy question or request, write to the ADHA data protection contact at [email protected].

Depending on what you use, we collect:

• Application and membership: your name and title, email address, phone number, country, profession and years of experience, preferred language and, if you give them, your institution, gender, interests and accessibility needs.
• Verification: a link to your professional profile and a photo or scan of an identity document (see the applicant verification section).
• Institutional applications: your organisation's details, the name, role, email address and phone number of its contact person and, if given, the role and email address of the person who will sign the agreement.
• Learning records: course enrolments, progress, assessment attempts and results, and the certificates you earn, stored in our learning platform (Moodle).
• Forum posts and messages: what you write in course forums and in messages on the learning platform.
• Profile picture: only if you add one on the learning platform. Your member card photo never leaves your device: the card is generated in your browser.
• Questions to the AI tutor (see the AI tutor section).
• Technical data: IP addresses, recorded with your application and in the learning platform's activity logs, and security logs that protect the platform.
• Correspondence: the emails you exchange with us.

• Membership, courses, certificates and the emails about them: needed to provide the membership and courses you asked for (contract).
• Institutional applications and agreements: needed to handle the application and any agreement with your organisation (contract).
• Your identity document: your written consent, given in the application form, for this purpose only.
• Storage on servers in South Africa: for applications made under consent version v1.6-2026 or later, your explicit consent in the application form; for members who applied earlier, because it is needed to provide the membership (contract).
• Fellowship and ambassador applications: your consent, given in the application form.
• The AI tutor: using it is your choice, made after the notice shown before your first question.
• Security logs and backups: needed to run the platform safely for the people who use it.

• The website, the learning platform, the AI tutor service, the member database and uploaded files are hosted on Microsoft Azure in South Africa (South Africa North region, Johannesburg), outside Ethiopia.
• A backup copy of the databases is also kept on an ADHA computer in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, used only to restore the service. It is not a public server.
• Emails between you and ADHA pass through Microsoft's email services (Microsoft 365 and Azure Communication Services).
• Cloudflare sits in front of our websites to protect them and deliver pages quickly, so your connection to them passes through Cloudflare's network.
• Questions to the AI tutor are processed by a third-party AI provider outside Ethiopia (see the AI tutor section).

Connections are encrypted (HTTPS/TLS), and administrative access is strictly limited.

We use these providers to run the platform, and they receive personal data in doing so:

• Microsoft: hosting (Azure, South Africa) and email (Microsoft 365, Azure Communication Services).
• Cloudflare: protection and fast delivery of our websites.
• DeepSeek: writes the AI tutor's answers from your question and passages from ADHA's website and courses.

If you choose to contact us on WhatsApp or to share something on LinkedIn, that service handles what you send under its own terms.

To protect the community, every membership applicant is verified before joining. The application form asks for a link to your professional profile (LinkedIn or an equivalent, such as an institutional page or ORCID) and a photo or scan of a government identity document.

The identity document is used for one purpose only: verifying your identity, to confirm that the application is genuine. We ask for your written consent to this in the application form. An identity document may show sensitive details, such as ethnicity; ADHA does not use them. The document is stored only on ADHA's servers in South Africa, outside our publicly accessible systems, is excluded from our backups, and is deleted as soon as your application is approved or declined. If we ask you for more information, we keep the document until the final decision. If you are waitlisted, we keep it for at most 3 months. A draft you never submit, and its document, are deleted after 30 days without changes. Once the document is deleted, our records keep only a note that it was received and deleted, never the document itself.

The application form saves your progress as you type, so you can finish later. If an application is left unfinished, the ADHA office may contact you to help you complete it; unfinished drafts and any uploaded document are deleted after 30 days without changes.

What you write in a course forum is visible to the other learners who can see that forum (your course or your cohort group) and to ADHA staff. Messages you send on the learning platform are visible to the people you send them to. Both are stored with your learning records on our servers in South Africa. Please do not post patient information or other people's personal data.

Do not type any personal details, patient information or confidential exam content. This applies to the ADHA Guide and to the course tutor; a short notice reminds you before your first question.

The ADHA Guide on adha.edu.et and the course tutor on lms.adha.edu.et answer questions with an AI assistant. Their answers are educational, can be wrong, and are not medical advice.

When you ask a question, ADHA's tutor service adds passages from ADHA's website and course material and sends them, with your question and up to six earlier messages of the same conversation, to a third-party AI provider outside Ethiopia (DeepSeek), which writes the answer. Your name, email address and user number are not sent to that provider.

On the learning platform, each question also carries your learning-platform user number and the page you are on, to ADHA's own tutor service only. If a question looks like it was copied from an ADHA assessment, the service records its first 300 characters, with the time, the page and that user number, in an integrity log. These records are kept for up to 12 months.

When you apply to the ADHA Digital Health & AI Leadership Fellowship, we store:

• Identity and contact: your name, email address, phone number, country, cohort language and, if you give it, a link to your professional profile.
• Organisation and role: your organisation and its type, job title, leadership level, chosen track, years in leadership, people led, decisions you own, and the release hours agreed with your supervisor.
• Documents, as links only: your CV and, if you give one, your employer's endorsement and release letter.
• Your written answers to the selection questions, and the names, email addresses and relationship of your two referees, whom we may contact.
• Funding route and need information: how the seat will be paid, the paying organisation, its billing contact and any purchase-order or VAT notes if your employer pays, and, if you ask for a scholarship, the kind requested, any contribution and your need statement.
• Your declarations and your consent record: what you ticked, the version of the consent text, the date and time, and the IP address you applied from.
• Our selection records: reviewers' scores and notes, interview notes, the decision and the note we send you.
• If you are selected: the offer, your acceptance, seat and payment status, invoice reference and seat confirmation, and your retention consent (see below).

We use this to assess your fit and your chance of completing the programme, to run a fair selection, to make and administer the offer, to confirm your seat, to contact you, and to report anonymised counts.

The form asks how you plan to pay, but until the admission decision ADHA's admissions system shows your funding route and your need statement to no one, including the selection reviewers and the interview panel. Scores never use them. Once you are admitted you can no longer be waitlisted or declined, so funding cannot change an admission.

After admission, ADHA's admissions administrators can see this information in the system.

After admission, the Fellowship Awards Committee reads need statements to decide scholarships. If you ask for a review of a scholarship decision, the reviewer described below also reads yours. Mentors and the capstone panel never see it. The list of scholarships awarded goes to the Board without the need statements.

If you are not selected, or you do not take up a seat (including if you withdraw or decline an offer), we delete your application, its reviews and its notes 30 days after we tell you the outcome. A waitlisted applicant who is never offered a seat is deleted 30 days after the cohort starts. We keep only an anonymised count.

If you are selected and accept a seat, your application, including any need statement, becomes part of your Fellowship record. We keep it with your consent, given when you accept the offer and recorded when your seat is confirmed. The limits on who can see need information still apply.

To see, correct or delete your Fellowship data, write to [email protected].

If you disagree with a scholarship decision, send a written request to [email protected] within 10 working days of the decision. The Board Vice-Chair appoints one reviewer who took no part in the first decision and who is not the founder or a member of the capstone panel. Their answer is final.

After an institutional application is approved, ADHA sends the organisation's contact a secure link to finish joining. Through it, we store:

• Contacts: the name, position, email address and, if given, phone number of up to three people: the signatory, the programme lead (the focal point for a partnership) and, for a membership, a billing contact.
• Billing details, for a membership only: the invoice email, the name and address to invoice, the billing country, a purchase-order number if you give one and, for a payer in Ethiopia, a 10-digit tax identification number (TIN). For a payer in Ethiopia, the invoice is in birr.
• Your choice of package, and the price and seats it carried when you submitted it.
• Your logo, if you upload one: a PNG or JPEG file, at most 2 MB.
• Your choice about the ADHA Network member institutions directory (listed or not listed), and the version of this notice that applied when you submitted.

We use this to set up the membership or partnership, to write to the right people, to prepare and send the invoice, and, only if you agree, to list the organisation in the directory. Nothing you enter is binding, listed or invoiced until ADHA confirms your submission. The link works for 30 days and anyone who holds it can change the answers while it is open, so please do not forward it outside your team.

ADHA's administrators who manage institutions see everything you submit. The signatory and the application contact receive an email confirming what you sent, and the email that confirms your membership or partnership. Those two emails are also copied to ADHA's chief executive's mailbox. The emails that carry your link are never copied to anyone.

If you agree to be listed, the organisation's name, type, country, website and logo may appear in the ADHA Network member institutions directory. Without your agreement nothing is listed, and your logo is not shown publicly. Your contacts, billing details and tax number are never part of the directory.

We keep these records while the membership or partnership is active and for up to 12 months after it ends. Write to [email protected] to have them deleted or anonymised sooner. Unused seats end with the membership year.

To correct a contact, change your directory choice, have your logo removed, or see or delete this data, write to [email protected]. We remove a logo on request.

When you apply to become an ADHA ambassador, we store:

• Your name, email address, country, occupation, languages and, if you give it, your institution.
• A link to the folder you share with us. ADHA stores the link, not the files, and reviewers open it to assess your application.
• Your written answers: your motivation, audience and channels, experience, a sample of your public content, your trial plan, your answers to the scenarios, your availability, the activities and benefits you choose, any ADHA certificate references and any conflict of interest you declare.
• Your consent record: the version of the consent text, the date and time, and the IP address you applied from.
• Our review records: the decision and its notes and, if you are accepted, your agreement, trial and term dates.

We use this only to review your application and, if you are accepted, to run your trial and term as an ambassador. The basis is your consent, given in the application form. An ambassador application is separate from a membership application.

If you are not accepted, or your application is withdrawn, we delete your application record 12 months after the decision. To see, correct or delete this data, write to [email protected].

Member directory: only if you opt in, your entry appears in a directory that only signed-in members can see. It shows your name and title, member ID, country, discipline, institution and ADHA badge and, where you have given them, your languages, areas of interest and a short bio. It never shows your email address or phone number.

Certificate pages: each certificate ADHA issues has a public page, reached by its link or QR code, that shows the holder's name, the credential, its issue date and whether it is valid. Anyone who has the link or the QR code can open it.

We use essential cookies only. When you sign in to the member area, one cookie keeps you signed in (for 30 days at most), and a second one, plus a third for ambassadors, holds only the value 1 so that pages can show the right menu; these carry no identity and are removed when you sign out. The learning platform (Moodle) sets its own session cookie. No advertising cookies and no third-party analytics or tracking.

The site also keeps a few items in your browser's own storage, on your device:

• an unfinished membership application, so you can resume it (removed once you submit it);
• an unfinished Fellowship application, kept in this browser only and removed once the application is received;
• an unfinished ambassador application, kept only until you close the browser tab;
• how many questions you asked the ADHA Guide today;
• whether you have read the AI tutor notice;
• whether you have already seen the launch announcement card.

• Membership, learning and certificate records: for as long as your membership or learning account exists, unless you ask us to delete them.
• Membership applications that are not approved: kept in our records unless you ask us to delete them.
• Identity documents: kept until the application is approved or declined, then deleted at once; if we ask you for more information, kept until the final decision; if you are waitlisted, kept for at most 3 months; an unsubmitted draft and its document, after 30 days without changes.
• Fellowship applications: as described in the Fellowship sections above.
• Institutional joining records (contacts, billing, logo): while the membership or partnership is active, then up to 12 months after it ends; deleted sooner, and a logo removed, on request.
• Ambassador applications that are not accepted or are withdrawn: deleted 12 months after the decision.
• AI tutor integrity log: up to 12 months.
• Backups: the hosting server keeps the last 3 daily backups. A backup copy of the databases is also kept on an ADHA computer in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, used only to restore the service. It is not a public server. That computer keeps daily backups for 60 days and the backup from the first day of each month for longer. Identity documents are never in any backup.

You can ask us to show you the personal data we hold about you, to correct it, to delete it, to restrict how we use it or to receive a copy in a usable electronic format, and you can object to how we use it. Where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time; this does not affect what we did before you withdrew it.

Write to the ADHA data protection contact at [email protected]. We may ask you to confirm your identity before we act on a request.

We handle personal data in line with Ethiopia's Personal Data Protection Proclamation No. 1321/2024.

If you are not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to the Ethiopian Communications Authority, which supervises personal data protection in Ethiopia (eca.et). The Proclamation sets a short time limit for such complaints: 21 days from our decision.

If a security breach affects your personal data, ADHA will notify the Ethiopian Communications Authority and the people affected, as the law requires and without undue delay.

We may update this policy from time to time; the date at the top of this page shows the latest revision.