Privacy Policy
This policy describes how Yieldera collects, uses, protects, and retains personal data across the Yieldera web platform and mobile applications. We are committed to transparency and to your right to control your information.
Who We Are
Yieldera is an agricultural risk intelligence platform operated by Minerva Risk Advisors, incorporated in Zimbabwe with its principal place of business at Minerva House, Block 2 Kenilworth Gardens, 1 Kenilworth Road, Newlands, Harare, Zimbabwe.
Yieldera provides enterprise-grade geospatial, actuarial, and parametric insurance tools to financial institutions (banks, insurers, reinsurers) and agribusinesses operating across sub-Saharan Africa. The platform includes a web dashboard at https://yieldera.co.zw and mobile applications ("Yieldera Claims" and "Yieldera Field Audit") available on the Google Play Store.
For the purposes of applicable data protection legislation, Minerva Risk Advisors acts as the Data Processor. The financial institution or entity that has engaged Yieldera to manage their portfolio is the Data Controller in respect of farmer and field data within their account. Where Yieldera processes data relating to its own users (assessors, administrators, insurer staff), Yieldera is the Data Controller.
A Data Processing Agreement (DPA) is required to be in place before any farmer personal data is loaded for institutional clients, in accordance with GDPR Article 28.
Scope of This Policy
This Privacy Policy applies to:
- The Yieldera web platform at yieldera.co.zw and all subdomains (api, reports, risk, alerts, frost, eto, ndvi, ai, index, viz)
- The Yieldera Claims Android mobile application (for loss assessors)
- The Yieldera Field Audit Android mobile application (for field officers)
- All API services and microservices that form the Yieldera backend infrastructure
This policy covers all user roles on the platform: Platform Administrators, Entity Administrators (insurer/bank staff), Field Assessors, Field Officers, and Farmers whose data is managed within the platform.
Data We Collect
Yieldera applies data minimisation as a core design principle. We collect only what is necessary for the agricultural risk management functions described in this policy. We do not collect national identification numbers.
Account & Identity Data
High sensitivity- Full name (user)
- Email address
- Phone number
- Role assignment (Admin, Assessor, Field Officer, Insurer/Bank, Farmer)
- Entity / organisation affiliation
- Hashed password (bcrypt — raw password never stored)
- Account active/inactive status
Farmer & Grower Data
High sensitivity- Full name
- Phone number
- Email address (where provided)
- Farmer ID (internal platform identifier)
- Entity affiliation (which institution manages this farmer)
National ID numbers are not collected.
Agricultural & Field Data
Medium sensitivity- Farm name and location (district, province)
- GPS field boundary coordinates (polygon)
- Field area in hectares
- Crop type and variety
- Planting date
- Expected yield and insured value
- Row spacing and agronomic parameters
Assessment & Claims Data
Medium sensitivity- Claim number and date
- Peril type (drought, hail, frost, fire, flood, etc.)
- GPS-timestamped sample coordinates
- Assessment photographs (geotagged)
- Sample measurements (plant counts, weights, grain fill)
- Calculated loss percentage and payout estimate
- Digital signature data (Memorandum of Loss)
- Farmer / signer PIN hash (SHA-256, never plaintext)
- Consent hash and timestamp
Satellite & Environmental Data
Low sensitivity- NDVI and vegetation index readings derived from satellite imagery
- WRSI (Water Requirement Satisfaction Index) scores
- Evapotranspiration calculations
- Weather data and frost event records
- Parametric insurance index trigger values
- Portfolio risk scores (0–10 scale)
Satellite and weather data are derived from the GPS location of registered fields, not from individual tracking of persons.
Technical & Session Data
Low sensitivity- IP address (logged on all API requests)
- Session tokens (JWT — hashed with SHA-256, raw token never persisted)
- Device type and operating system (mobile apps)
- App version
- Login events, timestamps, and outcomes
- API request metadata
Audit Trail Data
Low sensitivity- User ID of the actor performing each action
- Standardised action code (e.g. CREATE_FIELD, GDPR_PURGE_GROWER, SUBMIT_ASSESSMENT)
- Resource type and record ID affected
- Human-readable action description
- Client IP address and timestamp (Central Africa Time)
- Trace ID on all financial computations (SHA-256 audit hash)
Audit logs are write-once and cannot be deleted. They form the platform's accountability infrastructure.
How Data Is Collected
4.1 Direct Input
Account data (name, email, role) is entered by entity administrators when provisioning users. Farmer and field data is entered by institutional clients through the web platform or mobile applications. Assessment data is entered by assessors during field visits.
4.2 Automated Collection — Mobile Applications
The Yieldera mobile applications collect the following data automatically during use:
- GPS location — captured at check-in and at each assessment sample point. Geofencing is enforced: the app verifies the assessor is physically at the registered field before assessment begins. Location is not tracked continuously or in the background.
- Photographs — taken by the assessor within the app to document crop damage. Photos are geotagged and timestamped automatically.
- Assessment drafts — saved locally on the device (encrypted SQLite) to enable offline working. Drafts are synced to the server when connectivity is restored.
- Network state — checked to determine online/offline mode. No network traffic metadata is shared.
4.3 Automated Collection — Web Platform
The web platform logs all authenticated API requests, including IP address, endpoint accessed, HTTP status code, and timestamp. Session tokens are issued on login and auto-expire after 30 minutes (access token) and 1 day (refresh token).
4.4 Third-Party Sources
Yieldera retrieves satellite imagery, weather data, and reverse-geocoding results from third-party services using the GPS coordinates of registered fields. No personal data is transmitted to these services — only field GPS coordinates.
How We Use Your Data
Yieldera uses personal data only for the agricultural risk management and insurance support purposes for which it was collected. We do not use personal data for marketing, advertising, profiling for commercial purposes, or any purpose beyond those listed below.
| Purpose | Legal Basis |
|---|---|
| Farmer and portfolio onboarding | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR) |
| Loss assessment and claims adjudication | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR) |
| Satellite crop health monitoring (NDVI) | Legitimate Interest (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR) |
| Parametric insurance index calculation | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR) |
| Portfolio risk scoring and analytics | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR) |
| Weather monitoring and SMS/email alerts | Legitimate Interest (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR) |
| Audit trail and platform accountability | Legal Obligation (Art. 6(1)(c) GDPR) |
| Insurance regulatory reporting (IPEC) | Legal Obligation (Art. 6(1)(c) GDPR) |
| Platform security and fraud prevention | Legitimate Interest (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR) |
| Scout AI agricultural advisory (opt-in) | Consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR) |
International Data Transfers
All primary data is stored in DigitalOcean's London (LON1) data centre, United Kingdom. The UK operates under UK GDPR, which is aligned with EU GDPR and satisfies the international transfer requirements of the Zimbabwe Data Protection Act 2021 and South Africa POPIA.
Where data is transferred to sub-processors in other countries (e.g. Twilio, OpenAI in the United States; Open-Meteo in Switzerland), such transfers are conducted under:
- Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) approved by the European Commission or UK ICO
- Adequacy decisions where applicable (e.g. Switzerland under GDPR)
- Binding contractual restrictions limiting use to the specific stated purpose
No personal data is transferred outside the above sub-processors without prior written authorisation from the Data Controller.
Yieldera currently serves clients in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, Tanzania, and Malawi. Data relating to all of these jurisdictions is stored in London under UK GDPR protections.
Data Retention
Yieldera retains data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes described in this policy, or as required by applicable law. Retention periods are set by data category:
| Data Category | Retention Period |
|---|---|
| Active farmer & field records | Duration of the insurance relationship |
| Claims and actuarial records | Minimum 7 years from policy expiry |
| GPS field boundaries | Duration of platform operation |
| NDVI & satellite readings | Duration of platform operation |
| Audit logs | Indefinite (write-once) |
| User session tokens | 30 minutes (access) / 1 day (refresh) |
| Assessment draft (mobile local storage) | Until submitted or discarded by user |
| Assessment photos (mobile local storage) | Until submitted to server |
| Data after service termination (PII) | Purged within 90 days of contract end |
| Data after service termination (actuarial) | Retained as anonymised records only |
Deletion Process
Yieldera uses a two-step, irreversible deletion model to prevent accidental permanent data loss:
- Step 1 — Soft-delete (reversible): The record is hidden from all operational views and from the Data Controller. It remains in the database and can be restored by a platform administrator. No PII is altered at this stage.
- Step 2 — GDPR Purge (irreversible): Initiated only after soft-delete is confirmed. All personally identifiable fields are anonymised in an atomic database transaction before the record is deleted:
- Farmer name →
ANON_F{id} - Phone number →
000-ANON - Email address →
NULL - Farm name →
ANON_FARM_F{id}
GDPR_PURGE_GROWERevent is written to the permanent audit log. - Farmer name →
Security Measures
Yieldera has implemented technical and organisational security measures assessed at 93.3/100 — Institutional Grade, covering the OWASP Top 10, ISO/IEC 27001:2022, PCI DSS v4.0, SOC 2 Type II, and NIST CSF 2.0 frameworks.
Encryption at Rest
All platform data is stored in DigitalOcean Managed MySQL with AES-256 encryption at the storage layer — always active and cannot be disabled. This applies to all database files including farmer records, field data, claims, and audit logs.
Encryption in Transit
100% of traffic between users and the Yieldera platform is encrypted using TLS 1.2 or higher. Cloudflare enforces Full (Strict) SSL at the edge; Traefik v3.6 with Let's Encrypt SSL certificates secures the origin. Mobile apps communicate exclusively over HTTPS.
Authentication
Platform authentication uses dual-token JWT (HS256), bcrypt password hashing (pinned at v4.0.1), and account lockout with timed cooldown after repeated failures. Login attempts are rate-limited to 5 per minute per IP address. Session access tokens expire after 30 minutes; refresh tokens expire after 1 day.
Access Control
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) is enforced on every API endpoint. Multi-tenancy is enforced at the database query level: every query for farmer, field, or claims data includes a mandatory entity_id scope clause. Cross-organisation data access is architecturally impossible for non-administrator users.
Infrastructure Security
All public traffic passes through Cloudflare's Web Application Firewall (WAF) with Bot Fight Mode active. The origin server IP is masked behind Cloudflare — it is not publicly discoverable. The database is not exposed to the public internet.
Secrets Management
No secrets, API keys, or credentials are stored in code or version control. All secrets are managed via Coolify's encrypted environment variable system. API keys use cryptographically random values.
Mobile Application Security
Assessment drafts are stored locally on device using encrypted SQLite storage. Authentication tokens are stored in AsyncStorage (Android Keystore-backed where supported). The app communicates exclusively with authenticated API endpoints.
Incident Response
Yieldera commits to notifying the Data Controller within 48 hours of becoming aware of a personal data breach (stricter than the GDPR 72-hour requirement). The Controller is then responsible for notifying the relevant supervisory authority and affected data subjects as required by applicable law.
Your Rights
Depending on your location, you may have the following rights under the GDPR, Zimbabwe Data Protection Act 2021 (Chapter 11:22), or South Africa POPIA:
Right of Access (Art. 15)
Request a copy of all personal data Yieldera holds about you. Fulfilled via data export within 30 days.
Right to Rectification (Art. 16)
Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete personal data. Implemented within 72 hours.
Right to Erasure (Art. 17)
Request deletion of your personal data. Completed via the two-step soft-delete → GDPR purge process within 30 days. Subject to insurance regulatory retention carve-outs.
Right to Restriction (Art. 18)
Request that processing of your data be suspended. Implemented via soft-delete (data preserved, hidden from all views) within 72 hours.
Right to Data Portability (Art. 20)
Request an export of your data in a structured, machine-readable format (CSV/Excel). Fulfilled within 30 days.
Right to Object (Art. 21)
Object to processing based on legitimate interest. Yieldera will suspend processing pending review. Implemented within 72 hours.
How to Exercise Your Rights
Farmers and field agents whose data is held within an institutional client's portfolio should submit requests to that institution directly. The institution (Data Controller) will coordinate with Yieldera to fulfil the request.
Platform users (assessors, administrators, insurer/bank staff) may submit requests directly to Yieldera at [email protected].
We will respond to all valid requests within the timeframes stated above. We may ask for proof of identity before processing a request to protect against unauthorised disclosure.
If you believe your rights have not been respected, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant supervisory authority in your jurisdiction:
- Zimbabwe: Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (POTRAZ) — Data Protection Registrar
- South Africa: Information Regulator (informationregulator.org.za)
- UK / EU: ICO (ico.org.uk) or relevant national DPA
Mobile Application Permissions
The Yieldera mobile applications request the following Android device permissions. Each permission is requested only when needed for the relevant feature.
Location (Foreground)
ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION, ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATIONRequired for GPS check-in at field assessment start, geofencing verification (confirming the assessor is physically at the correct field), and attaching GPS coordinates to each assessment sample point. Location is captured at discrete points during assessment — not tracked continuously or in the background.
Camera
CAMERARequired to capture photographs of crop damage at each assessment sample point. Photos are geotagged and timestamped and stored as part of the assessment record.
Storage / Media
READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE (API ≤ 32), READ_MEDIA_IMAGES (API 33+)Required to access previously taken photos from the device gallery if the assessor selects an image from storage rather than using the camera directly.
Network State
ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE, INTERNETRequired to detect online / offline status for the offline-first sync mechanism. Internet access is used to synchronise assessment data, fetch satellite indices, and communicate with the Yieldera API.
Offline storage: Assessment data including sample measurements, photographs, and GPS coordinates are stored locally on the device in an encrypted SQLite database while the device is offline. This data is automatically synchronised to the Yieldera server once connectivity is restored and is then removed from local storage after confirmed upload.
No background tracking: The apps do not track device location in the background. No location data is collected when the app is not in active use.
Children's Privacy
The Yieldera platform and mobile applications are designed for use by agricultural professionals, financial institution staff, and adult farmers in their professional capacity. The platform is not directed at children under the age of 18, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from individuals under 18.
Access to the Yieldera platform is by invitation only, provisioned by institutional administrators. All user accounts represent professional or business roles.
If you believe that a child under 18 has had personal data entered into the platform without appropriate authority, please contact us immediately at [email protected] and we will investigate and take appropriate action.
Changes to This Policy
Yieldera may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, services, or applicable law. When we make material changes, we will:
- Update the "Effective" and "Last reviewed" dates at the top of this page
- Notify institutional clients via the platform dashboard announcement system
- For changes that materially affect data subject rights, provide at least 30 days notice before the change takes effect
The most current version of this policy is always available at https://yieldera.co.zw/privacy and within the Settings section of the Yieldera mobile applications. Continued use of the platform after the effective date of a revised policy constitutes acceptance of the updated terms.
Previous versions of this policy are available on request by contacting [email protected].
Contact Us
If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, wish to exercise a data subject right, or need to report a potential security incident, please contact:
Privacy & Data Protection
Minerva Risk Advisors
Minerva House, Block 2 Kenilworth Gardens, 1 Kenilworth Road, Newlands, Harare, Zimbabwe
[email protected]Response Times